During the day the lodge members went to their work in the various kitchens and restaurants and laundries of the town. And Madam de Carter was ordered to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a split in her organization was threatened because of the elections of the grand officers. Hager was resting easy, no pain now, but very weak.

“It’s only a matter of time,” said the doctor. “Give her the medicine so she won’t worry, but it does no good. There’s nothing we can do.”

“She’s going to die!” Sandy thought.

Harriett sat by the bedside holding her mother’s hand as the afternoon sunlight fell on the white spread. Hager had been glad to see the girl again, and the old woman held nothing against her daughter for no longer living at home.

“Is you happy, chile?” Hager asked. “You looks so nice. Yo’ clothes is right purty. I hopes you’s findin’ what you wants in life. You’s young, honey, an’ you needs to be happy.⁠ ⁠… Sandy!” She called so weakly that he could hardly hear her, though he was standing at the head of the bed. “Sandy, look in that drawer, chile, under ma nightgowns an’ things, an’ hand me that there little box you sees down in de corner.”

The child found it and gave it to her, a small, white box from a cheap jeweller’s. It was wrapped carefully in a soft handkerchief. The old woman took it eagerly and tried to hold it out towards her daughter. Harriett unwound the handkerchief and opened the lid of the box. Then she saw that it contained the tiny gold watch that her mother had given her on her sixteenth birthday, which she had pawned months ago in order to run away with the carnival. Quick tears came to the girl’s eyes.

“I got it out o’ pawn fo’ you,” Hager said, “ ’cause I wanted you to have it fo’ yo’self, chile. You know yo’ mammy bought it fo’ you.”

It was such a little watch! Old-timey, with a breastpin on it. Harriett quickly put her handkerchief over her wrist to hide the flashy new timepiece she was wearing on a gold bracelet.

That night Hager died. The undertakers came at dawn with their wagon and carried the body away to embalm it. Sandy stood on the front porch looking at the morning star as the clatter of the horses’ hoofs echoed in the street. A sleepy young white boy was driving the undertaker’s wagon, and the horse that pulled it was white.

The women who had been sitting up all night began to go home now to get their husbands’ breakfasts and to prepare to go to work themselves.

“It’s Wednesday,” Sandy thought. “Today I’m supposed to go get Mrs. Reinhart’s clothes, but grandma’s dead. I guess I won’t get them now. There’s nobody to wash them.”

Sister Johnson called him to the kitchen to drink a cup of coffee. Harriett was there weeping softly. Tempy was inside busily cleaning the room from which they had removed the body. She had opened all the windows and was airing the house.

Out in the yard a rooster flapped his wings and crowed shrilly at the rising sun. The fire crackled, and the coffee boiling sent up a fragrant aroma. Sister Johnson opened a can of condensed milk by punching it with the butcher-knife. She put some cups and saucers on the table.

“Tempy, won’t you have some?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Johnson,” she called from the dead woman’s bedroom.

When Aunt Hager was brought back to her house, she was in a long box covered with black plush. They placed it on a folding stand by the window in the front room. There was a crepe on the door, and the shades were kept lowered, and people whispered in the house as though someone were asleep. Flowers began to be delivered by boys on bicycles, and the lodge members came to sit up again that night. The time was set for burial, and the Daily Leader carried this paragraph in small type on its back page:

Hager Williams, aged colored laundress of 419 Cypress Street, passed away at her home last night. She was known and respected by many white families in the community. Three daughters and a grandson survive.

They tried again to reach Annjee in Detroit by telegram, but without success. On the afternoon of the funeral it was cold and rainy. The little Baptist Church was packed with people. The sisters of the lodge came in full regalia, with banners and insignia, and the brothers turned out with them. Hager’s coffin was banked with flowers. There were many fine pieces from the families for whom she had washed and from the white neighbors she had nursed in sickness. There were offerings, too, from Tempy’s high-toned friends and from Harriett’s girl companions in the house in the Bottoms. Many of the bellboys, porters, and bootleggers sent wreaths and crosses with golden letters on them: “At Rest in Jesus,” “Beyond the Jordan,” or simply: “Gone Home.” There was a bouquet of violets from Buster’s mother and a blanket of roses from Tempy herself. They were all pretty, but, to Sandy, the perfume was sickening in the close little church.

The Baptist minister preached, but Tempy had Father Hill from her church to say a few words, too. The choir sang “Shall We Meet Beyond the River?” People wept and fainted. The services seemed interminable. Then came the long drive to the cemetery in horse-drawn hacks, with a few automobiles in line behind. In at the wide gates and through a vast expanse of tombstones the procession passed, across the graveyard, towards the far, lonesome corner where most of the Negroes rested. There Sandy saw the open grave. Then he saw the casket going down⁠ ⁠… down⁠ ⁠… down, into the earth.

The boy stood quietly between his Aunt Tempy and his Aunt Harriett at the edge of the grave while Tempy stared straight ahead in the drizzling rain, and Harriett cried, streaking the powder on her cheeks.

“That’s all right, mama,” Harriett sobbed to the body in the long, black box. “You won’t get lonesome out here. Harrie’ll come back tomorrow. Harrie’ll come back every day and bring you flowers. You won’t get lonesome, mama.”

They were throwing wet dirt on the coffin as the mourners walked away through the sticky clay towards their carriages. Some old sister at the grave began to sing:

Dark was the night,
Cold was the ground⁠ ⁠…

in a high weird monotone. Others took it up, and, as the mourners drove away, the air was filled with the minor wailing of the old women. Harriett was wearing Hager’s gift, the little gold watch, pinned beneath her coat.

When they got back to the house where Aunt Hager had lived for so long, Sister Johnson said the mailman had left a letter under the door that afternoon addressed to the dead woman. Harriett was about to open it when Tempy took it from her. It was from Annjee.

“Dear mama,” it began.

We have moved to Toledo because Jimboy thought he would do better here and the reason I haven’t written, we have been so long getting settled. I have been out of work but we both got jobs now and maybe I will be able to send you some money soon. I hope you are well, ma, and all right. Kiss Sandy for me and take care of yourself. With love and God’s blessings from your daughter,

Tempy immediately turned the letter over and wrote on the back:

We buried your mother today. I tried to reach you in Detroit, but could not get you, since you were no longer there and neglected to send us your new address. It is too bad you weren’t here for the funeral. Your child is going to stay with me until I hear from you.

Then she turned to the boy, who stood dazed beside Sister Johnson in the silent, familiar old house. “You will come home with me, James,” she said. “We’ll see that this place is locked first. You try all the windows and I’ll fasten the doors; then we’ll go out the front.⁠ ⁠… Mrs. Johnson, it’s been good of you to help us in our troubles. Thank you.”

Sister Johnson went home, leaving Harriett in the parlor. When Sandy and Tempy returned from locking the back windows and doors, they found the girl still standing there, and for a moment the two sisters looked at one another in silence. Then Tempy said coldly: “We’re going.”

Harriett went out alone into the drizzling rain. Tempy tried the parlor windows to be sure they were well fastened; then, stepping outside on the porch, she locked the door and put the key in her bag.

“Come on,” she said.

Sandy looked up and down the street, but in the thick twilight of fog and rain Harriett had disappeared, so he followed his aunt into the waiting cab. As the hack clattered off, the boy gave an involuntary shiver.

“Do you want to hold my hand?” Tempy asked, unbending a little.

“No,” Sandy said. So they rode in silence.