Sandy waited. He heard the splash of water above and the hoarse gurgling of a bathtub being emptied. Presently Harriett appeared in a little pink wash dress such as a child wears, the skirt striking her just above the knees. She smelled like cashmere-bouquet soap, and her face was not yet powdered, nor her hair done up, but she was smiling broadly, happy to see her nephew, as her arms went round his neck.
“My! I’m glad to see you, honey! How’d you happen to come? How’d you find me?”
“Grandma’s sick,” said Sandy. “She’s awful sick and Aunt Tempy sent you this note.”
The girl opened the letter. It read:
Your mother is not expected to live. You better come to see her since she has asked for you. Tempy.
“O! … Wait a minute,” said Harriett softly. “I’ll hurry.”
Sandy sat down again in the room full of ashtrays and licker-bottles. Many feet pattered upstairs, and, as doors opened and closed, women’s voices were heard: “Can I help you, girlie? Can I lend you anything? Does you need a veil?”
When Harriett came down she was wearing a tan coat-suit and a white turban pulled tight on her head. Her face was powdered and her lips rouged ever so slightly. The bag she carried was beaded, blue and gold.
“Come on, Sandy,” she said. “I guess I’m ready.”
As they went out, they heard a man’s voice in a shabby house across the street singing softly to a two-finger piano accompaniment:
Sugar babe, I’m leavin’
An’ it won’t be long. …
While outside, on his front doorstep, two nappy-headed little yellow kids were solemnly balling-the-jack.
Two days before, Sandy had come home from school and found his grandmother lying across the bed, the full tubs still standing in the kitchen, her clothes not yet hung out to dry.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’s washed down, chile,” said the old woman, panting. “I feels kinder tired-like, that’s all.”
But Sandy knew that there must be something else wrong with Aunt Hager, because he had never seen her lying on the bed in broad daylight, with her clothes still in the tubs.
“Does your back ache?” asked the child.
“I does feel a little misery,” sighed Aunt Hager. “But seems to be mo’ ma side an’ not ma back this time. But ’tain’t nothin’. I’s just tired.”
But Sandy was scared. “You want some soda and water, grandma?”
“No, honey.” Then, in her usual tones of assumed anger: “Go on away from here an’ let a body rest. Ain’t I told you they ain’t nothin’ the matter ’ceptin’ I’s all washed out an’ just got to lay down a minute? Go on an’ fetch in yo’ wood … an’ spin yo’ top out yonder with Buster and them. Go on!”
It was nearly five o’clock when the boy came in again. Aunt Hager was sitting in the rocker near the stove then, her face drawn and ashy. She had been trying to finish her washing.
“Chile, go get Sister Johnson an’ ask her if she can’t wring out ma clothes fo’ me—Mis’ Dunset ain’t sent much washin’ this week, an’ you can help her hang ’em up. I reckon it ain’t gonna rain tonight, so’s they can dry befo’ mawnin’.”
Sandy ran towards the door.
“Now, don’t butt your brains out!” said the old lady. “Ain’t no need o’ runnin’.”
Not only did Sister Johnson come at once and hang out the washing, but she made Hager get in bed, with a hot-water bottle on her paining side. And she gave her a big dose of peppermint and water.
“I ’spects it’s from yo’ stomick,” she said. “I knows you et cabbage fo’ dinner!”
“Maybe ’tis,” said Hager.
Sister Johnson took Sandy to her house for supper that evening and he and Willie-Mae ate five sweet potatoes each.
“You-all gwine bust!” said Tom Johnson.
About nine o’clock the boy went to bed with his grandmother, and all that night Hager tossed and groaned, in spite of her efforts to lie quiet and not keep Sandy awake. In the morning she said: “Son, I reckon you better stay home from school, ’cause I’s feelin’ mighty po’ly. Seems like that cabbage ain’t digested yet. Feels like I done et a stone. … Go see if you can’t make de fire up an’ heat me a cup o’ hot water.”
About eleven o’clock Madam de Carter came over. “I thought I didn’t perceive you nowhere in the yard this morning and the sun ’luminating so bright and cheerful. You ain’t indispensed, are you? Sandy said you was kinder ill.” She chattered away. “You know it don’t look natural not to see you hanging out clothes long before the noon comes.”
“I ain’t well a-tall this mawnin’,” said Hager when she got a chance to speak. “I’s feelin’ right bad. I suffers with a pain in ma side; seems like it ain’t gettin’ no better. Sister Johnson just left here from rubbin’ it, but I still suffers terrible an’ can’t eat nothin’. … You can use de phone, can’t you, Sister Carter?”
“Why, yes! Yes indeedy! I oftens phones from over to Mis’ Petit’s. You think you needs a physicianer?”
In spite of herself a groan came from the old woman’s lips as she tried to turn towards her friend. Aunt Hager, who had never moaned for lesser hurts, did not intend to complain over this one—but the pain!
“It’s cuttin’ me in two.” She gasped. “Send fo’ old Doc McDillors an’ he’ll come.”
Madam de Carter, proud and important at the prospect of using her white neighbor’s phone, rushed away.
“I didn’t know you were so sick, grandma!” Sandy’s eyes were wide with fright and sympathy. “I’m gonna get Mis’ Johnson to come rub you again.”
“O! … O, ma Lawd, help!” Alone for a moment with no one to hear her, she couldn’t hold back the moans any longer. A cold sweat stood
