"And when you marry a white woman, I want to be the first one to shoot you—in the leg."

He laughed long and uproariously.

"You can laf all you want; but you ain't goin' through life lovin' nobody. You gotta girl somewhere; but do what you please so long as it don't come to that."

"Come to what?"

"Marrying a white woman."

"Wouldn't that be all right?"

She looked up at him with a glare. He smiled amusedly. "Don't you laf here on a subject like that! Lord! I think lots of you, but if I should hear that you had married a white woman, man, I'd steal money enough to come there and kill you dead!"

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Why would I want to do that? Humph! What you want to ask me such a question for? The idea!"

"But you haven't answered my question?"

She glared at him again, all the humor gone out of her face. Presently, biting at the thread in some sewing she was doing, she said: "In the first place, white people and Negroes have no business marrying each other. In the second place, a nigga' only gets a po' white woman. And in the third place, white people and nigga's don't mix well when it comes to society. Now, supposin' you married a white woman and brought her here to Chicago, who would you associate with? We nigga's 's sho goin' to pass 'er up. And the white folks—you better not look their way!"

He was silent.

"Ain't I done outlined it right?"

"You've revealed some very delicate points with regard to the matter," he acknowledged.

"Of course I have, and you can't get away from it. But that ain't all. Now, to be frank with yu'. I wouldn't ceh so much about some triflin' no 'count nigga' marrying some old white woman; but that ain't the kind no white woman wants when she stoops so low as to marry a nigga'. Uh, naw! Naw indeedy! She don't fool with nothin' like that! She leaves that kind for some poor colored woman to break her heart and get her head broken over. She marries somebody like you with plenty of money and sense with it, see!"

He laughed amusedly.

"No laffin' in it. You know I'm tellin' the truth. So take warning! Don't marry no white woman up there and come trottin' down here expectin' me to give you blessin'. Because if you do, and just as sure as my name is Ida White, I'm going to do something to you!"

"But a white woman might help a fellow to get up in the world," he argued.

"Yes, I'll admit that, too. But ouh burden is ouh burden, and we've got to bear it. And, besides, you c'n get a girl that'll help you when you really want a wife. That ain't no argument. Of course I'd like to see Pearl married. But you ain't going to fool with her, and I know it. Pearl thinks she would like it better if she could marry somebody from out of Chicago; but they'd all be the same after a month or so with her."