Coming to carry me home.”
VI
A FEATHER IN HIS HAT
Early the next morning there were four men who paid a visit to all the negro settlements in Tickfall. They explained that they were a canvassing committee who were soliciting members for the High Exalted Negro Flying Club.
Red Cutt had told them that it was impossible to teach three hundred negroes at one time the art of aviation. The classes could not consist of more than one hundred, but he was willing to teach as many as wanted to learn. He said that he would have to divide them into three classes, and instruct just one class at a time.
It was the Tickfall Big Four who did the canvassing, and after a while there was a disagreement among them. The religious adherents of Vinegar’s church fell out like the early disciples over the question of “Who should be greatest?”
They went back to Red Cutt and presented the matter to him.
“Who’s gwine be president of dis here club?” Skeeter Butts demanded.
“I thinks you ought to be presidunt,” Red told him, “because you done had some expe’unce as a flyin’ man.”
“Ain’t dar no mo’ jobs connected wid dis club?” Vinegar Atts inquired.