Dark Don't Catch Me Read Online Free PDF

you’re like all the rest. Think there’s no such thing as a white woman offering a colored boy a cool drink of water without spreading her legs for you after! Think like a goddam crow-bellied know-nothing instead of knowing. Instead of knowing that all that Mrs. Ficklin wanted was to be nice; and you start with your sullen tone; your cheap and tacky “ain’t no Klu gonna get me for giving you some jog-jog, so git away from me” tone; just because she tried to be nice. Mrs. Ficklin is a Northerner, now you know that, Negro. Up North they do that. Down here she tries and you’re not ready to be emancipated yet; you got to think you’re dirty, filthy crow-belly thoughts that make you imagine your pants house a gold nugget, and your head houses fat-back!
    â€¢ • •
    â€œWhat’re you scowling at, Mr. Post?”
    Major didn’t even see Betty sitting on the front porch as he came up the dirt path to the James house.
    â€œScowling at scowls, I guess. Hi!”
    â€œHi! Want to go for a walk?”
    â€œHuh, sure, if that’s what you want.”
    He grins at her; grabs her hand; a short thin girl, pretty, with a shape ripening to a young woman’s; a springy kind of gay walk and laughing sixteen-year-old sweet eyes; with a smile cotton-white and wide.
    â€œHow long you got off?”
    â€œI’m due at Hooper’s in an hour.”
    â€œI got the day.”
    â€œUmmm-hum, I know. I got to do the barbecue. Dad’s taking the pickup to Manteo; meeting my cousin-from-up-North’s train.”
    They cut through the sandhills out into the fields, off toward the black pine, where beyond them in the distance trucks and wagons, piled high with newly picked cotton, head out on Route 109 to line up at the gin over in Galverton.
    â€œYou mean he’s still coming? With Hus back up and well?”
    â€œWe tried to stop him,” Major starts; embarrassed to tell again what Betty already knows, that Major’s dad can’t keep a nickel out of a bootlegger’s palm, “but somewhere between the Western Union Office and our place, my dad lost the money, then forgot he even had a reason for having it.” Major laughs, not meaning it, always embarrassed before Betty, unable not to compare their two families.
    She wears a red and white flower-splotched dress; matches the color the sun makes the hills — scarlet; they both wave at Jack Rowan’s kid brother, Will, heading off for picking at the Sell farm. It’s “in season” now; colored schools close at one to let the kids out for the fields; colored cabinets stock up on liniment for the black backaches the fields promise.
    â€œWon’t he be mad when he gets here?” she says.
    Major shrugs. “What can you do?”
    â€œI bet he’ll be furious, Major!”
    â€œI’m just glad Hus didn’t pass. That’s all.”
    â€œOh, gee, sure. Me too.”
    â€œGot your father to thank. Like always.”
    â€œYou got that tone in your voice today, Major?”
    â€œYeah? What tone’s that?” Major knows; Grouch County again; God, when would he get out of that county and back to living! The thing at Ficklins still bothered him; all she wanted to do was be nice; and he had to “crow” himself; damn his black skin!
    â€œPlease somebody be in a pleasant mood today,” Betty says. “Please, somebody.”
    â€œWhy, honey? Is somebody else moaning the blues like me?”
    She stops in the field they walk in; turns and looks up at him; her dark eyes serious now, no laughter there nor any hint of it. “Major?”
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Betty?”
    â€œMajor, promise me you won’t tell something.”
    â€œNo. No, I won’t.”
    â€œYou know why I said we should take a walk instead of sitting on the porch.” “Why?”
    â€œDaddy’s having it out with Barbara. He came home from the