“I guess Kansas is getting like the South, isn’t it, ma?” Sandy said to his grandmother as they came out on the porch that evening after supper. “They don’t like us here either, do they?”

But Aunt Hager gave him no answer. In silence they watched the sunset fade from the sky. Slowly the evening star grew bright, and, looking at the stars, Hager began to sing, very softly at first:

From this world o’ trouble free,
Stars beyond!
Stars beyond!

And Sandy, as he stood beside his grandmother on the porch, heard a great chorus out of the black past—singing generations of toil-worn Negroes, echoing Hager’s voice as it deepened and grew in volume:

There’s a star fo’ you an’ me,
Stars beyond!

XIX. TEN DOLLARS AND COSTS

In the fall Sandy found a job that occupied him after school hours, as well as on Saturday and Sunday. One afternoon at the barber-shop, Charlie Nutter, a bell-hop who had come to have his hair cut, asked Sandy to step outside a minute. Once out of earshot of the barbers and loafers within, Charlie went on: “Say, kid, I got some dope to buzz to yuh ’bout a job. Joe Willis, the white guy what keeps the hotel where I work, is lookin’ for a boy to kinder sweep up around the lobby every day, dust off, and sort o’ help the bell-boys out sometimes. Ain’t nothin’ hard attached to it, and yuh can bring ’long your shine-box and rub up shoes in the lobby, too, if yuh wants to. I thought maybe yuh might like to have the job. Yuh’d make more’n yuh do here. And more’n that, too, when yuh got on to the ropes. Course yuh’d have to fix me up with a couple o’ bucks o’ so for gettin’ yuh the job, but if yuh want it, just lemme know and I’ll fix it with the boss. He tole me to start lookin’ for somebody and that’s what I’m doin’.” Charlie Nutter went on talking, without stopping to wait for an answer. “Course a boy like you don’t know nothin’ ’bout hotel work, but yuh ain’t never too young to learn, and that’s a nice easy way to start. Yuh might work up to me some time, yuh never can tell—head bell-hop! ’Cause I ain’t gonna stay in this burg all my life; I figger if I can hop bells here, I can hop bells in Chicago or some place worth livin’ at. But the tips ain’t bad down there at the Drummer’s though—lots o’ sportin’ women and folks like that what don’t mind givin’ yuh a quarter any time.... And yuh can get well yourself once in a while. What yuh say? Do yuh want it?”

Sandy thought quick. With Christmas not far off, his shoes about worn out, and the desire to help Aunt Hager, too—“I guess I better take it,” he said. “But do I have to pay you now?”

“Hell, naw, not now! I’ll keep my eye on yuh, and yuh can just slip me a little change now and then down to the hotel when you start workin’. Other boy ain’t quittin’ nohow till next week. S’pose yuh come round there Sunday morning and I’ll kinder show yuh what to do. And don’t pay no mind to Willis when he hollers at yuh. He’s all right—just got a hard way about him with the help, that’s all—but he ain’t a bad boss. I’ll see yuh, then! Drop by Sunday and lemme know for sure. So long!”