Thank you ma'am part 2

Then we'll eat," said the woman."I believe you're hungry-or been hungry- to try to snatch my pocketbook!"

"I want a pair of blue suede (leather which is slightly rough to touch and is not shiny) 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 have asked me."

"M'am?"

The water was 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!

The woman was sitting on the daybed (a couch that can be made up into a 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 (to be annoyed or worried), 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. Everybody's got something in common. So you sit down while I fix up (P-27) something to eat. You might run that comb through your hair so you will look presentable.”

In another corner of the room behind a screen was a gas plate (a kind of burner) and an icebox.

Mrs. Jones got up and went behind the screen. The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was going to run now, nor did she watch her purse, which she had left behind her on the daybed. But the boy took care to sit on the far side of the room, away from the purse, where he thought she could easily see him out of the corner of her eye if she wanted to. He did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be mistrusted now.

"Do you need somebody to go to the store?"asked the boy, "may be to get some milk or something?"

“Don’t believe I do," said the woman, "unless you just want sweet milk yourself. I was going to make cocoa out of this canned milk 1 got here."

"That will be fine," said the boy.

She heated some lima beans (edible seeds) and beef she had in the icebox, made the cocoa,

and set the table. The woman did not ask the boy anything about where he lived, or

his folks, or? anything else that would embarrass (to throw into a state of self-conscious distress)him. Instead, as they ate, she told him about her job in a hotel beauty shop that stayed open late, what the work was like, and how all kinds of women came in and out, blondes (a woman with pale yellow or golden hair), redheads, and Spanish. Then she cut him a half of her ten-cent cake.

'Eat some more, son," she said.

When they finished eating, she got up and said," Now here, take this ten dollars and buy yourself some blue suede shoes. And next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto (to become connected to something ) my pocketbook nor anybody else's – because shoes got by devilish ways will burn your feet. I got to get my rest now. But from here on in, son, I hope you will behave yourself."

She led him down the hall to the front door and opened it."Good night!

Behave yourself, boy!" she said, looking out into the street as he went down the steps.

The boy wanted to say something other than, "Thank you, m'am," to Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, but although his lips moved, he couldn't even say that as he turned at the foot of the barren stoop (a raised flat area in front of the door of a house )and looked up at the large woman in the door, Then she shut the door.

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