“Come on, niggers,” Vinegar Atts chuckled as he turned back toward the town. “We done runned Vakey off now—less git aroun’ among de niggers an’ succulate de repote dat Skeeter an’ Tick is gittin’ ready to git up a show!”
“Dat’s right!” Figger Bush cackled. “We’ll tell ’em dis ain’t no real disease, but Tick an’ Skeeter is rehearsin’!”
“’Tain’t really needful to do dat,” Hitch Diamond rumbled. “Excusin’ Vakey, all of ’em knows it ’tain’t nothin’ but a joke nohow. Niggers didn’t sing no religium tunes aroun’ dis pest-wagon thuty year ago when de yeller fever kotch us.”
XII
LIMIT GOES THE LIMIT
Two hours later, a wagon drawn by two mules, and occupied by three men and one woman, stopped on top of a hill near the pest-house.
With shouts of laughter the four colored people looked down at the four-room stone house with the metal roof, behind which were many graves and leaning tombstones.
In front of the building was a yellow flag, draped from the limb of a small tree. Skeeter Butts sat in front, his chair-back propped against the stone wall, smoking his cigarette.
They climbed out of the wagon, Limit Lark, the Reverend Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond.
After consulting with his two male companions, Vinegar Atts conducted Limit Lark to a little knoll about one hundred feet from the pest-house, and told her to stand there until he could complete his arrangements.
Then he took his own stand on another little rise of land, with Figger Bush and Hitch Diamond beside him.