a mill like I was. He was also holding his chin up a bit like you saw the British officers do once in awhile. This did not help, either. British officers and professors weren’t really the type of fellows I might have over to play a game of checkers.
“Yes, sir?”
Since he used “sir” with me, I thought it fitting that I use it back.
“Sir, I’m Harold Spector’s apprentice.”
He paused, pushed up his glasses, and looked me over for a moment.
“You’re not colored.”
I knew that. I was hoping it wasn’t one of those tricky questions they get you with to see if you’re fit for the job.
“I am not. You’re correct, sir.”
This was not the right response, I knew straight off, as his face looked red all of a sudden, and his head snapped up from looking at a paper in front of him.
“That supposed to be funny, son?”
He’d dropped the sir, and was talking different altogether.
“No, sir.”
I left it at that because if telling somebody they was correct about something got them mad there wasn’t any use saying more.
“The job is for coloreds.”
I guess nobody had told Reginald’s dad the job was for coloreds, since he is, and there wouldn’t be much need for telling him that.
“Yes, sir.”
He waited for me to say more I think, but I knew well enough when it wasn’t going to help me, so I left it at that and let him have the next words.
“What’s your name?”
“Henry Dawson, sir.”
“Dawson, my name is Hadley Overman. You apprenticed before?”
Now my head was starting to swim a little. At the mill some of the better-paying jobs you’d apprentice for but shoveling coal on a belt, well, that wasn’t one. You took the shovel, and if you did it well enough, nobody stopped to tell you that you was fired. I was in trouble right now, so I threw out something that was true.
“I got pretty handy with a lot of things in the war, and after that I worked at the mill, and I am pretty good at my job, sir.” He paused again.
“You in the war?”
“Yes, sir. 77th Division. 308th Infantry.”
“The 308th? In the Argonne?”
He asked me as if he didn’t believe it, maybe because many of the fellows who went in there from the 308th are dead now. I was relieved we weren’t talking about apprenticing anymore and instead something that I was familiar with.
“Yes, sir.”
But, I wasn’t going to go on about it. For all I knew, he only liked certain boys coming out of the Argonne, and I wasn’t going to be the wrong type now that we were getting past my not being colored.
He looked at me long and quiet. I don’t know what he was thinking, but my guess was he was trying to figure out if I’d work hard or not.
“They ever toss you in the stockade?”
“Never once, sir.”
“Ever get away with something they should have thrown you in the stockade for?” I would not trip on that one.
“Never once, sir,” I repeated.
“How are you with the shovel?” he asked.
“I use it every day at the mill and used it just about every day in the service. I haven’t had a problem yet and have dug myself some fine holes,” I said, a little proud.
He kept looking at me, staring. I was solid enough, and no big belly to slow down the shoveling. After a little while his eyebrows rose up just a little in a good sort of way, if that makes sense.
“Okay, then. Fill in this sheet and put it in the box there,” he said, waving at a little box at the corner of his desk like it was in another room because his desk was so big. “Then go out the way you came in, turn left, and head to the far side of the entrance. Harold’s over there, and you’ll know who he is.”
He said that as if it was a question, wondering I bet if I even knew what Mr. Spector looked like, which I didn’t. I filled in the paper as fast as I ever wrote anything, even with my hand shaking, and I put it in the box.
“Thank you, sir.”
With that I was out the door before he could get in another question, and turned left. Sweat was running down my forehead now like it was the middle of July.
4
Sometimes something easy comes after something hard, and sure enough it turned out it was real easy finding Reginald’s father. Both are about 6 feet tall I’d say and thin as a wire. They look damn near the same except his dad’s hair was all gray and his face is a little pulled down from the years weighing on it. I walked up towards him, and he stood waiting for me. Reginald must have told him what I looked like.
“Henry,” he said, more telling than asking, and holding his hand out to me.
“Yes sir.”
“You get the job?”
“Well, I got directions to where you are, and here you are, so I think I might.”
“You tell them you was my apprentice?” he asked.
“That’s what I told them.”
“They think that was funny or peculiar?”
“He was expecting me to be colored, and I wasn’t, so that was peculiar for him, I suppose. It wasn’t for me.”
I looked around because it sounded funny, and after all that business inside, I was looking for a laugh, so I let out a good one. Mr. Spector couldn’t help it either, so only a minute into things and we were laughing hard. I figured that was a good start. But a white man and a Negro laughing hard together at a job during working hours is a swell way to get fired, so we covered up pretty quickly.
After the laughing I was out of words, having said more so far today than I might after two days at the Point. Fortunately Mr. Spector was not the standaround type. Without another word he handed me a shovel, and we got to walking up the ramp on that side. It was mighty high and took you clear up to the top of the stadium.
What was waiting for me at the top, I will have trouble describing, given my limitations, but I will try. Down to my left at the bottom of the hill was the greenest field I’d ever seen. It was all mowed in lines, and there wasn’t a speck of dirt down the middle. I do believe it had just been cut and the grass was almost
