“Some o’ Maudel’s makin’s, that dress—anybody can tell,” her mother went on quarrelling. “Short an’ shameless as it can be! Regular bad gal’s dress, that’s what ’tis. … What you puttin’ it on fo’ anyhow, an’ I done told you you ain’t goin’ out? You must think I don’t mean ma words. Ain’t more’n sixteen last April an’ runnin’ to barbecues at Willer Grove! De idee! When I was yo’ age, wasn’t up after eight o’clock, ’ceptin’ Sundays in de church house, that’s all. … Lawd knows where you young ones is headin’. An’ me prayin’ an’ washin’ ma fingers to de bone to keep a roof over yo’ head.”
The sharp honk of an automobile horn sounded from the street. A big red car, full of laughing brown girls gaily dressed, and coatless, slick-headed black boys in green and yellow silk shirts, drew up at the curb. Somebody squeezed the bulb of the horn a second time and another loud and saucy honk! struck the ears.
“You, Sandy,” Hager commanded. “Run out there an’ tell them niggers to leave here, ’cause Harriett ain’t goin’ no place.”
But Sandy did not move, because his young and slender aunt had gripped him firmly by the collar while she searched feverishly in the dresser-drawer for a scarf. She pulled it out, long and flame-colored, with fiery, silky fringe, before she released the little boy.
“You ain’t gwine a step this evenin’!” Hager shouted. “Don’t you hear me?”
“O, no?” said Harriett coolly, in a tone that cut like knives. “You’re the one that says I’m not going—but I am!”
Then suddenly something happened in the room—the anger fell like a veil from Hager’s face, disclosing aged, helpless eyes full of fear and pain.
“Harriett, honey, I wants you to be good,” the old woman stammered. The words came pitiful and low—not a command any longer—as she faced her terribly alive young daughter in the ruffled blue dress and the red silk stockings. “I just wants you to grow up decent, chile. I don’t want you runnin’ to Willer Grove with them boys. It ain’t no place fo’ you in the nighttime—an’ you knows it. You’s mammy’s baby girl. She wants you to be good, honey, and follow Jesus, that’s all.”
The baritone giggling of the boys in the auto came across the yard as Hager started to put a timid, restraining hand on her daughter’s shoulder—but Harriett backed away.
“You old fool!” she cried. “Lemme go! You old Christian fool!”
She ran through the door and across the sidewalk to the waiting car, where the arms of the young men welcomed her eagerly. The big machine sped swiftly down the street and the rapid sput! sput! sput! of its engine grew fainter and fainter. Finally, the auto was only a red taillight in the summer dusk. Sandy, standing beside his grandmother in the doorway, watched it until it disappeared.
V
Guitar
Throw yo’ arms around me, baby.
Like de circle round de sun!
Baby, throw yo’ arms around me
Like de circle round de sun,
An’ tell yo’ pretty papa
How you want yo’ lovin’ done!
Jimboy was home. All the neighborhood could hear his rich low baritone voice giving birth to the blues. On Saturday night he and Annjee went to bed early. On Sunday night Aunt Hager said: “Put that guitar right up, less’n it’s hymns you plans on playin’. An’ I don’t want too much o’ them, ’larmin’ de white neighbors.”
But this was Monday, and the sun had scarcely fallen below the horizon before the music had begun to float down the alley, over back fences and into kitchen-windows where nice white ladies sedately washed their supper dishes.
Did you ever see peaches
Growin’ on a watermelon vine?
Says did you ever see peaches
On a watermelon vine?
Did you ever see a woman
That I couldn’t get for mine?
Long, lazy length resting on the kitchen-door-sill, back against the jamb, feet in the yard, fingers picking his sweet guitar, left hand holding against its fingerboard the back of an old pocketknife, sliding the knife upward, downward, getting thus weird croons and sighs from the vibrating strings:
O, I left ma mother
An’ I cert’ly can leave you.
Indeed I left ma mother
An’ I cert’ly can leave you,
For I’d leave any woman
That mistreats me like you do.
Jimboy, remembering brown-skin mamas in Natchez, Shreveport, Dallas; remembering Creole women in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:
O, yo’ windin’ an’ yo’ grindin’
Don’t have no effect on me,
Babe, yo’ windin’ an’ yo’ grindin’
Don’t have no ’fect on me,
’Cause I can wind an’ grind
Like a monkey round a coconut-tree!
Then Harriett, standing under the ripening apple-tree, in the backyard, chiming in:
Now I see that you don’t want me,
So it’s fare thee, fare thee well!
Lawd, I see that you don’t want me,
So it’s fare—thee—well!
I can still get plenty lovin’.
An’ you can go to—Kansas City!
“O, play it, sweet daddy Jimboy!” She began to dance.
Then Hager, from her seat on the edge of the platform covering the well, broke out: “Here, madam! Stop that prancin’! Bad enough to have all this singin’ without turnin’ de yard into a show-house.” But Harriett kept on, her hands picking imaginary cherries out of the stars, her hips speaking an earthly language quite their own.
“You got it, kid,” said Jimboy, stopping suddenly, then fingering his instrument for another tune. “You do it like the stage women does. You’ll be takin’ Ada Walker’s place if you keep on.”
“Wha! Wha! … You chillen sho can sing!” Tom Johnson shouted his compliments from across the yard. And Sarah, beside him on the bench behind their shack, added: “Minds me o’ de ole plantation times, honey! It sho do!”
“Unhuh! Bound straight fo’ de devil, that’s what they is,” Hager returned calmly from her place beside the pump. “You an’ Harriett both—singin’ an’ dancin’ this stuff befo’ these chillens here.” She pointed to Sandy and Willie-Mae, who sat on the ground with their backs against the chicken-box. “It’s a shame!”
“I likes it,” said Willie-Mae.
“Me too,” the little boy agreed.
“Naturally you would—none
