The machine started to whir, making the conversation inaudible for a few minutes, and when Sandy caught their words again, they were talking about the Elks’ club-house that the colored people were planning to build.

“Can you go out?” Sandy demanded of Buster, since they were making no headway with the tough clothes-pins and dull knives.

“Maybe,” said Buster. “I’ll go see.” And he went into the other room and asked his mother.

“Put on your overcoat,” she commanded. “It’s not summer yet. And be back in here before dark.”

“All right, Vira,” the child said.

The two children went to Mrs. Rumford’s shop on the corner and bought three cents’ worth of candy and seven cents’ worth of peewees with which to play marbles when it got warm. Then Sandy walked back past Buster’s house with him and they played for a while in the street before Sandy turned to run home.

Aunt Hager was making mush for supper. She sent him to the store for a pint bottle of milk as soon as he arrived, but he forgot to take the bottle and had to come back for it.

“You’d forget yo’ head if it wasn’t tied to you!” the old woman reminded him.

They were just finishing supper when Annjee got home with two chocolate éclairs in her coat-pocket, mashed together against Jimboy’s letter.

“Huh! I’m crazy!” she said, running her hand down into the sticky mess. “But listen, ma! He’s got a job and is doing well in Detroit, Jimboy says.... And I’m going to him!”

“You what?” Hager gasped, dropping her spoon in her mush-bowl. “What you sayin’?”

“I said I’m going to him, ma! I got to!” Annjee stood with her coat and hat still on, holding the sticky letter. “I’m going where my heart is, ma! . . . Oh, not today.” She put her arms around her mother’s neck. “I don’t mean today, mama, nor next week. I got to save some money first. I only got a little now. But I mean I’m going to him soon’s I can. I can’t help it, ma—I love him!”

“Lawd, is you foolish?” cried Hager. “What’s you gwine do with this chile, trapesin’ round after Jimboy? What you gwine do if he leaves you in Detroiter or wherever he are? What you gwine do then? You loves him! Huh!”

“But he ain’t gonna leave me in Detroit, ’cause I’m going with him everywhere he goes,” she said, her eyes shining. “He ain’t gonna leave me no more!”

“An’ Sandy?”

“Couldn’t he stay with you, mama? And then maybe we’d come back here and live, Jimboy and me, some time, when we get a little money ahead, and could pay off the mortgage on the house.... But there ain’t no use arguing, mama, I got to go!”

Hager had never seen Annjee so positive before; she sat speechless, looking at the bowl of mush.

“I got to go where it ain’t lonesome and where I ain’t unhappy—and that’s where Jimboy is! I got to go soon as I can.”