With It [antikvár]

GUMPTION By Langston Hughes You young folks don't remember the Depression, but I do. No jobs for nobody. That winter there wasn't a soul working in our house but my wife, and she was evil as she could be! She was doing a few washings now and then for the white folks, so we made out. But she didn't like to see me sitting around, even if I couldn't find a job. We had a couple of roomers, a man and his wife. They were out of a job, also. And, like me and my wife, they hadn't been in town long enough to get any consideration, since the relief folks were hard on strangers. All of us was just managing to get by on beans and mush all winter. One cold February morning we was sitting around the stove trying to keep warm. My wife was ironing. Who should pass by outside but old man Oyster and his son. "There goes Oyster and that boy of his," I said, "ragged as a jaybird, both of 'em." "They ain't even on relief work, is they?" Jack, the roomer, asked. "They did have a few hours' work a month," I said. "They messed up, though." "Messed up, you call it, heh?" my wife put in. "Well, they got gumption, anyhow. They told them white folks up yonder in the oflBce just what they