“Lawd,” he sighed. “She ain’t even wagged her tail fer me all night long!”
Vinegar Atts spent the day in various activities, some of them of a personal nature, and some under the direction of Colonel Gaitskill.
When evening came he was free, and started on a gloomy walk to the office of the Shoofly church, where the Committee on Pulpit Supply was to hold its last session and determine whether Vinegar should retain the pulpit which he had occupied for twenty years, or surrender his prophet’s mantle to another.
Sitting around a cheap pine table in the middle of the room, Vinegar found Pap Curtain, Hitch Diamond, Figger Bush and Skeeter Butts. Of the four, Skeeter was now his only friend.
At the end of the table sat the Reverend Tucky Chew Sipe, a tall, black, thin-faced, ladder-headed negro, whose clothes were so loud that they proclaimed the man a block and a half away. He bore himself with an air of triumph, and gazed upon Vinegar Atts with a look of mingled pity and contempt.
Vinegar was also dressed in the loudest manner his purse would afford, but the showiest things about him were his extraordinarily large and immaculately white shirt cuffs. His manner was meek and apologetic, utterly unnatural to Vinegar, who had been accustomed for twenty years to butt and bellow like a bull of Bashan among the sheep in the Shoofly fold.
“De meetin’ will come to orders an’ de sec’tary will specify de bizzness of de las’ session,” Pap Curtain, the chairman, announced importantly.
“Us didn’t do nothin’ but gass,” Figger Bush answered promptly. “De Revun Vinegar Atts had done made hisse’f abasent, an’ us didn’t take no action on de Revun Tucky Sipe gittin’ de job. Us took a mebbe-so vote, an’ all of us favored Tucky Sipe, excusin’ Skeeter Butts.”
Figger sat down, and Vinegar Atts moved his chair to the table and seated himself close beside the secretary.