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

In Short

Set in the fictional town of Tickfall, Louisiana, this short-story collection follows a cast of recurring Black residents, including a small-time bar owner, an ambitious preacher, and a heavyweight boxer. Through series of escapades—ranging from a chaotic plantation exodus and a localized quarantine to rigged baseball games and film set disruptions—the characters scheme, spar, and navigate the paternalistic oversight of local white landowners. Written in heavy early-twentieth-century eye-dialect, the stories attempt to capture small-town Southern life through a lens of comic farce, theatrical trickery, and relentless community dialogue.

The Story

The book moves through a series of loosely connected comic episodes centered on the Black settlements surrounding Tickfall, Louisiana—neighborhoods like Dirty-Six, Tin-row, and Hell's-Half-Acre. The overarching narrative begins with a scene of sudden upheaval when an outsider woman named Diada arrives, bringing rumor and tension to both the white aristocrats and the Black labor force. Her presence culminates in a frantic, sprawling exodus: four hundred plantation workers, led by overseer Mustard Prophet, ride into the courthouse square on a chaotic procession of mules, donkeys, and horses. When the local white authorities, led by Colonel Tom Gaitskill, move to apprehend Diada across the sun-baked prairie, she sets fire to the marsh grass with two splinters of bark. The resulting wildfire panics the pursuers and allows her to flee toward a waiting river yacht, leaving the town shaken but intact.

Following this grand disruption, the focus narrows to the daily misadventures of Tickfall’s core characters. Skeeter Butts, the diminutive barkeeper of the Hen-Scratch saloon, faces joblessness and an epidemic scare. Alongside the imposing preacher Vinegar Atts and the fighter Hitch Diamond, Skeeter organizes a committee to collect old newspapers for news of the disease, enforcing local rules modeled on past yellow fever quarantines.

Private lives prove equally fraught with hazard. When the simple swamp-dweller Tick Hush attempts to woo a woman named Button, he mistakenly stumbles upon her father holding a shotgun. Terrified, Tick crashes straight through a closed glass window-sash and flees into town, swearing off women entirely. His domestic troubles escalate into a public spectacle when several angry suitors pursue him, prompting Colonel Gaitskill to sarcastically suggest he hole up in the local pest-house under a yellow flag. Skeeter turns this joke into an elaborate hoax, staging a fake quarantine with the help of an actress named Dazzle Zenor to scare away Tick’s pursuers.

Other entries detail commercial and cultural collisions. A northern film director arrives in Louisiana aiming to shoot an "All-Coon Cast" motion picture, only to have his strict instructions derailed by local rivalries, romantic jealousies, and unscripted interruptions during a riverside picnic. Elsewhere, Skeeter falls prey to a dollar dream book, adjusting his entire life according to moon phases and nightmare interpretations until he realizes the absurdity of the text and burns it over camp ashes.

The volume closes on themes of community ambition and local pride. Preacher Vinegar Atts seeks a college degree and new pulpit furnishings for the Shoofly church, eventually outmaneuvering local doubters. The collection ends not with resolution to any single plot, but with the town's familiar routine restored: the congregation joins in harmony beneath the trees, singing together as the white town doctor listens from afar.

How It Unfolds

A panic in the square Four hundred plantation workers disrupt the quiet town of Tickfall, riding into the courthouse square in a sprawling, Mardi Gras-style procession led by Mustard Prophet. Colonel Gaitskill and the armed white townspeople assemble in alarm, unsure whether the movement signals a revolt or a misunderstanding.

The fire on the prairie During the hunt for the fugitive woman Diada across the dry marsh, she strikes two splinters of wood together and ignites the tall grass. A roaring prairie fire forces four hundred pursuers into a panicked retreat, clearing her path to escape aboard a sea-going yacht on the Mississippi River.

Trouble at the Hen-Scratch Facing economic uncertainty and rumors of an epidemic, Skeeter Butts and Preacher Vinegar Atts form a committee to collect discarded newspapers for news, enforcing strict neighborhood rules to keep the community safe and occupied.

A leap through the window Tick Hush’s clumsy attempt at romance ends in disaster when he mistakes a girl's father carrying a shotgun for an executioner. He dives through a closed window sash, running half a mile with the frame around his neck before collapsing at the saloon.

The yellow flag deception To rescue Tick Hush from an array of vengeful lovers and angry rivals, Skeeter takes a casual remark from Colonel Gaitskill and staging an elaborate fake pest-house quarantine, using yellow flags and an actress to spook the town.

Disruption on the set A visiting New York motion picture director attempts to film an authentic Southern narrative, but his high-minded artistic control vanishes when local feuds, unscripted improvisations, and genuine jealousy take over the camera's lens.

Burning the dream book After spending days terrified by a cheap dream-interpretation pamphlet, Skeeter realizes a lunar loop-hole renders all his bad omens harmless. Relieved, he tosses the dollar book into the campfire embers and resolves to return home.

The People

• Skeeter Butts (Perique): The undersized, sharp-witted proprietor of the Hen-Scratch saloon. Small enough to be named after a cigar butt, he acts as the town's ultimate fixer and schemer, constantly managing sports teams, fake quarantines, and romantic advice despite his own overwhelming superstitions.
• Vinegar Atts: A towering, booming Black preacher who wields immense influence across the settlements. Dressed in a trailing tailcoat and stovepipe hat, he alternates between solemn pastoral admonitions and practical community trickery, ultimately striving to upgrade his church with electric lamps and a new pulpit chair.
• Tick Hush: An extraordinarily naive swamp-dweller whose complete ignorance of civil life makes him both a reliable farm laborer and an easy mark for town jokes. His brief, terrified venture into courtship leaves him bloody, battered, and fleeing through window panes.
• Mustard Prophet: The plantation overseer who leads the dramatic four-hundred-person march into Tickfall. He frequently finds himself recruited into local sports games and schemes, often burdened by his neighbors with armfuls of luck charms.
• Hitch Diamond ("Big Sandy"): A heavy-set former river-landing fighter who acts as a community enforcer and athletic organizer, always carrying an assortment of lucky charms and leading church choruses.
• Colonel Tom Gaitskill: A prominent local white landowner and Confederate veteran who relies on a Shiloh dogwood cane. He views the Black population with paternalistic amusement, frequently offering advice that triggers further misunderstandings.

In Its Own Voice

“The tree was fertilized by my blood, sir, and it is only just that it should bear my infirmities.”

(Colonel Gaitskill explains the origin of his dogwood walking stick to a visitor.)

“Dat ball’s got de slickments, an’ wiggles like a live snake!”

(A baseball fielder expresses his dismay during a losing game against a rival team.)

“Whenever I loants money to a frien’ I axes dat money an’ dat frien’ good-by.”

(Pap Curtain refuses to lend Skeeter cash at the race track, offering instead to sell him tips.)

What It's Really About

Beneath its comic exterior, the book revolves around the sharp divide between formal authority and informal community power in the Jim Crow South. The narrative repeatedly contrasts the suspicious, armed posture of the white townsfolk with the insular, highly cooperative social networks of the Black settlements. Survival and self-preservation depend on wit, theatricality, and group solidarity. Characters use rumor, superstition, and deliberate performativity to navigate economic scarcity, racial inequality, and the arbitrary authority of local landowners.

Why Read It Today

This volume serves as a vivid artifact of early twentieth-century popular humor and regionalist short fiction. Readers interested in Southern literary history or historical representations of dialect will find a comprehensive look at the tropes and storytelling style popular in post-WWI commercial magazines.

The prose moves quickly, powered by lively physical comedy, sharp situational irony, and dynamic character interactions. However, modern readers must navigate significant difficulties. The book relies heavily on eye-dialect, period racial stereotypes, and a paternalistic worldview that reflects the era in which it was produced. Yet for those reading with historical awareness, it offers a revealing window into how popular fiction constructed Southern community life, folklore, and humor a century ago.