More 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 Second Book, Like the First, Needs No Title

by E. K. Means

“Whut is I done?” Skeeter asked in a frightened voice.

“’Tain’t whut you done; it’s whut you ain’t done,” Vinegar informed him. “You done showed yo’se’f de one sinner in Tickfall.”

“How come?” Skeeter asked.

Vinegar Atts produced the paper on which he had written the “Rules of Reform” in that very room the day before. He handed the paper to Skeeter.

“Whut do de fust rule say, Skeeter?” he demanded.

“‘No lofen,’” Skeeter read tremblingly.

Vinegar Atts placed a heavy hand upon the shoulder of the barkeeper and bawled:

“What is you done fer a livin’ to-day, nigger?”

“Nothin’,” Skeeter stammered. “I—it ’pears like you-all is done put me outside of a job. I ain’t had no customers to-day.”

“You been loafin’,” Hitch Diamond proclaimed in a pugnacious voice. “How does you especk to git to heaven when you die? Don’t you know de ancestors will get you befo’ mawnin’?”