The Ways of White Folks Read Online Free Page A

others. Certainly, the last thing they would do would be to interfere with the delightful simplicity of Negroes.
    But Mattie must be giving Luther money and buying him clothes. He was really dressing awfully well. And on her Thursday afternoons off she would come back loaded down with packages. As far as the Carraways could tell, they were all for Luther.
    And sometimes there were quarrels drifting up from the basement. And often, all too often, Mattie had moods. Then Luther would have moods. And it was pretty awful having two dark and glowering people around the house. Anne couldn’t paint and Michael couldn’t play.
    One day, when she hadn’t seen Luther for three days, Anne called downstairs and asked him if he wouldn’t please come up and take off his shirt and get on the box. The picture was almost done. Luther came dragging his feet upstairs and humming:
    “Before I’d be a slave

I’d be buried in ma grave

And go home to my Jesus

And be free.”
    And that afternoon he let the furnace go almost out.
    That was the state of things when Michael’s mother (whom Anne had never liked) arrived fromKansas City to pay them a visit. At once neither Mattie nor Luther liked her either. She was a mannish old lady, big and tall, and inclined to be bossy. Mattie, however, did spruce up her service, cooked delicious things, and treated Mrs. Carraway with a great deal more respect than she did Anne.
    “I never play with servants,” Mrs. Carraway had said to Michael, and Mattie must have heard her.
    But Luther, he was worse than ever. Not that he did anything wrong, Anne thought, but the way he did things! For instance, he didn’t need to sing now all the time, especially since Mrs. Carraway had said she didn’t like singing. And certainly not songs like “You Rascal, You.”
    But all things end! With the Carraways and Luther it happened like this: One forenoon, quite without a shirt (for he expected to pose) Luther came sauntering through the library to change the flowers in the vase. He carried red roses. Mrs. Carraway was reading her morning scripture from the Health and Life.
    “Oh, good morning,” said Luther. “How long are you gonna stay in this house?”
    “I never liked familiar Negroes,” said Mrs. Carraway, over her nose glasses.
    “Huh!” said Luther. “That’s too bad! I never liked poor white folks.”
    Mrs. Carraway screamed, a short loud, dignified scream. Michael came running in bathrobe andpyjamas. Mrs. Carraway grew tall. There was a scene. Luther talked. Michael talked. Anne appeared.
    “Never, never, never,” said Mrs. Carraway, “have I suffered such impudence from servants—and a nigger servant—in my own son’s house.”
    “Mother, Mother, Mother,” said Michael. “Be calm. I’ll discharge him.” He turned on the nonchalant Luther. “Go!” he said, pointing toward the door. “Go, go!”
    “Michael,” Anne cried, “I haven’t finished ‘The Slave on the Block.’ ” Her husband looked nonplussed. For a moment he breathed deeply.
    “Either he goes or I go,” said Mrs. Carraway, firm as a rock.
    “He goes,” said Michael with strength from his mother.
    “Oh!” cried Anne. She looked at Luther. His black arms were full of roses he had brought to put in the vases. He had on no shirt. “Oh!” His body was ebony.
    “Don’t worry ’bout me!” said Luther. “I’ll go.”
    “Yes, we’ll go,” boomed Mattie from the doorway, who had come up from below, fat and belligerent. “We’ve stood enough foolery from you white folks! Yes, we’ll go. Come on, Luther.”
    What could she mean, “stood enough”? What had they done to them, Anne and Michael wondered. They had tried to be kind. “Oh!”
    “Sneaking around knocking on our door at night,” Mattie went on. “Yes, we’ll go. Pay us! Pay us! Pay us!” So she remembered the time they had come for Luther at night. That was it.
    “I’ll pay you,” said Michael. He followed Mattie out.
    Anne looked at her