“A year ago tonight was de storm what blowed ma porch away! You ’members, honey?⁠ ⁠… Done seem like this year took more’n ma porch, too. My baby chile’s left home an’ gone to stay down yonder in de Bottoms with them triflin’ Smothers family, where de piano’s goin’ night an’ day. An’ yo’ mammy’s done gone a-trapesin’ after Jimboy.⁠ ⁠… Well, I thanks de Lawd you ain’t gone too. You’s mighty little an’ knee-high to a duck, but you’s ma standby. You’s all I got, an’ you ain’t gwine leave yo’ old grandma, is you?”

Hager had turned to Sandy in these lonely days for comfort and companionship. Through the long summer evenings they sat together on the front porch and she told her grandchild stories. Sometimes Sister Johnson came over and sat with them for a while smoking. Sometimes Madam de Carter, full of chatter and big words about the lodge and the race, would be there. But more often the two were alone⁠—the black washwoman with the grey hair and the little brown boy. Slavery-time stories, myths, folktales like the Rabbit and the Tar Baby; the war, Abe Lincoln, freedom; visions of the Lord; years of faith and labor, love and struggle filled Aunt Hager’s talk of a summer night, while the lightning-bugs glowed and glimmered and the katydids chirruped, and the stars sparkled in the far-off heavens.

Sandy was getting to be too big a boy to sit in his grandmother’s lap and be rocked to sleep as in summers gone by; now he sat on a little stool beside her, leaning his head on her legs when he was tired. Or else he lay flat on the floor of the porch listening, and looking up at the stars. Tonight Hager talked about love.

“These young ones what’s comin’ up now, they calls us ole fogies, an’ handkerchief heads, an’ white folks’ niggers ’cause we don’t get mad an’ rar’ up in arms like they does ’cause things is kinder hard, but, honey, when you gets old, you knows they ain’t no sense in gettin’ mad an’ sourin’ yo’ soul with hatin’ peoples. White folks is white folks, an’ colored folks is colored, an’ neither one of ’em is bad as t’other make out. For mighty nigh seventy years I been knowin’ both of ’em, an’ I ain’t never had no room in ma heart to hate neither white nor colored. When you starts hatin’ people, you gets uglier than they is⁠—an’ I ain’t never had no time for ugliness, ’cause that’s where de devil comes in⁠—in ugliness!

“They talks ’bout slavery time an’ they makes out now like it were de most awfullest time what ever was, but don’t you believe it, chile, ’cause it weren’t all that bad. Some o’ de white folks was just as nice to their niggers as they could be, nicer than many of ’em is now, what makes ’em work for less than they needs to eat. An’ in those days they had to feed ’em. An’ they ain’t every white man beat his slaves neither! Course I ain’t sayin’ ’twas no paradise, but I ain’t going to say it were no hell either. An’ maybe I’s kinder seein’ it on de bestest side ’cause I worked in de big house an’ ain’t never went to de fields like most o’ de niggers did. Ma mammy were de big-house cook an’ I grewed up right with her in de kitchen an’ played with little Miss Jeanne. An’ Miss Jeanne taught me to read what little I knowed. An’ when she growed up an’ I growed up, she kept me with her like her friend all de time. I loved her an’ she loved me. Miss Jeanne were de mistress’ daughter, but warn’t no difference ’tween us ’ceptin’ she called me Hager an’ I called her Miss Jeanne. But what difference do one word like ‘Miss’ make in yo’ heart? None, chile, none. De words don’t make no difference if de love’s there.

“I disremembers what year it were de war broke out, but white folks was scared, an’ niggers, too. Didn’t know what might happen. An’ we heard talk o’ Abraham Lincoln ’way down yonder in de South. An’ de ole marster, ole man Winfield, took his gun an’ went to war, an’ de young son, too, an’ de superintender and de overseer⁠—all of ’em gone to follow Lee. Ain’t left nothin’ but womens an’ niggers on de plantation. De womens was a-cryin’ an’ de niggers was, too, ’cause they was sorry for de po’ grievin’ white folks.

“Is I ever told you how Miss Jeanne an’ Marster Robert was married in de springtime o’ de war, with de magnolias all a-bloomin’ like candles for they weddin’? Is I ever told you, Sandy?⁠ ⁠… Well, I must some time. An’ then Marster Robert had to go right off with his mens, ’cause he’s a high officer in de army an’ they heard Sherman were comin’. An’ he left her a-standin’ with her weddin’-clothes on, leanin’ ’gainst a pillar o’ de big white porch, with nobody but me to dry her eyes⁠—ole Missis done dead an’ de menfolks all gone to war. An’ nobody in that big whole mansion but black ole deaf Aunt Granny Jones, what kept de house straight, an’ me, what was stayin’ with ma mistress.

“O, de white folks needed niggers then mo’n they ever did befo’, an’ they ain’t a colored person what didn’t stick by ’em when all they menfolks were gone an’ de white womens was a-cryin’ an’ a-faintin’ like they did in them days.

“But lemme tell you ’bout Miss Jeanne. She just set in her room an’ cry. A-holdin’ Marster Bob’s pitcher, she set an’ cry, an’ she ain’t come out o’ her room to see ’bout nothin’⁠—house, horses, cotton⁠—nothin’. But de niggers, they ain’t cheat her nor steal from her. An’ come de news dat her brother done got wounded an’ died in Virginia, an’ her cousins got de yaller fever. Then come de news that Marster Robert, Miss Jeanne’s husband, ain’t no mo’! Killed in de battle! An’ I thought Miss Jeanne would like to go crazy. De news say he died like a soldier, brave an’ fightin’. But when she heard it, she went to de drawer an’ got out her weddin’-veil an’ took her flowers in her hands like she were goin’ to de altar to meet de groom. Then she just sink in de flo’ an’ cry till I pick her up an’ hold her like a chile.

“Well, de freedom come, an’ all de niggers scatter like buckshot, goin’ to live in town. An’ de yard niggers say I’s a ole fool! I’s free now⁠—why don’t I come with them? But I say no, I’s gwine stay with Miss Jeanne⁠—an’ I stayed. I ’lowed ain’t nary one o’ them colored folks needed me like Miss Jeanne did, so I ain’t went with ’em.

“An’ de time pass; it pass an’ it pass, an’ de ole house get rusty for lack o’ paint, an’ de things, they ’gin to fall to pieces. An’ Miss Jeanne say: ‘Hager, I ain’t got nobody in de world but you.’ An’ I say: ‘Miss Jeanne, I ain’t got nobody in de world but you neither.’

“And then she’d start talkin’ ’bout her young husband what died so handsome an’ brave, what ain’t even had time that last day fo’ to ’scort her to de church for de weddin’, nor to hold her in his arms ’fore de orders come to leave. An’ we would set on de big high ole porch, with its tall stone pillars, in de evenin’s twilight till de bats start flyin’ overhead an’ de sunset glow done gone, she in her wide white skirts a-billowin’ round her slender waist, an’ me in ma apron an’ cap an’ this here chain she gimme you see on ma neck all de time an’ what’s done wore so thin.

“They was a ole stump of a blasted tree in de yard front o’ de porch ’bout tall as a man, with two black pieces o’ branches raised up like arms in de air. We used to set an’ look at it, an’ Miss Jeanne could see it from her bedroom winder upstairs, an’ sometimes this stump, it look like it were movin’ right up de path like a man.

“After she done gone to bed, late one springtime night when de moon were shinin’, I hear Miss Jeanne a-cryin’: ‘He’s come!⁠ ⁠… Hager, ma Robert’s come back to me!’ An’ I jumped out o’ ma bed in de next room where I were sleepin’ an’ run in to her, an’ there she was in her long, white nightclothes standin’ out in de moonlight on de little balcony, high up in de middle o’ that big stone porch. She was lookin’ down into de yard at this stump of a tree a-holdin’ up its arms. An’ she thinks it’s Marster Robert a-callin’ her. She thinks he’s standin’ there in his uniform, come back from de war, a-callin’ her. An’ she say: ‘I’m comin’, Bob, dear;’⁠ ⁠… An’ ’fore I think what she’s doin’, Miss Jeanne done stepped over de little rail o’ de balcony like she were walkin’ on moonlight. An’ she say: ‘I’m comin’, Bob!’

“She ain’t left no will, so de house an’ all went to de State, an’ I been left with nothin’. But I ain’t care ’bout that. I followed her to de grave, an’ I been with her all de time, ’cause she’s ma friend. An’ I were sorry for her, ’cause I knowed that love were painin’ her soul, an’ warn’t nobody left to help her but me.

“An’ since then I’s met many a white lady an’ many a white gentleman, an’ some of ’em’s been kind to me an’ some of ’em ain’t; some of ’em’s cussed me an’ wouldn’t pay me fo’ ma work; an’ some of ’em’s hurted me awful. But I’s been sorry fo’ white folks, fo’ I knows something inside must be aggravatin’ de po’ souls. An’ I’s kept a room in ma heart fo’ ’em, ’cause white folks needs us, honey, even if they don’t know it. They’s like spoilt chillens what’s got too much o’ ever’thing⁠—an’ they needs us niggers, what ain’t got nothin’.

“I’s been livin’ a long time in yesterday, Sandy chile, an’ I knows there ain’t no room in de world fo’ nothin’ mo’n love. I knows, chile! Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ’nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body⁠—great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil⁠—’cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stays an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.

“White peoples maybe mistreats you an’ hates you, but when you hates ’em back, you’s de one what’s hurted, ’cause hate makes yo’ heart ugly⁠—that’s all it does. It closes up de sweet door to life an’ makes ever’thing small an’ mean an’ dirty. Honey, there ain’t no room in de world fo’ hate, white folks hatin’ niggers, an’ niggers hatin’ white folks. There ain’t no room in this world fo’ nothin’ but love, Sandy chile. That’s all they’s room fo’⁠—nothin’ but love.”