“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.”
Green sighed with relief when he reached the gate of the churchyard, and came across the lawn toward the three men with an ingratiating grin. Vinegar Atts kicked the chair on which his feet were resting toward the newcomer as an invitation to be seated.
“Mawnin’, Greenie,” Skeeter Butts greeted. “Us is been expectin’ you to look up some of yo’ own kin an’ color.”
He introduced Green to Vinegar and Hitch, passed him the cigarettes, and then waited for Green to open the conversation.
“You niggers ain’t pregaged in no bizziness discussion, I hopes,” Green remarked. “I don’t hanker to butt in.”
“’Tain’t no secret bizzness,” Skeeter replied. “Dis here Revun Atts craves a readin’ lamp an’ a pulpit chair fer his chu’ch, an’ us members don’t aspire to git him none.”
Thereupon for the enlightenment of Green Trapps, the three men repeated all the conversation and arguments which had occupied them for an hour before Green arrived. At the conclusion of the talk-fest, Skeeter Butts demanded:
“I agrees wid you-all,” Green said promptly. “Vinegar needs dem great improvements, an’ de Shoofly cain’t affode to git ’em. Therefo’ you-all oughter turn yo’ minds to somepin mo’ important.”
He took off his gold spectacles, polished them carefully with a big silk handkerchief, then rubbed the shining face of his wrist-watch and finally flicked the corner of his handkerchief over his shiny shoes.
“I don’t know nothin’ more important,” Vinegar Atts grumbled in manifest disappointment.
“As de revun pastor of de Shoofly is you got a D.D. degree?” Green asked blandly.
“Got a--which?” Vinegar asked, showing the whites of his eyes.
“Is you ever took on a kawlidge-gate degree?” Green repeated.
“I done tuck ten degrees in de Nights of Darkness Lodge,” Vinegar replied. “I don’t need no mo’. De las’ one I tuck dey made me ballunce a raw egg on my bald head an’ a nigger hit it wid a paddle--ruint all my nice lodge clothes.”
“Aw, shuckins! I don’t mean dat,” Green snorted in disgust. “Ain’t you no Doctor of Dervinity? Don’t de white folks call you de Revun Dr. Vinegar Atts? Ain’t you no scholard like de Revun Dr. Sentelle an’ dem yuther white preachers?”