“Aw, the church has made a lot of you old Negroes act like Salvation Army people,” the girl returned, throwing the dried knives and forks on the table. “Afraid to even laugh on Sundays, afraid for a girl and boy to look at one another, or for people to go to dances. Your old Jesus is white, I guess, that’s why! He’s white and stiff and don’t like niggers!”

Hager gasped while Harriett went on excitedly, disregarding her mother’s pain: “Look at Tempy, the highest-class Christian in the family—Episcopal, and so holy she can’t even visit her own mother. Seems like all the good-time people are bad, and all the old Uncle Toms and mean, dried-up, long-faced niggers fill the churches. I don’t never intend to join a church if I can help it.”

“Have mercy on this chile! Help her an’ save her from hellfire! Change her heart, Jesus!” the old woman begged, standing in the middle of the kitchen with uplifted arms. “God have mercy on ma daughter.”

Harriett, her brow wrinkled in a steady frown, put the dishes away, wiped the table, and emptied the water with a splash through the kitchen-door. Then she went into the bedroom that she shared with her mother, and began to undress. Sandy saw, beneath her thin white underclothes, the soft black skin of her shapely young body.

“Where you goin’?” Hager asked sharply.

“Out,” said the girl.

“Out where?”

“O, to a barbecue at Willow Grove, mama! The boys are coming by in an auto at seven o’clock.”

“What boys?”

“Maudel’s brother and some fellows.”

“You ain’t goin’ a step!”

A pair of curling-irons swung in the chimney of the lighted lamp on the dresser. Harriett continued to get ready. She was making bangs over her forehead, and the scent of scorching hair-oil drifted by Sandy’s nose.

“Up half de night in town Monday, an’ de Lawd knows how late ever’ night in de country, an’ then you comes home to run out agin! . . . You ain’t goin’!” continued her mother.

Harriett was pulling on a pair of red silk stockings, bright and shimmering to her hips.

“You quit singin’ in de church choir. You say you ain’t goin’ back to school. You won’t keep no job! Now what is you gonna do? Yo’ pappy said years ago, ’fore he died, you was too purty to ’mount to anything, but I ain’t believed him. His last dyin’ words was: ‘Look out fo’ ma baby Harriett.’ You was his favourite chile. . . . Now look at you! Runnin’ de streets an’ wearin’ red silk stockings!” Hager trembled. “’Spose yo’ pappy was to come back an’ see you?”

Harriett powdered her face and neck, pink on ebony, dashed white talcum at each arm-pit, and rubbed her ears with perfume from a thin bottle. Then she slid a light blue dress of many ruffles over her head. The skirt ended midway between the ankle and the knee, and she looked very cute, delicate, and straight, like a black porcelain doll in a Vienna toy shop.