Not Without Laughter

Sandy saves the money from the barbershop to buy himself a new suit and cap that Easter. Hager is proud of his industriousness and praises him by predicting he won't end up like his father. By then, the boarder has moved on. Sandy doesn't miss his mother at all (she had always been away working when she still lived with them, anyway), but he does miss the laughter and fun that Harriet and Jimboy brought to the house when they were there.

Hager, convinced that African-American boys become restless and more likely to get into trouble once they reach puberty, keeps Sandy close by her side. She tells him that she will do everything in her power to see him make something of himself "fo' de glory o' God an' de black race" (137). Sandy knows she wants him to grow up to be like the heroes of the previous generation or Paul Laurence Dunbar, but Sandy wants to grow up to be like boxer Jack Johnson. Hager believes that this desire is from working around the men in the barbershop and deplores it since Jack Johnson is married to a white woman, among other sinful things.

Sandy is just as excited as the other children in Stanton when a new amusement park is scheduled to open in the town. In celebration of the opening, the Daily Leader prints promotional coupons that will allow the town's children to get free admission, food, and a ride on July 26. All the children (including Sandy and Willie Mae) clip the coupons leading up to the big day.

When the day comes, Sandy and Willie Mae put on their best clothing and head to the amusement park. They stand in line with all the other children of the town, eager to gain entrance. When Willie Mae arrives at the entrance and attempts to give her coupons to the gatekeeper, he turns her away, telling her that the promotion is only for white children. The news spreads down the line, and the black children react by getting angry, crying like Willie Mae, and cursing the gatekeeper.

Sandy gives his tickets to his white friend Earl when he runs into him. One onlooker, an African-American girl, shouts "It's yo' party, white chile," and her nearly perfect imitation of the gatekeeper causes the African-American children to laugh. The disappointed African-American children walk away from the fair, hearing at their backs the "laughter of happy" white children enjoying themselves at the fair (141).

When the children arrive home, Sister Johnson curses the whites, calling them "crackers" and "devils" (141). Hager says the white owners are just "po' trash" who don't know any better and the children should forgive them (141).She slices them some cold watermelon and tells Willie Mae not to get so upset—she is black, she should expect to encounter difficulties in life.

The mail arrives shortly thereafter. It is a letter from Annjee. She is working as a maid in a boarding house where the old, white boarders are very particular. Jimboy is still moving from job to job, but he likes Detroit. She asks after Harriet and criticizes Tempy for not helping out Hager. She writes that she would send for Sandy or even visit, but the rent is so high. She warns Sandy against misbehaving with Willie Mae since she is an older girl. "I don't care where you go colored folks has a hard time," writes Hager (142). She closes by asking Sandy to be a help to her mother, who is aging.

Despite his happiness about receiving the letter from his mother, Sandy finds it hard to escape "his sick feeling about the park" (142). When he asks Hager if Kansas is becoming like the South, she doesn't answer his question. Instead, she signs a hymn about leaving the troubles of this world behind. Listening to her, Sandy "heard a great chorus out of the black past—singing generations of toil-worn Negroes" (143). 

That fall, Charlie Nutter, a bellhop at Drummer's Hotel, promises to get Sandy a better paying job sweeping up the lobby. All Sandy has to do is to pay him a few dollars once he gets started. Sandy, anxious to replace his worn shoes and help Hager out financially, accepts the offer.

When Sandy tells Hager, she is disappointed. Hotels are full of sin (and Drummer's Hotel is indeed known to be frequented by sex workers). She reluctantly relents when he reminds her that he needs the money for shoes and would like to be able to buy gifts this year. Hager tells him she hates to see him associating with low people from the Bottoms and sex workers, but as long as he remembers to be an upright person, he will be fine. When Sandy gives the barbershop owner notice, the man is angry. He tells Sandy that he is ungrateful and won't last long at the hotel.

Sandy comes home from school one Friday to discover Hager reading a story about Harriet and Maudel having been arrested for "street-walking" (146). Hager refuses to tell him what the term means and bursts into tears as a helpless Sandy stands by. When he tells her he is going to get Sister Johnson, she asks him not to. Instead, Hager leads them in a prayer for Harriet. Sandy silently wishes Harriet would come home.

By late fall, Sandy has settled into his job at Drummer's Hotel. He goes to the job after school during the week to sweep up and clean the spittoons—dirty work that nevertheless gives him some satisfaction in doing his job well. He discovers that "he liked to clean things, to make them beautiful, to make them shine. Aunt Hager did, too"(148). Just as Charlie Nutter had told him, the physical aspects of the work are easy. Because he is young, quiet, and inexperienced, Sandy does see some things that puzzle him.

The Drummer's Hotel is run-down and not particularly nice. Only sex workers and people without much money tend to stay there. Because Sandy only works in the evenings on Saturday, he misses most of the brisk trade in sex that goes on in the hotel.

The hotel has a small staff that includes Mr. George Clark, an old man who has worked at the hotel for a long time, is a favorite of the owner, and always seems to know what is going on. Clark is "subservient and grinning to white folks, evil and tyrannical to the colored help" (149). While Clark is initially very critical of Sandy's work, he leaves him alone after he takes a liking to Sandy, mostly because Sandy never talks back to him. Clark also makes money selling liquor to the guests; Charlie, the bellhop who helped Sandy get the job, takes care of that duty when Clark is away. Charlie frequently tells Sandy he is naïve, but he also makes sure Sandy has the chance to earn tips. Charlie had only asked for a dollar for securing the job for Sandy.

When Christmas comes, Sandy is able to buy gifts for his entire family, including Harriet, whom he runs into one day at Drummer's. She gives him her address with a warning to keep it secret unless she is needed. Sandy frequently sees her walking in front of the hotel with different men.

Sandy's work doesn't require his full attention, so he frequently thinks about life, wonders how he will become great as Hager expects, and worries about his friends and family as he works.

One night when all the other bellhops are busy, the owner sends Sandy up to the room of two drunken guests, Ms. Marcia McKay and her john. When Sandy arrives at the room, he cowers in fear because the woman is naked; Sandy knows that black boys have been lynched for just looking at white women. The male guest, exasperated by Sandy's hesitation, asks for Charlie. Charlie laughs at Sandy's innocence and tells him that he has made some money that night selling liquor.

Sandy goes back downstairs, where he is summoned to shine the shoes of a drunk, "red-necked stranger" telling sexually explicit, racist jokes that pale in comparison to the ones Sandy heard in the barbershop (152). The man notices Sandy after telling one of his jokes, and tells Sandy, whom he calls "a little coon," to do one of the dances he is accustomed to seeing African Americans do in Mississippi, where he is from (153).

When Sandy refuses, the man gets angry. "Northern darkies are dumb," he says, but down South, African Americans do what they are told or else suffer for it (152). Northerners have spoiled African Americans, according to the man; the onlookers in his group are amused by him. He once again commands Sandy to dance. The last straw for Sandy is that the man grabs him. Sandy yells and throws his shoeshine box "with all his strength at the group of laughing white men in which the drunken Southerner was standing" (154). The clerk runs after him to demand that he come back, but Sandy keeps running away in the snow.

Days later, Sandy discovers that the address Harriet wrote down for him is in the Bottoms, the bad part of town where sex workers and gamblers live as they please, oblivious to the morality that binds people who live on the other side of Pearl Street, the boundary between the Bottoms and the respectable side of town. In the Bottoms, there is open flouting of moral codes, "soft, indolent laughter [that] didn't care about anything, and deep nigger-throated voices that long ago stopped rebelling against the ways of the world rose in song" (157).

Sandy goes to the Bottoms one day to find Harriet (now going by the name "Harrietta") with a note from Aunt Tempy: Hager is very ill. A woman dressed in a kimono answers the door, then, goes upstairs to fetch Harriet. The room in which Sandy waits is in disorder with empty bottles, trash, and cigarettes strewn about. A man comes down the stairs and is followed shortly by Harriet, who is clad in a short, skimpy dress. After reading the note, Harriet puts on her make-up and dresses. Sandy and Harriet head for Hager's house.

Hager's illness had started two days before. When Sandy arrived home from school that day, he discovered Hager in the bed. She was fully clothed, and the washing sat in the tub—sure signs that something was wrong, despite Hager's claim that she was merely tired. Sandy fetched Mrs. Johnson, who finished the washing and put Hager to bed with a hot-water bottle for a pain she felt in her side. Mrs. Johnson told Hager it was likely indigestion that troubled her and took Sandy home with her for dinner. That night, Sandy was unable to sleep because Hager was moaning.

The next morning, Madame de Carter checked on them and called Dr. McDillor when Hager told her that the pain was unbearable. After examining her, Dr. McDillor said she was extremely ill. Aunt Tempy, with her cold, condescending manner, came to put the house in order that day. Neighbors began dropping off covered dishes, and many of the people—both blacks and whites—Hager ministered to over the years stopped by the house.

That evening, Tempy told Sandy to send a telegram to Annjee to tell her to come home immediately because Hager was sick. When he came back, Tempy had left Mrs. Johnson to watch over Hager. The house was so full of people that Sandy "couldn't even talk to his grandmother while she lay in bed" (161). Sandy went outside. He wished the people in the house would leave so he could take care of his grandmother by himself or at least with a little help from Mrs. Johnson. Later, Willie Mae came out to tell him his grandmother was asking for him. When he went into the bedroom, Hager asked if had eaten, asked for a kiss, and told him he should go to bed; she would be better by morning, she claimed. Aunt Tempy woke Sandy in the morning to make sure he had sent the telegram to Annjee to the correct address (he had). Tempy, on discovering that Sandy knows Harriet's address, sent him to find her.

By day, the house is now quieter because the women in Hager's club are attending to their own affairs. The doctor tells the family that Hager will soon die; all they can do is keep Hager comfortable by giving her medicine he has left for her pain.

In the afternoon, as Harriet keeps watch over her, Hager asks Harriet if she is happy and compliments her on her beautiful clothing. Hager has Sandy retrieve the small watch that she had given Harriet for her sixteenth birthday. Hager redeemed it with the pawn ticket Sandy had found after Harriet ran away. Harriet is moved to tears when she sees the watch and hides the flashier, modern watch she is wearing on her wrist. Hager dies on Tuesday night. The undertaker takes her away for embalming the next day.

Tempy cleans the house, Harriet cries, and Mrs. Johnson prepares drinks for the guests who will be coming to the house for the wake. Hager's embalmed body arrives at the house in a coffin, and a short obituary in the Leader notes that Hager, an "aged colored laundress" respected by many whites and survived by her daughters and grandson, has died (165). The family still has not heard back from Annjee. The funeral is long and emotional, and the church is packed with flowers and offerings from the many people whose lives were touched by Hager. A distraught Harriet promises to come back every day with flowers so her mother won't be lonely in her grave. Harriet is wearing the watch her mother gave her.

When they return home, a letter from Annjee is waiting for them. Annjee and Jimboy moved to Toledo looking for work, but it took a while for them to find jobs. Now that they have found work, Annjee promises to send money soon. She asks Hager to send her love to Sandy.

Tempy immediately replies with the news that Hager is dead, which Annjee would know if she had not been so careless as to change addresses with no notice. Tempy explains that Annjee missed the funeral and that Sandy will be staying with her.

Tempy, who calls Sandy by his given name, "James," tells a reeling Sandy that they need to check that the house is shut up and that he will be coming home with her. After coldly telling Harriet that it is time to go, Tempy locks the house up behind them. Sandy rejects her offer to hold his hand as they ride away in a cab.