“But you know why I married, don’t you?”

“You Sandy, go outdoors an’ get me some wood fo’ this stove.... Yes, I knows why, because he were de father o’ that chile you was ’bout to bring here, but I don’t see why it couldn’t just well been some o’ these steady, hard-workin’ Stanton young men’s what was courtin’ you at de same time.... But, chile or no chile, I couldn’t hear nothin’ but Jimboy, Jimboy, Jimboy! I told you you better stay in de high school an’ get your edication, but no, you had to marry this Jimboy. Now you see what you got, don’t you?”

“Well, he ain’t been so bad, ma! And I don’t care, I love him!”

“Umn-huh! Try an’ live on love, daughter! Just try an’ live on love.... You’s made a mistake, that’s all, honey.... But I guess there ain’t no use talkin’ ’bout it now. Take off yo’ wet shoes ’fore you catch yo’ death o’ cold!”

On Thanksgiving at Mrs. Rice’s, so Annjee reported, they had turkey with chestnut dressing; but at Aunt Hager’s she and Sandy had a nice juicy possum, a present from old man Logan, parboiled and baked sweet and brown with yams in the pan. Aunt Hager opened a jar of peach preserves. And she told Sandy to ask Jimmy Lane in to dinner because, since his mother died, he wasn’t faring so well and the people he was staying with didn’t care much about him. But since Jimmy had quit school, Sandy didn’t see him often; and the day before Thanksgiving he couldn’t find him at all, so they had no company to help them eat the possum.

The week after Thanksgiving Annjee fell ill and had to go to bed. She had the grippe, Aunt Hager said, and she began to dose her with quinine and to put hot mustard-plasters on her back and gave her onion syrup to drink, but it didn’t seem to do much good, and finally she had to send Sandy for Dr. McDillors.

“System’s all run down,” said the doctor. “Heavy cold on the chest—better be careful. And stay in the bed!” But the warning was unnecessary. Annjee felt too tired and weak ever to rise, and only the mail-man’s whistle blowing at somebody else’s house would cause her to try to lift her head. Then she would demand weakly: “Did he stop here?”

Hager’s home now was like a steam laundry. The kitchen was always hung with lines of clothes to dry, and in the late afternoon and evenings the ironing-board was spread from the table to a chair-back in the middle of the floor. All of the old customers were sending their clothes to Hager again during the winter. And since Annjee was sick, bringing no money into the house on Saturdays, the old woman had even taken an extra washing to do. Being the only wage-earner, Hager kept the suds flying—but with the wet weather she had to dry the clothes in the kitchen most of the time, and when Sandy came home from school for lunch, he would eat under dripping lines of white folks’ garments while he listened to his mother coughing in the next room.