“Figger, is you de proud persesser of a silber dollar?”
“Sho’ is!” Figger grinned. “I gwine keep on persessin’ it, too!”
“I sells tips!” Pap announced, taking a chair beside Figger. “One dollar per tip per each!”
“It muss be wuth somepin’ ef it comes dat high!” Figger exclaimed with popping eyeballs.
“Yes, suh; Marse Tom Gaitskill gimme de word dis mawnin’, an’ tole me I could pass it on to a choosen few—ef dey had a dollar!”
Figger Bush puffed nervously at his cigarette and waited anxiously. Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s name was one to conjure with, and Figger knew that Curtain had been working on the Niggerheel plantation.
“Whut’s de tip about, Pap?” Figger asked eagerly, fumbling with the lonesome silver dollar in his pocket.
“Dat would be tellin’,” Pap grinned, as he leaned back and watched a tiny tree-spider floating in the breeze on the end of its web.
Figger puffed unconsciously on his cigarette until it burned down to his lips and scorched them; he snatched it out of his mouth and blistered his fingers; he slapped his foot upon it as it lay on the ground, then sprang up with an exclamation and nursed a bare spot on the side of his sockless foot where the stub had burned him through a hole in his shoe.
“Good gosh, set down!” Pap Curtain howled as he watched Figger’s gyrations. “You gib me de fidgets cuttin’ up dat way!”