“Sister, I ain’t blind,” said the old man, hurt that his truth should be doubted. “I—seen—Harriett Williams on Pearl Street . . . with Maudel Smothers an’ two boys ’bout ten o’clock day before yestidy night! An’ they was gwine to de Waiters’ Ball, ’cause I asked Maudel where they was gwine, an’ she say so. Then I says to Harriett: ‘Does yo’ mammy know you’s out this late?’ an’ she laughed an’ say: ‘Oh, that’s all right! . . . Don’t tell me I ain’t seen Harriett, Hager.”

“Well, Lawd help!” Aunt Hager cried, her mouth open. “You done seed my chile in town an’ she ain’t come anear home! Stayed all night at Maudel’s, I reckon.... I tells her ’bout runnin’ with that gal from de Bottoms. That’s what makes her lie to me—tellin’ me she don’t come in town o’ nights. Maudel’s folks don’t keep no kind o’ house, and mens goes there, an’ they sells licker, an’ they gambles an’ fights.... Is you sho that’s right, Brother Logan, ma chile done been in town an’ ain’t come home?”

“It ain’t wrong!” said old man Logan, cracking his long whip on the white mule’s haunches. “Gittiyap! You ole jinny!” and he drove off.

“Um-uh!” said Sister Whiteside to Hager as the two toil-worn old women walked toward the house. “That’s de way they does you!” The peddler gathered up her things. “I better be movin’, ’cause I got these greens to sell yit, an’ it’s gittin’ ’long towards evenin’. . . . That’s de way chillens does you, Sister Williams! I knows! That’s de way they does!”

III. JIMBOY’S LETTER

KANSAS CITY, MO.
13 June 1912

Dear Annjelica,

I been laying off to written you ever since I left home but you know how it is. Work has not been so good here. Am with a section gang of coloreds and greeks and somehow strained my back on the Union Pacific laying ties so I will be home on Saturday. Will do my best to try and finish out weak here. Love my darling wife also kiss my son Sandy for me. Am dying to see you,

affectionately as ever and allways
till the judgment day,
Jimboy Rogers

“Strained his back, has he? Unhuh! An’ then comes writin’ ’bout till de judgment day!” Hager muttered when she heard it. “Always something wrong with that nigger! He’ll be back here now, layin’ ’round, doin’ nothin’ fo’ de rest o’ de summer, turnin’ ma house into a theatre with him an’ Harriett singin’ their rag-time, an’ that guitar o’ his’n wangin’ ever’ evenin’! ’Tween him an’ Harriett both it’s a wonder I ain’t plumb crazy. But Harriett do work fo’ her livin’. She ain’t no loafer.... Huh! . . . Annjee, you was sho a fool when you married that boy, an’ you still is! . . . I’s gwine next do’ to Sister Johnson’s!” Aunt Hager went out the back and across the yard, where, next door, Tom and Sarah Johnson, Willie-Mae’s grandparents, sat on a bench against the side-wall of an unpainted shanty. They were both quietly smoking their corn-cob pipes in the evening dusk.