Alice however, believed she knew the truth better than everybody. Her brother in law was not a veteran and he had been living in East Saint Louis since before the war. Nor did he need a white mans job, he owned a pool hall. As a matter of fact he wasnt even in the riot; he had no weapons, confronted nobody on the street. He was pulled off a street car and stomped to death and Alices sister had just got the news and had gone back home to try and forget the colour of its entrails, when her house was torched and she burned crispy in its flame. Her only child, a little girl named Dorcas, across the road with her very best girl friend, did not hear the fire engine clanging and roaring down the street because when it was called it didnt come. But she must have seen the flames, must have because the whole street was screaming. She never said anything about it, she went to two funerals in five days and she never said a word.
Some said the rioters were disgruntled veterans who had fought in the all colored units were refused the services of the YMCA over there and over here. They came home to white violence more intense then when they enlisted and unlike the battles fought in Europe, state side fighting was pitiless and totally without honor. Others said their were whites terrified by the wave of southern Negros flooding in towns, searching for work and places to live. A few thought about it and said how perfect was the control of the workers, none of whom (like crabs in a barrel requiring no lid, no stick, not even a monitoring observation) would get out of the barrel.
Alice however, believed she knew the truth better than everybody. Her brother in law was not a veteran and he had been living in East Saint Louis since before the war. Nor did he need a white mans job, he owned a pool hall. As a matter of fact he wasnt even in the riot; he had no weapons, confronted nobody on the street. He was pulled off a street car and stomped to death and Alices sister had just got the news and had gone back home to try and forget the colour of its entrails, when her house was torched and she burned crispy in its flame. Her only child, a little girl named Dorcas, across the road with her very best girl friend, did not hear the fire engine clanging and roaring down the street because when it was called it didnt come. But she must have seen the flames, must have because the whole street was screaming. She never said anything about it, she went to two funerals in five days and she never said a word.
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i desire a maid from the village of a good landed family and without poor relatives and one who will bring a good dowry with her, neither plain nor fair to look upon and a good cook, so that even though their are servants in the house, she may watch them. And she must be such a one that if she buys rice it will be enough and not a handful over and if she buys cloth the garment will be cut so that the scraps of cloth left over should lie in the palm of her hand. Such a one i want.
by John Stienback -
A harmonica is easy to carry. Take it out of your pocket, knock it against your palm to shake out the dirt and pocket fuzz and bits of tobacco. Now its ready. You can do anything with a harmonica: thin reedy single tone or chords, or melody with rhythm chords. You can mold the music with curved hands making it wail and cry like bagpipes. making it full and round like an organ, making it as sharp and bitter as the reed pipes of the hills. And you can play it and put it back in your pocket. It is always with you, always in your pocket. And as you play, you will learn new tricks, new ways to mold the tone with your hands, to pinch the tone with your lips and no one teaches you. You feel around - sometimes alone in the shade at noon, sometimes in the tent door after supper when the women are washing up. Your foot taps gently on the ground. your eye brows rise and fall to the rhythm. And if you loose it or break it, why, its no great loss. You can buy another for a quarter. Sorry about the lousy punctuation...
Sure. Sure, i know. got to get on my feet. get a little money. Would a been better maybe to stay at home and study about tractors. Three dollars a day they get, and pick up extra money too. Rose of Sharon's eyes were calculating. When he looked down at her he saw in her eyes a measuring of him, a calculating of him. But Im going to study. he said. soon as i get on my feet. She said fiercely "We got to have a house before the baby comes. we aint gonna have this baby in no tent." Sure he said. Soon as i get on my feet. He went out of the tent and looked down at Ma, crouched over the brush fire. Rose of Sharon rolled on her back and stared at the top of the tent. And then she put her thumb in her mouth for a gag and she cried silently. Out of the women's great brown breast the milk gushed forth for the child, milk white as snow and when the child suckled at one breast it flowed like a fountain from the other, and she let it flow. There was more then enough for the child, greedy though he was, life enough for many children and she let it flow out carelessly, conscious of her abundance. There was always more and more. Sometimes she lifted her breast and let it flow out upon the ground to save her clothing and it sank into the earth and made a soft, dark, rich spot in the field. The child was fat and good natured and ate of the inexhaustible life his mother gave him.
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