“De way he flew is de only way he could fly,” Skeeter Butts laughed. “I’m satisfied in my mind dat nigger didn’t know any more about a airship dan a dog knows about a white shirt. And now he’s done run off wid my dollar.”
“I don’t keer,” Vinegar said. “I done got my dollar’s wuth of fun outen dat machine, an’ I expeck I’d better be gittin’ back to town. I’m got to preach at de Shoofly church to-night.”
In the fight which had occurred the bag of cotton which the aviator had dropped from his machine had been torn to pieces and the cotton scattered all over the prairie. A number of negro boys amused themselves by throwing the wads of cotton at each other and at their elders. One negro boy picked up a wad and hurled it at the fat stomach of the Rev. Vinegar Atts.
Vinegar doubled up with a yell of pain, and then stooped and picked up something.
It was a buckskin bag, which Vinegar had last seen in the possession of Red Cutt.
“My Gawd!” Hitch Diamond bellowed. “Ain’t dat our bag of money?”
With trembling fingers Vinegar untied the buckskin bag and drew out a large number of soiled bills. There was a shout of delight which James Gannaway could have heard fifteen thousand feet in the air.
“When dat nigger, Red Cutt, climbed up into dat machine, he hid dat money in my sack of cotton,” Hitch howled, “an’ now we done get it all back. Bless Gawd!”
So it was a happy band which moved slowly back to Tickfall. Vinegar Atts forgetting all about his automobile walked back to town with the others. He improvised a song on the way which he taught his fellow pilgrims. The chorus, repeated many times, was this:
“De airships fly up to de sky