“Dis badge is marked ‘Information,’ an’ means dat I’m de man who answers questions an’ kin tell Pap Curtain whut he wants to know. Most of you knows my visit to dis town is to organize a school of flyin’ niggers. Some of you knows how to run automobiles, an’ so you kin ride over de country. I wants to learn you how to fly through de sky jes’ as easy as you walk on de ground. Atter you have got de lesson in yo’ mind, I will he’p you to buy a cheap airship from de gover’ment, an’ den you will be fixed jes’ like Gawd intended fer a nigger to be.”
Pap Curtain sprang to his feet, waved his hat in the air, and exclaimed in a loud voice:
“I’ve heard tell of dese flyin’ fellers, but I ain’t never seen one fly. Ef dis visitin’ brudder has come to give an exhibition I favors it!”
“Dat’s whut he has come to do,” Hitch assured him.
“Whar is yo’ flyin’-machine at?” Pap howled.
“Out in de Little Moccasin prairie,” Red told him.
“Less go out an’ take a look at it!” Pap exclaimed.
“I favor it,” three hundred negroes shouted in a chorus.
“I nominates myself to lead de peerade!” Vinegar Atts vociferated.
The movement was so unanimous that Red Cutt was frightened. He had no desire to go out to that airplane in the dark. He remembered a negro who had come to a little town where he had lived once and had pretended to be able to walk on the water. He posed as a divine healer, and a frequently made statement was: “I kin walk on de water, but I don’t want to.” Thereupon some skeptical negroes had carried him down to the banks of the Mississippi and tossed him headlong into the yellow stream, insisting that he give them a demonstration of his ability to do what he said he could do. They had fished this divine healer out of the river with a hook and rolled him on a barrel for an hour before he showed the least sign of returning consciousness. Red Cutt was appalled by the thought of what might happen to him if that mob of negroes insisted upon his giving a trial flight.