“Yes’m. I’m going.”

“An’ I reckon I’ll be movin’ too,” said Sister Johnson, placing the iron on the stove. “It’s near ’bout time to be startin’ Tom’s supper. I done told Willie-Mae to peel de taters ’fo’ I come ovah here, but I spects she ain’t done it. Dat’s de worse black gal to get to work! Soon as she eat, she run outdo’s to de privy to keep from washin’ de dishes!”

Sandy started to the store, and Sister Johnson, with an old coat over her head, scooted across the back yard to her door. It was a chill December afternoon and the steady sleet stung Sandy in the face as he ran along, but the air smelled good after the muggy kitchen and the stale scent of Annjee’s sick-room. Near the corner Sandy met the mail-man, his face red with cold.

“Got anything for us?” asked the little boy.

“No,” said the man as he went on without stopping.

Sandy wished his mother would get well soon. She looked so sad lying there in bed. And Aunt Hager was always busy washing and ironing. His grandmother didn’t even have time to mend his stockings any more and there were great holes in the heels when he went to school. His shoes were worn out under the bottoms, too. Yesterday his mother had said: “Honey, you better take them high brown shoes of mine from underneath the bed and put ’em on to keep your feet dry this wet weather. I can’t afford to buy you none new, and you ain’t got no rubbers.”

“You want me to wear old women’s shoes like Jimmy Lane?” Sandy objected. “I won’t catch cold with my wet feet.”

But Hager from the kitchen overruled his objections. “Put on them shoes, sir, an’ don’t argue with yo’ mother, an’ she sick in de bed! Put ’em on an’ hush yo’ mouth, till you get something better.”

So this morning at recess Sandy had to fight a boy for calling him “sissy” on account of his mother’s shoes he was wearing.

But only a week and a half more and the Christmas vacation would come! Uptown the windows were already full of toys, dolls, skates, and sleds. Sandy wanted a Golden Flyer sled for Christmas. That’s all he wanted—a Golden Flyer with flexible rudders, so you could guide it easy. Boy! Wouldn’t he come shooting down that hill by the Hickory Woods where the fellows coasted every year! They cost only four dollars and ninety-five cents and surely his grandma could afford that for him, even if his mother was sick and she had just paid her taxes. Four ninety-five—but he wouldn’t want anything else if Aunt Hager would buy that sled for Santa Claus to bring him! Every day, after school, he passed by the store, where many sleds were displayed, and stood for a long time looking at this Golden Flyer of narrow hard-wood timbers varnished a shiny yellow. It had bright red runners and a beautiful bar with which to steer.