“It cain’t be did, niggers,” Skeeter Butts announced in a tone of finality, as he lighted a new cigarette on the stub of the old one. “Dis here chu’ch is a busted onfinancial institootion.”
He leaned his hide-bottomed chair against the trunk of the chinaberry tree in the churchyard, tipped his derby hat forward until the brim was level with his eyes, and surveyed with disgust that dilapidated structure known as the Shoofly church.
“’Twon’t cost much,” the Rev. Vinegar Atts protested earnestly. “Dis chu’ch is been needin’ dem improvements fer a long time.”
“’Tain’t so,” Hitch Diamond growled. “You don’t need no ’lectric readin’ lamp to sot on yo’ pulpit. You kin read by de light over yo’ head.”
“You ain’t needin’ no fancy pulpit chair to sot on, either,” Skeeter Butts remarked.
“De springs is all busted outen de bottom of de one I’m got,” Vinegar complained. “When I sot down I feels like I’m settin’ in a bushel basket. My stomick is over on my knees an’ my foots is mighty nigh up to my chin. De price ain’t so powerful high—twenty dollars fer de settee an’ five fer de readin’ lamp. Dat don’t seem much to me.”
“Us’ll git you dem fancy decoorshuns fer Christmus, Brudder Atts,” Skeeter smiled. “Dis here is August——”
He stopped suddenly and peered down the road with great interest. A slim, black negro, dressy and citified, was picking his way along the dusty road toward the Shoofly church.
The three men adjusted their chairs so they could watch him as he came up the little hill. They noticed that he gazed down at the deep sand through gold-rimmed spectacles, that he picked places in the road which would not bury his shiny patent-leather shoes, that he exercised great care to protect his linen suit from flying particles of dust, and he carried a near-gold wrist-watch which he consulted frequently, as if he were bound to get up that hill on schedule time.
“I knows him,” Skeeter Butts whispered. “I met his ’quaintance at de deppo dis mawnin’. He blowed in wid a long-whisker white man whut is visitin’ de Revun Sentelle. Dis here new coon is callin’ hisse’f Green Trapps.”