“Gee, I’ll be glad when he comes!” Annjee said to herself. “But if he goes off again, I’ll feel like dying in this dead old town. I ain’t never been away from here nohow.” She spoke aloud to the dim oil-lamp smoking on the table and the sleeping boy on the floor. “I believe I’ll go with him next time. I declare I do!” And then, realizing that Jimboy had never once told her when he was leaving or for what destination, she amended her utterance. “I’ll follow him, though, as soon as he writes.” Because, almost always after he had been away two or three weeks, he would write. “I’ll follow him, sure, if he goes off again. I’ll leave Sandy here and send money back to mama. Then Harriett could settle down and take care of ma and stop runnin’ the streets so much. … Yes, that’s what I’ll do next time!”
This going away was a new thought, and the dark, strong-bodied young woman at the table suddenly began to dream of the cities she had never seen to which Jimboy would lead her. Why, he had been as far north as Canada and as far south as New Orleans, and it wasn’t anything for him to go to Chicago or Denver any time! He was a travelling man—and she, Annjee, was too meek and quiet, that’s what she was—too stay-at-homish. Never going nowhere, never saying nothing back to those who scolded her or talked about her, not even sassing white folks when they got beside themselves. And every colored girl in town said that Mrs. J. J. Rice was no easy white woman to work for, yet she had been there now five years, accepting everything without a murmur! Most young folks, girls and boys, left Stanton as soon as they could for the outside world, but here she was, Annjelica Williams, going on twenty-eight, and had never been as far as Kansas City!
“I want to travel,” she said to herself. “I want to go places, too.”
But that was why Jimboy married her, because she wasn’t a runabout. He’d had enough of those kind of women before he struck Stanton, he said. St. Louis was full of them, and Chicago running over. She was the first nice girl he’d ever met who lived at home, so he took her. … There were mighty few dark women had a light, strong, good-looking young husband, really a married husband, like Jimboy, and a little brown kid like Sandy.
“I’m mighty lucky,” Annjee thought, “even if he ain’t here.” And two tears of foolish pride fell from the bright eyes in her round black face. They trickled down on the letter, with its blue lines and pencil-scrawled message, and some of the words on the paper began to blur into purple blots because the pencil had been an indelible one. Quickly she fumbled for a handkerchief to wipe the tears away, when a voice made her start.
“You, Annjee!” cried Aunt Hager in the open door. “Go to bed, chile! Go on! Settin’ up here this late, burnin’ de light an’ lurin’ all sorts o’ night-bugs an’ creepers into de house!” The old woman came in out of the dark. “Lawd! I might anigh stumbled over this boy in de middle o’ de flo’! An’ you ain’t even took off yo’ hat since you got home from work! Is you crazy? Settin’ up here at night with yo’ hat on, an’ lettin’ this chile catch his death o’ cold sleepin’ down on de flo’ long after his bedtime!”
Sheepishly Annjee folded her letter and got up. It was true that she still had on her hat and the sweater she had worn to Mrs. Rice’s. True, too, the whole room was alive with soft-winged moths fluttering against the hot glass of the light—and on the kitchen floor a small, brown-skin, infinitely lovable edition of Jimboy lay sprawled contentedly in his grandmother’s path, asleep!
“He’s my baby!” Annjee said gently, stooping to pick him up. “He’s my baby—me and Jimboy’s baby!”
IV
Thursday Afternoon
Hager had risen at sunrise. On Thursday she did the Reinharts’ washing, on Fridays she ironed it, and on Saturdays she sent it home, clean and beautifully white, and received as pay the sum of seventy-five cents. During the winter Hager usually did half a dozen washings a week, but during the hot season her customers had gone away, and only the Reinharts, on account of an invalid grandmother with whom they could not travel, remained in Stanton.
Wednesday afternoon Sandy, with a boy named Jimmy Lane, called at the back door for their soiled clothes. Each child took a handle and between them carried the large wicker basket seven blocks to Aunt Hager’s kitchen. For this service Jimmy Lane received five cents a trip, although Sister Lane had repeatedly said to Hager that he needn’t be given anything. She wanted him to learn his Christian duties by being useful to old folks. But Jimmy was not inclined to be Christian. On the contrary, he was a very bad little boy of thirteen, who often led Sandy astray. Sometimes they would run with the basket for no reason at all, then stumble and spill the clothes out on the sidewalk—Mrs. Reinhart’s summer dresses, and drawers, and Mr. Reinhart’s extra-large B.V.D.’s lying generously exposed to the public. Sometimes, if occasion offered, the youngsters would stop to exchange uncouth epithets with strange little white boys who called them “niggers.” Or, again, they might neglect their job for a game of marbles, or a quarter-hour of scrub baseball on a vacant lot; or to tease any little colored girl who might tip timidly by with her hair
