“Ain’t the only thing she can do!” bellowed the gambler, swallowing a huge chunk of steak. “Yo’ Aunt Harrie’s a whang, son!”

“Shut yo’ mouth!” said Uncle Dan.

XXVI. THE DOORS OF LIFE

During Sandy’s second year at high school Tempy was busy sewing for the local Red Cross and organizing Liberty Bond clubs among the colored population of Stanton. She earnestly believed that the world would really become safe for democracy, even in America, when the war ended, and that colored folks would no longer be snubbed in private and discriminated against in public.

“Colored boys are over there fighting,” she said. “Our men are buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of bonds, colored women are aiding the Red Cross, our clubs are sending boxes to the camps and to the front. White folks will see that the Negro can be trusted in war as well as peace. Times will be better after this for all of us.”

One day a letter came from Annjee, who had moved to Chicago. She said that Sandy’s father had not long remained in camp, but had been sent to France almost immediately after he enlisted, and she didn’t know what she was going to do, she was so worried and alone! There had been but one letter from Jimboy since he left. And now she needed Sandy with her, but she wasn’t able to send for him yet. She said she hoped and prayed that nothing would happen to his father at the front, but every day there were colored soldiers’ names on the casualty list.

“Good thing he’s gone,” grunted Tempy when she read the letter as they were seated at the supper-table. Then, suddenly changing the subject, she asked Sandy: “Did you see Dr. Frank Crane’s beautiful article this morning?”

“No, I didn’t,” said the boy.

“You certainly don’t read as much as you did last winter,” complained his aunt. “And you’re staying out entirely too late to suit me. I’m quite sure you’re not at the movies all that time, either. I want these late hours stopped, young man. Every night in the week out somewhere until ten and eleven o’clock!”

“Well, boys do have to get around a little, Tempy,” Mr. Siles objected. “It’s not like when you and I were coming up.”

“I’m raising this boy, Mr. Siles,” Tempy snapped. “When do you study, James? That’s what I want to know.”

“When I come in,” said Sandy, which was true. His light was on until after twelve almost every night. And when he did not study late, his old habit of lying awake clung to him and he could not go to sleep early.

“You think too much,” Buster once said. “Stop being so smart; then you’ll sleep better.”

“Yep,” added Jimmy Lane. “Better be healthy and dumb than smart and sick like some o’ these college darkies I see with goggles on their eyes and breath smellin’ bad.”

“O, I’m not sick,” objected Sandy, “but I just get to thinking about things at night—the war, and white folks, and God, and girls, and—O, I don’t know—everything in general.”