“I’s gwine hide out till dese here calamities is done passed over,” Vinegar bellowed.
He jerked out a soiled white handkerchief and mopped it around his face, backward across the top of his bald head, and over the back of his bull-like neck.
“Whoosh!” he snorted. “I’ll be skeart to eat my vittles! I’ll be skeart to go to bed at night! I ain’t gwine take no chances wid a dream like dat taggin’ behime me!”
Skeeter fumbled with the volume a moment, then inquired:
“Would you wish to own dis book?”
“Who? Me?” Vinegar howled. “Naw, suh! Whut a nigger don’t know cain’t never hurt him; but ef he knows whut’s gwine to happen, he ain’t never real sapisfied till it comes to pass.”
“Dat’s right,” Skeeter mourned. “I shore made a miscue when I paid a dollar fer dis book. It’s got a tintype of ole Affican Swampo in it—you rickoleck him, Elder?”
“I shore does,” Vinegar responded. “De white folks found him dead out in de Little Moccasin Swamp wid a live rattlesnake in his hand!”
“Yes, suh, dat’s him,” Skeeter said fearfully. “I had done fergot ’bout dat snake.”
“Atter dey kilt de snake de white folks foun’ dat Swampo wus holdin’ it so tight in his dead han’ dat dey couldn’t git it away from him,” Vinegar said. “Dey buried Swampo an’ de snake togedder!”