“I’m gonna ride on that first,” said Sandy.

There were crowds of children under the bright red and white wooden shelter at the park entrance. They were lining up at the gate—laughing, merry, clean little white children, pushing and yelling and giggling amiably. Sandy let Willie-Mae go first and he got in line behind her. The band was playing gaily inside.... They were almost to the entrance now.... There were just two boys in front of them.... Willie-Mae held out her black little hand clutching the coupons. They moved forward. The man looked down.

“Sorry,” he said. “This party’s for white kids.”

Willie-Mae did not understand. She stood holding out the coupons, waiting for the tall white man to take them.

“Stand back, you two,” he said, looking at Sandy as well. “I told you little darkies this wasn’t your party.... Come on—next little girl.” And the line of white children pushed past Willie-Mae and Sandy, going into the park. Stunned, the two dark ones drew aside. Then they noticed a group of a dozen or more other colored youngsters standing apart in the sun, just without the bright entrance pavilion, and among them was Sadie Butler, Sandy’s class-mate. Three or four of the colored children were crying, but most of them looked sullen and angry, and some of them had turned to go home.

“My papa takes the Leader,” Sadie Butler was saying. “And you see what it says here on the coupons, too—‘Free Admittance to Every Child in Stanton.’ Can’t you read it, Sandy?”

“Sure, I can read it, but I guess they didn’t mean colored,” he answered, as the boy watched the white children going in the gate. “They wouldn’t let us in.”

Willie-Mae, between the painful shoes and the hurt of her disappointment, was on the verge of tears. One of the small boys in the crowd, a hard-looking little fellow from Pearl Street, was cursing childishly.

“God damn old sons of biscuit-eaters, that what they are! I wish I was a big man, dog-gone, I’d shoot ’em all, that’s what I’d do!”

“I suppose they didn’t mean colored kids,” said Sandy again.

“Buster went in all right,” said Sadie. “I seen him. But they didn’t know he was colored, I guess. When I went up to the gate, the man said: ‘Whoa! Where you goin’?’ just like I was a horse.... I’m going home now and tell my papa.”

She walked away, followed by five or six other little girls in their Sunday dresses. Willie-Mae was sitting on the ground taking off her shoes again, sweat and tears running down her black cheeks. Sandy saw his white schoolmate, Earl, approaching.

“What’s matter, Sandy? Ain’t you goin’ in?” Earl demanded, looking at his friend’s worried face. “Did the little girl hurt her foot?”

“No,” said Sandy. “We just ain’t going in.... Here, Earl, you can have my coupons. If you have extra ones, the papers says you get more lemonade . . . so you take ’em.”