That afternoon at school they had a long drill on the multiplication table, and then they had a spelling-match, because the teacher said that would be a good way to find out what the children knew. For the spelling-bee they were divided into two sides—the boys and the girls, each side lining up against an opposite wall. Then the teacher gave out words that they should have learned in the lower grades. On the boys’ side everyone was spelled down except Sandy, but on the girls’ side there were three proud little white girls left standing and Sandy came near spelling them down, too, until he put the e before i in “chief,” and the girls’ side won, to the disgust of the boys, and the two colored girls, who wanted Sandy to win.
After school Sandy went uptown with Buster to buy books, but there was so large a crowd of children in the bookstore that it was five o’clock before he was waited on and his list filled. When he reached home, Aunt Hager was at the kitchen-stove frying an eggplant for supper.
“You stayin’ out mighty long,” she said without taking her attention from the stove.
“Where’s papa?” Sandy asked eagerly. He wanted to show Jimboy his new books—a big geography, with pictures of animals in it, and a Nature Story Reader that he knew his father would like to see.
“Look in yonder,” said Hager, pointing towards Annjee’s bedroom.
Sandy rushed in, then stopped, because there was no one there. Suddenly a queer feeling came over him and he put his books down on the bed. Jimboy’s clothes were no longer hanging against the wall where his working-shirts and overalls were kept. Then Sandy looked under the bed. His father’s old suitcase was not there either, nor his work-shoes, nor his Sunday patent-leathers. And the guitar was missing.
“Where’s papa?” he asked again, running back to the kitchen.
“Can’t you see he ain’t here?” replied his grandmother, busily turning slices of eggplant with great care in the skillet. “Gone—that’s where he is—a lazy nigger. Told me to tell Annjee he say goodbye, ’cause his travellin’ blues done come on … ! Huh! Jimboy’s yo’ pappy, chile, but he sho ain’t worth his salt! … an’ I’s right glad he’s took his clothes an’ left here, maself.”
XII
Hard Winter
September passed and the cornstalks in the garden were cut. There were no more apples left on the trees, and chilly rains came to beat down the falling leaves from the maples and the elms. Cold and drearily wet October passed, too, with no hint of Indian summer or golden forests. And as yet there was no word from the departed Jimboy. Annjee worried herself sick, as usual, hoping every day that a letter would come from this wandering husband whom she loved. And each night she hurried home from Mrs. Rice’s, looked on the parlor table for the mail, and found none. Harriett had not written, either, since she went away with the carnival, and Hager never mentioned her youngest daughter’s name. Nor did Hager mention Jimboy except when Annjee asked her, after she could hold it no longer: “Are you sure the mailman ain’t left me a letter today?” And then Aunt Hager would reply impatiently: “You think I’d a et it if he did? You know that good-for-nothin’, upsettin’ scoundrel ain’t wrote!”
But in spite of daily disappointments from the postal service Annjee continued to rush from Mrs. Rice’s hot kitchen as soon after dinner as she could and to trudge through the chill October rains, anxious to feel in the mailbox outside her door, then hope against hope for a letter inside on the little front-room table—which would always be empty. She caught a terrible cold tramping through the damp streets, forgetting to button her cloak, then sitting down with her wet shoes on when she got home, a look of dumb disappointment in her eyes, too tired and unhappy to remove her clothes.
“You’s a fool,” said her mother, whose tongue was often much sharper than the meaning behind it. “Mooning after a worthless nigger like Jimboy. I tole you years ago he was no good, when he first come, lookin’ like he ought to be wearin’ short pants, an’ out here courtin’ you. Ain’t none o’ them bellhoppin’, racehoss-followin’ kind o’ darkies worth havin’, an’ that’s all Jimboy was when you married him an’ he ain’t much mo’n that now. An’ you older’n he is, too!”
“But you know why I married, don’t you?”
“You, Sandy, go outdoors an’ get me some wood fo’ this stove. … Yes, I knows why, because he were de father o’ that chile you was ’bout to bring here, but I don’t see why it couldn’t just well been some o’ these steady, hard-workin’ Stanton young men’s what was courtin’ you at de same time. … But, chile or no chile, I couldn’t hear nothin’ but Jimboy, Jimboy, Jimboy! I told you you better stay in de high school an’ get your edication, but no, you had to marry this Jimboy. Now you see what you got, don’t you?”
“Well, he ain’t been so bad, ma! And I don’t care, I love him!”
“Umn-huh! Try an’ live on love, daughter! Just try an’ live on love. … You’s made a mistake, that’s all, honey. … But I guess there ain’t no use talkin’ ’bout it now. Take off yo’ wet shoes ’fore you catch yo’ death o’ cold!”
On Thanksgiving at Mrs. Rice’s, so Annjee reported, they had turkey with chestnut dressing; but at Aunt Hager’s she and Sandy had a nice juicy possum, a present from old man Logan, parboiled and baked sweet and brown with yams in the pan. Aunt Hager opened a jar of peach preserves. And she told Sandy to ask Jimmy Lane in to dinner because, since his mother died, he wasn’t faring so well and the people he was staying with didn’t care much about
