Celeste's Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora E. Tate Read Free Book Online

his knee, cackling.
    “Was not. Listen, when I get to New York I’m gonna write to my friends back home about you going to work in a coal mine.”
    “How’re you gonna write about that when you never been in one?”
    Well, he had a point there. I pulled Poppa’s stamps envelope from my schoolbag, wrote Aunt Valentina’s address on a penny postcard, and handed it to him. “How about you write to me when you get to the coal mines, and tell me what it’s like? I’ll pass the postcard on to my friends. I mean, if you want to.”
    “I reckon I can do that.” He slapped his knee again, and woke up the kids.
    Mr. Smithfield swayed over right then and touched Mrs. Madison on the arm, which probably saved Big Willie from getting that knot on his head. “You look happy, Celeste, so you must be getting along all right. We’re here long enough to let folks on and off to refresh themselves. You need to do anything?”
    I shook my head. I was hungry but I didn’t want to eat yet. I was afraid I’d run out of food before I got to New York. I moved out of the way so Mrs. Madison could leave. She and Big Willie rounded up the triplets, bags, and boxes, and headed up the aisle. Big Willie clapped his cap onto his head. “Promise to write me back if I write to you,” he hollered.
    “I will!” Suddenly I remembered. “Come to the Great Negro State Fair in Raleigh in October if you’re back in Eagle Rock. It has pitching contests. I’ll be there!” Or at least I prayed I would. I hoped he heard me. They rounded a corner for the steps and then they were gone.
    I waited in the now empty, dimly lit train car. Mr. Smithfield said it would be a while before the train would move. What if somebody got on and grabbed me? I pulled my schoolbag and Dede closer for comfort. What if a bat flew onto the train and got into my hair? Aunt Society said bats liked to pull out bad girls’ hair. She sure pulled mine out, though I didn’t consider myself bad. Ole bat! She washed and combed and yanked on my hair like she was out plowing a field.
    But right then I could have even put up with her. And what if Aunt Valentina was as mean as Aunt Society said she was? What if she made me work all the time and fed me turnips and burnt bread? I turned my head to the window and burrowed my head in my coat. Poppa and my friends said I’d see and do exciting things, having such a wonderful, good-looking Aunt Valentina. I remembered how she’d looked the last time I saw her: shapely gams, which was what Mr. Smithfield called her legs; gingertoned smooth skin; pretty white straight teeth; long black hair; and almond-shaped brown eyes, which made her look a little bit like she had Asian or Mexican in her. Though she didn’t.
    I guess I’d said so much about her to my friends over the years and talked about all New York City’s great sights that they’d assumed I would be rip-roaring ready to go. But I wasn’t. I just wanted to go home!
Well, pray for the best, Celeste,
I told myself. I tried to imagine myself standing on the Statue of Liberty torch and shaking hands with the bears and elephants at the Bronx Zoo. But all that stuff scared me, so instead I just daydreamed about the time when we Butterflies had gone to the movies one Christmas.
    I must have dozed off, because off in the distance, then closer, I began to hear
Clickety, clackety, clack. Clickety, clackety, clack.
Beside me a tiny man wearing a top hat and beard danced. He sang in a high-pitched whine. Was I dreaming about Abe Lincoln? When his right arm jerked, his hat sprang up. He was tipping his hat to me!
    Now I knew I was dreaming. Or was I having hysterics? Folks said girls and women had hysterics when they talked or acted strange or fell out foaming at the mouth. Aunt Society never foamed at the mouth, but she sure talked and acted strange a lot. I squeezed my eyes shut and this time kept them shut until Mr. Smithfield shook me. “You need to relieve yourself,” he whispered.