Then Pap Curtain entered the scene, and his followers took heart.
Pap was practicing the political trick of looking like he belonged to the great common people, and had come up from the commonest of them all. He was a grave-digger and well-digger by profession, and he looked to-night like he had just finished the job of digging all the graves and wells that would be needed in Tickfall Parish for many years to come. There was fresh clay on his clothes and hat and shoes; clay streaked his yellow baboon face, and was plastered thick upon his horny hands. He joined his bunch with many noisy greetings and much hand-shakings, and glared over at the town crowd with every manifestation of contempt that he could devise.
Mustard Prophet came in and joined the town crowd. He was a good-natured, easy-smiling, hard-working negro who had the confidence and esteem of all the people in the town, white and black. Yet he was a real country negro, who had never lived in Tickfall in his life, while Pap had spent many years in Tickfall and owned his cabin there.
Smilingly, Mustard turned to Skeeter, and said, loud enough for everyone to hear:
“Less git dese here obsequies started, Skeeter. What am de plogram?”
“I ain’t fixed up no special diagram,” Skeeter muttered. “Mebbe we mought start somepin off ef bofe de leadin’ candidates made a speech.”
“Let ’em speech!” a number of voices exclaimed.
“Brudders, I introduces Pap Curtain,” Skeeter announced. “He’s runnin’ fer presidunt of de Uplift. We axes him to say de fust words.”
“I ain’t used to speakin’ ’thout I kin cuss,” Pap Curtain began, in his snarly voice, gazing at the Prophet aggregation with contemptuous eyes and sneering lips. “When I sees a lot of dude niggers tryin’ to ack like Gawd made a mistake when He didn’t make ’em white, I don’t cuss, because I ain’t able to do the subjeck jestice. I thanks de good Lawd dat I ain’t nothin’ but a corn-fiel’ nigger, brudder of de cotton-fiel’ mule, an’ I makes my livin’ diggin’ wells, ditches, an’ graves. I done dug de graves of all de dead, an’ now I’s gittin’ ready to dig de graves of some dat’s livin’. We corn-fiel’ niggers will bury Mustard Prophet an’ his Tickfall dudes when de day of votin’ comes!”