Not Without Laughter E-Book

Langston Hughes

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A shining star of the Harlem Renaissance movement, Langston Hughes is one of modern literature's most revered African-American authors. Although best known for his poetry, Hughes produced in Not Without Laughter a powerful and pioneering classic novel. A fascinating chronicle of a family's joys and hardships, Not Without Laughter is a vivid exploration of growing up and growing strong in a racially divided society. A rich and important work, it masterfully echoes the black American experience. 

Leseprobe

Not without Laughter

Langston Hughes

Not Without Laughter

by Langston Hughes

First published in 1930

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty One

Twenty two

Twenty three

Twenty four

Twenty five

Twenty six

Twenty seven

Twenty eight

Twenty nine

Thirty

One

Storm

Aunt Hager Williams stood in her doorway and looked out at the sun. The western sky was a sulphurous yellow and the sun a red ball dropping slowly behind the trees and house-tops. Its settingleft the rest of the heavens grey with clouds.

“Huh! A storm’s comin’,” said Aunt Hager aloud.

A pullet ran across the back yard and into a square-cut hole in an unpainted piano-box which served as the roosting-house. An old hen clucked her brood together and, with the tiny chicks, went into a small box beside the large one. The air was very still. Not a leaf stirred on the green apple-tree. Not a single closed .ower of the morning-glories trembled on the back fence. The air was very still and yellow. Something sultry and oppressive made a small boy in the doorway stand closer to his grandmother, clutching her apron with his brown hands.

“Sho is a storm comin’,” said Aunt Hager.

“I hope mama gets home ’fore it rains,” remarked the brown child holdingto the old woman’s apron. “Hope she gets home.”

“I does, too,” said Aunt Hager. “But I’s skeared she won’t.”

Just then great drops of water began to fall heavily into the back yard, poundingup little clouds of dust where each drop struck the earth. For a few moments they pattered violently on the roof like a series of hammer-strokes; then suddenly they ceased.

“Come in, chile,” said Aunt Hager.

She closed the door as the green apple-tree began to sway in the wind and a small hard apple fell, rollingrapidly down the top of the piano-box that sheltered the chickens. Inside the kitchen it was almost dark. While Aunt Hager lighted an oil-lamp, the child climbed to a chair and peered through the square window into the yard. The leaves and .owers of the morning-glory vines on the back fence were bending with the risingwind. And across the alley at the bighouse, Mrs. Kennedy’s rear screen-door banged to and fro, and Sandy saw her garbage-pail suddenly tip over and roll down into the yard, scatteringpotato-peelings on the white steps.

“Sho gwine be a terrible storm,” said Hager as she turned up the wick of the light and put the chimney on. Then, glancing through the window, she saw a black cloud twistinglike a ribbon in the western sky, and the old woman screamed aloud in sudden terror: “It’s a cyclone! It’s gwine be a cyclone! Sandy, let’s get over to Mis’ Carter’s quick, ’cause we ain’t got no cellar here. Come on, chile, let’s get! Come on, chile! . . . Come on, chile!”

Hurriedly she blew out the light, grabbed the boy’s hand; and together they rushed through the little house towards the front. It was quite dark in the inner rooms, but through the parlor windows came a sort of sooty grey-green light that was rapidly turning to blackness.

“Lawd help us, Jesus!”

Aunt Hager opened the front door, but before she or the child could move, a great roaring sound suddenly shook the world, and, with a deafening division of wood from wood, they saw their front porch rise into the air and go hurtling off into space. Sailing high in the gathering darkness, the porch was soon lost to sight. And the black wind blew with terri.c force, numbingthe ear-drums.

For a moment the little house trembled and swayed and creaked as though it were about to fall.

“Help me to shut this do’,” Aunt Hager screamed; “help me to shut it, Lawd!” as with all her might she struggled against the open door, which the wind held back, but .nally it closed and the lock caught. Then she sank to the floor with her back against the wall, while her small grandson trembled like a leaf as she took him in her lap, mumbling: “What a storm! . . . O, Lawdy! . . . O, ma chile, what a storm!”

They could hear the crackling of timbers and the rolling limbs of trees that the wind swept across the roof. Her arms tightened about the boy.

“Dear Jesus!” she said. “I wonder where is yo’ mama? S’pose she started out fo’ home ’fore this storm come up!” Then in a scream: “Have mercy on ma Annjee! O, Lawd, have mercy on this chile’s mamma! Have mercy on all ma chillens! Ma Harriett, an’ ma Tempy, an’ ma Annjee, what’s maybe all of ’em out in de storm! O, Lawd!”

A dry crack of lightning split the darkness, and the boy began to wail. Then the rain broke. The old woman could not see the cryingchild she held, nor could the boy hear the broken voice of his grandmother, who had begun to pray as the rain crashed through the inky blackness. For a longwhile it roared on the roof of the house and pounded at the windows, until .nally the two within became silent, hushingtheir cries. Then only the of the splashing of the water, coupled with the feeling that something terrible was happening, or had already happened, filled the evening air.

#

After the rain the moon rose clear and bright and the clouds disappeared from the lately troubled sky. The stars sparkled calmly above the havoc of the storm, and it was still early eveningas people emerged from their houses and began to investigate the damage brought by the twistingcyclone that had come with the sunset. Through the rubbish-filled streets men drove slowly with horse and buggy or automobile. The re-engine was out, banging away, and the soft tang-tang-tang of the motor ambulance could be heard in the distance carrying off the injured.

Black Aunt Hager and her brown grandson put their rubbers on and stood in the water-soaked front yard looking at the porchless house where they lived. Platform, steps, pillars, roof, and all had been blown away. Not a semblance of a porch was left and the front door opened bare into the yard. It was grotesque and funny. Hager laughed.

“Cyclone sho did a good job,” she said. “Looks like I ain’t never had no porch.”

Madam de Carter, from next door, came across the grass, her large mouth full of chatteringsympathy for her neighbor.

“But praise God for sparingour lives! It might’ve been worse, Sister Williams! It might’ve been much more calamitouser! As it is, I lost nothin’ more’n a chimney and two wash-tubs which was settin’ in the back yard. A few trees broke down don’t ’mount to nothin’. We’s livin’, ain’t we? And we’s more importanter than trees is any day!” Her gold teeth sparkled in the moonlight.

“ ’Deed so,” agreed Hager emphatically. “Let’s move on down de block, Sister, an’ see what mo’ de Lawd has ’stroyed or spared this evenin’. He’s gin us plenty moonlight after de storm so we po’ humans can see this lesson o’ His’n to a sinful world.”

The two elderly colored women picked their way about on the wet walk, littered with twigs and branches of broken foliage. The little brown boy followed, with his eyes wide at the sight of baby-carriages, window-sashes, shingles, and tree-limbs scattered about in the roadway. Large numbers of people were out, some standingon porches, some carrying lanterns, pickingup useful articles from the streets, some wringing their hands in a daze.

Near the corner a small crowd had gathered quietly.

“Mis’ Gavitt’s killed,” somebody said.

“Lawd help!” burst from Aunt Hager and Madam de Carter simultaneously.

“Mister and Mis’ Gavitt’s both dead,” added a nervous youngwhite man, burstingwith the news. “We live next door to ’em, and their house turned clean over! Came near hittingus and breakingour sidewall in.”

“Have mercy!” said the two women, but Sandy slipped away from his grandmother and pushed through the crowd. He ran round the corner to where he could see the overturned house of the unfortunate Gavitts.

Good white folks, the Gavitts, Aunt Hager had often said, and now their large frame dwelling lay on its side like a doll’s mansion, with broken furniture strewn carelessly on the wet lawn —and they were dead. Sandy saw a piano flat on its back in the grass. Its ivory keys gleamed in the moonlight like grinning teeth, and the strange sight made his little body shiver, so he hurried back through the crowd looking for his grandmother. As he passed the corner, he heard a woman sobbing hysterically within the wide house there.

His grandmother was no longer standing where he had left her, but he found Madam de Carter and took hold of her hand. She was in the midst of a group of excited white and colored women. One frail old lady was sayingin a high determined voice that she had never seen a cyclone like this in her whole life, and she had lived here in Kansas, if you please, going on seventy-three years. Madam de Carter, chattering nervously, began to tell them how she had recognized its coming and had rushed to the cellar the minute she saw the sky turn green. She had not come up until the rain stopped, so frightened had she been. She was extravagantly enjoyingthe tellingof her fears as Sandy kept tuggingat her hand.

“Where’s my grandma?” he demanded. Madam de Carter, however, did not cease talkingto answer his question.

“What do you want, sonny?” .nally one of the white women asked, bendingdown when he looked as if he were about to cry. “Aunt Hager? . . . Why, she’s inside helping them calm poor Mrs. Gavitt’s niece. Your grandmother’s good to have around when folks are sick or grieving, you know. Run and set on the steps like a nice boy and wait until she comes out.” So Sandy left the women and went to sit in the dark on the steps of the bigcorner house where the niece of the dead Mrs. Gavitt lived. There were some people on the porch, but they soon passed through the screen-door into the house or went away down the street. The moonlight cast weird shadows across the damp steps where Sandy sat, and it was dark there under the trees in spite of the moon, for the old house was built far back from the street in a yard full of oaks and maples, and Sandy could see the light from an upstairs window re.ecting on the wet leaves of their nearest boughs. He heard a girl screaming, too, up there where the light was burning, and he knew that Aunt Hager was puttingcold cloths on her head, or rubbingher hands, or drivingfolks out of the room, and talkingkind to her so that she would soon be better.

All the neighborhood, white or colored, called his grandmother when somethinghappened. She was a good nurse, they said, and sick folks liked her around. Aunt Hager always came when they called, too, bringing maybe a little soup that she had made or a jelly. Sometimes they paid her and sometimes they didn’t. But Sandy had never had to sit outdoors in the darkness waitingfor her before. He leaned his small back against the top step and rested his elbows on the porch behind him. It was growing late and the people in the streets had all disappeared.

There, in the dark, the little fellow began to think about his mother, who worked on the other side of town for a rich white lady named Mrs.

J. J. Rice. And suddenly frightful thoughts came into his mind. Suppose she had left for home just as the storm came up! Almost always his mother was home before dark—but she wasn’t there tonight when the storm came—and she should have been home! This thought appalled him. She should have been there! But maybe she had been caught by the storm and blown away as she walked down Main Street! Maybe Annjee had been carried off by the great black wind that had overturned the Gavitts’ house and taken his grandma’s porch .ying through the air! Maybe the cyclone had gotten his mother, Sandy thought. He wanted her! Where was she? Had somethingterrible happened to her? Where was she now?

The bigtears began to roll down his cheeks—but the little fellow held back the sobs that wanted to come. He decided he wasn’t going to cry and make a racket there by himself on the strange steps of these white folks’ house. He wasn’t goingto cry like a bigbaby in the dark. So he wiped his eyes, kicked his heels against the cement walk, lay down on the top step, and, by and by, sniffled himself to sleep.

“Wake up, son!” Someone was shakinghim. “You’ll catch your death o’ cold sleepingon the wet steps like this. We’re goinghome now. Don’t want me to have to carry a bigman like you, do you, boy? . . . Wake up, Sandy!” His mother stooped to lift his longlittle body from the wide steps. She held him against her soft heavy breasts and let his head rest on one of her shoulders while his feet, in their muddy rubbers, hungdown against her dress.

“Where you been, mama?” the boy asked drowsily, tightening his arms about her neck. “I been waitingfor you.”

“Oh, I been home a longtime, worried to death about you and ma till I heard from Madam Carter that you-all was down here nursing the sick. I stopped at your Aunt Tempy’s house when I seen the storm coming.”

“I was afraid you got blowed away, mama,” murmured Sandy sleepily. “Let’s go home, mama. I’m glad you ain’t got blowed away.”

On the porch Aunt Hager was talking to a pale white man and two thin white women standing at the door of the lighted hallway. “Just let Mis’ Agnes sleep,” she was saying. “She’ll be all right now, an’ I’ll come back in de mawnin’ to see ’bout her. . . . Goodnight, you-all.”

The old colored woman joined her daughter and they started home, walking through the streets filled with debris and puddles of muddy water reflectingthe moon.

“You’re certainly heavy, boy,” remarked Sandy’s mother to the child she held, but he didn’t answer.

“I’m right glad you come for me, Annjee,” Hager said. “I wonder is yo’ sister all right out yonder at de country club.. . . An’ I was so worried ’bout you I didn’t know what to do—skeared you might a got caught in this twister, ’cause it were cert’ly awful!”

“I was at Tempy’s!” Annjee replied. “And I was nearly crazy, but I just left everythingin the hands o’ God. That’s all.” In silence they walked on, a piece; then hesitantly, to her mother: “There wasn’t any mail for me today, was there, ma?”

“Not a speck!” the old woman replied shortly. “Mail-man passed on by.”

For a few minutes there was silence again as they walked. Then, “It’s goin’ on three weeks he’s been gone, and he ain’t written a line,” the younger woman complained, shifting the child to her right arm. “Seems like Jimboy would let a body know where he is, ma, wouldn’t it?”

“Huh! That ain’t nothin’! He’s been gone before this an’ he ain’t wrote, ain’t he? Here you is worryin’ ’bout a letter from that good-for-nothinghusband o’ your’n an’ there’s ma house settin’ up without a porch to its name! . . . Ain’t you seed what de devil’s done done on earth this evenin’, chile? . . . An’ yet de .rst thingyou ask me ’bout is de mailman! Lawd! Lawd! . . . You an’ that Jimboy!”

Aunt Hager lifted her heavy body over fallen tree-trunks and across puddles, but between puffs she managed to voice her indignation, so Annjee said no more concerningletters from her husband. Instead they went back to the subject of the cyclone. “I’m just thankful, ma, it didn’t blow the whole house down and you with it, that’s all! I was certainly worried! . . . And then you-all was gone when I got home! Gone on out—nursingthat white woman.. . . It’s too bad ’bout poor Mis’ Gavitt, though, and old man Gavitt, ain’t it?”

“Yes, indeedy!” said Aunt Hager. “It’s sho too bad. They was certainly good old white folks! An’ her married niece is takin’ it mighty hard, po’ little soul. I was nigh two hours, her husband an’ me, tryin’ to bring her out o’ de hysterics. Tremblin’ like a lamb all over, she was.” They were turninginto the yard. “Be careful with that chile, Annjee, you don’t trip on none o’ them boards nor branches an’ fall with him.”

“Put me down, ’cause I’m awake,” said Sandy.

The old house looked queer without a porch. In the moonlight he could see the longnails that had held the porch roof to the weatherboarding. His grandmother climbed slowly over the door-sill, and his mother lifted him to the .oor level as Aunt Hager lit the large oil-lamp on the parlor table. Then they went back to the bedroom, where the youngster took off his clothes, said his prayers, and climbed into the high feather bed where he slept with Annjee. Aunt Hager went to the next room, but for a longtime she talked back and forth through the doorway to her daughter about the storm.

“We was just startin’ out fo’ Mis’ Carter’s cellar, me an’ Sandy,” she said several times. “But de Lawd was with us! He held us back! Praise His name! We ain’t harmed, none of us—’ceptin’ I don’t know ’bout ma Harriett at de club. But you’s all right. An’ you say Tempy’s all right, too. An’ I prays that Harriett ain’t been touched out there in de country where she’s workin’. Maybe de storm ain’t passed that way.”

Then they spoke about the white people where Annjee worked . . . and about the elder sister Tempy’s prosperity. Then Sandy heard his grandmother climb into bed, and a few minutes after the springs screaked under her, she had begun to snore. Annjee closed the door between their rooms and slowly began to unlace her wet shoes.

“Sandy,” she whispered, “we ain’t had no word yet from your father since he left. I know he goes away and stays away like this and don’t write, but I’m sure worried. Hope the cyclone ain’t passed nowhere near wherever he is, and I hope ain’t nothin’ hurt him.. . . I’m gonna pray for him, Sandy. I’m gonna ask God right now to take care o’ Jimboy. . . . The Lawd knows, I wants him to come back! . . . I loves him.. . . We both loves him, don’t we child? And we want him to come on back!”

She knelt down beside the bed in her night-dress and kept her head bowed for a long time. Before she got up, Sandy had gone to sleep.

Two

Conversation

It was broad daylight in the town of Stanton and had been for a long time.

“Get out o’ that bed, boy!” Aunt Hager yelled. “Here’s Buster waitin’ out in de yard to play with you, an’ you still sleepin’!”

“Aw, tell him to cut off his curls,” retorted Sandy, but his grandmother was in no mood for fooling.

“Stop talkin’ ’bout that chile’s haid and put yo’ clothes on. Nine o’clock an’ you ain’t up yet! Shame on you!” She shouted from the kitchen, where Sandy could hear the .re crackling and smell coffee boiling.

He kicked the sheet off with his bare feet and rolled over and over on the soft feather tick. There was plenty of room to roll now, because his mother had long since got up and gone to Mrs. J. J. Rice’s to work.

“Tell Bus I’m coming,” Sandy yelled, jumping into his trousers and running with bare feet towards the door. “Is he got his marbles?”

“Come back here, sir, an’ put them shoes on,” cried Hager, stopping him on his way out. “Yo’ feet’ll get long as yard-sticks and .at as pancakes runnin’ round barefooted all de time. An’ wash yo’ face, sir. Buster ain’t got a thing to do but wait. An’ eat yo’ breakfast.”

The air was warm with sunlight, and hundreds of purple and white morning-glories laughed on the back fence. Earth and sky were fresh and clean after the heavy night-rain, and the young corn-shoots stood straight in the garden, and green pea-vines wound themselves around their crooked sticks. There was the mingled scent of wet soil and golden pollen on the breeze that blew carelessly through the clear air.

Buster sat under the green apple-tree with a pile of black mud from the alley in front of him.

“Hey, Sandy, gonna make marbles and put ’em in the sun to dry,” he said.

“All right,” agreed Sandy, and they began to roll mud balls in the palms of their hands. But instead of putting them in the sun to dry they threw them against the back of the house, where they flattened and stuck beautifully. Then they began to throw them at each other.

Sandy’s playmate was a small ivory-white Negro child with straight golden hair, which his mother made him wear in curls. His eyes were blue and doll-like and he in no way resembled a colored youngster; but he was colored. Sandy himself was the shade of a nicely browned piece of toast, with dark, brown-black eyes and a head of rather kinky, sandy hair that would lie smooth only after a rigorous application of vaseline and water. That was why folks called him Annjee’s sandy-headed child, and then just—Sandy.

“He takes after his father,” Sister Lowry said, “ ’cept he’s not so light. But he’s gonna be a mighty good-lookin’ boy when he grows up, that’s sho!”

“Well, I hopes he does,” Aunt Hager said. “But I’d rather he’d be ugly ’fore he turns out anything like that good-for-nothing Jimboy what comes here an’ stays a month, goes away an’ stays six, an’ don’t hit a tap o’ work ’cept when he feels like it. If it wasn’t for Annjee, don’t know how we’d eat, ’cause Sandy’s father sho don’t do nothin’ to support him.”

All the colored people in Stanton knew that Hager bore no love for Jimboy Rogers, the tall good-looking yellow fellow whom her second daughter had married.

“First place, I don’t like his name,” she would say in private. “Who ever heard of a nigger named Jimboy, anyhow? Next place, I ain’t never seen a yaller dude yet that meant a dark woman no good—an’ Annjee is dark!” Aunt Hager had other objections, too, although she didn’t like to talk evil about folks. But what she probably referred to in her mind was the question of his ancestry, for nobody knew who Jimboy’s parents were.

“Sandy, look out for the house while I run down an’ see how is Mis’ Gavitt’s niece. An’ you-all play outdoors. Don’t bringno chillen in, litterin’ up de place.” About eleven o’clock Aunt Hager pulled a dust-cap over her head and put on a clean white apron. “Here, tie it for me, chile,” she said, turning her broad back. “An’ mind you don’t hurt yo’self on no rusty nails and rotten boards left from de storm. I’ll be back atter while.” And she disappeared around the house, walkingproudly, her black face shiningin the sunlight.

Presently the two boys under the apple-tree were joined by a coal-colored little girl who lived next door, one Willie-Mae Johnson, and the mud balls under her hands became mud pies carefully rounded and patted and placed in the sun on the small box where the little chickens lived. Willie-Mae was the mama, Sandy the papa, and Buster the baby as the old game of “playing house” began anew.

By and by the mail-man’s whistle blew and the three children scampered towards the sidewalk to meet him. The carrier handed Sandy a letter. “Take it in the house,” he said. But instead the youngsters sat on the front-door-sill, their feet dangling where the porch had been, and began to examine the envelope.

“I bet that’s Lincoln’s picture,” said Buster.

“No, ’taint,” declared Willie-Mae. “It’s Rossiefelt!”

“Aw, it’s Washington,” said Sandy. “And don’t you-all touch my mama’s letter with your hands all muddy. It might be from my papa, you can’t tell, and she wants it kept clean.”

“ ’Tis from Jimboy,” Aunt Hager declared when she returned, accompanied by her old friend, Sister Whiteside, who peddled on foot fresh garden-truck she raised herself. Aunt Hager had met her at the corner.

“I knows his writin’,” went on Hager. “An’ it’s got a postmark, K-A-N-, Kansas City! That’s what ’tis! Niggers sho do love Kansas City! . . . Huh! . . . So that’s where he’s at. Well, yo’ mama’ll be glad to get it. If she knowed it was here, she’d quit work an’ come home now. . . . Sit down, Whiteside. We gwine eat in a few minutes. You better have a bite with us an’ stay an’ rest yo’self awhile, ’cause I knows you been walkin’ this mawnin’!”

“ ’Deed I is,” the old sister declared, droppingher basket of lettuce and peas on the .oor and takinga chair next to the table in the kitchen. “An’ I ain’t sold much neither. Seems like folks ain’t got no buyin’ appetite after all that storm an’ wind last night—but de Lawd will provide! I ain’t worried.”

“That’s right,” agreed Hager. “Might o’ been me blowed away maself, ’stead o’ just ma porch, if Jesus hadn’t been with us.. . . You Sandy! Make haste and wash yo’ hands, sir. Rest o’ you chillens go on home, ’cause I know yo’ ma’s lookin’ for you.. . . Huh! This wood fire’s mighty low!”

Hager uncovered a pot that had been simmering on the stove all morningand dished up a great bowlful of black-eyed peas and salt pork. There was biscuit bread left from breakfast. A plate of youngonions and a pitcher of lemonade stood on the white oilcloth-covered table. Heads were automatically bowed.

“Lawd, make us thankful for this food. For Christ’s sake, amen,” said Hager; then the two old women and the child began to eat.

“That’s Elvira’s boy, ain’t it—that yaller-headed young-one was here playin’ with Sandy?” Sister Whiteside had her mouth full of onions and beans as she asked the question.

“Shsss! . . . That’s her child!” said Hager. “But it ain’t Eddie’s!” She gave her guest a meaning glance across the table, then lowered her voice, pretendingall the while that Sandy’s ears were too youngto hear. “They say she had that chile ’fore she married Eddie. An’ black as Eddie is, you knows an’ I knows ain’t due to be no golden hair in de family!”

“I knowed there must be somethingfunny,” whispered the old sister, screwingup her face. “That’s some white man’s chile!”

“Sho it is!” agreed Hager. . . . “I knowed it all de time. . . . Have some mo’ meat, Whiteside. Help yo’self! We ain’t got much, but such as ’tis, you’re welcome.. . . Yes, sir, Buster’s somewhiteman’s chile. . . . Stop reachin’ cross de table for bread, Sandy. Where’s yo’ manners, sir? I declare, chillens do try you sometimes.. . . Pass me de onions.”

“Truth, they tries you, yit I gits right lonesome since all ma young-ones is gone.” Sister Whiteside worked her few good teeth vigorously, took a longswallow of lemonade, and smacked her lips. “Chillen an’ grandchillen all in Chicago an’ St. Louis an’ Wichita, an’ nary chick nor child left with me in de house.. . . Pass me de bread, thank yuh. . . . I feels kinder sad an’ sorry at times, po’ widder-woman that I is. I has ma garden an’ ma hens, but all ma chillens done grown and married.. . . Where’s yo’ daughter Harriett at now, Hager? Is she married, too? I ain’t seen her lately.”

Hager pulled a meat skin through her teeth; then she answered: “No, chile, she too youngto marry yet! Ain’t but sixteen, but she’s been workin’ out this summer, waitin’ table at de Stanton County Country Club. Been in de country three weeks now, since school closed, but she comes in town on Thursdays, though. It’s nigh six miles from here, so de women-help sleeps there at night. I’s glad she’s out there, Sister. Course Harriett’s a good girl, but she likes to be frisky—wants to run de streets ’tendin’ parties an’ dances, an’ I can’t do much with her no mo’, though I hates to say it.”

“But she’s a songster, Hager! An’ I hears she’s sho one smart chile, besides. They say she’s up with them white folks when it comes to books. An’ de high school where she’s goin’ ain’t easy. . . . All ma young ones quit ’fore they got through with it—wouldn’t go —ruther have a good time runnin’ to Kansas City an’ galavantin’ round.”

“De Lawd knows it’s a hard job, keepin’ colored chillens in school, Sister Whiteside, a mighty hard job. De niggers don’t help ’em, an’ de white folks don’t care if they stay or not. An’ when they gets along sixteen an’ seventeen, they wants this, an’ they wants that, an’ t’other— an’ when you ain’t got it to give to ’em, they quits school an’ goes to work.. . . Harriett say she ain’t goin’ back next fall. I feels right hurt over it, but she ’clares she ain’t goin’ back to school. Says there ain’t no use in learnin’ books fo’ nothin’ but to work in white folks’ kitchens when she’s graduated.”

“Do she, Hager? I’s sho sorry! I’s gwine to talk to that gal. Get Reverend Berry to talk to her, too.. . . You’s struggled to bring up yo’ chillens, an’ all we Christians in de church ought to help you! I gwine see Reverend Berry, see can’t he ’suade her to stay in school.” The old woman reached for the onions. “But you ain’t never raised no boys, though, has you, Hager?”

“No. I ain’t. My two boy-chillens both died ’fore they was ten. Just these three girls—Tempy, an’ Annjee, an’ Harriett—that’s all I got. An’ this here grandchile, Sandy. . . . Take yo’ hands off that meat, sir! You had ’nough!”

“Lawd, you’s been lucky! I done raised seven grandchillen ’sides eight o’ ma own. An’ they don’t thank me. No, sir! Go off and kick up they heels an’ git married an’ don’t thank me a bit! Don’t even write, some of ’em.. . . Waitin’ fo’ me to die, I reckon, so’s they can squabble over de little house I owns an’ ma garden.” The old visitor pushed back her chair. “Huh! Yo’ dinner was sho good! . . . Waitin’ fo’ me to die.”

“Unhuh! . . . That’s de way with ’em, Sister Whiteside. Chillens don’t care—but I reckon we old ones can’t kick much. They’s got to get off fo’ themselves. It’s natural, that’s what ’tis. Now, my Tempy, she’s married and doin’ well. Got a .ne house, an’ her husband’s a mail-clerk in de civil service makin’ good money. They don’t ’sociate no mo’ with none but de high-toned colored folks, like Dr. Mitchell, an’ Mis’ Ada Walls, an’ Madam C. Frances Smith. Course Tempy don’t come to see me much ’cause I still earns ma livin’ with ma arms in de tub. But Annjee run in their house out o’ the storm last night an’ she say Tempy’s just bought a new pianer, an’ de house looks .ne.. . . I’s glad fo’ de chile.”

“Sho, sho you is, Sister Williams, you’s a good mother an’ I knows you’s glad. But I hears from Reverend Berry that Tempy’s done withdrawed from our church an’ joined de Episcopals!”

“That’s right! She is. Last time I seed Tempy, she told me she couldn’t stand de Baptist no mo’—too many low niggers belonging, she say, so she’s gonna join Father Hill’s church, where de best people go.. . . I told her I didn’t think much o’ joinin’ a church, so far away from God that they didn’t want nothin’ but yaller niggers for members, an’ so full o’ forms an’ fashions that a good Christian couldn’t shout—but she went on an’ joined. It’s de stylish temple, that’s why, so I ain’t said no mo’. Tempy’s goin’ on thirty-five now, she’s ma oldest chile, an’ I reckon she knows how she wants to act.”

“Yes, I reckon she do.. . . But there ain’t no church like de Baptist, praise God! Is there, Sister? If you ain’t been dipped in that water an’ half drowned, you ain’t saved. Tempy don’t know like we do. No, sir, she don’t know!”

There was no fruit or dessert, and the soiled plates were not removed from the table for a longtime, for the two old women, talkingabout their children, had forgotten the dishes. Young flies crawled over the biscuit bread and hummed above the bowl of peas, while the wood .re died in the stove, and Sandy went out into the sunshine to play.

“Now, ma girl, Maggie,” said Sister Whiteside; “de man she married done got to be a big lawyer in St. Louis. He’s in de politics there, an’ Maggie’s got a .ne job herself—social servin’, they calls it. But I don’t hear from her once a year. An’ she don’t send me a dime. Ma boys looks out for me, though, sometimes, round Christmas. There’s Lucius, what runs on de railroad, an’ then Andrew, what rides de horses, an’ John, in Omaha, sends me a little change now an’ then—all but Charlie, an’ he never was thoughtful ’bout his mother. He ain’t never sent me nothin’.”

“Well, you sho is lucky,” said Hager; “ ’cause they ain’t no money comes in this house, Christmas nor no other time, less’n me an’ Annjee brings it here. Jimboy ain’t no good, an’ what Harriett makes goes for clothes and parties an’ powderin’-rags. Course, I takes some from her every week, but I gives it right back for her school things. An’ I ain’t taken nothin’ from her these three weeks she’s been workin’ at de club. She say she’s savin’ her money herself. She’s past sixteen now, so I lets her have it.. . . Po’ little thing! . . . She does need to look purty.” Hager’s voice softened and her dark old face was half abashed, kind and smiling. “You know, last month I bought her a gold watch—surprise fo’ her birthday, de kind you hangs on a little pin on yo’ waist. Lawd knows, I couldn’t ’ford it—took all de money from three week’s o’ washin’, but I knowed she’d been wantin’ a watch. An’ this front room—I moved ma bed out last year an’ bought that new rug at de second-hand store an’ them lace curtains so’s she could have a nice place to entertain her comp’ny. . . . But de chile goes with such a kinder wild crowd o’ young folks, Sister Whiteside! It worries me! The boys, they cusses, an’ the girls, they paints, an’ some of ’em live in de Bottoms. I been tried to get her out of it right along, but seems like I can’t. That’s why I’s glad she’s in de country fo’ de summer an’ comes in but only once a week, an’ then she’s home with me. It’s too far to come in town at night, she say, so she gets her rest now, goin’ to bed early an’ all, with de country air round her. I hopes she calms down from runnin’ round when she comes back here to stay in de fall.. . . She’s a good chile. She don’t lie to me ’bout where she goes, nor nothin’ like that, but she’s just wild, that’s all, just wild.”

“Is she a Christian, Sister Williams?”

“No, she ain’t. I’s sorry to say it of a chile o’ mine, but she ain’t. She’s been on de moaner’s bench time after time, Sunday mawnin’s an’ prayer-meetin’ evenin’s, but she never would rise. I prays for her.”

“Well, when she takes Jesus, she’ll see de light! That’s what de matter with her, Sister Williams, she ain’t felt Him yit. Make her go to church when she comes back here.. . . I reckon you heard ’bout when de big revival’s due to come off this year, ain’t you?”

“No, I ain’t, not yet.”

“Great colored tent-meetin’ with de Battle-Ax of de Lawd, Reverend Braswell preachin’! Yes, Sir! Gwine start August eighteenth in de Hickory Woods yonder by de edge o’ town.”

“Good news,” cried Hager. “Mo’ sinners than enough’s in need o’ savin’. I’s gwine to take Sandy an’ get him started right with de Lawd. An’ if that onery Jimboy’s back here, I gwine make him go, too, an’ look Jesus in de face. Annjee an’ me’s saved, chile! . . . You Sandy, bringus some drinkin’-water from de pump.” Aunt Hager rapped on the window with her knuckles to the boy playingoutside! “An’ stop wrastlin’ with that gal.”

Sandy rose triumphant from the prone body of black little Willie-Mae, lyingsquallingon the cinder-path near the back gate. “She started it,” he yelled, running towards the pump. The girl began a reply, but at that moment a rickety wagon drawn by a white mule and driven by a grey-haired, leather-colored old man came rattling down the alley.

“Hy, there, Hager!” called the old Negro, tightening his reins on the mule, which immediately began to eat corn-tops over the back fence. “How you been treatin’ yo’self?”

“Right tolable,” cried Hager, for she and Sister Whiteside had both emerged from the kitchen and were approaching the driver. “How you doin’, Brother Logan?”

“Why, if here ain’t Sis’ Whiteside, too!” said the old beau, sittingup straight on his wagon-seat and showing a row of ivory teeth in a wide grin. “I’s doin’ purty well for a po’ widower what ain’t got nobody to bake his bread. Doin’ purty well. Hee! Hee! None o’ you all ain’t sorry for me, is you? How de storm treat you, Hager? . . . Says it carried off yo’ porch? . . . That’s certainly too bad! Well, it did some o’ these white folks worse’n that. I got ’nough work to do to last me de next fo’ weeks, cleanin’ up yards an’ haulin’ off trash, me an’ dis mule here.. . . How’s yo’ chillen, Sis’ Williams?”

“Oh, they all right, thank yuh. Annjee’s still at Mis’ Rice’s, an’ Harriet’s in de country at de club.”