For the first time in her life somebody had called her “madam.”
“Miss Cynthie” belongs to the author’s collection of stories which chart the theme of the Great Migration of the blacks from the south to the north in the early part of the 20th century. The opening line of the story immediately sets the tonal difference between the two regions of the country. Having lived her entire life in the south and never traveling more than fifty miles away from her small hometown, it is not difficult to imagine the kind of existence this grandmotherly woman has led. The fact that she has gone through that entire life without ever once being addressed with the simple respect accorded her deepens that element of her life which is so not easily imagined by the average person.
“That’s not the half of it, bozo. That’s Dave Tappen’s grandmother. And what do you s’pose she hopes?”
“What?”
“She hopes that Dave has turned out to be a successful undertaker!”
“Undertaker? Undertaker?
They stared at each other a gaping moment, then doubled up with laughter.
Miss Cynthie has come to visit her grandson David knowing only that whatever he does for a living in New York is lucrative. She has no idea what that something actually is, however, and her suspicions range from the worst—bootlegger—to the hopeful. Two baggage handlers at Penn Station immediately recognize her grandson when he shows up to the point of familiarity with celebrities that they refer to him by name. Their laughter at the thought that he is an undertaker is ambiguous relative to what he does and the fact that he is a celebrity could also go either way: he could be famous or infamous. The suspicion continues to build throughout as more detailed information about the manner in which David lives continues to create an ambiguous expectation. Further adding to the ambiguity of what can be expected is David’s history of keeping his life in the city a secret. Is his wealth clean or dirty? Does the average man recognize him on the street for good reasons or shady?
To her, the theatre had always been the antithesis of church. As the one was the refuge of righteousness, so the other was the stronghold of transgression.
The big secret of her grandson’s wealth which has by this point been put on ostentatious display is finally revealed. He is a famous entertaining in a dancing and singing revue at one of the city’s largest theaters. On the spectrum between bootlegger and undertaker, this is a career which turns out to be located surprisingly close to illegally selling booze than one might think. Miss Cynthie is not just an elderly woman from a small southern town; she is a deeply religious and truly pious woman not suffering the baggage of hypocrisy often affecting such people. Her favorite advice to dole out to strangers is to live their life “like a church steeple—aim high and go straight.” She helped raise David with the hope always in her mind that he might one day become a preacher. But, also significant to keep in mind, is that Miss Cynthie is not just a deeply religious elderly woman from a small southern town, she is also a woman whose exposure to the theater has been severely limited and so her belief that it is it antithetical to church is one steeped not in experience but innocence and, more to the point, ignorance.
"—danced with the gal—hole in her stockin’—
—toe kep’ a-kickin’—heel kep’ a-knockin’."
The turning point in Miss Cynthie’s view of her grandson’s career comes when David takes the stage alone and begins tapping a simple rhythm before he starts singing these song lyrics. By that point, the reader is already familiar with these lyrics. When David brings her to his apartment and has a private conversation with his girlfriend about his plans for the show, Miss Cynthie’s voice is heard singing the song. David’s reaction is telling as he excitedly informs his girlfriend that his grandmother used to sing that song to him when he was young, but the story quick jumps from there to the trio’s arrival at the theater the next night. All the reader knows is that David has a plan and not even that he is an entertainer yet. But the climax of the story will turn on the nostalgic dimension of those memories of both grandmother and grandson of Miss Cynthie singing this song to young David.
