Some weeks later the neighbors were treated to an early morning concert:

I got a high yaller
An’ a little short black,
But a brown-skin gal
Can bring me right on back!
I’m singin’ brown-skin!
Lawdy!⁠ ⁠… Lawd!
Brown-skin!⁠ ⁠… O, ma Lawd!

“It must be Jimboy,” said Hager from the kitchen. “A lazy coon, settin’ out there in the cool, singin’, an’ me in here sweatin’ and washin’ maself to dust!”

Kansas City Southern!
I mean de W. & A.!
I’m gonna ride de first train
I catch goin’ out ma way.
I’m got de railroad blues⁠—

“I wish to God you’d go on, then!” mumbled Hager over the wash-boilers.

But I ain’t got no railroad fare!
I’m gwine to pack ma grip an’
Beat ma way away from here!

“Learn me how to pick a chord, papa,” Sandy begged as he sat beside his father under the apple-tree, loaded with ripe fruit.

“All right, look a-here!⁠ ⁠… You put your thumb like this.⁠ ⁠…” Jimboy began to explain. “But, dog-gone, your fingers ain’t long enough yet!”

Still they managed to spend a half-day twanging at the old instrument, with Sandy trying to learn a simple tune.

The sunny August mornings had become September mornings, and most of Aunt Hager’s “white folks” had returned from their vacations; her kitchen was once more a daily laundry. Great boilers of clothes steamed on the stove and, beside the clothes, pans of apple juice boiled to jelly, and the peelings of peaches simmered to jam.

There was no news from the runaway Harriett.⁠ ⁠… Mrs. Lane died one sultry night, with Hager at the bedside, and was buried by the lodge with three hacks and a fifty-dollar coffin.⁠ ⁠… The following week the Drill of All Nations, after much practising by the women, was given with great success and Annjee, dressed in white and wrapped in a Scandinavian flag, marched proudly as Sweden.⁠ ⁠… Madam de Carter’s house was now locked and barred, as she had departed for Oklahoma to organize branches of the lodge there.⁠ ⁠… Tempy had stopped to see Hager one afternoon, but she didn’t stay long. She told her mother she was out collecting rents and that she and her husband were buying another house.⁠ ⁠… Willie-Mae had a new calico dress.⁠ ⁠… Buster had learned to swear better than Sandy.⁠ ⁠… And next Monday was to be the opening of the new school term.

Sandy hated even to think about going back to school. He was having much fun playing, and Jimboy had been teaching him to box. Then the time to go to classes came.

“Wash yo’ face good, sir, put on yo’ clean waist, an’ polish yo’ shoes,” Aunt Hager said, bright and early, “ ’cause I don’t want none o’ them white teachers sayin’ I sends you to school dirty as a ’cuse to put you back in de fourth grade. You hear me, sir!”

“Yes’m,” Sandy replied.

This morning he was to enter the “white” fifth grade, having passed last June from the “colored” fourth, for in Stanton the Negro children were kept in separate rooms under colored teachers until they had passed the fourth grade. Then, from the fifth grade on, they went with the other children, and the teachers were white.

When Sandy arrived on the school grounds with his face shining, he found the yard already full of shouting kids. On the girls’ side he saw Willie-Mae jumping rope. Sandy found Earl and Buster and some boys whom he knew playing mumble-peg on the boys’ side, and he joined them. When the bell rang, they all crowded into the building, as the marching-lines had not yet been formed. Miss Abigail Minter, the principal, stood at the entrance, and there were big signs on all the room doors marking the classes. Sandy found the fifth-grade room upstairs and went in shyly. It was full of whispering youngsters huddled in little groups. He saw two colored children among them, both girls whom he didn’t know, but there were no colored boys. Soon the teacher rapped briskly on her desk, and silence ensued.

“Take seats, all of you, please,” she rasped out. “Anywhere now until we get order.” She rapped again impatiently with the ruler. “Take seats at once.” So the children each selected a desk and sat down, most of the girls at the front of the room and most of the boys together at the back, where they could play and look out the windows.

Then the teacher, middle-aged and wearing glasses, passed out tiny slips of paper to each child in the front row, with the command that they be handed backwards, so that every student received one slip.

“Now, write your names on the paper, turning it longways,” she said. “Nothing but your names, that’s all I want today. You will receive forms to fill out later, but I want to get your seats assigned this morning, however.”

Amid much confusion and borrowing of pencils, the slips were finally signed in big awkward letters, and collected by the teacher, who passed up and down the aisles. Then she went to her desk, and there was a delightful period of whispering and wriggling as she sorted the slips and placed them in alphabetical order. Finally she finished.

“Now,” she said, “each child rise as I call out your names, so I can see who you are.”

The teacher stood up with the papers in her hand.

“Mary Atkins⁠ ⁠… Carl Dietrich⁠ ⁠… Josephine Evans,” she called slowly glancing up after each name. “Franklin Rhodes⁠ ⁠… James Rodgers.” Sandy stood up quickly. “Ethel Shortlidge⁠ ⁠… Roland Thomas.” The roll-call continued, each child standing until he had been identified, then sitting down again.

“Now,” the teacher said, “everybody rise and make a line around the walls. Quietly! No talking! As I call your names this time, take seats in order, starting with number one in the first row near the window.⁠ ⁠… Mary Atkins⁠ ⁠… Carl Dietrich.⁠ ⁠…” The roll was repeated, each child taking a seat as she had commanded. When all but four of the children were seated, the two colored girls and Sandy still were standing.

“Albert Zwick,” she said, and the last white child sat down in his place. “Now,” said the teacher, “you three colored children take the seats behind Albert. You girls take the first two, and you,” pointing to Sandy, “take the last one.⁠ ⁠… Now I’m going to put on the board the list of books to buy and I want all of you to copy them correctly.” And she went on with her details of schoolroom routine.

One of the colored girls turned round to Sandy and whispered: “She just put us in the back cause we’re niggers.” And Sandy nodded gravely. “My name’s Sadie Butler and she’s put me behind the Z cause I’m a nigger.”

“An old heifer!” said the first little colored girl, whispering loudly. “I’m gonna tell my mama.” But Sandy felt like crying. And he was beginning to be ashamed of crying because he was no longer a small boy. But the teacher’s putting the colored children in the back of the room made him feel like crying.

At lunchtime he came home with his list of books, and Aunt Hager pulled her wet arms out of the tub, wiped her hands, and held them up in horror.

“Lawdy! Just look! Something else to spend money for. Ever’ year more an’ more books, an’ chillens learn less an’ less! Used to didn’t have nothin’ but a blue-backed speller, and now look a-here⁠—a list as long as ma arm! Go out there in de yard an’ see is yo’ pappy got any money to give you for ’em, ’cause I ain’t.”

Sandy found Jimboy sitting dejectedly on the well-stoop in the sunshine, with his head in his hands. “You got any money, papa?” he asked.

Jimboy looked at the list of books written in Sandy’s childish scrawl and slowly handed him a dollar and a half.

“You see what I got left, don’t you?” said his father as he turned his pants-pockets inside out, showing the little boy a jackknife, a half-empty sack of Bull Durham, a key, and a dime. But he smiled, and took Sandy awkwardly in his arms and kissed him. “It’s all right, kid.”

That afternoon at school they had a long drill on the multiplication table, and then they had a spelling-match, because the teacher said that would be a good way to find out what the children knew. For the spelling-bee they were divided into two sides⁠—the boys and the girls, each side lining up against an opposite wall. Then the teacher gave out words that they should have learned in the lower grades. On the boys’ side everyone was spelled down except Sandy, but on the girls’ side there were three proud little white girls left standing and Sandy came near spelling them down, too, until he put the e before i in “chief,” and the girls’ side won, to the disgust of the boys, and the two colored girls, who wanted Sandy to win.

After school Sandy went uptown with Buster to buy books, but there was so large a crowd of children in the bookstore that it was five o’clock before he was waited on and his list filled. When he reached home, Aunt Hager was at the kitchen-stove frying an eggplant for supper.

“You stayin’ out mighty long,” she said without taking her attention from the stove.

“Where’s papa?” Sandy asked eagerly. He wanted to show Jimboy his new books⁠—a big geography, with pictures of animals in it, and a Nature Story Reader that he knew his father would like to see.

“Look in yonder,” said Hager, pointing towards Annjee’s bedroom.

Sandy rushed in, then stopped, because there was no one there. Suddenly a queer feeling came over him and he put his books down on the bed. Jimboy’s clothes were no longer hanging against the wall where his working-shirts and overalls were kept. Then Sandy looked under the bed. His father’s old suitcase was not there either, nor his work-shoes, nor his Sunday patent-leathers. And the guitar was missing.

“Where’s papa?” he asked again, running back to the kitchen.

“Can’t you see he ain’t here?” replied his grandmother, busily turning slices of eggplant with great care in the skillet. “Gone⁠—that’s where he is⁠—a lazy nigger. Told me to tell Annjee he say goodbye, ’cause his travellin’ blues done come on⁠ ⁠… ! Huh! Jimboy’s yo’ pappy, chile, but he sho ain’t worth his salt!⁠ ⁠… an’ I’s right glad he’s took his clothes an’ left here, maself.”