Skeeter sat down and chuckled with delight.
“Vinegar,” he said, “I always figgered dat a preacher wus a nachel-bawn fool or he wouldn’t be a preacher. But atter dis I is gwine hand a tin prize to you fer brains!”
Vinegar could see no particular advantage in confessing that Colonel Tom Gaitskill and Captain Lemuel Manse had spent the entire morning of that day manufacturing Vinegar’s harness, and rehearsing him in the sensational stunt which he had pulled off at the Shoofly church.
“You won’t make no great big mistake ef you gib me two tin prizes fer brains,” Vinegar remarked complacently.
Skeeter clawed at his close-cropped head a moment, then asked another question:
“Elder, how did you make dat tin cup prance all over de top of dat table?”
Vinegar’s mouth was filled with chewing tobacco and his soul with peace. He ruminated a minute, grinning at the little barkeeper. When Skeeter began to show signs of impatience, Vinegar answered:
“I put a tree-frog under dat cup,” he said.
Sugar Sibley, the dusky belle of the Tickfall Parish Fair, sat in the Jim Crow section of the grand stand, clothed in all the colors of the rainbow, posing with all the indolence and insolence of an African princess, lavishing her charms upon the yellow-faced barkeeper of the Hen-Scratch saloon.
“Whut hoss we gwine bet on next, Skeeter?” she inquired.
“Dunno,” Skeeter answered anxiously. “I hopes it’ll be a winner.”
Skeeter removed his hat and rubbed a nervous hand over a closely cropped head, down the middle of which a part had been made with a razor.
His face was seamed with fine lines of worry, and the nervous sweat pouring down his face had wilted his high, white collar to a soiled and crumpled rag.
“I don’t like a nigger whut parts his wool in de middle,” Sugar announced, eyeing Skeeter’s head, with disapproving looks. “Ef a hoss eats in my trough, his mane is all got to lay on one side.”
The band struck up the lively tune of _Rastus, Why Don’t You Pay de Rent_?
“Dar now!” Sugar exclaimed. “One dem hosses in dat nex’ race is named Rastus. You go bet ten dollars on Rastus, Skeeter! An’ fotch me back some loose change. You ain’t winned me nothin’ dis whole day.”
“I ain’t got but ten bucks lef’ over,” Skeeter confessed. “Ef Rastus don’t win, I’s shore a busted cornstitution!”