“I said, ‘I did not mean that you should do wrong, neither did I use the word hustle. I said scuffle, which means, work, work, work.’

“‘That is one thing, Jess, I will do, work. But lend me a little something until I gets a job.’

“‘That’s what the Relief and Welfare is for,’ I says. ‘Many a human has been here in Harlem ten years and has not got a job yet, not since they found the Relief Bureau. If you be’s lucky enough to get a nice Relief Investigator, you can live awhile.’

“‘I want no handouts, city or otherwise,’ says Minnie. ‘Also, I really want no advice just now. What I need tonight is five dollars.’

“‘Cousin,’ I said, ‘if you asked me for the moon, I could reach up in the sky and snatch it down quicker than I could find five dollars. We is poor folks in Harlem.’

“‘Poor it do seem,’ said Minnie. ‘Why I used to could borrow five dollars most anytime down home in Virginia. You-all Negroes up North is real broke.’

“‘Say that again!’ says I. ‘And of all those that are brokest, I am among the most.’

“‘How do you keep your home together?’ asked Minnie.

“‘By the budget,’ says I, ‘and Joyce controls that. I do not know a thing about a budget. In fact, I never saw a budget. My wife has got one—but she always loses it before the week is out. Else she keeps it in a Mason jar. Anyhow, I cannot go in the budget and get nothing out for you, not this late in the week, no way.’

“‘So I must suffer?’ says Minnie.

“‘I fears ’tis so,’ said I.

“‘By coming up North all alone,’ moans Minnie, ‘I have made my bed hard and therefore I got to sleep in it?’

“‘I hope you will not be rest-broken,’ says I.

“‘When just five dollars would take the rocks out from under my pillow?’ pleads Minnie.

“‘Girl, don’t make it hard for me, too! Have mercy on your cousin. Or do you take me to be simple? Do you think you can beg me out of what I ain’t got even if I had it?’

“‘I’ll say no more,’ says Minnie, ‘except that I wanted freedom, which is why I come up North. You know, I do not like Jim Crow. I likes to drink in joints where people is integrated, like this one. Jesse, help me to stay up North in freedom.’