Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes

Author:Langston Hughes [Hughes, Langston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-87375-0
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

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AFTER Christmas there followed a period of cold weather, made bright by the winter sun shining on the hard crusty snow, where children slid and rolled, and over which hay-wagons made into sleighs on great heavy runners drove jingling into town from the country. There was skating on the frozen river and fine sledding on the hills beyond the woods, but Sandy never went out where the crowds were with his sled, because he was ashamed of it.

After New Year’s Annjee went back to work at Mrs. Rice’s, still coughing a little and still weak. But with bills to pay and Sandy in need of shoes and stockings and clothes to wear to school, she couldn’t remain idle any longer. Even with her mother washing and ironing every day except the Sabbath, expenses were difficult to meet, and Aunt Hager was getting pretty old to work so hard. Annjee thought that Tempy ought to help them a little, but she was too proud to ask her. Besides, Tempy had never been very affectionate towards her sisters even when they were all girls together—but she ought to help look out for their mother. Hager, however, when Annjee brought up the subject of Tempy’s help, said that she was still able to wash, thank God, and wasn’t depending on any of her children for anything—not so long as white folks wore clothes.

At school Sandy passed all of his mid-year tests and, along with Sadie Butler, was advanced to the fifth A, but the other colored child in the class, a little fat girl named Mary Jones, failed and had to stay behind. Mary’s mother, a large sulphur-yellow woman who cooked at the Drummer’s Hotel, came to the school and told the teacher, before all the children, just what she thought of her for letting Mary fail—and her thoughts were not very complimentary to the stiff, middle-aged white lady who taught the class. The question of color came up, too, during the discussion.

“Look at ma chile settin’ back there behind all de white ones,” screamed the sulphur-yellow woman. “An’ me payin’ as much taxes as anybody! You treats us colored folks like we ain’t citizerzens—that’s what you does!” The argument had to be settled in the principal’s office, where the teacher went with the enraged mother, while the white children giggled that a fat, yellow colored lady should come to school to quarrel about her daughter’s not being promoted. But the colored children in the class couldn’t laugh.

St. Valentine’s day came and Sadie Butler sent Sandy a big red heart. But for Annjee, “the mail-man passed and didn’t leave no news,” because Jimboy hadn’t written yet, nor had Harriett thanked her for the three dollars she had mailed to Memphis before Christmas. There were no letters from anybody.

The work at Mrs. Rice’s was very heavy, because Mrs. Rice’s sister, with two children, had come from Indiana to spend the winter, and Annjee had to cook for them and clean their rooms, too. But she was managing to save a little money every week.

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