The Color of Your Skin Ain’t the Color of Your Heart Read Online Free PDF

cared about Katie, and also that she loved him.
    So it would all work out for the best, I tried to tell myself.
    But still I couldn’t help being a little downcast. And nervous. Because what was to become of Emma and me? She and I would probably have to leave and I’d need to take care of her. Even if Mr. Daniels might let me stay and work for them, he’d never let Emma stay. What white man would want to have her around? She was no earthly good for anything and just meant two extra mouths to feed. She had no one else. I couldn’t very well let him send her away by herself. She’d never be able to survive, especially with William McSimmons looking for her. I’d have to take care of her.
    Suddenly a sound disturbed me in the midst of my thoughts.
    I turned around and there was Mr. Daniels standing in the doorway looking at me.
    “I was just—” I started to say. But the sudden look that came over his face the moment I turned to look at him silenced me.
    Obviously he’d known it was me when he stopped at the open door. But the instant his eyes met mine, his face went white and he almost gasped. It was such an expression that I couldn’t take my eyes off him either. We just stared at each other for what must have been three or four seconds. Goose bumps flooded my arms and back and neck just like they had earlier. Then his eyes wandered down to what I was cradling in my hands.
    “Where’d you get that?” he said. His voice was so soft I could barely hear it.
    “It was my mama’s,” I said.
    If I didn’t know better I’d have thought I almost saw tears struggling to rise in his eyes. He turned away, like he didn’t want me to see him, and stumbled away and down the stairs. Half a minute later I heard the kitchen door open. I went to the window and looked outside. He was walking out toward the fields and just kept walking.
    The next morning when we got up, Templeton Daniels was gone.

A V ISITOR F ROM T OWN
    6

    I CAME DOWNSTAIRS THINKING TO MYSELF THAT the house sounded a little uncommonly quiet. I found Katie sitting alone in the kitchen.
    She glanced up at me with a different expression than anything I’d seen before. She looked older. It was both a relieved expression and a sad one, mixed in with almost a little bit of the feeling that she’d almost expected it, though hadn’t realized it till after it happened.
    “He left, Mayme,” she said in a quiet voice.
    She tried to smile at me, but then tears flooded her eyes and she looked away.
    I walked over and put my hand on her shoulder. She leaned her head against my side and just cried softly for a minute or two.
    “I don’t know why I’m crying, Mayme,” she said. “I ought to be happy. Nothing’s going to happen to us. Nobody will have to leave. Nobody will find out. But …”
    Again she sniffled and cried for a few seconds. “… but he’s the only family I have,” she went on, “or at least the only family who knows and who cares about me. And I had hoped …”
    “I know,” I said. “I hoped something good would come of it for you too.”
    It was silent awhile. Katie took a few breaths to steady herself, then glanced back up at me from her chair and smiled.
    “So I guess life gets back to normal now,” she said.
    She stood, turned toward me, and embraced me. We stood in each other’s arms for several seconds.
    “You’ll never leave me, will you, Mayme?”
    “No, Katie,” I said. “I’ll never leave you.” She drew in another deep breath and stepped back, wiped her eyes, and smiled again.
    “I’ll be all right now,” she said.
    “Did he say anything?” I asked.
    “No, just this,” replied Katie, handing me a piece of paper. “It was on the table when I came down a while ago.”
    “What does it say? I can’t read his writing.”
    Katie took the note again and read it aloud.
    “Dear Kathleen,” she said. “ There are some things I need to take care of. Right now things are a little complicated for me.
    I am sorry but