Not Without Laughter

By Langston Hughes.

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I

Storm

Aunt Hager Williams stood in her doorway and looked out at the sun. The western sky was a sulphurous yellow and the sun a red ball dropping slowly behind the trees and housetops. Its setting left the rest of the heavens grey with clouds.

“Huh! A storm’s comin’,” said Aunt Hager aloud.

A pullet ran across the backyard and into a square-cut hole in an unpainted piano-box which served as the roosting-house. An old hen clucked her brood together and, with the tiny chicks, went into a small box beside the large one. The air was very still. Not a leaf stirred on the green apple-tree. Not a single closed flower of the morning-glories trembled on the back fence. The air was very still and yellow. Something sultry and oppressive made a small boy in the doorway stand closer to his grandmother, clutching her apron with his brown hands.

“Sho is a storm comin’,” said Aunt Hager.

“I hope mama gets home ’fore it rains,” remarked the brown child holding to the old woman’s apron. “Hope she gets home.”

“I does, too,” said Aunt Hager. “But I’s skeared she won’t.”

Just then great drops of water began to fall heavily into the backyard, pounding up little clouds of dust where each drop struck the earth. For a few moments they pattered violently on the roof like a series of hammer-strokes; then suddenly they ceased.

“Come in, chile,” said Aunt Hager.

She closed the door as the green apple-tree began to sway in the wind and a small hard apple fell, rolling rapidly down the top of the piano-box that sheltered the chickens. Inside the kitchen it was almost dark. While Aunt Hager lighted an oil-lamp, the child climbed to a chair and peered through the square window into the yard. The leaves and flowers of the morning-glory vines on the back fence were bending with the rising wind. And across the alley at the big house, Mrs. Kennedy’s rear screen-door banged to and fro, and Sandy saw her garbage-pail suddenly tip over and roll down into the yard, scattering potato-peelings on the white steps.

“Sho gwine be a terrible storm,” said Hager as she turned up the wick of the light and put the chimney on. Then, glancing through the window, she saw a black cloud twisting like a ribbon in the western sky, and the old woman screamed aloud in sudden terror: “It’s a cyclone! It’s gwine be a cyclone! Sandy, let’s get over to Mis’ Carter’s quick, ’cause we ain’t got no cellar here. Come on, chile, let’s get! Come on, chile! … Come on, chile!”

Hurriedly she blew out the light, grabbed the boy’s hand; and together they rushed through the little house towards the front. It was quite dark in the inner rooms, but through the parlor windows came a sort of sooty grey-green light that was rapidly turning to blackness.

“Lawd help us, Jesus!”

Aunt Hager opened the front door, but before she or the child could move, a great roaring sound suddenly shook the world, and, with a deafening division of wood from wood, they saw their front porch rise into the air and go hurtling off into space. Sailing high in the gathering darkness, the porch was soon lost to sight. And the black wind blew with terrific force, numbing the eardrums.

For a moment the little house trembled and swayed and creaked as though it were about to fall.

“Help me to shut this do’,” Aunt Hager screamed; “help me to shut it, Lawd!” as with all her might she struggled against the open door, which the wind held back, but finally it closed and the lock caught. Then she sank to the floor with her back against the wall, while her small grandson trembled like a leaf as she took him in her lap, mumbling: “What a storm! … O, Lawdy! … O, ma chile, what a storm!”

They could hear the crackling of timbers and the rolling limbs of trees that the wind swept across the roof. Her arms tightened about the boy.

“Dear Jesus!” she said. “I wonder where is yo’ mama? S’pose she started out fo’ home ’fore this storm come up!” Then in a scream: “Have mercy on ma Annjee! O, Lawd, have mercy on this chile’s mama! Have mercy on all ma chillens! Ma Harriett, an’ ma Tempy, an’ ma Annjee, what’s maybe all of ’em out in de storm! O, Lawd!”

A dry crack of lightning split the darkness, and the boy began to wail. Then the rain broke. The old woman could not see the crying child she held, nor could the boy hear the broken voice of his grandmother, who had begun to pray as the rain crashed through the inky blackness. For a long while it roared on the roof of the house and pounded at the windows, until finally the two within became silent, hushing their cries. Then only the lashing noise of the water, coupled with the feeling that something terrible was happening, or had already happened, filled the evening air.

After the rain the moon rose clear and bright and the clouds disappeared from the lately troubled sky. The stars sparkled calmly above the havoc of the storm, and it was still early evening as people emerged from their houses and began to investigate the damage brought by the twisting cyclone that had come with the sunset. Through the rubbish-filled streets men drove slowly with horse and buggy or automobile. The fire-engine was out, banging away, and the soft tang-tang-tang of the motor ambulance could be heard in the distance carrying off the injured.