Not Without Laughter

by Langston Hughes

  In the summer a new amusement park opened in Stanton, the first of its kind in the city, with a merry-go-round, a shoot-the-shoots, a Ferris wheel, a dance-hall, and a bandstand for week-end concerts. In order to help popularize the park, which was far on the north edge of town, the Daily Leader announced, under its auspices, what was called a Free Children’s Day Party open to all the readers of that paper who clipped the coupons published in each issue. On July 26 these coupons, presented at the gate, would entitle every child in Stanton to free admittance to the park, free popcorn, free lemonade, and one ride on each of the amusement attractions—the merry-go-round, the shoot-the-shoots, and the Ferris wheel. All you had to do was to be a reader of the Daily Leader and present the coupons cut from that paper.

  Aunt Hager and Sister Johnson both took the Leader regularly, as did almost everybody else in Stanton, so Sandy and Willie-Mae started to clip coupons. All the children in the neighborhood were doing the same thing. The Children’s Day would be a big event for all the little people in town. None of them had ever seen a shoot-the-shoots before, a contrivance that pulled little cars full of folks high into the air and then let them come whizzing down an incline into an artificial pond, where the cars would float like boats. Sandy and Willie-Mae looked forward to thrill after thrill.

  When the afternoon of the great day came at last, Willie-Mae stopped for Sandy, dressed in her whitest white dress and her new patent-leather shoes, which hurt her feet awfully. Sandy’s grandmother was making him wash his ears when she came in.

  “You gwine out yonder ’mongst all them white chillens, I wants you to at least look clean!” said Hager.

  They started out.

  “Here!” called Aunt Hager. “Ain’t you gwine to take yo’ coupons?” In his rush to get away, Sandy had forgotten them.

  It was a long walk to the park, and Willie-Mae stopped and took off her shoes and stockings and carried them in her hands until she got near the gate; then she put them on again and limped bravely along, clutching her precious bits of newspaper. They could hear the band playing and children shouting and squealing as the cars on the shoot-the-shoots shot downward with a splash into the pond. They could see the giant Ferris wheel, larger than the one the carnival had had, circling high in the air.

  “I’m gonna ride on that first,” said Sandy.

  There were crowds of children under the bright red and white wooden shelter at the park entrance. They were lining up at the gate—laughing, merry, clean little white children, pushing and yelling and giggling amiably. Sandy let Willie-Mae go first and he got in line behind her. The band was playing gaily inside. . . . They were almost to the entrance now. . . . There were just two boys in front of them. . . . Willie-Mae held out her black little hand clutching the coupons. They moved forward. The man looked down.

  “Sorry,” he said. “This party’s for white kids.”

  Willie-Mae did not understand. She stood holding out the coupons, waiting for the tall white man to take them.

  “Stand back, you two,” he said, looking at Sandy as well. “I told you little darkies this wasn’t your party. . . . Come on—next little girl.” And the line of white children pushed past Willie-Mae and Sandy, going into the park. Stunned, the two dark ones drew aside. Then they noticed a group of a dozen or more other colored youngsters standing apart in the sun, just without the bright entrance pavilion, and among them was Sadie Butler, Sandy’s class-mate. Three or four of the colored children were crying, but most of them looked sullen and angry, and some of them had turned to go home.

  “My papa takes the Leader,” Sadie Butler was saying. “And you see what it says here on the coupons, too—‘Free Admittance to Every Child in Stanton.’ Can’t you read it, Sandy?”

  “Sure, I can read it, but I guess they didn’t mean colored,” he answered, as the boy watched the white children going in the gate. “They wouldn’t let us in.”

  Willie-Mae, between the painful shoes and the hurt of her disappointment, was on the verge of tears. One of the small boys in the crowd, a hard-looking little fellow from Pearl Street, was cursing childishly.

  “God damn old sons of biscuit-eaters, that what they are! I wish I was a big man, dog-gone, I’d shoot ’em all, that’s what I’d do!”

  “I suppose they didn’t mean colored kids,” said Sandy again.

  “Buster went in all right,” said Sadie. “I seen him. But they didn’t know he was colored, I guess. When I went up to the gate, the man said: ‘Whoa! Where you goin’?’ just like I was a horse. . . . I’m going home now and tell my papa.”

  She walked away, followed by five or six other little girls in their Sunday dresses. Willie-Mae was sitting on the ground taking off her shoes again, sweat and tears running down her black cheeks. Sandy saw his white schoolmate, Earl, approaching.

  “What’s matter, Sandy? Ain’t you goin’ in?” Earl demanded, looking at his friend’s worried face. “Did the little girl hurt her foot?”

  “No,” said Sandy. “We just ain’t going in. . . . Here, Earl, you can have my coupons. If you have extra ones, the papers says you get more lemonade . . . so you take ’em.”

  The white boy, puzzled, accepted the proffered coupons, stood dumbly for a moment wondering what to say to his brown friend, then went on into the park.

  “It’s yo’ party, white chile!” a little tan-skin girl called after him, mimicking the way the man at the gate had talked. “Whoa! Stay out! You’s a nigger!” she said to Sandy.

  The other children, in spite of themselves, laughed at the accuracy of her burlesque imitation. Then, with the music of the merry-go-round from beyond the high fence and the laughter of happy children following them, the group of dark-skinned ones started down the dusty road together—and to all the colored boys and girls they met on the way they called out, “Ain’t no use, jigaboos! That party’s for white folks!”

  When Willie-Mae and Sandy got home and told their story, Sister Johnson was angry as a wet hen.

  “Crackers is devils,” she cried. “I ’spected as much! Dey ain’t nary hell hot ’nough to burn ole white folks, ’cause dey’s devils deyselves! De dirty hounds!”

  But all Hager said was: “They’s po’ trash owns that park what don’t know no better, hurtin’ chillens’ feelin’s, but we’ll forgive ’em! Don’t fret yo’self, Sister Johnson. What good can frettin’ do? Come on here, let’s we have a party of our own.” She went out in the yard and took a watermelon from a tub of well-water where it had been cooling and cut it into four juicy slices; then they sat down on the grass at the shady side of the house and ate, trying to forget about white folks.

  “Don’t you mind, Willie-Mae,” Hager said to the little black girl, who was still crying. “You’s colored, honey, an’ you’s liable to have a hard time in this life—but don’t cry. . . . You Sandy, run round de house an’ see didn’t I heard de mail-man blowin’.”

  “Yes’m,” said Sandy when he came back. “Was the mail-man, and I got a letter from mama.” The boy sat on the grass to read it, anxious to see what Annjee said. And later, when the company had gone, he read it aloud to Hager.

  Dear little Son:

  How have you all been? how is grandma? I get worried about you when I do not hear. You know Aunt Hager is old and can’t write much so you must do it for her because she is not used to adress letters and the last one was two weeks getting here and had went all around everywhere. Your father says tell you hello. I got a job in a boarding house for old white folks what are cranky about how they beds is made. There are white and colored here in the auto business and women to. Tell Madam de Carter I will send my Lodge dues back because I do not want to be transfer as I might come home sometime. I ain’t seen you all now for more’n a year. Jimboy he keeps changing jobs from one thing to another but he likes this town pretty well. You know he broke his guitar carrying it in a crowded street car. Ma says you are growing and have bought yourself a new suit last Easter. Mama certainly does right well to keep on washing and i
roning at her age and worrying with you besides. Tempy ought to help ma but seem like she don’t think so. Do you ever see your Aunt Harrie? I hope she is settling down in her ways. If ma wasn’t all by herself maybe I could send for you to come live with us in Detroit but maybe I will be home to see you if I ever get any money ahead. Rent is so high here I never wittnessed so many folks in one house, rooming five and six together, and nobody can save a dime. Are you still working at the barber shop. I heard Sister Johnson was under the weather but I couldn’t make out from ma’s scribbling what was the matter with her. Did she have a physicianer? You behave yourself with Willie-Mae because you are getting to be a big boy now and she is a girl older then you are. I am going to send you some pants next time I go down town but I get off from work so late I don’t have a chance to do nothing and your father eats in the restaurant count of me not home to fix for him and I don’t care where you go colored folks has a hard time. I want you to mind your grandma and help her work. She is too old to be straining at the pump drawing water to wash clothes with. Now write to me. Love to you all both and seven kisses XXXXXXX right here on the paper,

  Your loving mother,

  Annjelica Rogers

  Sandy laughed at the clumsy cross-mark kisses. He was glad to get a letter from his mother, and word in it about Jimboy. And he was sorry his father had broken his guitar. But not even watermelon and the long letter could drive away his sick feeling about the park.

  “I guess Kansas is getting like the South, isn’t it, ma?” Sandy said to his grandmother as they came out on the porch that evening after supper. “They don’t like us here either, do they?”

  But Aunt Hager gave him no answer. In silence they watched the sunset fade from the sky. Slowly the evening star grew bright, and, looking at the stars, Hager began to sing, very softly at first:

  From this world o’ trouble free,

  Stars beyond!

  Stars beyond!

  And Sandy, as he stood beside his grandmother on the porch, heard a great chorus out of the black past—singing generations of toil-worn Negroes, echoing Hager’s voice as it deepened and grew in volume:

  There’s a star fo’ you an’ me,

  Stars beyond!

  NINETEEN

  Ten Dollars and Costs

  * * *

  IN THE fall Sandy found a job that occupied him after school hours, as well as on Saturday and Sunday. One afternoon at the barber-shop, Charlie Nutter, a bell-hop 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 bell-boys 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 bell-hop! ’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 barber-shop 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 barber-shop, 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 door-jamb, 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 street-walking. They were brought before Judge Brinton and fined ten dollars and costs.

  “What does that mean, ma—street-walking?” 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 cr
ied 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.”

  TWENTY

  Hey, Boy!

  * * *

  IN THE lobby of the Drummer’s Hotel there were six large brass spittoons—one in the center of the place, one in each corner, and one near the clerk’s desk. It was Sandy’s duty to clean these spittoons. Every evening that winter after school he came in the back door of the hotel, put his books in the closet where he kept his brooms and cleaning rags, swept the two short upper halls and the two flights of stairs, swept the lobby and dusted, then took the spittoons, emptied their slimy contents into the alley, rinsed them out, and polished them until they shone as brightly as if they were made of gold. Except for the stench of emptying them, Sandy rather liked this job. He always felt very proud of himself when, about six o’clock, he could look around the dingy old lobby and see the six gleaming brass bowls catching the glow of the electric lamps on their shining surfaces before they were again covered with spit. The thought that he himself had created this brightness with his own hands, aided by a can of brass-polish, never failed to make Sandy happy.