It’s a mighty blue mornin’ when yo’ daddy leaves yo’ bed.
I says a blue, blue mornin’ when yo’ daddy leaves yo’ bed—
’Cause if you lose yo’ man, you’d just as well be dead!

Her final number was a dance-song which she sang in a sparkling dress of white sequins, ending the act with a mad collection of steps and a swift sudden whirl across the whole stage as the orchestra joined Billy’s piano in a triumphant arch of jazz.

The audience yelled and clapped and whistled for more, stamping their feet and turning to one another with shouted comments of enjoyment.

“Gee! She’s great,” said Sandy. When another act finally had the stage after Harriett’s encores, he was anxious to get back to the dressing-room to see her.

“Maybe they won’t let us in,” Annjee objected timidly.

“Let’s try,” Sandy insisted, pulling his mother up. “We don’t want to hear this fat woman with the flag singing Over There. You’ll start crying, anyhow. Come on, mama.”

When they got backstage, they found Harriett standing in the dressing-room door laughing with one of the black-face comedians, a summer fur over her shoulders, ready for the street. Billy Sanderlee and the tap-dancing boy were drinking gin from a bottle that Billy held, and Harriett was holding her glass, when she saw Sandy coming.

Her furs slipped to the floor. “My Lord!” she cried, enveloping them in kisses. “What are you doing in Chicago, Annjee? My, I’m mighty glad to see you, Sandy! . . . I’m certainly surprised—and so happy I could cry. . . . Did you catch our act tonight? Can’t Billy play the piano, though? . . . Great heavens! Sandy, you’re twice as tall as me! When did you leave home? How’s that long-faced sister o’ mine, Tempy?”

After repeated huggings the new-comers were introduced to everybody around. Sandy noticed a certain harshness in his aunt’s voice. “Smoking so much,” she explained later. “Drinking, too, I guess. But a blues-singer’s supposed to sing deep and hoarse, so it’s all right.”

Beyond the drop curtain Sandy could hear the audience laughing in the theatre, and occasionally somebody shouting at the performers.

“Come on! Let’s go and get a bite to eat,” Harriett suggested when they had finally calmed down enough to decide to move on. “Billy and me are always hungry.... Where’s Jimboy, Annjee? In the war, I suppose! It’d be just like that big jigaboo to go and enlist first thing, whether he had to or not. Billy here was due to go, too, but licker kept him out. This white folks’ war for democracy ain’t so hot, nohow! . . . Say, how’d you like to have some chop suey instead of going to a regular restaurant?”

In a Chinese café they found a quiet booth, where the two sisters talked until past midnight—with Sandy and Billy silent for the most part. Harriett told Annjee about Aunt Hager’s death and the funeral that chill rainy day, and how Tempy had behaved so coldly when it was all over.