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

“Bless Gawd!” a negro’s voice exclaimed reverently.

Then in his rich barytone voice, Vinegar Atts began to sing, and one by one the voices of the negroes joined in:

“I rode on de sky,

Went up mighty high,

Nor did envy Elijah his seat;

My soul mounted higher

In a chariot of fire,

And the moon, it wus under my feet.”

In the melody of this song all the weird, jungle voices of the swamp were silenced. It seemed as if every bird and beast stood still to listen, and the Gulf breeze, playing over the fluted tree-tops, made a beautiful, Eolian accompaniment to the rich African voices.

Startled eyes glanced up at that moon which rode majestically through the still oceans of the sky, and the soul of every man was filled with awe at the thought of having that globe of glowing yellow under his brogan-shod feet. It was a thought to stir the Ethiopian soul to its depths, laying hold upon the rich Oriental imagination, appealing to the jungle heritage of superstition, and causing them to thrill with mingled feelings of rapture and fear.