“‘I will whip you myself,’ I said, ‘if you talk to anybody else that way about your mama, F. D. After all she is my cousin. ’Course, you can talk to me—since it’s all in the family. But let’s keep it there.’

“‘Naturally,’ says F. D.”

Kick for Punt

Kick for Punt

“‘DID you know who my father was, Cousin Jess?’ F. D. asked me last night, ‘because I never even as much as laid eyes on him.’

“‘I knowed the Negro,’ I said. ‘I met him once when I were home on a visit before I settled permanent in the North. He were a big black handsome man. Folks called him John Henry because he worked on the railroad and were just passing through with the construction.’

“‘I wonder where the construction gang went on to?’ asked F. D.

“‘That, son, I do not know,’ I said. I meant coz. But not being around that boy since he was five, he seemed more like a son to me than a cousin, even a third or fourth cousin. I always think of cousins as being around my age. Anyhow, I told him I did not know much more about his father than his mother did, except that he were a great one for bawling and brawling, laughing and joke-telling, drinking and not thinking. I wanted to say, ‘F. D., I am surprised at you taking to books because all your father could read were the spots on the cards. But he really could play skin, blackjack, and poker. How I know is he beat me out of my fare back to Baltimore, then laughed, and took me out and bought me all I could drink.’ But I did not tell that boy that about his father. I said, ‘Coz, he were a right nice fellow, always smiling and good-natured just like you, so you come by it naturally. And if he had ever seen you, he would have been crazy about you because you were sure a lively boy-baby. It is too bad that construction gang moved on before you were born. They was working Northwards. I wouldn’t be surprised if your daddy warn’t somewhere in Harlem by now.’

“‘I wish I could find him,’ said F. D. ‘But he wouldn’t know me and I wouldn’t know him, we never having seen each other. But I wish I would find him.’

“‘Wishing that hard, I expect you will find him,’ I said, ‘just like you wished up a ticket to come to New York.’

“‘I wish I would,’ he said, half asleep by that time, and he went on to sleep. So I turned out the light—but not before I jumped into my shirt and pants, and come on out here to the bar to grab myself a couple of more beers. You see I ain’t got on nothing now but house shoes, don’t you?”