“‘Your mother sent you here?’

“‘My mama does not know I am gone,’ he said. ‘I ran away.’

“‘Well, how come you run here?’

“‘Because you’re my favorite cousin. I got your address from Uncle George William. I’ve heard tell of you all my life, Cousin Jess. Folks at home’re always talking about you. And I never will forget that hard big-league ball you bought me when I was five years old, and you came home on that visit. I broke my mama’s lamp with it and got whipped within an inch of my life. But I never did blame you for it—like the rest of them did. I sure am glad to see you now, Cousin Jess. Howdy!’

“‘Set down,’ I said. He set. ‘On what did you come here—hitch-hike?’

“‘No, sir. Train. I didn’t dream of getting to New York, Cousin Jess, wasn’t even thinking of it. But I’ve been wanting to come, ever since my step-father raw-hided me. Then when Mama Mattie just keeps on telling me I’m just like my father, no-good, I was thinking of running away to Norfolk and joining the navy, till somebody told me I wasn’t old enough without my parents’ consent. Then I thought I’d run as far as Baltimore maybe before frost sets in. But all this was just kind of vague in my mind. Then, last night, I was hanging around the station watching the trains come in and the girls eating ice-cream cones when a colored man got off the streamliner from the North and he said to me, Here, boy, here is a ticket for you. The rest of this here round-trip, I do not want it. Use it, sell it, tear it up, or give it away. I don’t care.

“‘I looked at it and saw that it was a ticket to New York—a great long yellow ticket. I said, Aren’t you going back up North?

“‘The man said, I been up North. They comes and they goes. You go.

“‘He cut out and left me standing there on the train platform with the ticket in my hand. So when the night train came along in a few minutes heading North, I got on. Here I am.’

“‘Here you is, all right,’ I said.

“‘I always did want to come North, Cousin Jess, so I come to you—’

“‘Don’t get me confused with the North! I ain’t the North.’

“‘And I always wanted to see New York and—’

“‘My room ain’t New York. Out yonder is New York.’

“‘You are all the Harlem I knew to come to, so—’

“‘Excuse me from being Harlem, because I ain’t. Where are you going to sleep? Also eat?’ I said. ‘How are you going to live?’