But Aunt Hager was not much pleased when Sandy came home that night and she heard the news. “I ain’t never wanted none o’ my chillens to work in no ole hotels,” she said. “They’s evil, full o’ nastiness, an’ you don’t learn nothin’ good in ’em. I don’t want you to go there, chile.”

“But grandma,” Sandy argued, “I want to send mama a Christmas present. And just look at my shoes, all worn out! I don’t make much money any more since that new colored barber-shop opened up. It’s all white inside and folks don’t have to wait so long ’cause there’s five barbers. Jimmy Lane’s got the porter’s job down there.... and I have to start working regular some time, don’t I?”

“I reckons you does, but I hates to see you workin’ in hotels, chile, with all them low-down Bottoms niggers, and bad womens comin’ an’ goin’. But I reckon you does need de job. Yo’ mammy ain’t sent no money here fo’ de Lawd knows when, an’ I ain’t able to buy you nice clothes an’ all like you needs to go to school in.... But don’t forget, honey, no matter where you works—you be good an’ do right.... I reckon you’ll get along.”

So Sandy found Charlie Nutter on Sunday and told him for sure he would take the job. Then he told Pete Scott he was no longer coming to work at his barber-shop, and Pete got mad and told him to go to hell, quitting when business was bad after all he had done for Sandy, besides letting him shine shoes and keep all his earnings. At other shops he couldn’t have done that; besides he had intended to teach Sandy to be a barber when he got big enough.

“But go on!” said Pete Scott. “Go on! I don’t need you. Plenty other boys I can find to work for me. But I bet you won’t stay at that Drummer’s Hotel no time, though—I can tell you that!”

The long Indian summer lingered until almost Thanksgiving, and the weather was sunny and warm. The day before Sandy went to work on his new job, he came home from school, brought in the wood for the stove, and delivered a basket of newly ironed clothes to the white folks. When he returned, he found his grandmother standing on the front porch in the sunset, reading the evening paper, which the boy had recently delivered. Sandy stopped in the twilight beside Hager, breathing in the crisp cool air and wondering what they were going to have for supper.

Suddenly his grandmother gave a deep cry and leaned heavily against the door-jamb, letting the paper fall from her hands. “O, ma Lawd!” she moaned. “O, ma Lawd!” and an expression of the uttermost pain made the old woman’s eyes widen in horror. “Is I read de name right?”

Sandy, frightened, picked up the paper from the porch and found on the front page the little four-line item that his grandmother had just read: