Chicago, IL
May 16, 1918

Dear Sandy:

Have just come home from work and am very tired but thought I would write you this letter right now while I had time and wasn’t sleepy. You are a big boy and I think you can be of some help to me. I don’t want you to stay in Stanton any longer as a burden on your Aunt Tempy. She says in her letters you have begun to stay out late nights and not pay her any mind. You ought to be with your mother now because you are all she has since I do not know what has happened to your father in France. The war is awful and so many mens are getting killed. Have not had no word from Jimboy for 7 months from Over There and am worried till I’m sick. Will try and send you how much money you need for your fare before the end of the month so when school is out in June you can come. Let me know how much you saved and I will send you the rest to come to Chicago because Mr. Harris where I stay is head elevator man at a big hotel in the Loop and he says he can put you on there in July. That will be a good job for you and maybe by saving your money you can go back to school in Sept. I will help you if I can but you will have to help me too because I have not been doing so well. Am working for a colored lady in her hair dressing parlor and am learning hairdressing myself, shampoo and straighten and give massauges on the face and all. But colored folks are hard people to work for. Madam King is from down south somewhere and these southern Negroes are not like us in their ways, but she seems to like me. Mr. Harris is from the south too in a place called Baton Rouge. They eat rice all the time. Well I must close hoping to see you soon once more because it has been five years since I have looked at my child. With love to you and Tempy, be a good boy,

A week later another letter came to Sandy from his mother. This time it was a registered special-delivery, which said: “If you’ll come right away you can get your job at once. Mr. Harris says he will have a vacancy Saturday because one of the elevator boys are quitting.” And sufficient bills to cover Sandy’s fare tumbled out.

With a tremendous creaking and grinding and steady clacking of wheels the long train went roaring through the night towards Chicago as Sandy, in a day coach, took from his pocket Annjee’s two letters and reread them for the tenth time since leaving Stanton. He could hardly believe himself actually at that moment on the way to Chicago!

In the stuffy coach papers littered the floor and the scent of bananas and human feet filled the car. The lights were dim and most of the passengers slumbered in the straight-backed green-plush seats, but Sandy was still awake. The thrill of his first all-night rail journey and his dream-expectations of the great city were too much to allow a sixteen-year-old boy to go calmly to sleep, although the man next to him had long been snoring.

Annjee’s special-delivery letter had come that morning. Sandy had discovered it when he came home for lunch, and upon his return to the high school for the afternoon classes he went at once to the principal to inquire if he might be excused from the remaining days of the spring term.

“Let me see! Your record’s pretty good, isn’t it, Rodgers?” said Professor Perkins looking over his glasses at the young colored fellow standing before him. “Going to Chicago, heh? Well, I guess we can let you transfer and give you full credit for this year’s work without your waiting here for the examinations⁠—there are only ten days or so of the term remaining. You are an honor student and would get through your exams all right. Now, if you’ll just send us your address when you get to Chicago, we’ll see that you get your report.⁠ ⁠… Intending to go to school there, are you?⁠ ⁠… That’s right! I like to see your people get ahead.⁠ ⁠… Well, good luck to you, James.” The old gentleman rose and held out his hand.

“Good old scout,” thought Sandy. “Miss Fry was a good teacher, too! Some white folks are nice all right! Not all of them are mean.⁠ ⁠… Gee, old man Prentiss hated to see me quit his place. Said I was the best boy he ever had working there, even if I was late once in a while. But I don’t mind leaving Stanton. Gee, Chicago ought to be great! And I’m sure glad to get away from Tempy’s house. She’s too tight!”

But Tempy had not been glad to see her nephew leave. She had grown fond of the boy in spite of her almost nightly lectures to him recently on his behavior and in spite of his never having become her model youth. Not that he was bad, but he might have been so much better! She wanted to show her white neighbors a perfect colored boy⁠—and such a boy certainly wouldn’t be a user of slang, a lover of pool halls and non-Episcopalian ways. Tempy had given Sandy every opportunity to move in the best colored society and he had not taken advantage of it. Nevertheless, she cried a little as she packed a lunch for him to eat on the train. She had done all she could. He was a good-looking boy, and quite smart. Now, if he wanted to go to his mother, well⁠—“I can only hope Chicago won’t ruin you,” she said. “It’s a wicked city! Goodbye, James. Remember what I’ve tried to teach you. Stand up straight and look like you’re somebody!”

Stanton, Sandy’s Kansas home, was back in the darkness, and the train sped towards the great center where all the small-town boys in the whole Middle West wanted to go.

“I’m going now!” thought Sandy. “Chicago now!”

A few weeks past he had gone to see Sister Johnson, who was quite feeble with the rheumatism. As she sat in the corner of her kitchen smoking a corncob pipe, no longer able to wash clothes, but still able to keep up a rapid flow of conversation, she told him all the news.

“Tom, he’s still at de bank keepin’ de furnace goin’ an’ sort o’ handy man.⁠ ⁠… Willie-Mae, I ’spects you knows, is figurin’ on gettin’ married next month to Mose Jenkins, an’ I tells her she better stay single, young as she is, but she ain’t payin’ me no mind. Umn-unh! Jest let her go on!⁠ ⁠… Did you heerd Sister Whiteside’s daughter done brought her third husband home to stay wid her ma⁠—an’ five o’ her first husband’s chillens there too? Gals ain’t got no regard for de old folks. Sister Whiteside say if she warn’t a Christian in her heart, she don’t believe she could stand it!⁠ ⁠… I tells Willie-Mae she better not bring no husbands here to stay wid me⁠—do an’ I’ll run him out! These mens ought be shame o’ demselves comin’ livin’ on de womenfolks.”

As the old woman talked, Sandy, thinking of his grandmother, gazed out of the window towards the house next door, where he had lived with Aunt Hager. Some small children were playing in the backyard, running and yelling. They belonged to the Southern family to whom Tempy had rented the place.⁠ ⁠… Madam de Carter, who still owned the second house, had been made a national grand officer in the women’s division of the lodge and many of the members of the order now had on the walls of their homes a large picture of her dressed in full regalia, inscribed: “Yours in His Grace,” and signed: “Madam Fannie Rosalie de Carter.”

“Used to just plain old Rose Carter befo’ she got so important,” said Sister Johnson, explaining her neighbor’s lengthy name. “All these womens dey mammy named Jane an’ Mary an’ Cora, soon’s dey gets a little somethin’, dey changes dey names to Janette or Mariana or Corina or somethin’ mo’ flowery then what dey had. Willie-Mae say she gwine change her’n to Willetta-Mayola, an’ I tole her if she do, I’ll beat her⁠—don’t care how old she is!”

Sandy liked to listen to the rambling talk of old colored folks. “I guess there won’t be many like that in Chicago,” he thought, as he doubled back his long legs under the green-plush seat of the day coach. “I better try to get to sleep⁠—there’s a longways to go until morning.”

Although it was not yet June, the heat was terrific when, with the old bags that Tempy had given him, Sandy got out of the dusty train in Chicago and walked the length of the sheds into the station. He caught sight of his mother waiting in the crowd, a fatter and much older woman than he had remembered her to be; and at first she didn’t know him among the stream of people coming from the train. Perhaps, unconsciously, she was looking for the little boy she left in Stanton; but Sandy was taller than Annjee now and he looked quite a young man in his blue serge suit with long trousers. His mother threw both plump arms around him and hugged and kissed him for a long time.

They went uptown in the streetcars, Annjee a trifle out of breath from helping with the bags, and both of them perspiring freely from the heat. And they were not very talkative either. A strange and unexpected silence seemed to come between them. Annjee had been away from her son for five growing years and he was no longer her baby boy, small and eager for a kiss. She could see from the little cuts on his face that he had even begun to shave on the chin. And his voice was like a man’s, deep and musical as Jimboy’s, but not so sure of itself.

But Sandy was not thinking of his mother as they rode uptown on the streetcar. He was looking out of the windows at the blocks of dirty grey warehouses lining the streets through which they were passing. He hadn’t expected the great city to be monotonous and ugly like this and he was vaguely disappointed. No towers, no dreams come true! Where were the thrilling visions of grandeur he had held? Hidden in the dusty streets? Hidden in the long, hot alleys through which he could see at a distance the tracks of the elevated trains?

“Streetcars are slower but I ain’t got used to them air lines yet,” said Annjee, searching her mind for something to say. “I always think maybe them elevated cars’ll fall off o’ there sometimes. They go so fast!”

“I believe I’d rather ride on them, though,” said Sandy, as he looked at the monotonous boxlike tenements and dismal alleys on the ground level. No trees, no yards, no grass such as he had known at home, and yet, on the other hand, no bigness or beauty about the bleak warehouses and sorry shops that hugged the sidewalk. Soon, however, the street began to take on a racial aspect and to become more darkly alive. Negroes leaned from windows with heads uncombed, or sat fanning in doorways with legs apart, talking in kimonos and lounging in overalls, and more and more they became a part of the passing panorama.

“This is State Street,” said Annjee. “They call it the Black Belt. We have to get off in a minute. You got your suitcase?”

She rang the bell and at Thirty-seventh Street they walked over to Wabash Avenue. The cool shade of the tiny porch that Annjee mounted was more than welcome, and as she took out her key to unlock the front door, Sandy sat on the steps and mopped his forehead with a grimy handkerchief. Inside, there was a dusky gloom in the hallway, that smelled of hair-oil and cabbage steaming.

“Guess Mis’ Harris is in the kitchen,” said Annjee. “Come on⁠—we’ll go upstairs and I’ll show you our room. I guess we can both stay together till we can do better. You’re still little enough to sleep with your mother, ain’t you?”

They went down the completely dark hall on the second floor, and his mother opened a door that led into a rear room with two windows looking out into the alley, giving an extremely near view of the elevated structure on which a downtown train suddenly rushed past with an earsplitting roar that made the entire house tremble and the window-sashes rattle. There was a washstand with a white bowl and pitcher in the room, Annjee’s trunk, a chair, and a brass bed, covered with a fresh spread and starched pillow-covers in honor of Sandy’s arrival.

“See,” said Annjee. “There’s room enough for us both, and we’ll be saving rent. There’s no closet, but we can drive a few extra nails behind the door. And with the two windows we can get plenty of air these hot nights.”

“It’s nice, mama,” Sandy said, but he had to repeat his statement twice, because another L train thundered past so that he couldn’t hear his own words as he uttered them. “It’s awful nice, mama!”

He took off his coat and sat down on the trunk between the two windows. Annjee came over and kissed him, rubbing her hand across his crinkly brown hair.

“Well, you’re a great big boy now.⁠ ⁠… Mama’s baby⁠—in long pants. And you’re handsome, just like your father!” She had Jimboy’s picture stuck in a corner of the washstand⁠—a postcard photo in his army uniform, in which he looked very boyish and proud, sent from the training-camp before his company went to France. “But I got no time to be setting here petting you, Sandy, even if you have just come. I got to get on back to the hairdressing-parlor to make some money.”

So Annjee went to work again⁠—as she had been off only long enough to meet the train⁠—and Sandy lay down on the bed and slept the hot afternoon away. That evening as a treat they had supper at a restaurant, where Annjee picked carefully from the cheap menu so that their bill wouldn’t be high.

“But don’t think this is regular. We can’t afford it,” she said. “I bring things home and fix them on an oil-stove in the room and spread papers on the trunk for a table. A restaurant supper’s just in honor of you.”

When they came back to the house that evening, Sandy was introduced to Mrs. Harris, their landlady, and to her husband, the elevator-starter, who was to give him the job at the hotel.

“That’s a fine-looking boy you got there, Mis’ Rodgers,” he said, appraising Sandy. “He’ll do pretty well for one of them main lobby cars, since we don’t use nothing but first-class intelligent help down where I am, like I told you. And we has only the best class o’ white folks stoppin’ there, too.⁠ ⁠… Be up at six in the mornin’, buddy, and I’ll take you downtown with me.”

Annjee was tired, so they went upstairs to the back room and lit the gas over the bed, but the frequent roar of the L trains prevented steady conversation and made Sandy jump each time that the long chain of cars thundered by. He hadn’t yet become accustomed to them, or to the vast humming of the city, which was strange to his small-town ears. And he wanted to go out and look around a bit, to walk up and down the streets at night and see what they were like.

“Well, go on if you want to,” said his mother, “but don’t forget this house number. I’m gonna lie down, but I guess I’ll be awake when you come back. Or somebody’ll be setting on the porch and the door’ll be open.”

At the corner Sandy stopped and looked around to be sure of his bearings when he returned. He marked in his mind the signboard advertising Chesterfields and the frame-house with the tumbledown stairs on the outside. In the street some kids were playing hopscotch under the arc-light. Somebody stopped beside him.

“Nice evening?” said a small yellow man with a womanish kind of voice, smiling at Sandy.

“Yes,” said the boy, starting across the street, but the stranger followed him, offering Pall Malls. He smelled of perfume, and his face looked as though it had been powdered with white talcum as he lit a tiny pocket-lighter.

“Stranger?” murmured the soft voice, lighting Sandy’s cigarette.

“I’m from Stanton,” he replied, wishing the man had not chosen to walk with him.

“Ah, Kentucky,” exclaimed the perfumed fellow. “I been down there. Nice women in that town, heh?”

“But it’s not Kentucky,” Sandy objected. “It’s Kansas.”

“Oh, out west where the girls are raring to go! I know! Just like wild horses out there⁠—so passionate, aren’t they?”

“I guess so,” Sandy ventured. The powdered voice was softly persistent.

“Say, kid,” it whispered smoothly, touching the boy’s arm, “listen, I got some swell French pictures up in my room⁠—naked women and everything! Want to come up and see them?”

“No,” said Sandy, quickening his pace. “I got to go somewhere.”

“But I room right around the corner,” the voice insisted. “Come on by. You’re a nice kid, you know it? Listen, don’t walk so fast. Stop, let me talk to you.”

But Sandy was beginning to understand. A warm sweat broke out on his neck and forehead. Sometimes, at the pool hall in Stanton, he had heard the men talk about queer fellows who stopped boys in the streets and tried to coax them to their rooms.

“He thinks I’m dumb,” thought Sandy, “but I’m wise to him!” Yet he wondered what such men did with the boys who accompanied them. Curious, he’d like to find out⁠—but he was afraid; so at the next corner he turned and started rapidly towards State Street, but the queer fellow kept close beside him, begging.

“… and we’ll have a nice time.⁠ ⁠… I got wine in the room, if you want some, and a vic, too.”

“Get away, will you!”

They had reached State Street where the lights were bright and people were passing all the time. Sandy could see the fellow’s anxious face quite clearly now.

“Listen, kid⁠ ⁠… you⁠ ⁠…”

But suddenly the man was no longer beside him⁠—for Sandy commenced to run. On the brightly lighted avenue panic seized him. He had to escape this powdered face at his shoulder. The whining voice made him sick inside⁠—and, almost without knowing it, his legs began swerving swiftly between the crowds along the curb. When he stopped in front of the Monogram Theatre, two blocks away, he was freed of his companion.

“Gee, that’s nice,” panted Sandy, grinning as he stood looking at the pictures in front of the vaudeville house, while hundreds of dark people passed up and down on the sidewalk behind him. Lots of folks were going into the theatre, laughing and pushing, for one of the great blues-singing Smiths was appearing there. Sandy walked towards the ticket-booth to see what the prices were.

“Buy me a ticket, will you?” said a feminine voice beside him. This time it was a girl⁠—a very ugly, skinny girl, whose smile revealed a row of dirty teeth. She sidled up to the startled boy whom she had accosted and took his hand.

“I’m not going in,” Sandy said shortly, as he backed away, wiping the palm of his hand on his coat-sleeve.

“All right then, stingy!” hissed the girl, flouncing her hips and digging into her own purse for the coins to buy a ticket. “I got money.”

Some men standing on the edge of the sidewalk laughed as Sandy went up the street. A little black child in front of him toddled along in the crowd, seemingly by itself, licking a big chocolate ice-cream cone that dripped down the front of its dress.

So this was Chicago where the buildings were like towers and the lake was like a sea⁠ ⁠… State Street, the greatest Negro street in the world, where people were always happy, lights forever bright; and where the prettiest brown-skin women on earth could be found⁠—so the men in Stanton said.

“I guess I didn’t walk the right way. But maybe tomorrow I’ll see other things,” Sandy thought, “the Loop and the lake and the museum and the library. Maybe they’ll be better.”

He turned into a side street going back towards Wabash Avenue. It was darker there, and near the alley a painted woman called him, stepping out from among the shadows.

“Say, baby, com’ere!” But the boy went on.

Crossing overhead an L train thundered by, flashing its flow of yellow light on the pavement beneath.

Sandy turned into Wabash Avenue and cut across the street. As he approached the colored Y.M.C.A., three boys came out with swimming suits on their arms, and one of them said: “Damn, but it’s hot!” They went up the street laughing and talking with friendly voices, and at the corner they turned off.

“I must be nearly home,” Sandy thought, as he made out a group of kids still playing under the streetlight. Then he distinguished, among the other shabby buildings, the brick house where he lived. The front porch was still crowded with roomers trying to keep cool, and as the boy came up to the foot of the steps, some of the fellows seated there moved to let him pass.

“Good-evenin’, Mr. Rodgers,” Mrs. Harris called, and as Sandy had never been called Mr. Rodgers before, it made him feel very manly and a little embarrassed as he threaded his way through the group on the porch.

Upstairs he found his mother sleeping deeply on one side of the bed. He undressed, keeping on his underwear, and crawled in on the other side, but he lay awake a long while because it was suffocatingly hot, and very close in their room. The bedbugs bit him on the legs. Every time he got half asleep, an L train roared by, shrieking outside their open windows, lighting up the room, and shaking the whole house. Each time the train came, he started and trembled as though a sudden dragon were rushing at the bed. But then, after midnight, when the elevated cars passed less frequently, and he became more used to their passing, he went to sleep.