“You, Sandy,” Aunt Hager called loudly from the kitchen-door. “Come in here an’ get me some water an’ cut mo’ firewood.” Her black face was wet with perspiration and drawn from fatigue and worry. “I got to get the rest o’ these clothes out yet this evenin’. … That Chile Harriett’s aggravatin’ me to death! Help me, Sandy, honey.”
They ate supper in silence, for Hager’s attempts at conversation with her young daughter were futile. Once the old woman said: “That onery Jimboy’s comin’ home Saturday,” and Harriett’s face brightened a moment.
“Gee, I’m glad,” she replied, and then her mouth went sullen again. Sandy began uncomfortably to kick the tableleg.
“For Christ’s sake!” The girl frowned, and the child stopped, hurt that his favorite aunt should yell at him peevishly for so slight an offense.
“Lawd knows, I wish you’d try an’ be mo’ like yo’ sisters, Annjee an’ Tempy,” Hager began as she washed the dishes, while Harriett stood near the stove, cloth in hand, waiting to dry them. “Here I is, an old woman, an’ you tries ma soul! After all I did to raise you, you don’t even hear me when I speak.” It was the old theme again, without variation. “Now, there’s Annjee, ain’t a better chile livin’—if she warn’t crazy ’bout Jimboy. An’ Tempy married an’ doin’ well, an’ respected ever’where. … An’ you runnin’ wild!”
“Tempy?” Harriett sneered suddenly, pricked by this comparison. “So respectable you can’t touch her with a ten-foot pole, that’s Tempy! … Annjee’s all right, working herself to death at Mrs. Rice’s, but don’t tell me about Tempy. Just because she’s married a mail-clerk with a little property, she won’t even see her own family any more. When niggers get up in the world, they act just like white folks—don’t pay you no mind. And Tempy’s that kind of a nigger—she’s up in the world now!”
“Close yo’ mouth, talking that way ’bout yo’ own sister! I ain’t asked her to be always comin’ home, is I, if she’s satisfied in her own house?”
“No, you aren’t asking her, mama, but you’re always talking about her being so respectable. … Well, I don’t want to be respectable if I have to be stuck up and dicty like Tempy is. … She’s colored and I’m colored and I haven’t seen her since before Easter. … It’s not being black that matters with her, though, it’s being poor, and that’s what we are, you and me and Annjee, working for white folks and washing clothes and going in back doors, and taking tips and insults. I’m tired of it, mama! I want to have a good time once in a while.”
“That’s ’bout all you does have is a good time,” Hager said. “An’ it ain’t right, an’ it ain’t Christian, that’s what it ain’t! An’ de Lawd is takin’ notes on you!” The old woman picked up the heavy iron skillet and began to wash it inside and out.
“Aw, the church has made a lot of you old Negroes act like Salvation Army people,” the girl returned, throwing the dried knives and forks on the table. “Afraid to even laugh on Sundays, afraid for a girl and boy to look at one another, or for people to go to dances. Your old Jesus is white, I guess, that’s why! He’s white and stiff and don’t like niggers!”
Hager gasped while Harriett went on excitedly, disregarding her mother’s pain: “Look at Tempy, the highest-class Christian in the family—Episcopal, and so holy she can’t even visit her own mother. Seems like all the good-time people are bad, and all the old Uncle Toms and mean, dried-up, long-faced niggers fill the churches. I don’t never intend to join a church if I can help it.”
“Have mercy on this chile! Help her an’ save her from hellfire! Change her heart, Jesus!” the old woman begged, standing in the middle of the kitchen with uplifted arms. “God have mercy on ma daughter.”
Harriett, her brow wrinkled in a steady frown, put the dishes away, wiped the table, and emptied the water with a splash through the kitchen-door. Then she went into the bedroom that she shared with her mother, and began to undress. Sandy saw, beneath her thin white underclothes, the soft black skin of her shapely young body.
“Where you goin’?” Hager asked sharply.
“Out,” said the girl.
“Out where?”
“O, to a barbecue at Willow Grove, mama! The boys are coming by in an auto at seven o’clock.”
“What boys?”
“Maudel’s brother and some fellows.”
“You ain’t goin’ a step!”
A pair of curling-irons swung in the chimney of the lighted lamp on the dresser. Harriett continued to get ready. She was making bangs over her forehead, and the scent of scorching hair-oil drifted by Sandy’s nose.
“Up half de night in town Monday, an’ de Lawd knows how late ever’ night in de country, an’ then you comes home to run out agin! … You ain’t goin’!” continued her mother.
Harriett was pulling on a pair of red silk stockings, bright and shimmering to her hips.
“You quit singin’ in de church choir. You say you ain’t goin’ back to school. You won’t keep no job! Now what is you gonna do? Yo’ pappy said years ago, ’fore he died, you was too purty to ’mount to anything, but I ain’t believed him. His last dyin’ words was: ‘Look out fo’ ma baby Harriett.’ You was his favourite chile. … Now look at you! Runnin’ de streets an’ wearin’ red silk stockings!” Hager trembled. “Spose yo’ pappy was to come back an’ see you?”
Harriett powdered her face and neck, pink on ebony, dashed white talcum at each armpit, and rubbed her ears with perfume from a thin bottle. Then she slid a light-blue dress of many ruffles over her head. The skirt ended midway between the ankle and the knee, and she looked very cute, delicate, and straight,
