“You ain’t by yo’se’f in dat, Revun,” Pap sighed. “Eve’y time I thinks of dat nigger I gits de jiggety-jams.”
“I knowed Dude Blackum a little bit—I seed him on de train once,” Vinegar said. “But ’pears like his ha’nt ain’t gwine let me alone a-tall!”
Dainty and Ginny Babe walked up the steps and entered the Shoofly Church, followed by the curious eyes of all the men in the yard.
“Dar now!” Vinegar mourned. “’Tain’t no use to try to hab preachin’ dis mawnin’—dat hoodoo gal is done got dis meetin’-house in a mess. I feels like somebody is done criss-crossed my head wid a rabbit-foot.”
He knocked the tobacco from his pipe and thrust it into his pocket, his eyes set upon the door through which the girl had passed.
“When did Dainty Blackum come to Tickfall?” Vinegar asked.
“Yistiddy. Ginny Babe Chew met her at de deppo. Some yuther niggers come up from Sawtown, too. You know how niggers is—dar’s a scatteration when somepin like dat happens.”
“Yes, suh. De guilty niggers scatterates as fur as dey kin git an’ as quick as dey kin go,” Vinegar agreed. “De not guilty niggers hikes out of de place to de near-by towns an’ waits till de clouds rolls by.”
“I’s jes’ whisperin’ to you ’bout dat Dainty Blackum, Vinegar,” Pap said suddenly. “I ain’t gwine ’round braggin’ no brags ’bout knowin’ dis Blackum gal. White folks gits awful rambunctious when a nigger kills a white man like Dude done.”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Vinegar murmured. “I done j’ined de lodge of silunce.”