But a very unexpected stab at the girl’s pride had come only a few weeks ago when she had gone with her classmates, on tickets issued by the school, to see an educational film of the undersea world at the Palace Theatre, on Main Street. It was a special performance given for the students, and each class had had seats allotted to them beforehand; so Harriett sat with her class and had begun to enjoy immensely the strange wonders of the ocean depths when an usher touched her on the shoulder.
“The last three rows on the left are for colored,” the girl in the uniform said.
“I—But—But I’m with my class,” Harriett stammered. “We’re all supposed to sit here.”
“I can’t help it,” insisted the usher, pointing towards the rear of the theatre, while her voice carried everywhere. “Them’s the house rules. No argument now—you’ll have to move.”
So Harriett rose and stumbled up the dark aisle and out into the sunlight, her slender body hot with embarrassment and rage. The teacher saw her leave the theatre without a word of protest, and none of her white classmates defended her for being black. They didn’t care.
“All white people are alike, in school and out,” Harriett concluded bitterly, as she told of her experiences to the folks sitting with her on the porch in the dark.
Once, when she had worked for a Mrs. Leonard Baker on Martin Avenue, she accidentally broke a precious cut-glass pitcher used to serve some out-of-town guests. And when she tried to apologize for the accident, Mrs. Baker screamed in a rage: “Shut up, you impudent little black wench! Talking back to me after breaking up my dishes. All you darkies are alike—careless sluts—and I wouldn’t have a one of you in my house if I could get anybody else to work for me without paying a fortune. You’re all impossible.”
“So that’s the way white people feel,” Harriett said to Aunt Hager and Sister Johnson and Jimboy, while the two children listened. “They wouldn’t have a single one of us around if they could help it. It don’t matter to them if we’re shut out of a job. It don’t matter to them if niggers have only the back row at the movies. It don’t matter to them when they hurt our feelings without caring and treat us like slaves down South and like beggars up North. No, it don’t matter to them. … White folks run the world, and the only thing colored folks are expected to do is work and grin and take off their hats as though it don’t matter. … O, I hate ’em!” Harriett cried, so fiercely that Sandy was afraid. “I hate white folks!” she said to everybody on the porch in the darkness. “You can pray for ’em if you want to, mama, but I hate ’em! … I hate white folks! … I hate ’em all!”
VIII
Dance
Mrs. J. J. Rice and family usually spent ten days during the August heat at Lake Dale, and thither they had gone now, giving Annjee a forced vacation with no pay. Jimboy was not working, and so his wife found ten days of rest without income not especially agreeable. Nevertheless, she decided that she might as well enjoy the time; so she and Jimboy went to the country for a week with Cousin Jessie, who had married one of the colored farmers of the district. Besides, Annjee thought that Jimboy might help on the farm and so make a little money. Anyway, they would get plenty to eat, because Jessie kept a good table. And since Jessie had eight children of her own, they did not take Sandy with them—eight were enough for a woman to be worried with at one time!
Aunt Hager had been ironing all day on the Reinharts’ clothes—it was Friday. At seven o’clock Harriett came home, but she had already eaten her supper at the restaurant where she worked.
“Hello, mama! Hy, Sandy!” she said, but that was all, because she and her mother were not on the best of terms. Aunt Hager was attempting to punish her youngest daughter by not allowing her to leave the house after dark, since Harriett, on Tuesday night, had been out until one o’clock in the morning with no better excuse than a party at Maudel’s. Aunt Hager had threatened to whip her then and there that night.
“You ain’t had a switch on yo’ hide fo’ three years, but don’t think you’s gettin’ too big fo’ me not to fan yo’ behind, madam. ‘Spare de rod an’ spoil de chile,’ that’s what de Bible say, an’ Lawd knows you sho is spoiled! De idee of a young gal yo’ age stayin’ out till one o’clock in de mawnin’, an’ me not knowed where you’s at. … Don’t you talk back to me! … You rests in this house ever’ night this week an’ don’t put yo’ foot out o’ this yard after you comes from work, that’s what you do. Lawd knows I don’t know what I’s gonna do with you. I works fo’ you an’ I prays fo’ you, an’ if you don’t mind, I’s sho gonna whip you, even if you is goin’ on seventeen years old!”
Tonight as soon as she came from work Harriett went into her mother’s room and lay across the bed. It was very warm in the little four-room house, and all the windows and doors were open.
“We’s got some watermelon here, daughter,” Hager called from the kitchen. “Don’t you want a nice cool slice?”
“No,” the girl replied. She was fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan, her legs in their cheap silk stockings hanging over the side of
