One of the colored girls turned round to Sandy and whispered: “She just put us in the back cause we’re niggers.” And Sandy nodded gravely. “My name’s Sadie Butler and she’s put me behind the Z cause I’m a nigger.”

“An old heifer!” said the first little colored girl, whispering loudly. “I’m gonna tell my mama.” But Sandy felt like crying. And he was beginning to be ashamed of crying because he was no longer a small boy. But the teacher’s putting the colored children in the back of the room made him feel like crying.

At lunch-time he came home with his list of books, and Aunt Hager pulled her wet arms out of the tub, wiped her hands, and held them up in horror.

“Lawdy! Just look! Something else to spend money for. Ever’ year more an’ more books, an’ chillens learn less an’ less! Used to didn’t have nothin’ but a blue-backed speller, and now look ahere—a list as long as ma arm! Go out there in de yard an’ see is yo’ pappy got any money to give you for ’em, ’cause I ain’t.”

Sandy found Jimboy sitting dejectedly on the well-stoop in the sunshine, with his head in his hands. “You got any money, papa?” he asked.

Jimboy looked at the list of books written in Sandy’s childish scrawl and slowly handed him a dollar and a half.

“You see what I got left, don’t you?” said his father as he turned his pants-pockets inside out, showing the little boy a jack-knife, a half-empty sack of Bull Durham, a key, and a dime. But he smiled, and took Sandy awkwardly in his arms and kissed him. “It’s all right, kid.”

That afternoon at school they had a long drill on the multiplication table, and then they had a spelling-match, because the teacher said that would be a good way to find out what the children knew. For the spelling-bee they were divided into two sides—the boys and the girls, each side lining up against an opposite wall. Then the teacher gave out words that they should have learned in the lower grades. On the boys’ side everyone was spelled down except Sandy, but on the girls’ side there were three proud little white girls left standing and Sandy came near spelling them down, too, until he put the e before i in “chief,” and the girls’ side won, to the disgust of the boys, and the two colored girls, who wanted Sandy to win.

After school Sandy went uptown with Buster to buy books, but there was so large a crowd of children in the bookstore that it was five o’clock before he was waited on and his list filled. When he reached home, Aunt Hager was at the kitchen-stove frying an eggplant for supper.

“You stayin’ out mighty long,” she said without taking her attention from the stove.

“Where’s papa?” Sandy asked eagerly. He wanted to show Jimboy his new books—a big geography, with pictures of animals in it, and a Nature Story Reader that he knew his father would like to see.