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 TitleMeans, E. K. (Eldred Kurtz)
General
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
Means, E. K. (Eldred Kurtz)
African Americans -- Fiction; Short stories, American
All day long Hopey Prophet, famous cook, was preparing that dinner,
Dazzle Zenor was helping in the kitchen, Mustard Prophet was errand boy,
Skeeter Butts was slipping in and out of Hopey’s cabin in the yard,
seizing such opportunities as he could find to discuss with Mustard the
return of the rabbit-foot.
Org was called in and impressively informed that his beautiful sister
was engaged to Captain Kerlerac and the announcement would be made that
evening; that he would not be permitted to be at the dinner because he
had to be corrected seventeen times at an ordinary meal, and this
occasion was so extraordinary that he was eliminated.
“I don’t care—I’m glad I’m out of it,” Org growled. “Gince didn’t ask me
nothing about her business and I’m not going to help her through. Let
old Gince go and get herself engaged. Little Bit says that Cap’n Kerley
is a easy boss.”
“What I want you to do is to be a good boy all day and stay around the
house,” Mrs. Gaitskill requested.
“I’ll promise not to leave this place all day,” Org said. “There’s
nothin’ doing on Sunday nohow.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Gaitskill said, much relieved by the promise. “If you
are very good, I’ll promise to do something very nice for you.”
“Will you lemme have a party and invite Little Bit?” Org asked.
“Oh, dear! I can’t promise what I will do just now,” Mrs. Gaitskill
smiled.
“Say!” Org exclaimed, struck by a sudden thought. “Don’t I get anything
to eat out of this?”
“Certainly. But you’ll have to wait until the others have eaten.”
“Is Little Bit in on the eats, too?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be good,” Org announced.
And he kept his promise. He and Little Bit played in the stable all day
long. About dark it pleased his fancy to carry his cardboard negro man
to the house where there could be no danger of anyone stealing it. At
first he thought he would take it up to his own room, then he decided to
store it in a room which Colonel Gaitskill called his “office,” for he
knew that no one would enter that room that night.
The Gaitskill home was arranged in this fashion: Entering the front door
a guest stepped into the reception room in the rear of which was a
staircase leading to the bed-rooms above. On the left of the reception
room was the dining-room, behind that the butler’s pantry and the
kitchen. In the rear of the staircase was a back hall with a flight of
back stairs leading to the bed-rooms above. On the right of the
reception room was the drawing-room, and in the rear of that, entered by
folding doors, was what Mrs. Gaitskill called a library, and Miss
Virginia called a den, and Colonel Gaitskill called his office.
In this “office” Org set up his cardboard man, knowing that Gaitskill
never entered this room on Sunday, and that no guest would be admitted
to it that night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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