Skeeter arrived, looked at the machine, and listened to Red Cutt explaining its uses and manipulations to the crowd. He saw Hitch crawling around underneath, wiping the wheels with cotton, and pretending to be very busy, while actually afraid to touch anything he saw under there. Skeeter decided that his place on the program was to be seated in the machine. The negroes very eagerly lifted him up, and as he took his place on the seat, he felt that he had reached the highest point of prominence in his entire career. Vinegar Atts, who had lingered too long at his Sunday dinner, was the last to arrive, and when he rode up in his little automobile and saw Skeeter Butts seated in the airplane like a king upon the throne, he was glad, indeed, that he had been elected to the high office of observer. He pushed his way through the crowd and bawled at Skeeter: “Hey, Skeeter! I wants to set up dar wid you.” “Dar ain’t no room to set wid me,” Skeeter announced. “Dar ain’t but one seat, an’ I am in it.” “But I got to set up dar! I’m de observer!” Vinegar howled. Thereupon he clambered up into the machine, lifted Skeeter out of his place, sat down on the seat himself, and let Skeeter sit on his knee! At this point Hitch Diamond climbed out from under the airplane, stuck a handful of dirty cotton waste into the bag that contained the rest of the cotton, and tossed the bag into the lap of Skeeter. “You two niggers put dis sack of cotton in the tool-box under de seat!” Hitch Diamond bellowed. “I cain’t find de tool-box,” Vinegar said. “Well, put it under yo’ foots den,” Hitch told him. “Fer you got to take dat sack of wipin’ cotton wharever you go.” VII THE SIGN OF AVIATORS As the negroes had gone out toward the Little Moccasin Swamp, all of them had passed a buggy that was moving at the slowest gait of the horse. The driving lines were wrapped around the whip, the horse moved sedately and slowly down the middle of the road. On the seat of the buggy was a young man who seemed to be able to see nothing but the girl who sat beside him; and if any other man had been blind to the presence of that girl, it could have been said of him that he had no appreciation of feminine beauty and loveliness. As the buggy passed the long, straggling procession of negroes, there was one fact so striking that the man asked: “What are all these people wearing chicken feathers in their hats for?” “I don’t know,” the girl answered. “Nobody can tell what a negro is going to do.”