“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,

Annjee

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.

Tempy

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 back yard where there was a brick wall 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.