Not Without Laughter

Aunt Hager Williams stood in her doorway and looked out at the sun. The western sky was a sulphurous yellow and the sun a red ball dropping slowly behind the trees and housetops. Its setting left the rest of the heavens grey with clouds.

“Huh! A storm’s comin’,” said Aunt Hager aloud.

A pullet ran across the backyard and into a square-cut hole in an unpainted piano-box which served as the roosting-house. An old hen clucked her brood together and, with the tiny chicks, went into a small box beside the large one. The air was very still. Not a leaf stirred on the green apple-tree. Not a single closed flower of the morning-glories trembled on the back fence. The air was very still and yellow. Something sultry and oppressive made a small boy in the doorway stand closer to his grandmother, clutching her apron with his brown hands.

“Sho is a storm comin’,” said Aunt Hager.

“I hope mama gets home ’fore it rains,” remarked the brown child holding to the old woman’s apron. “Hope she gets home.”

“I does, too,” said Aunt Hager. “But I’s skeared she won’t.”

Just then great drops of water began to fall heavily into the backyard, pounding up little clouds of dust where each drop struck the earth. For a few moments they pattered violently on the roof like a series of hammer-strokes; then suddenly they ceased.

“Come in, chile,” said Aunt Hager.

She closed the door as the green apple-tree began to sway in the wind and a small hard apple fell, rolling rapidly down the top of the piano-box that sheltered the chickens. Inside the kitchen it was almost dark.

The sharp honk of an automobile horn sounded from the street. A big red car, full of laughing brown girls gaily dressed, and coatless, slick-headed black boys in green and yellow silk shirts, drew up at the curb. Somebody squeezed the bulb of the horn a second time and another loud and saucy honk! struck the ears.

“You, Sandy,” Hager commanded. “Run out there an’ tell them niggers to leave here, ’cause Harriett ain’t goin’ no place.”

But Sandy did not move, because his young and slender aunt had gripped him firmly by the collar while she searched feverishly in the dresser-drawer for a scarf. She pulled it out, long and flame-colored, with fiery, silky fringe, before she released the little boy.

“You ain’t gwine a step this evenin’!” Hager shouted. “Don’t you hear me?”

“O, no?” said Harriett coolly, in a tone that cut like knives. “You’re the one that says I’m not going⁠—but I am!”

Then suddenly something happened in the room⁠—the anger fell like a veil from Hager’s face, disclosing aged, helpless eyes full of fear and pain.

“Harriett, honey, I wants you to be good,” the old woman stammered. The words came pitiful and low⁠—not a command any longer⁠—as she faced her terribly alive young daughter in the ruffled blue dress and the red silk stockings. “I just wants you to grow up decent, chile. I don’t want you runnin’ to Willer Grove with them boys. It ain’t no place fo’ you in the nighttime⁠—an’ you knows it. You’s mammy’s baby girl. She wants you to be good, honey, and follow Jesus, that’s all.”

The baritone giggling of the boys in the auto came across the yard as Hager started to put a timid, restraining hand on her daughter’s shoulder⁠—but Harriett backed away.

But a very unexpected stab at the girl’s pride had come only a few weeks ago when she had gone with her classmates, on tickets issued by the school, to see an educational film of the undersea world at the Palace Theatre, on Main Street. It was a special performance given for the students, and each class had had seats allotted to them beforehand; so Harriett sat with her class and had begun to enjoy immensely the strange wonders of the ocean depths when an usher touched her on the shoulder.

“The last three rows on the left are for colored,” the girl in the uniform said.

“I⁠—But⁠—But I’m with my class,” Harriett stammered. “We’re all supposed to sit here.”

“I can’t help it,” insisted the usher, pointing towards the rear of the theatre, while her voice carried everywhere. “Them’s the house rules. No argument now⁠—you’ll have to move.”

So Harriett rose and stumbled up the dark aisle and out into the sunlight, her slender body hot with embarrassment and rage. The teacher saw her leave the theatre without a word of protest, and none of her white classmates defended her for being black. They didn’t care.

“All white people are alike, in school and out,” Harriett concluded bitterly, as she told of her experiences to the folks sitting with her on the porch in the dark.

Once, when she had worked for a Mrs. Leonard Baker on Martin Avenue, she accidentally broke a precious cut-glass pitcher used to serve some out-of-town guests. And when she tried to apologize for the accident, Mrs. Baker screamed in a rage: “Shut up, you impudent little black wench! Talking back to me after breaking up my dishes.

In the next room Harriett had lighted the oil-lamp and was moving swiftly about taking clothes from the dresser-drawers and spreading them on the bed. She thought Sandy was asleep, he knew⁠—but he couldn’t go to sleep the way his foot hurt him. He could see her through the doorway folding her dresses in little piles and he wondered why she was doing that. Then she took an old suitcase from the closet and began to pack it, and when it was full, she pulled a new bag from under the bed, and into it she dumped her toilet-articles, powder, vaseline, nail-polish, straightening comb, and several pairs of old stockings rolled in balls. Then she sat down on the bed between the two closed suitcases for a long time with her hands in her lap and her eyes staring ahead of her.

Finally she rose and closed the bureau-drawers, tidied up the confusion she had created, and gathered together the discarded things she had thrown on the floor. Then Sandy heard her go out into the backyard towards the trash-pile. When she returned, she put on a tight little hat and went into the kitchen to wash her hands, throwing the water through the back door. Then she tiptoed into the room where Sandy was lying and kissed him gently on the head. Sandy knew that she thought he was asleep, but in spite of himself he suddenly threw his arms tightly around her neck. He couldn’t help it.

“Where you going, Aunt Harriett?” he said, sitting up in bed, clutching the girl.

“I’m gonna ride on that first,” said Sandy.

There were crowds of children under the bright red and white wooden shelter at the park entrance. They were lining up at the gate⁠—laughing, merry, clean little white children, pushing and yelling and giggling amiably. Sandy let Willie-Mae go first and he got in line behind her. The band was playing gaily inside.⁠ ⁠… They were almost to the entrance now.⁠ ⁠… There were just two boys in front of them⁠ ⁠… Willie-Mae held out her black little hand clutching the coupons. They moved forward. The man looked down.

“Sorry,” he said. “This party’s for white kids.”

Willie-Mae did not understand. She stood holding out the coupons, waiting for the tall white man to take them.

“Stand back, you two,” he said, looking at Sandy as well. “I told you little darkies this wasn’t your party.⁠ ⁠… Come on⁠—next little girl.” And the line of white children pushed past Willie-Mae and Sandy, going into the park. Stunned, the two dark ones drew aside. Then they noticed a group of a dozen or more other colored youngsters standing apart in the sun, just without the bright entrance pavilion, and among them was Sadie Butler, Sandy’s classmate. Three or four of the colored children were crying, but most of them looked sullen and angry, and some of them had turned to go home.