Not Without Laughter

by Langston Hughes

  The bell rang in the dining-room. Annjee went through the swinging door and returned bearing a custard that had been but little touched.

  “Here, sonny—the old man says it’s too sweet for his stomach, so you can have this.” She set the yellow cornstarch before Sandy. “He’s seen these ripe peaches out here today and he wants some, that’s all. More trouble than he’s worth, po’ old soul, and me in a hurry!” She began to peel the fruit. “Just like a chile, ’deed he is!” she added, carrying the sliced peaches into the dining-room and leaving Sandy with a plate of food before him, eating slowly. “When you rushing to get out, seems like white folks tries theirselves.”

  In a moment she returned, ill-tempered, and began to scold Sandy for taking so long with his meal.

  “I asked you to help me so’s I can get to the lodge on time, and you just set and chew and eat! . . . Here, wipe these dishes, boy!” Annjee began hurriedly to lay plates in a steaming row on the shelf of the sink; so Sandy got up and, between mouthfuls of pudding, wiped them with a large dish-towel.

  Soon Mrs. Rice came into the kitchen again, briskly, through the swinging door and glanced about her. Sandy felt ashamed for the white woman to see him eating a left-over pudding from her table, so he put the spoon down.

  “Annjee,” the mistress said sharply. “I wish you wouldn’t put quite so much onion in your sauce for the steak. I’ve mentioned it to you several times before, and you know very well we don’t like it.”

  “Yes, m’am,” said Annjee.

  “And do please be careful that our drinking water is cold before meals are served. . . . You were certainly careless tonight. You must think more about what you are doing, Annjee.”

  Mrs. Rice went out again through the swinging door, but Sandy stood near the sink with a burning face and eyes that had suddenly filled with angry tears. He couldn’t help it—hearing his sweating mother reprimanded by this tall white woman in the flowered dress. Black, hard-working Annjee answered: “Yes, m’am,” and that was all—but Sandy cried.

  “Dry up,” his mother said crossly when she saw him, thinking he was crying because she had asked him to work. “What’s come over you, anyway?—can’t even wipe a few plates for me and act nice about it!”

  He didn’t answer. When the dining-room had been cleared and the kitchen put in order, Annjee told him to empty the garbage while she wrapped in newspapers several little bundles of food to carry to Jimboy. Then they went out the back door, around the big house to the street, and trudged the fourteen blocks to Aunt Hager’s, taking short cuts through alleys, passing under arc-lights that sputtered whitely in the deepening twilight, and greeting with an occasional “Howdy” other poor colored folks also coming home from work.

  “How are you, Sister Jones?”

  “Right smart, I thank yuh!” as they passed.

  Once Annjee spoke to her son. “Evening’s the only time we niggers have to ourselves!” she said. “Thank God for night . . . ’cause all day you gives to white folks.”

  SEVEN

  White Folks

  * * *

  WHEN they got home, Aunt Hager was sitting in the cool of the evening on her new porch, which had been rebuilt for thirty-five dollars added to the mortgage. The old woman was in her rocking-chair, with Jimboy, one foot on the ground and his back against a pillar, lounging at her feet. The two were quarrelling amicably over nothing as Annjee and Sandy approached.

  “Good-evenin’, you-all,” said Annjee. “I brought you a nice piece o’ steak, Jimboy-sugar, and some biscuits to go with it. Come on in and eat while I get dressed to go to the drill practice. I got to hurry.”

  “We don’t want no steak now,” Jimboy answered without moving. “Aunt Hager and me had fresh fish for supper and egg-corn-bread and we’re full. We don’t need nothin’ more.”

  “Oh! . . .” said Annjee disappointedly. “Well, come on in anyhow, honey, and talk while I get dressed.” So he rose lazily and followed his wife into the house.

  Shortly, Sister Johnson, pursued by the ever-present Willie-Mae, came through the blue-grey darkness from next door. “Good-evenin’, Sister Williams; how you been today?”

  “Tolable,” answered Hager, “’ceptin’ I’s tired out from washin’ an’ rinsin’. Have a seat. . . . You Sandy, go in de house an’ get Sister Johnson a settin’-chair. . . . Where’s Tom?”

  “Lawd, chile, he done gone to bed long ago. That there sewer-diggin’ job ain’t so good fer a man old as Tom. He ’bout played out. . . . I done washed fer Mis’ Cohn maself today. . . . Umh! dis cheer feels good! . . . Looked like to me she had near ’bout fifty babies’ diddies in de wash. You know she done got twins, ’sides dat young-’un born last year.”

  The conversation of the two old women rambled on as their grandchildren ran across the front yard laughing, shrieking, wrestling; catching fire-flies and watching them glow in closed fists, then releasing them to twinkle in the sultry night-air.

  Harriett came singing out of the house and sat down on the edge of the porch. “Lord, it’s hot! . . . How are you, Mis’ Johnson? I didn’t see you in the dark.”

  “Jest tolable, chile,” said the old woman, “but I can’t kick. Honey, when you gits old as I is, you’ll be doin’ well if you’s livin’ a-tall, de way you chillens runs round now ’days! How come you ain’t out to some party dis evenin’?”

  “O, there’s no party tonight,” said Harriett laughing. “Besides, this new job of mine’s a heart-breaker, Mis’ Johnson. I got to stay home and rest now. I’m kitchen-girl at that New Albert Restaurant, and time you get through wrestling with pots and arguing with white waitresses and colored cooks, you don’t feel much like running out at night. But the shifts aren’t bad, though, food’s good, and—well, you can’t expect everything.” She shrugged her shoulders against the two-by-four pillar on which her back rested.

  “Long’s it keeps you off de streets, I’s glad,” said Hager, rocking contentedly. “Maybe I can git you goin’ to church agin now.”

  “Aw, I don’t like church,” the girl replied.

  “An’, chile, I can’t blame you much,” said Sister Johnson, fumbling in the pocket of her apron. “De way dese churches done got now’days. . . . Sandy, run in de house an’ ask yo’ pappy fo’ a match to light ma pipe. . . . It ain’t ‘Come to Jesus’ no mo’ a-tall. Ministers dese days an’ times don’t care nothin’ ’bout po’ Jesus. ’Stead o’ dat it’s rally dis an’ collection dat, an’ de aisle wants a new carpet, an’ de pastor needs a ’lectric fan fer his red-hot self.” The old sister spat into the yard. “Money! That’s all ’tis! An’ white folkses’ religion—Lawd help! ’Taint no use in mentionin’ them.”

  “True,” agreed Hager.

  “Cause if de gates o’ heaven shuts in white folkses’ faces like de do’s o’ dey church in us niggers’ faces, it’ll be too bad! Yes, sir! One thing sho, de Lawd ain’t prejudiced!”

  “No,” said Hager; “but He don’t love ugly, neither in niggers nor in white folks.”

  “Now, talking about white folks’ religion,” said Annjee, emerging from the house with a fresh white dress on, “why, Mis’ Rice where I work don’t think no more about playing bridge on Sunday than she does about praying—and I ain’t never seen her pray yet.”

  “You’re nuts,” said Jimboy behind her. “People’s due to have a little fun on Sundays. That’s what’s the matter with colored folks now—work all week and then set up in church all day Sunday, and don’t even know what’s goin’ on in the rest of the world.”

  “Huh!” grunted Hager.

  “Well, we won’t argue, daddy,” Annjee smiled. “Come on and walk a piece with me, sweetness. Here ’tis nearly nine and I should a been at the hall at eight, but colored folks are always behind the clock. Come on, Jimboy.”

  “Good-bye, mama,” yelled Sandy from the lawn as his parents strolled up the street together.

  “Jimboy’s right,” said Harriett. “Darkies do like the church too much, but white fo
lks don’t care nothing about it at all. They’re too busy getting theirs out of this world, not from God. And I don’t blame ’em, except that they’re so mean to niggers. They’re right, though, looking out for themselves . . . and yet I hate ’em for it. They don’t have to mistreat us besides, do they?”

  “Honey, don’t talk that way,” broke in Hager. “It ain’t Christian, chile. If you don’t like ’em, pray for ’em, but don’t feel evil against ’em. I was in slavery, Harrie, an’ I been knowin’ white folks all ma life, an’ they’s good as far as they can see—but when it comes to po’ niggers, they just can’t see far, that’s all.”

  Harriett opened her mouth to reply, but Jimboy, who left Annjee at the corner and had returned to the porch, beat her to it. “We too dark for ’em, ma,” he laughed. “How they gonna see in the dark? You colored folks oughta get lighter, that’s what!”

  “Shut up yo’ mouth, you yaller rooster!” said Sister Johnson. “White folks is white folks, an’ dey’s mean! I can’t help what Hager say,” the old woman disagreed emphatically with her crony. “Ain’t I been knowin’ crackers sixty-five years, an’ ain’t dey de cause o’ me bein’ here in Stanton ’stead o’ in ma home right today? De dirty buzzards! Ain’t I nussed t’ree of ’em up from babies like ma own chillens, and ain’t dem same t’ree boys done turned round an’ helped run me an’ Tom out o’ town?”

  The old sister took a long draw on her corn-cob pipe, and a fiery red spot glowed in its bowl, while Willie-Mae and Sandy stopped playing and sat down on the porch as she began a tale they had all heard at least a dozen times.

  “I’s tole you ’bout it befo’, ain’t I?” asked Sister Johnson.

  “Not me,” lied Jimboy, who was anxious to keep her going.

  “No, you haven’t,” Harriett assured her.

  “Well, it were like dis,” and the story unwound itself, the preliminary details telling how, as a young freed-girl after the Civil War, Sister Johnson had gone into service for a white planter’s family in a Mississippi town near Vicksburg. While attached to this family, she married Tom Johnson, then a fieldhand, and raised five children of her own during the years that followed, besides caring for three boys belonging to her white mistress, nursing them at her black breasts and sometimes leaving her own young ones in the cabin to come and stay with her white charges when they were ill. These called her mammy, too, and when they were men and married, she still went to see them and occasionally worked for their families.

  “Now, we niggers all lived at de edge o’ town in what de whites called Crowville, an’ most of us owned little houses an’ farms, an’ we did right well raisin’ cotton an’ sweet ’taters an’ all. Now, dat’s where de trouble started! We was doin’ too well, an’ de white folks said so! But we ain’t paid ’em no ’tention, jest thought dey was talkin’ fer de pastime of it. . . . Well, we all started fixin’ up our houses an’ paintin’ our fences, an’ Crowville looked kinder decent-like when de white folks ’gin to ’mark, so’s we servants could hear ’em, ’bout niggers livin’ in painted houses an’ dressin’ fine like we was somebody! . . . Well, dat went on fer some time wid de whites talkin’ an’ de coloreds doin’ better’n better year by year, sellin’ mo’ cotton ever’ day an’ gittin’ nice furniture an’ buyin’ pianers, till by an’ by a prosp’rous nigger named John Lowdins up an’ bought one o’ dese here new autimobiles—an’ dat settled it! . . . A white man in town one Sat’day night tole John to git out o’ dat damn car ’cause a nigger ain’t got no business wid a autimobile nohow! An’ John say: ‘I ain’t gonna git out!’ Den de white man, what’s been drinkin’, jump up on de runnin’-bo’ad an’ bust John in de mouth fer talkin’ back to him—he a white man, an’ Lowdins nothin’ but a nigger. ‘De very idee!’ he say, and hit John in de face six or seven times. Den John drawed his gun! One! two! t’ree! he fiah, hit dis old red-neck cracker in de shoulder, but he ain’t dead! Aint nothin’ meant to kill a cracker what’s drunk. But John think he done kilt this white man, an’ so he left him kickin’ in de street while he runs that car o’ his’n lickety-split out o’ town, goes to Vicksburg, an’ catches de river boat. . . . Well, sir! Dat night Crowville’s plumb full o’ white folks wid dogs an’ guns an’ lanterns, shoutin’ an’ yellin’ an’ scarin’ de wits out o’ us coloreds an’ wakin’ us up way late in de night-time lookin’ fer John, an’ dey don’t find him. . . . Den dey say dey gwine teach dem Crowville niggers a lesson, all of ’em, paintin’ dey houses an’ buyin’ cars an’ livin’ like white folks, so dey comes to our do’s an’ tells us to leave our houses—git de hell out in de fields, ’cause dey don’t want to kill nobody there dis evenin’! . . . Well, sir! Niggers in night-gowns an’ underwear an’ shimmies, half-naked an’ barefooted, was runnin’ ever’ which way in de dark, scratchin’ up dey legs in de briah patches, fallin’ on dey faces, scared to death! Po’ ole Pheeny, what ain’t moved from her bed wid de paralytics fo’ six years, dey made her daughters carry her out, screamin’ an’ wall-eyed, an’ set her in de middle o’ de cotton-patch. An’ Brian, what was sleepin’ naked, jumps up an’ grabs his wife’s apron and runs like a rabbit with not another blessed thing on! Chillens squallin’ ever’where, an’ mens a-pleadin’ an’ a-cussin’, an’ womens cryin’ ‘Lawd ’a’ Mercy’ wid de whites of dey eyes showin’! . . . Den looked like to me ’bout five hundred white mens took torches an’ started burnin’ wid fiah ever’ last house, an’ hen-house, an’ shack, an’ barn, an’ privy, an’ shed, an’ cow-slant in de place! An’ all de niggers, when de fiah blaze up, was moanin’ in de fields, callin’ on de Lawd fer help! An’ de fiah light up de whole country clean back to de woods! You could smell fiah, an’ you could see it red, an’ taste de smoke, an’ feel it stingin’ yo’ eyes. An’ you could hear de bo’ads a-fallin’ an’ de glass a-poppin’, an’ po’ animals roastin’ an’ fryin’ an’ a-tearin’ at dey halters. An’ one cow run out, fiah all ovah, wid her milk streamin’ down. An’ de smoke roll up, de cotton-fields were red . . . an’ dey ain’t been no mo’ Crowville after dat night. No, sir! De white folks ain’t left nothin’ fer de niggers, not nary bo’ad standin’ one ’bove another, not even a dog-house. . . . When it were done —nothin’ but ashes! . . . De white mens was ever’where wid guns, scarin’ de po’ blacks an’ keepin’ ’em off, an’ one of ’em say: ‘I got good mind to try yo’-all’s hide, see is it bullet proof—gittin’ so prosp’rous, paintin’ yo’ houses an’ runnin ovah white folks wid yo’ damn gasoline buggies! Well, after dis you’ll damn sight have to bend yo’ backs an’ work a little!’ . . . Dat’s what de white man say. . . . But we didn’t—not yit! ’Cause ever’ last nigger moved from there dat Sunday mawnin’. It were right funny to see ole folks what ain’t never been out o’ de backwoods pickin’ up dey feet an’ goin’. Ma Bailey say: ‘De Lawd done let me live eighty years in one place, but ma next eighty’ll be spent in St. Louis.’ An’ she started out walkin’ wid neither bag nor baggage. . . . An’ me an’ Tom took Willie-Mae an’ went to Cairo, an’ Tom started railroad-workin’ wid a gang; then we come on up here, been five summers ago dis August. We ain’t had not even a rag o’ clothes when we left Crowville—so don’t tell me ’bout white folks bein’ good, Hager, ’cause I knows ’em. . . . Yes, indeedy, I really knows ’em. . . . Dey done made us leave our home.”

  The old woman knocked her pipe against the edge of the porch, emptying its dead ashes into the yard, and for a moment no one spoke. Sandy, trembling, watched a falling star drop behind the trees. Then Jimboy’s deep voice, like a bitter rumble in the dark, broke the silence.

  “I know white folks, too,” he said. “I lived in the South.”

  “And I ain’t never been South,” added Harriett hoarsely, “but I know ’em right here . . . and I hate ’em!”

  “De Lawd hears you,” said Hager.

  “I don’t care if He does hear me, mama! You and Annjee are too easy. You just take whatever white folks give you—coon to your face, and nigger behind your backs
—and don’t say nothing. You run to some white person’s back door for every job you get, and then they pay you one dollar for five dollars’ worth of work, and fire you whenever they get ready.”

  “They do that all right,” said Jimboy. “They don’t mind firin’ you. Wasn’t I layin’ brick on the Daily Leader building and the white union men started sayin’ they couldn’t work with me because I wasn’t in the union? So the boss come up and paid me off. ‘Good man, too,’ he says to me, ‘but I can’t buck the union.’ So I said I’d join, but I knew they wouldn’t let me before I went to the office. Anyhow, I tried. I told the guys there I was a bricklayer and asked ’em how I was gonna work if I couldn’t be in the union. And the fellow who had the cards, secretary I guess he was, says kinder sharp, like he didn’t want to be bothered: ‘That’s your look-out, big boy, not mine.’ So you see how much the union cares if a black man works or not.”

  “Ain’t Tom had de same trouble?” affirmed Sister Johnson. “Got put off de job mo’n once on ’count o’ de white unions.”

  “O, they’ve got us cornered, all right,” said Jimboy. “The white folks are like farmers that own all the cows and let the niggers take care of ’em. Then they make you pay a sweet price for skimmed milk and keep the cream for themselves—but I reckon cream’s too rich for rusty-kneed niggers anyhow!”

  They laughed.

  “That’s a good one!” said Harriett. “You know old man Wright, what owns the flour-mill and the new hotel—how he made his start off colored women working in his canning factory? Well, when he built that orphan home for colored and gave it to the city last year, he had the whole place made just about the size of the dining-room at his own house. They got the little niggers in that asylum cooped up like chickens. And the reason he built it was to get the colored babies out of the city home, with its nice playgrounds, because he thinks the two races oughtn’t to mix! But he don’t care how hard he works his colored help in that canning factory of his, does he? Wasn’t I there thirteen hours a day in tomato season? Nine cents an hour and five cents overtime after ten hours—and you better work overtime if you want to keep the job! . . . As for the races mixing—ask some of those high yellow women who work there. They know a mighty lot about the races mixing!”