“Yes,” said Simple. “So he writ me to get him two rings just like ours. Him and Gloria wants everything to be just like me and Joyce’s.”

“Has that young boy gone and committed another Carlyle?” I asked.

“I asked him that, too,” said Simple. “He said, ‘No.’ Him and Gloria do not want to have no children at all until he comes back from the army.”

“From the army?”

“Didn’t I tell you F. D. got his draft call? Soon as this college term is over, he has to go to his service. So them kids is gonna get married so F. D. can go with a clear conscience. F. D. and Gloria are marrying to separate—and me and Joyce are marrying to stay together. There’s some advantage in being in a high age bracket after all.”

“Love will find a way,” I said, “whatever the age. God bless all of you—F. D. and Gloria, and you and—”

“Joyce—my honey in the evening!”

“Yes, all four of you.”

Simply Love

Simply Love

LENT. Tentative sticking of heads out windows pushed up only to be pulled down. It is not warm yet, even if the sun is shining and the streets are dry. City Sanitation Trucks sprinkling pavements. Kids at stick ball competing with traffic. Marbles and tops, penny whistles, chalk on sidewalks, jumping ropes. Passers-by duck and dodge handballs against stoops. Children think it’s warmer than it is, running like they do.

Joyce is not the only one to brew sassafras tea, but it’s hard to find sassafras bark in Harlem. You might have to have somebody mail you a bundle from home. Earliest breath of spring, when the sunrise is bright, landladies open their front doors first thing in the morning to air out the house, bright and early in the day, first thing. Joyce’s big old fat landlady, still in her kimono, is sweeping out the vestibule and sweeping off the front stoop before breakfast when she almost drops her broom in amazement as she turns to see a man come running down the steps inside. Mr. Semple!

“‘What are you doing, coming out of my house at seven-eight o’clock A.M.?’

“‘Coming out is all,’ I says.

“‘Mr. Semple, this is a decent house.’ She pauses. ‘Was you in there all night?’

“‘I were.’

“‘This is the first time!… Or is it?… I am surprised at you! And doubly surprised at Joyce Lane.’

“‘She is Joyce Lane no longer, madam.’

“‘What?’

“‘She is Mrs. Semple now. March has turned to June—we got married yesterday.’

“‘Ooh-ooo-oo-o!’ she strangles.

“You could have knocked that old landlady down with a feather. She looked more surprised than you do.”

“You can knock me down with a feather, too,” I exclaimed. “Do you mean to tell me you jumped the gun and got married before the wedding—in March instead of June?”