A week later another letter came to Sandy from his mother. This time it was a registered special-delivery, which said: “If you’ll come right away you can get your job at once. Mr. Harris says he will have a vacancy Saturday because one of the elevator boys are quitting.” And sufficient bills to cover Sandy’s fare tumbled out.
With a tremendous creaking and grinding and steady clacking of wheels the long train went roaring through the night towards Chicago as Sandy, in a day coach, took from his pocket Annjee’s two letters and reread them for the tenth time since leaving Stanton. He could hardly believe himself actually at that moment on the way to Chicago!
In the stuffy coach papers littered the floor and the scent of bananas and human feet filled the car. The lights were dim and most of the passengers slumbered in the straight-backed green-plush seats, but Sandy was still awake. The thrill of his first all-night rail journey and his dream-expectations of the great city were too much to allow a sixteen-year-old boy to go calmly to sleep, although the man next to him had long been snoring.
Annjee’s special-delivery letter had come that morning. Sandy had discovered it when he came home for lunch, and upon his return to the high school for the afternoon classes he went at once to the principal to inquire if he might be excused from the remaining days of the spring term.
“Let me see! Your record’s pretty good, isn’t it, Rodgers?” said Professor Perkins looking over his glasses at the young colored fellow standing before him. “Going to Chicago, heh? Well, I guess we can let you transfer and give you full credit for this year’s work without your waiting here for the examinations—there are only ten days or so of the term remaining. You are an honor student and would get through your exams all right. Now, if you’ll just send us your address when you get to Chicago, we’ll see that you get your report. … Intending to go to school there, are you? … That’s right! I like to see your people get ahead. … Well, good luck to you, James.” The old gentleman rose and held out his hand.
“Good old scout,” thought Sandy. “Miss Fry was a good teacher, too! Some white folks are nice all right! Not all of them are mean. … Gee, old man Prentiss hated to see me quit his place. Said I was the best boy he ever had working there, even if I was late once in a while. But I don’t mind leaving Stanton. Gee, Chicago ought to be great! And I’m sure glad to get away from Tempy’s house. She’s too tight!”
But Tempy had not been glad to see her nephew leave. She had grown fond of the boy in spite of her almost nightly lectures to him recently on his behavior and in spite of his never having become her model youth. Not that he was bad, but he might have been so much better! She wanted to show her white neighbors a perfect colored boy—and such a boy certainly wouldn’t be a user of slang, a lover of pool halls and non-Episcopalian ways. Tempy had given Sandy every opportunity to move in the best colored society and he had not taken advantage of it. Nevertheless, she cried a little as she packed a lunch for him to eat on the train. She had done all she could. He was a good-looking boy, and quite smart. Now, if he wanted to go to his mother, well—“I can only hope Chicago won’t ruin you,” she said. “It’s a wicked city! Goodbye, James. Remember what I’ve tried to teach you. Stand up straight and look like you’re somebody!”
Stanton, Sandy’s Kansas home, was back in the darkness, and the train sped towards the great center where all the small-town boys in the whole Middle West wanted to go.
“I’m going now!” thought Sandy. “Chicago now!”
A few weeks past he had gone to see Sister Johnson, who was quite feeble with the rheumatism. As she sat in the corner of her kitchen smoking a corncob pipe, no longer able to wash clothes, but still able to keep up a rapid flow of conversation, she told him all the news.
“Tom, he’s still at de bank keepin’ de furnace
