She said, “What is your name?”
“Roger,” answered the boy.
“Then, Roger, you go to that sink and wash your face,” said the woman, whereupon she turned
him loose—at last. Roger looked at the door—looked at the woman—looked at the door—and went
to the sink.
Let the water run until it gets warm,” she said. “Here’s a clean towel.”
“You gonna take me to jail?” asked the boy, bending over the sink.
“Not with that face, I would not take you nowhere,” said the woman. “Here I am trying to get
home to cook me a bite to eat and you snatch my pocketbook! Maybe, you ain’t been to your
supper either, late as it be. Have you?”
“There’s nobody home at my house,” said the boy.
“Then we’ll eat,” said the woman, “I believe you’re hungry—or been hungry—to try to snatch my
pockekbook.”
“I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes,” said the boy.
“Well, you didn’t have to snatch my pocketbook to get some suede shoes,” said Mrs. Luella Bates
Washington Jones. “You could of asked me.”
“M’am?”
The water dripping from his face, the boy looked at her. There was a long pause. A very long
pause. After he had dried his face and not knowing what else to do dried it again, the boy turned
around, wondering what next. The door was open. He could make a dash for it down the hall. He
could run, run, run, run, run!
The woman was sitting on the day-bed. After a while she said, “I were young once and I wanted
things I could not get.”
There was another long pause. The boy’s mouth opened. Then he frowned, but not knowing he
frowned.
The woman said, “Um-hum! You thought I was going to say but, didn’t you? You thought I was going to say, but I didn’t snatch people’s pocketbooks. Well, I wasn’t going to say that.” Pause.
Silence. “I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son—neither tell God, if he didn’t
already know. So you set down while I fix us something to eat. You might run that comb through
your hair so you will look presentable.”