“Yes, and miss all the good shows,” countered a little red-eyed porter. “Just as well say if you can’t eat in a restaurant where white folks eat, you ain’t gonna eat.”

“Anybody want a shine?” yelled Sandy above the racket. “And if you don’t want a shine, stay out of my chair and do your arguing on the floor!”

A brown-skin chorus girl, on her way to the theatre, stepped into the shop and asked if she could buy a Chicago Defender there. The barber directed her to the colored restaurant, while all the men immediately stopped talking to stare at her until she went out.

“Whew! . . . Some legs!” the teamster cried as the door closed on a vision of silk stockings. “How’d you like to shine that long, sweet brown-skin mama’s shoes, boy?”

“She wouldn’t have to pay me!” said Sandy.

“Whoopee! Gallery or no gallery,” shouted Jap Logan, “I’m gonna see that show! Don’t care if they do Jim-Crow niggers in the white folks’ Opery House!”

“Yes,” muttered one of the barbers, “that’s just what’s the matter now—you ain’t got no race-pride! You niggers ain’t got no shame!”

XVIII. CHILDREN’S DAY

When Easter came that spring, Sandy had saved enough money to buy himself a suit and a new cap from his earnings at the barber-shop. He was very proud of his accomplishment and so was Aunt Hager.

“You’s a ’dustrious chile, sho is! Gwine make a smart man even if yo’ daddy warn’t nothin’. Gwine get ahead an’ do good fo’ yo’self an’ de race, yes, sir!”

The spring came early and the clear balmy days found Hager’s back yard billowing with clean white clothes on lines in the sun. Her roomer had left her when the theatre was built and had gone to work on a dam somewhere up the river, so Annjee’s room was empty again. Sandy had slept with his grandmother during the cold weather, but in summer he slept on a pallet.

The boy did not miss his mother. When she had been home, Annjee had worked out all day, and she was quiet at night because she was always tired. Harriett had been the one to keep the fun and laughter going—Harriett and Jimboy, whenever he was in town. Sandy wished Harrie would live at home instead of staying at Maudel’s house, but he never said anything about it to his grandmother. He went to school regularly, went to work at the barber-shop on Saturdays and to Sunday-School on Sundays, and remained with Aunt Hager the rest of his time. She was always worried if she didn’t know where he was.

“Colored boys, when they gets round twelve an’ thirteen, they gets so bad, Sandy,” she would say. “I wants you to stay nice an’ make something out o’ yo’self. If Hager lives, she ain’t gonna see you go down. She’s gonna make a fine man out o’ you fo’ de glory o’ God an’ de black race. You gwine to ’mount to something in this world. You hear me?”