Jake was doing his dog with a tall, shapely quadroon girl when, glancing up at the balcony, he spied the little brown that he had entirely given over as lost. She was sitting at a table while “Tell me pa-pa” was tickling everybody to the uncontrollable point—she was sitting with her legs crossed and well exposed, and, with the aid of the mirror attached to her vanity case, was saucily and nonchalantly powdering her nose.
The quadroon girl nearly fell as Jake, without a word of explanation, dropped her in the midst of a long slide and, dashing across the floor, bounded up the stairs.
“Hello, sweetness! What youse doing here?”
The girl started and knocked over a glass of whisky on the floor: “O my Gawd! it’s mah heartbreaking daddy! Where was you all this time?”
Jake drew a chair up beside her, but she jumped up: “Lawdy, no! Le’s get outa here quick, ’cause Ise got somebody with me and now I don’t want see him no moh.”
“ ’Sawright, I kain take care of mahself,” said Jake.
“Oh, honey, no! I don’t want no trouble and he’s a bad actor, that nigger. See, I done break his glass o’ whisky and tha’s bad luck. Him’s just theah in the lav’try. Come quick. I don’t want him to ketch us.”
And the flustered little brown heart hustled Jake down the stairs and out of the Sheba Palace.
“Tell me, pa-pa, Ise you’ ma-ma …”
The black shouting chorus pursued them outside.
“There ain’t no yaller gal gwine get mah honey daddy thisanight.” She took Jake’s arm and cuddled up against his side.
“Aw no, sweetness. I was dogging it with one and jest drops her flat when I seen you.”
“And there ain’t no nigger in the wul’ I wouldn’t ditch foh you, daddy. O Lawdy! How Ise been crazy longing to meet you again.”
XX
Felice
“Whar’s we gwine?” Jake asked.
They had walked down Madison Avenue, turned on 130th Street, passing the solid gray-grim mass of the whites’ Presbyterian church, and were under the timidly whispering trees of the decorously silent and distinguished Block Beautiful. … The whites had not evacuated that block yet. The black invasion was threatening it from 131st Street, from Fifth Avenue, even from behind in 129th Street. But desperate, frightened, blanch-faced, the ancient sepulchral Respectability held on. And giving them moral courage, the Presbyterian church frowned on the corner like a fortress against the invasion. The Block Beautiful was worth a struggle. With its charming green lawns and quaint white-fronted houses, it preserved the most Arcadian atmosphere in all New York. When there was a flat to let in that block, you would have to rubberneck terribly before you saw in the corner of a windowpane a neat little sign worded, Vacancy. But groups of loud-laughing-and-acting black swains and their sweethearts had started in using the block for their afternoon promenade. That was the limit: the desecrating of that atmosphere by black love in the very shadow of the gray, gaunt Protestant church! The Ancient Respectability was getting ready to flee. …
The beautiful block was fast asleep. Up in the branches the little elfin green things were barely whispering. The Protestant church was softened to a shadow. The atmosphere was perfect, the moment sweet for something sacred.
The burning little brown-skin cuddled up against Jake’s warm tall person: “Kiss me, daddy,” she said. He folded her closely to him and caressed her. …
“But whar was you all this tur’bly long time?” demanded Jake.
Light-heartedly, she frisky like a kitten, they sauntered along Seventh Avenue, far from the rough environment of Sheba Palace.
“Why, daddy, I waited foh you all that day after you went away and all that night! Oh, I had a heartbreak on foh you, I was so tur’bly disappointed. I nev’ been so crazy yet about no man. Why didn’t you come back, honey?”
Jake felt foolish, remembering why. He said that shortly after leaving her he had discovered the money and the note. He had met some of his buddies of his company who had plenty of money, and they all went celebrating until that night, and by then he had forgotten the street.
“Mah poor daddy!”
“Even you’ name, sweetness, I didn’t know. Ise Jake Brown—Jake for ev’body. What is you’, sweetness?”
“They calls me Felice.”
“Felice. … But I didn’t fohget the cabaret nonatall. And I was back theah hunting foh you that very night and many moh after, but I nevah finds you. Where was you?”
“Why, honey, I don’t lives in cabarets all mah nights ’cause Ise got to work. Furthermore, I done went away that next week to Palm Beach—”
“Palm Beach! What foh?”
“Work of course. What you think? You done brokes mah heart in one mahvelous night and neveh returns foh moh. And I was jest right down sick and tiahd of Harlem. So I went away to work. I always work. … I know what youse thinking, honey, but I ain’t in the reg’lar business. ’Cause Ise a funny gal. I kain’t go with a fellah ef I don’t like him some. And ef he kain make me like him enough I won’t take nothing off him and ef he kain make me fall the real way, I guess I’d work like a wop for him.”
“Youse the baby I been waiting foh all along,” said Jake. “I knowed you was the goods.”
“Where is we gwine, daddy?”
“Ise got a swell room, sweetness, up in ’Fortiet’ Street whar all them dickty shines live.”
“But kain you take me there?”
“Sure thing, baby. Ain’t no nigger renting a room in Harlem whar he kain’t have his li’l company.”
“Oh, goody, goody, honey-stick!”
Jake took Felice home to his room. She was delighted with it. It was neat and orderly.
“Your landlady must be one of them proper persons,” she remarked. “How did you find such a nice place way up here?”
“A chappie named Ray got it foh me when I was sick—”
“O Lawdy! was it serious? Did they all take good care a you?”
“It wasn’t nothing much and the fellahs was
