“I had a great mind not to wait for you,” said Aunt Hager, who had long had the table set for supper. “Wash yo’ face an’ hands, sir! An’ brush that snow off yo’ coat ’fo’ you hang it up.”
His grandmother took a pan of hot spoon-bread from the oven and put it on the table, where the little oil-lamp glowed warmly and the plain white dishes looked clean and inviting. On the stove there was a skillet full of fried apples and bacon, and Hager was making a pot of tea.
“Umn‑nn! Smells good!” said Sandy, speaking of everything at once as he slid into his chair. “Gimme a lot o’ apples, grandma.”
“Is that de way you ask fo’ ’em, sir? Can’t you say please no mo’?”
“Please, ma’am,” said the boy, grinning, for Hager’s sharpness wasn’t serious, and her old eyes were twinkling.
While they were eating, Annjee came in from work with a small bucket of oyster soup in her hands. They heated this and added it to their supper, and Sandy’s mother sat down in front of the stove, with her feet propped up on the grate to dry quickly. It was very comfortable in the little kitchen.
“Seems like the snow’s melting,” said Annjee. “It’s kinder sloppy and nasty underfoot. … Ain’t been no mail today, has they?”
“No, honey,” said Hager. “Leastwise, I been washin’ so hard ain’t had no time to look in de box. Sandy, run there to de front do’ an’ see. But I knows there ain’t nothin’, nohow.”
“Might be,” said Annjee as Sandy took a match and went through the dark bedroom and parlor to the front porch. There was no mail. But Sandy saw, coming across the slushy dirty-white snow towards the house, a slender figure approaching in the gloom. He waited, shivering in the doorway a moment to see who it was; then all at once he yelled at the top of his lungs: “Aunt Harrie’s here!”
Pulling her by the hand, after having kissed and hugged and almost choked her, he ran back to the kitchen. “Look, here’s Aunt Harrie!” he cried. “Aunt Harrie’s home!” And Hager turned from the table, upsetting her tea, and opened wide her arms to take her to her bosom.
“Ma chile!” she shouted. “Done come home again! Ma baby chile come home!”
Annjee hugged and kissed Harriett, too, as her sister sat on Hager’s knees—and the kitchen was filled with sound, warm and free and loving, for the prodigal returned.
“Ma chile’s come back!” her mother repeated over and over. “Thank de Lawd! Ma chile’s back!”
“You want some fried apples, Harrie?” asked Sandy, offering her his plate. “You want some tea?”
“No, thank you, honey,” she replied when the excitement had subsided and Aunt Hager had released her, with her little black hat askew and the powder kissed off one side of her face.
She got up, shook herself, and removed her hat to brush down her hair, but she kept her faded coat on as she laid her little purse of metal mesh on the table. Then she sat down on the chair that Annjee offered her near the fire. She was thinner and her hair had been bobbed, giving her a boyish appearance, like the black pages in old Venetian paintings. But her lips were red and there were two little spots of rouge burning on each cheek, although her eyes were dark with heavy shadows as though she had been ill.
Hager was worried. “Has you been sick, chile?” she asked.
“No, mama,” Harriett said. “I’ve been all right—just had a hard time, that’s all. I got mad, and quit the show in Memphis, and they wouldn’t pay me—so that was that! The minstrels left the carnival for the winter and started playing the theatres, and the new manager was a cheapskate. I couldn’t get along with him.”
“Did you get my letter and the money?” Annjee asked. “We didn’t have no more to send you, and afterwards, when you didn’t write, I didn’t know if you got it.”
“I got it and meant to thank you, sis, but I don’t know—just didn’t get round to it. But, anyway, I’m out of the South now. It’s a hell—I mean it’s an awful place if you don’t know anybody! And more hungry niggers down there! I wonder who made up that song about ‘Dear Old Southland.’ There’s nothing dear about it that I can see. Good God! It’s awful! … But I’m back.” She smiled. “Where’s Jimboy? … O, that’s right, Annjee—you told me in the letter. But I sort-a miss him around here. Lord, I hope he didn’t go to Memphis!”
“Did you find a job down there?” Annjee asked, looking at her sister’s delicate hands.
“Sure, I found a job all right,” Harriett replied in a tone that made Annjee ask no more questions. “Jobs are like hen’s teeth—try and find ’em.” And she shrugged her shoulders as Sandy had so often seen her do, but she no longer seemed to him like a little girl. She was grown-up and hard and strange now, but he still loved her.
“Aunt Harrie, I passed to the fifth A,” he announced proudly.
“That’s wonderful,” she answered. “My, but you’re smart! You’ll be a great man some day, sure, Sandy.”
“Where’s you’ suitcase, honey?” Hager interrupted, too happy to touch her food on the table or to take her eyes away from the face of her returned child. “Didn’t you bring it back with you? Where is it?”
“Sure, I got it. … But I’m gonna live at Maudel’s this time, mama. … I left it at the station. I didn’t think you-all’d want me here.” She tried to make the words careless-like, but they were pitifully forced.
“Aw, honey!” Annjee cried, the tears coming.
The shadow of inner pain
