The big one said to the smaller one: “I’m a fast-black and you know I sho won’t run! Jest you pick up that piece o’ iron that belongs to me. Go ahead, jest you try!”

And the short boy replied: “I’m your match, long skinny! Strike me an’ see if you don’t get burnt up!” And then they started to play the dozens, and Sandy, standing by, learned several new and very vulgar words to use when talking about other people’s mothers.

The tall kid said finally: “Aw, go on, you little clay-colored nigger, you looks too much like mustard to me anyhow!” Picking up the disputed piece of scrap-iron, he proceeded on his quest for junk, looking into all the trash-piles and garbage-cans along the alley, but the smaller of the two boys took his gunnysack and went in the opposite direction alone.

“Be careful, sissy, and don’t break your dishes,” his late companion called after his retreating buddy, and Sandy carefully memorized the expression to try on Jimmy Lane some time—that is, if Jimmy’s mother got well, for Mrs. Lane now was in the last stages of consumption. But if she got better, Sandy was going to tell her son to be careful and not break his dishes—always wearing his mother’s shoes, like a girl.

By that time he had forgotten what Hager sent him to the store to buy, and instead of getting meal he bought washing-powder. When he came home, after nearly an hour’s absence, his grandmother threatened to cut an elm switch, but she satisfied herself instead by scolding him for staying so long, and then sending him back to exchange the washing-powder for meal—and she waiting all that time to make corn dumplings to put in the greens!

In the afternoon Sandy played in his back yard or next door at the Johnson’s, but Hager never allowed him outside their block. The white children across the street were frequently inclined to say “Nigger,” so he was forbidden to play there. Usually Buster, who looked like a white kid, and Willie-Mae, who couldn’t have been blacker, were his companions. The three children would run at hide-and-seek, in the tall corn; or they would tag one another in the big yard, or play house under the apple-tree.

Once when they were rummaging in the trash-pile to see what they could find, Sandy came across a pawn ticket which he took into the kitchen to Hager. It was for a watch his Aunt Harriett had pawned the Saturday she ran away.

Sometimes in the late afternoon the children would go next door to Madam de Carter’s and she would give them ginger cookies and read to them from the Bible Story Reader. Madam de Carter looked very pompous and important in her silk waist as she would put on her pince-nez and say: “Now, children, seat yourselves and preserve silence while I read you-all this moralizing history of Samson’s treacherous hair. Now, Buster, who were Samson? Willie-Mae, has you ever heard of Delilah?”