In the fall Sandy found a job that occupied him after school hours, as well as on Saturday and Sunday. One afternoon at the barbershop, Charlie Nutter, a bellhop who had come to have his hair cut, asked Sandy to step outside a minute. Once out of earshot of the barbers and loafers within, Charlie went on: “Say, kid, I got some dope to buzz to yuh ’bout a job. Joe Willis, the white guy what keeps the hotel where I work, is lookin’ for a boy to kinder sweep up around the lobby every day, dust off, and sort o’ help the bellboys out sometimes. Ain’t nothin’ hard attached to it, and yuh can bring ’long your shine-box and rub up shoes in the lobby, too, if yuh wants to. I though’ maybe yuh might like to have the job. Yuh’d make more’n yuh do here. And more’n that, too, when yuh got on to the ropes. Course yuh’d have to fix me up with a couple o’ bucks o’ so for gettin’ yuh the job, but if yuh want it, just lemme know and I’ll fix it with the boss. He tole me to start lookin’ for somebody and that’s what I’m doin’.” Charlie Nutter went on talking, without stopping to wait for an answer. “Course a boy like you don’t know nothin’ ’bout hotel work, but yuh ain’t never too young to learn, and that’s a nice easy way to start. Yuh might work up to me some time, yuh never can tell⁠—head bellhop! ’Cause I ain’t gonna stay in this burg all my life; I figger if I can hop bells here, I can hop bells in Chicago or some place worth livin’ at. But the tips ain’t bad down there at the Drummer’s though⁠—lots o’ sportin’ women and folks like that what don’t mind givin’ yuh a quarter any time.⁠ ⁠… And yuh can get well yourself once in a while. What yuh say? Do yuh want it?”

Sandy thought quick. With Christmas not far off, his shoes about worn out, and the desire to help Aunt Hager, too⁠—“I guess I better take it,” he said. “But do I have to pay you now?”

“Hell, naw, not now! I’ll keep my eye on yuh, and yuh can just slip me a little change now and then down to the hotel when you start workin’. Other boy ain’t quittin’ nohow till next week. S’pose yuh come round there Sunday morning and I’ll kinder show yuh what to do. And don’t pay no mind to Willis when he hollers at yuh. He’s all right⁠—just got a hard way about him with the help, that’s all⁠—but he ain’t a bad boss. I’ll see yuh, then! Drop by Sunday and lemme know for sure. So long!”

But Aunt Hager was not much pleased when Sandy came home that night and she heard the news. “I ain’t never wanted none o’ my chillens to work in no ole hotels,” she said. “They’s evil, full o’ nastiness, an’ you don’t learn nothin’ good in ’em. I don’t want you to go there, chile.”

“But grandma,” Sandy argued, “I want to send mama a Christmas present. And just look at my shoes, all worn out! I don’t make much money any more since that new colored barbershop opened up. It’s all white inside and folks don’t have to wait so long ’cause there’s five barbers. Jimmy Lane’s got the porter’s job down there⁠ ⁠… and I have to start working regular some time, don’t I?”

“I reckons you does, but I hates to see you workin’ in hotels, chile, with all them low-down Bottoms niggers, and bad womens comin’ an’ goin’. But I reckon you does need de job. Yo’ mammy ain’t sent no money here fo’ de Lawd knows when, an’ I ain’t able to buy you nice clothes an’ all like you needs to go to school in.⁠ ⁠… But don’t forget, honey, no matter where you works⁠—you be good an’ do right.⁠ ⁠… I reckon you’ll get along.”

So Sandy found Charlie Nutter on Sunday and told him for sure he would take the job. Then he told Pete Scott he was no longer coming to work at his barbershop, and Pete got mad and told him to go to hell, quitting when business was bad after all he had done for Sandy, besides letting him shine shoes and keep all his earnings. At other shops he couldn’t have done that; besides he had intended to teach Sandy to be a barber when he got big enough.

“But go on!” said Pete Scott. “Go on! I don’t need you. Plenty other boys I can find to work for me. But I bet you won’t stay at that Drummer’s Hotel no time, though⁠—I can tell you that!”

The long Indian summer lingered until almost Thanksgiving, and the weather was sunny and warm. The day before Sandy went to work on his new job, he came home from school, brought in the wood for the stove, and delivered a basket of newly ironed clothes to the white folks. When he returned, he found his grandmother standing on the front porch in the sunset, reading the evening paper, which the boy had recently delivered. Sandy stopped in the twilight beside Hager, breathing in the crisp cool air and wondering what they were going to have for supper.

Suddenly his grandmother gave a deep cry and leaned heavily against the doorjamb, letting the paper fall from her hands. “O, ma Lawd!” she moaned. “O, ma Lawd!” and an expression of the uttermost pain made the old woman’s eyes widen in horror. “Is I read de name right?”

Sandy, frightened, picked up the paper from the porch and found on the front page the little four-line item that his grandmother had just read:

Negresses Arrested

Harrietta Williams and Maudel Smothers, two young negresses, were arrested last night on Pearl Street for streetwalking. They were brought before Judge Brinton and fined ten dollars and costs.

“What does that mean, grandma⁠—streetwalking?” the child asked, but his grandmother raised her apron to her eyes and stumbled into the house. Sandy stopped, perplexed at the meaning of the article, at his aunt’s arrest, at his grandmother’s horror. Then he followed Hager, the open newspaper still in his hands, and found her standing at the window in the kitchen, crying. Racking sobs were shaking her body and the boy, who had never seen an old person weep like that before, was terribly afraid. He didn’t know that grown-up people cried, except at funerals, where it was the proper thing to do. He didn’t know they ever cried alone, by themselves in their own houses.

“I’m gonna get Sister Johnson,” he said, dropping the paper on the floor. “I’m gonna get Sister Johnson quick!”

“No, honey, don’t get her,” stammered the old woman. “She can’t help us none, chile. Can’t nobody help us⁠ ⁠… but de Lawd.”

In the dusk Sandy saw that his grandmother was trying hard to make her lips speak plainly and to control her sobs.

“Let’s we pray, son, fo’ yo’ po’ lost Aunt Harriett⁠—fo’ ma own baby chile, what’s done turned from de light an’ is walkin’ in darkness.”

She dropped on her knees near the kitchen-stove with her arms on the seat of a chair and her head bowed. Sandy got on his knees, too, and while his grandmother prayed aloud for the body and soul of her daughter, the boy repeated over and over in his mind: “I wish you’d come home, Aunt Harrie. It’s lonesome around here! Gee, I wish you’d come home.”