Further 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 This Third Book, Like the First and Second, Needs No Title

by E. K. Means

“Gosh, dat skeart me!” Pap Curtain exclaimed. “Answer de telerphome, Skeeter.”

“Answer de telerphome, Figger,” Skeeter squalled, feeling nervously in all his pockets as if he were hunting for the most important thing in the world and could not abandon the search.

“My shoe-string is come ontied,” Figger answered as he bent over his foot. “You answer de phome, Mustard!”

Mustard did not move. The telephone bell subsided with a final little tinkle.

“Dar now, it’s too late!” Mustard lamented. “I’d ’a’ answered, only but I’m total deef in one y-ear.”

The telephone rang again, sharply, insistently; rang for a good five minutes.

“Answer it, Hitch Diamond!” Skeeter wailed in the midst of the sound.

Hitch pretended not to hear.

“I bet dat is Hopey telerphomin’ me dat she’s dead,” Mustard Prophet muttered in pitiful fright. “I won’t never git no more hot biscuits. Hopey wus shore a good cook an’ a good wife. Us had little spats, but dar warn’t never no hard feelin’s.”

“Come on, fellers,” Skeeter interrupted. “Less go up on de hill an’ see whut’s happened.”