“Well, you said you—didn’ you just say you sung nigger songs with a banjo!”
“I haven’t got it with me. Isn’t there one?” Actually, until this moment, she had not given the banjo a thought. She looked about her in the orchestra pit.
“Well, for God’s sakes!” said the gray derby.
The hoarse-voiced singer who had just met with rebuff and who was shrugging himself into a shabby overcoat now showed himself a knight. He took an instrument case from the piano top. “Here,” he said. “Take mine, sister.”
Magnolia looked to left, to right. “There.” The fat man in the second row jerked a thumb toward the right stage box back of which was the stage door. Magnolia passed swiftly up the aisle; was on the stage. She was quite at ease, relaxed, at home. She seated herself in one of the deal chairs; crossed her knees.
“Take your hat off,” commanded the pasty young man.
She removed her veil and hat. A sallow big-eyed young woman, too thin, in a well-made suit and a modish rather crumpled shirtwaist and nothing of the look of the stage about her. She thumbed the instrument again. She remembered something dimly, dimly, far, far back; far back and yet very recent; this morning. “Don’t smile too often. But if you ever want anything . . .”
She smiled. The thin young man did not appear overwhelmed. She threw back her head then as Jo had taught her, half closed her eyes, tapped time with the right foot, smartly. Imitative in this, she managed, too, to get into her voice that soft and husky Negro quality which for years she had heard on river boats, bayous, landings. I got a wings. You got a wings. All God’s chillun got a wings.
“Sing another,” said the old young man. She sang the one she had always liked best.
“Go down, Moses,