When Skeeter had gone, Shin found that the slice of watermelon had not been completely crushed and was not entirely unedible, so he drew himself up to the table and thankfully ate the uninjured part.
“Ef Skeeter wusn’t such a lightweight, dis whole chunk would hab been sp’iled,” he grinned.
He felt better after eating the melon until he suddenly recalled that Skeeter had left the eating-house without paying for his meal.
When Skeeter was outside of the restaurant, he promptly forgot his trousers and started for his home in a trot. He went up the long hill toward the Flournoy place like a brown shadow passing through the darkness, threw open the door of a little shed and seized the crank of his “flivver.”
A moment later he was out in the public highway, speeding through the night toward the Nigger-Heel plantation, on which Mustard Prophet was the overseer.
He found Mustard sitting on the porch of his house, shirtless and barefooted, smoking a vile corncob pipe.
“Set down, Skeeter,” he said in greeting. “Take off all yo’ clothes an’ git cool. Dar ain’t no lady folks aroun’.”
“I feel real chilly, Mustard,” Skeeter said in reply. “Dat is, I’s got cold foots.”
“Whut ails you?”
“I been hearin’ dat a move is started to kick you out as presidunt of de Liftup League.”