The boy stood quietly between his Aunt Tempy and his Aunt Harriett at the edge of the grave while Tempy stared straight ahead in the drizzling rain, and Harriett cried, streaking the powder on her cheeks.
“That’s all right, mama,” Harriett sobbed to the body in the long, black box. “You won’t get lonesome out here. Harrie’ll come back tomorrow. Harrie’ll come back every day and bring you flowers. You won’t get lonesome, mama.”
They were throwing wet dirt on the coffin as the mourners walked away through the sticky clay towards their carriages. Some old sister at the grave began to sing:
Dark was the night,
Cold was the ground …
in a high weird monotone. Others took it up, and, as the mourners drove away, the air was filled with the minor wailing of the old women. Harriett was wearing Hager’s gift, the little gold watch, pinned beneath her coat.
When they got back to the house where Aunt Hager had lived for so long, Sister Johnson said the mailman had left a letter under the door that afternoon addressed to the dead woman. Harriett was about to open it when Tempy took it from her. It was from Annjee.
“Dear mama,” it began.
We have moved to Toledo because Jimboy thought he would do better here and the reason I haven’t written, we have been so long getting settled. I have been out of work but we both got jobs now and maybe I will be able to send you some money soon. I hope you are well, ma, and all right. Kiss Sandy for me and take care of yourself. With love and God’s blessings from your daughter,
Tempy immediately turned the letter over and wrote on the back:
We buried your mother today. I tried to reach you in Detroit, but could not get you, since you were no longer there and neglected to send us your new address. It is too bad you weren’t here for the funeral. Your child is going to stay with me until I hear from you.
Then she turned to the boy, who stood dazed beside Sister Johnson in the silent, familiar old house. “You will come home with me, James,” she said. “We’ll see that this place is locked first. You try all the windows and I’ll fasten the doors; then we’ll go out the front. … Mrs. Johnson, it’s been good of you to help us in our troubles. Thank you.”
Sister Johnson went home, leaving Harriett in the parlor. When Sandy and Tempy returned from locking the back windows and doors, they found the girl still standing there, and for a moment the two sisters looked at one another in silence. Then Tempy said coldly: “We’re going.”
Harriett went out alone into the drizzling rain. Tempy tried the parlor windows to be sure they were well fastened; then, stepping outside on the porch, she locked the door and put the key in her bag.
“Come on,” she said.
Sandy looked up and down the street, but in the thick twilight of fog and rain Harriett had disappeared, so he followed his aunt into the waiting cab. As the hack clattered off, the boy gave an involuntary shiver.
“Do you want to hold my hand?” Tempy asked, unbending a little.
“No,” Sandy said. So they rode in silence.
XXIII
Tempy’s House
“James, you must get up on time in this house. Breakfast has been ready twenty minutes. I can’t come upstairs every morning to call you. You are old enough now to wake yourself and you must learn to do so—you’ve too far to walk to school to lie abed.”
Sandy tumbled out. Tempy left the room so that he would be free to dress, and soon he came downstairs to breakfast.
He had never had a room of his own before. He had never even slept in a room alone, but here his aunt had given him a small chamber on the second floor which had a window that looked out into a tidy backyard where there was a brick walk running to the back gate. The room, which was very clean, contained only the bed, one chair, and a dresser. There was, too, a little closet in which to hang clothes, but Sandy did not have many to put in it.
The thing that impressed him most about the second floor was the bathroom. He had never lived where there was running water indoors. And in this room, too, everything was so spotlessly clean that Sandy was afraid to move lest he disturb something or splash water on the wall.
When he came downstairs for breakfast, he found the table set for two. Mr. Siles, being in the railway postal service, was out on a trip. The grapefruit was waiting as Sandy slid shyly into his place opposite the ash-brown woman who had become his guardian since his grandma’s death. She bowed her head to say a short grace; then they ate.
“Have you been accustomed to drinking milk in the mornings?” Tempy asked as they were finishing the meal. “If you have, the milkman can leave another bottle. Young people should have plenty of milk.”
“Yes’m, I’d like it, but we only had coffee at home.”
“You needn’t say ‘yes’m’ in this house. We are not used to slavery talk here. If you like milk, I’ll get it for you. … Now, how are your clothes? I see your stocking has a hole in
