The week after Thanksgiving Annjee fell ill and had to go to bed. She had the grippe, Aunt Hager said, and she began to dose her with quinine and to put hot mustard-plasters on her back and gave her onion syrup to drink, but it didn’t seem to do much good, and finally she had to send Sandy for Dr. McDillors.
“System’s all run down,” said the doctor. “Heavy cold on the chest—better be careful. And stay in the bed!” But the warning was unnecessary. Annjee felt too tired and weak ever to rise, and only the mailman’s whistle blowing at somebody else’s house would cause her to try to lift her head. Then she would demand weakly: “Did he stop here?”
Hager’s home now was like a steam laundry. The kitchen was always hung with lines of clothes to dry, and in the late afternoon and evenings the ironing-board was spread from the table to a chair-back in the middle of the floor. All of the old customers were sending their clothes to Hager again during the winter. And since Annjee was sick, bringing no money into the house on Saturdays, the old woman had even taken an extra washing to do. Being the only wage-earner, Hager kept the suds flying—but with the wet weather she had to dry the clothes in the kitchen most of the time, and when Sandy came home from school for lunch, he would eat under dripping lines of white folks’ garments while he listened to his mother coughing in the next room.
In the other rooms of the house there were no stoves, so the doors were kept open in order that the heat might pass through from the kitchen. They couldn’t afford to keep more than one fire going; therefore the kitchen was living-room, dining-room, and workroom combined. In the mornings Sandy would jump out of bed and run with his clothes in his hands to the kitchen-stove, where his grandmother would have the fire blazing, the coffeepot on, and a great tub of water heating for the washings. And in the evenings after supper he would open his geography and read about the strange countries far away, the book spread out on the oilcloth-covered kitchen-table. And Aunt Hager, if her ironing was done, would sit beside the stove and doze, while Annjee tossed and groaned in her chilly bedroom. Only in the kitchen was it really bright and warm.
In the afternoons when Sandy came home from school he would usually find Sister Johnson helping Hager with her ironing, and keeping up a steady conversation.
“Dis gonna be a hard winter. De papers say folks is out o’ work ever’where, an’, wid all dis sleet an’ rain, it’s a terror fo’ de po’ peoples, I tells you! Now, ma Tom, he got a good job tendin’ de furnace at de Fair Buildin’, so I ain’t doin’ much washin’ long as he’s workin’—but so many colored men’s out o’ work here, wid Christmas comin’, it sho’ is too bad! An’ you, Sis Williams, wid yo’ daughter sick in bed! Any time yo’ clothes git kinder heavy fo’ you, I ain’t mind helpin’ you out. Jest send dis chile atter me or holler ’cross de yard if you kin made me hear! … How you press dis dress, wid de collar turn up or down? Which way do Mis’ Dunset like it?”
“I always presses it down,” returned Hager, who was ironing handkerchiefs and towels on the table. “Better let me iron that, an’ you take these here towels.”
“All right,” agreed Sister Johnson, “ ’cause you knows how yo’ white folks likes dey things, an’ I don’t. Folks have so many different ways!”
“Sho do,” said Hager. “I washed for a woman once what even had her sheets starched.”
“But you’s sure got a fine repertation as a washer, Sis Williams. One o’ de white ladies what I washes fo’ say you washes beautiful.”
“I reckon white folks does think right smart of me,” said Hager proudly. “They always likes you when you tries to do right.”
“When you tries to do yo’ work right, you means. Dey ain’t carin’ nothin’ ’bout you ’yond workin’ fo’ ’em. Ain’t dey got all de little niggers settin’ off in one row at dat school whar Sandy an’ Willie-Mae go at? I’s like Harriett—ain’t got no time fo’ white folks maself, ’ceptin’ what little money dey pays me. You ain’t been run out o’ yo’ home like I is, Hager. … Sandy, make haste, go fetch my pipe from over to de house, an’ don’t stay all day playin’ wid Willie-Mae! Tote it here quick! … An’ you oughter hear de way white folks talks ’bout niggers. Says dey’s lazy, an’ says dey stinks, an’ all. Huh! Dey ought to smell dey-selves! You’s smelled white peoples when dey gets to sweatin’ ain’t you? Smells jest like sour cream, only worser, kinder sickenin’ like. And some o’ dese foriners what’s been eating garlic—phew! Lawdy!”
When Sandy returned with the pipe, the conversation had shifted to the deaths in the colored community. “Hager, folks dyin’ right an’ left already dis winter. We’s had such a bad fall, dat’s de reason why. You know dat no-’count Jack Smears passed away last Sunday. Dey had his funeral yesterday an’ I went. Good thing he belonged to de lodge, too, else he’d been buried in de po’-field, ’cause he ain’t left even de copper cents to put on his eyes. Lodge beared his funeral bill, but I heard more’n one member talkin’ ’bout how dey was puttin’ a ten-dollar nigger in a hundred-dollar coffin! … An’ his wife were at de funeral. Yes, sir! A hussy! After she done left him last year wid de little chillens to take care of an’ she runnin’ round de streets showin’ off. Dere she sot, big as
