Pansetta hadn’t said a word to him about babies, or anything like that, but she let him kiss her once and hold her on his lap at Sadie Butler’s Christmas party. Gee, but she could kiss—and such a long time! He wouldn’t care if she did make him marry her, only he wanted to travel first. If his mother would send for him now, he would like to go to Chicago. His Aunt Tempy was too cranky, and too proper. She didn’t like any of his friends, and she hated the pool hall. But where else was there for a fellow to play? Who wanted to go to those high-toned people’s houses, like the Mitchells’, and look bored all the time while they put Caruso’s Italian records on their new victrola? Even if it was the finest victrola owned by a Negro in Stanton, as they always informed you, Sandy got tired of listening to records in a language that none of them understood.

“But this is opera!” they said. Well, maybe it was, but he thought that his father and Harriett used to sing better. And they sang nicer songs. One of them was:

Love, O love, O careless love—
Goes to your head like wine!

“And maybe I really am in love with Pansetta. . . . But if she thinks she can fool me into marrying her before I’ve travelled all around the world, like my father, she’s wrong,” Sandy thought. “She can’t trick me, not this kid!” Then he was immediately sorry that he had allowed Tempy’s insinuations to influence his thoughts.

“Pretty, baby-faced Pansetta! Why, she wouldn’t try to trick anybody into anything. If she wanted me to love her, she’d let me, but she wouldn’t try to trick a fellow. She wouldn’t let me love her that way anyhow—like Tempy meant. Gee, that was ugly of Aunt Tempy to say that! . . . But Buster said she would.... Aw, he always talked that way about girls! He said no women were any good—as if he knew! And Jimmy Lane said white women were worse than colored—but all the boys who worked at hotels said that.”

Let ’em talk! Sandy liked Pansetta anyhow.... But maybe his Aunt Tempy was right! Maybe he had better stop walking home with her. He didn’t want to “get in trouble” and not be able to travel to Chicago some time, where his mother was. Maybe he could go to Chicago next summer if he began to save his money now. He wanted to see the big city, where the buildings were like towers, the trains ran overhead, and the lake was like a sea. He didn’t want to “get in trouble” with Pansetta even if he did like her. Besides, he had to live with Tempy for awhile yet and he hated to be quarrelling with his aunt all the time. He’d stop going to the pool hall so much and stay home at night and study.... But, heck! it was too beautiful out of doors to stay in the house—especially since spring had come!