“‘Turn over and go to sleep, boy. And next time, don’t get mixed up on no subway to Jamaica. What you due to take is the A Train to Harlem. Otherwise, you will arrive at nowhere, square.’

“‘She don’t think I’m a square, Cousin Jess.’

“I made out like I were snoring so that boy would stop talking. Next thing I knew, we was both asleep. F. D. must have been sleeping real good because in a few minutes he hauled off and kicked me, which woke me up. In another half-hour the alarm went off. So I didn’t get much rest last night. But I’m glad the boy had fun, though. If you do not have a good time in your young years, you might not know how when you get old. And the sooner you find out what train to take to get to where you are going in this world, the better. The Jamaica train does not run to Harlem. It goes somewhere else.”

No Tea for the Fever

No Tea for the Fever

“JOYCE says she rid back from Boston with Mrs. Sadie Maxwell-Reeves,” said Simple. “Now you can hardly touch her with a ten-foot pole, she is so proud.”

“You can’t much blame her, can you?” I said. “Mrs. Reeves is one of Harlem’s leading club ladies.”

“The leading, according to Joyce, always giving banquets and teas and things. So cultured she wears her glasses on her bosom. I met her once. Well, anyhow, on the train she told Joyce, ‘Darling, you are a clever woman, such as our race needs. Your club ought to make you a delegate to the National Convention next spring, not just to a Summer Regional.’

“So now you know there will be no getting along with Joyce come next winter. She will have me tromping through the cold selling more tickets to teas and forums and recitals than enough. The more tickets Joyce sells, the better club worker she is. She could pay her own fare to the National seven times over, were it meeting in California, if all the work it takes to sell them tickets was put into a paying job. Somehow or another Joyce has got the idea that a tea uplifts the race.”

“You ought to be glad Joyce has some social and civic interests,” I said. “You don’t want just a stick-in-the-mud for a fiancée, do you?”

“I want somebody who is going to stick by me,” said Simple, “which Joyce has been doing right well until lately. But, buddy, as the summer gets hotter, that girl is getting increasing cool. I told her last night, ‘Baby, I done saved Fifty-Five Dollars toward paying for our—I mean my—divorce. So it won’t be long now.’