“‘Aunt Mamie down in Piedmont, Virginia, give me your number,’ says she, ‘because Mamie knowed I did not know nobody in New York, and she did–not want me to be way up here in Harlem all alone. So I look up you—my one cousin in the world who knows what the North is all about. Jesse, I done come North.’

“‘Why did you wait so long?’ says I. ‘It is very late now to do any good for yourself. You almost as old as Aunt Mamie.’

“I do not know why I wanted to hurt that girl right off the bat, but she was so ugly she made me mad. Also, I think she were somewhat drunk. She looked like to me she might be most of the time drunk. Did you ever have any relatives what was drunk—or if they was not drunk, they looked drunk?”

“No,” I said. “Not relatives. But I have known a few alcoholics. They can be difficult at times.”

“That is just what Cousin Minnie is,” said Simple, “difficult. Since I have come to know her, I finds that she is a good-hearted girl. But her heart is in a very weak body. Minnie is weak for licker. Just why Aunt Mamie would give her my address in Harlem, big as Harlem is, I do not know, and me married to a woman like Joyce who hates the smell of whiskey, wine, or beer on my breath, let alone on a relative’s who is distant to me. I says, ‘Minnie, don’t come around to my house drunk, please, neither come here high. I do not wish to be low-rated in my wife’s sight. Joyce thinks my people is somebody.’

“‘I might have been somebody myself,’ says Minnie, ‘if your uncle had married my mama. But I’m a side child.’

“‘Don’t say it,’ I said. ‘There’s none such in our family! But you do look exactly like my Uncle Willie, who were nobody’s picture for framing. Minnie, I can see the Semples’ spitting image in your features. You sure resembles the family line. But where have you been all these years that I did not know you before?’

“‘They kept me hid. I was a secret child.’

“‘I wish you was a secret now, because I do not know what to do about a woman like you related to me. Why did you come to New York?’

“‘Because I have done got plumb tired of the South,’ said Minnie. ‘Ebony, Jet, and the Chicago Defender all talks about how beautiful is the North, so I come up here to see. I am plumb tired of Jim Crow.’

“‘Give me your hand,’ I said. I shook it. I were proud of her ambition.

“‘Have you got a little drink of any kind around?’ says Minnie.

“‘If I had, I would have drunk it,’ says I. ‘All we keep in our icebox is milk and Kool-Aid.’