“‘Cousin Jess, can you lend me a dollar?’ says Minnie.

“‘I do not keep money in the home, neither,’ says I.

“‘Aunt Mamie said if I come to New York, you would help me,’ said Minnie. ‘If I ever needed help, I need it now, Cousin Jess.’

“‘In the middle of the week,’ says I, ‘even if it were payday, I could not be too generous.’

“‘Then have you got a place I can sleep here in your apartment with you-all?’

“‘God forbid!’ said I. ‘Don’t you know folks in Harlem ain’t got no place for relatives to sleep? This is a kitchenette.’

“‘Down South they say Harlem is heaven,’ says Minnie. ‘Yet you has nowhere for me to rest my head?’

“‘You know that old song,’ said I, ‘“Rest Beyond the River”? In Harlem, we all got one more river to cross before we can rest. Set down and I will tell you about Harlem, Minnie, so you will be clear in mind. In fact, I will tell you about the North. Down South you’re swimming in a river that’s running to the sea where you might drown but, at least, you’re swimming with the current. Up North we are swimming the other way, against the current, trying to reach dry land. I been here twenty years, Minnie, and I’m still in the water, if you get what I mean.’

“‘Ain’t you got just a drop of something that ain’t water in the house,’ asks Minnie, ‘to help me swim better?’

“‘Come on, girl, put on your coat,’ I said, ‘and I will take you out to a bar before my wife comes. I reckon we both need a drink to help us swim better. Let’s go see if we can make it somehow or another to dry land right now. Come on, Minnie.’

“And we went. Whilst setting at the bar, I discovered that Minnie is really very partial to what comes in a bottle with a government seal on it.”

“I can see where you’re going to have a problem with your cousin,” I said. “She seems to be an alcoholic.”

“Which is a habit Minnie really cannot afford,” said Simple, “especially since she always wants to borrow money. Now, you know and I know, money is usually the last thing I possess—and in that regard, I falls for no hypes. Setting there on that bar stool, ‘Minnie,’ I says, ‘I give you my love, I give you my cousinship, I give you my welcome to Harlem, U.S.A, but I cannot give you money. You are up here in the free North now where you got to scuffle the best way you can.’

“But Minnie says, ‘Jesse, I am a lady, and there are some things I do not do such as hustle.’