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Read Ebook: E. K. Means Is This a Title? It Is Not. It Is the Name of a Writer of Negro Stories Who Has Made Himself So Completely the Writer of Negro Stories That His Book Needs No Title by Means E K Eldred Kurtz Kemble E W Edward Windsor Illustrator
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Ebook has 3321 lines and 90210 words, and 67 pages
PAGE FOREWORD iii
THE LATE FIGGER BUSH 1
HOODOO EYES 39
THE ART OF ENTICING LABOR 72
THE CRUISE OF THE MUD HEN 92
TWO SORRY SONS OF SORROW 127
MONARCH OF THE MANACLE 186
ALL IS FAIR 214
HOODOO FACE 274
PAGE
"I'SE DE BRAYING JACK-ASS OF GEORGIA, AN' NO NIGGER IN TICKFALL CAIN'T COMB MY MANE" 58
"COLONEL GAITSKILL TELEPHONED ME THAT YOUR POCKETS WERE FULL OF MONEY" 86
WHEN THE BOAT STOPPED 110
MUSTARD PROCEEDED TO PAINT HIM RED 158
SKEETER WENT DOWN THE STREET AT FULL SPEED 208
THE PIE-FACED SORREL WITH THE SNAKE-BITTEN LEG 218
THE "REVUN" VINEGAR ATTS BEGAN HIS SERMON. 328
The Late Figger Bush.
Figger Bush did not look like a man who was about to die; if anything, he looked like one who ought to be killed.
He was a scarecrow sort of a negro, with ragged, flapping clothes. His coal-black face formed a background for a little, stubby, shoe-brush mustache, and Figger thought that mustache justified his existence in the world. He had not much use for his coconut head except to support a battered wool hat and grow a luxuriant crop of kinky hair. He had an insuperable aversion to all sorts of work.
None of these things indicated that Figger was about to die; in fact, they showed that he was enjoying life.
The only thing that indicated an unusual condition in Figger was the fact that he was now walking down the middle of the road with rapid and ever-lengthening steps, glancing from side to side, and grumbling aloud to himself.
"I gotta find dat Skeeter Butts an' find him quick," he muttered. "Nothin' like dis ain't never happen to me befo', an' nobody cain't 'lucidate on my troubles like Skeeter kin."
A high, cackling laugh, accompanied by a hoarse bellow of laughter, floated to him upon the hot August breeze, and Figger ceased his grumbling and began to chuckle.
"I gits exputt advices now," he mumbled. "Skeeter am talkin' sociable wid de Revun Vinegar Atts."
On top of the hill in front of the Shoofly church, Figger found his two friends resting under the shade of a chinaberry tree.
Skeeter Butts, the little, yellow barkeeper at the Hen-Scratch saloon, had the back of his chair propped against the trunk of the tree, his heels hung in the rungs of the chair in front, and looked like a jockey mounted upon a bony, sway-backed horse. Vinegar Atts, the fat, bald-headed, moon-faced pastor of the Shoofly church, sat on one chair, rested his feet on another, and had his massive arms outspread upon the backs of yet two other chairs. He looked like a pot-bellied buzzard trying to fly upside down and backward.
"Come up, Figger!" Vinegar howled, as he kicked the chair, on which his feet rested, toward him. "Take a seat, take a set-down, rest yo' hat, spit on de flo'--make yo'se'f at home!"
Figger picked up the chair, placed it back where Atts could rest his feet upon it again, and sat down upon the ground, interlocking the fingers of both hands and nursing his bent knees.
"You been cuttin' out chu'ch recent. How come?" Vinegar bellowed.
"Religium don't he'p a po' nigger like me," Figger responded gloomily.
"Dat's a fack," Atts agreed promptly. "Religium is got to hab somepin to ketch holt on an' you ain't nothin'."
"Whut ails you?" Skeeter inquired, looking at Figger intently. "You ain't look nachel to me some way."
Figger sighed deeply, then executed a feeble grin.
"A nigger man is comin' to see me, Skeeter," he explained, "an' I don't need him."
"Who's a-comin'?"
"Popsy Spout."
"Whar's he been at?" Vinegar asked.
"Yallerbam'," Figger told him.
There was a moment of silence while the two waited for Figger to tell them all about it. But if Figger ever did anything he had to be pushed along.
"I don't see nothin' so powerful bad in dat," Skeeter snapped, impatient at the delay. "Popsy Spout is comin' from Yalabama--well?"
"It's dis way," Figger explained, slapping at the ground with his battered wool hat to give emphasis to his speech. "Popsy Spout is my gran'pap on my mammy's side. My mammy died soon an' Popsy raised me up. He always toted a big hick'ry cane an' he raised me pretty frequent. One day he promise me a whalin' an' I snooped ten dollars outen his money-bag an' skunt out fer Tickfall. Dat was twenty year ago."
"You reckin' Popsy is comin' to colleck up?" Skeeter snickered.
"Naw, suh. I figger dat Popsy is gittin' ole an' lonesome an' tuck up a notion to come an' pay me a little visit."
"How long will he stay on?" Skeeter asked.
"I kinder think he thinks he'll stay on till he dies," Figger announced in tragic tones, as he produced a soiled letter and held it out to Skeeter. "Read dis, an' see kin you find any yuther hopes in whut he do say."
Skeeter took the letter out of the envelope and read it aloud, giving the peculiar African pronunciation to the words as he spoke them:
"DEAR FIGGER:
Dis letter will kotch you jes' befo' I gits offen de train at Tickfall. I wus raised an' bawn in de Little Mocassin Swamp, an' I wants to come home an' live wid you till I die. I needs somebody of my kinnery aroun' so I won't git so lonesome. Good-by. I'm comin' powerful soon.
POPSY SPOUT."
Skeeter handed the letter back with a look of deep sympathy and pity.
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