It was the gloriously beautiful hour of sunset. The sky was clear and the air was still. In a little while the moon, which was even then visible in the sky, would shine in full effulgence, and would make an ideal night for the return of the airplane to the aviation field.
James Gannaway was feeling fine, and he showed it by giving the negroes an exhibition of stunt-flying. If he had known that the negroes did not appreciate this exhibition for what it was worth, he doubtless would have done the kindly thing and gone on his way. But when the negroes looked up in the air and saw the machine not much larger in their sight than a toy, they forgot all about the frolicking bears and were petrified by terror at the vision above them.
The machine turned upside down, then righted itself, then began to ascend in long, spiral glides; then turned upside down, and the aviator flew in that position for some moments. Again the machine righted itself and began to mount upward until it was hardly more than a tiny speck in the sky. Hovering directly above them it dived and seemed to drop with the rapidity of a falling star.
Every negro nerved himself to see the machine crash down upon the ground, when suddenly it turned and once more began its beautiful flight, up above the birds that screamed and circled and tumbled in the air like circus performers.
Vinegar Atts dropped upon his knees and lifted up two black hands in the direction of the ascending machine which now looked not much larger than a wasp and bawled aloud:
“O Lawd, ef you got any pity on dis pore nigger, jes’ keep dat machine a gwine up!”
“Keep her gwine up, Lawd!” five hundred voices wailed in a mighty chorus of endorsement.
“O Lawd, Thou hast told us dat de early bird ketches de worm. Us is pore worms of de dust! Perteck us from dat cherubim of de sky wid de hands of a man under its wings!” Vinegar whooped.
“Perteck us, Lawd; hab mussy on us wormes!” answered the frightened negroes in a mighty chorus.
“Keep dese here ole hawgs an’ bears an’ deerses offen us, too, good Lawd!” Vinegar wailed. “We don’t wanter ax too much of you-alls, but dese here is perilous times fer pore he’pless niggers!”