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!” A sullen note of applause came from Pap’s ugly-looking crowd, but there was no enthusiasm, no good-will. In a word, Pap’s crowd were not good sportsmen. One man took a big red apple out of his pocket, wiped it off on the leg of his trousers and began to eat it. “I now introduces Mustard Prophet,” Skeeter announced uneasily. There was handclapping, several shouts of applause. Mustard’s crowd had been trained in the lodges and the various clubs and knew a little better how to act under the circumstances.