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 TitleMeans, E. K. (Eldred Kurtz)
General
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
Means, E. K. (Eldred Kurtz)
African Americans -- Fiction; Short stories, American
But while Aunt Biddy Chivill slept, her little four-year-old
granddaughter became immediately active and very much awake. She crept
out into the aisle and began to walk around aimlessly, her bare feet
making no noise upon the uncarpeted floor.
For a while she amused herself by staring into the faces of the men
and peeping under the sun-bonnets of the women. The hands which were
stretched out to arrest her were carefully avoided, and she rewarded
each person making the attempt with a childish scowl.
Then she sat down upon the floor and crawled under the benches. She lay
on the floor and rolled under the benches, bobbing up at unexpected
places with an angelic smile.
After this she found a large box in the rear of the church.
In spite of the town stock laws, the hogs ran wild in that portion of
Tickfall known as Dirty-Six, where the Shoofly Church was located. Many
of these animals had their sleeping place under the church, and the
building was infested with fleas.
It was a custom when a church meeting was to be held, to sprinkle the
floor with lime and sweep it out, thus ridding the house temporarily of
the insects. For that purpose a large box of lime was kept in the rear
of the church.
It was this box that the little black baby girl discovered. She stood
on tiptoe, stretched herself up, and looked in. It was white, very
white, inside. She reached over the edge and touched the whiteness.
She brought the hand out and looked at it. It also was white.
[Illustration:
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
The “Revun” Vinegar Atts began his sermon.]
Then the child reached into the box with both hands, filled them with
lime, and rubbed them on her face. By the mercy of heaven, she did not
get any of the stuff into her mouth and eyes. Then she sat down and
rubbed her feet with lime. The effect was gratifying and she smiled.
By this time the sermon was ended. Vinegar had not done much, but he
had done the best he could.
“Brudder Tucky Sugg will pray for us!” Vinegar bawled.
The congregation reverently bowed.
Then a little black girl with lime-whitened face and hands and legs,
trotted silently up the aisle and stood beside brother Tucky Sugg,
listening earnestly to his bawling voice.
She stretched out a tiny, lime-whitened hand and touched Tucky Sugg
timidly on the top of his step-ladder head.
“Who you tryin’ to talk to, Revun?” she asked in a bird-like voice.
Tucky Sugg opened his eyes and saw something he had never seen before.
With a loud bellow like a frightened cow, he rolled backward on the
floor, and got up with an intense desire to run.
“My Gawd!”
The voice was like an explosion of dynamite, and expressed the
consternation of the congregation as they rose to their feet prepared
for flight.
Ginny Babe Chew awoke from her slumber. She stared at the little child
a moment, then reached out a fat, motherly hand.
“Come here, honey!” she bawled. “Yo’ mammy oughter had washed yo’ face
an’ hands befo’ she sont you to de meetin’-house.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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