The Color Purple Read Online Free PDF

mammy cause she put a lot of work on me. Then I see how sick she is. Couldn’t stay mad at her. Couldn’t be mad at my daddy cause he my daddy. Bible say, Honor father and mother no matter what. Then after while every time I got mad, or start to feel mad, I got sick. Felt like throwing up. Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel nothing at all.
    Sofia frown. Nothing at all?
    Well, sometime Mr. _____ git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways.
    You ought to bash Mr. _____ head open, she say.
    Think bout heaven later.
    Not much funny to me. That funny. I laugh. She laugh. Then us both laugh so hard us flop down on the step.
    Let’s make quilt pieces out of these messed up curtains, she say. And I run git my pattern book.
    I sleeps like a baby now.

DEAR GOD,
    Shug Avery sick and nobody in this town want to take the Queen Honeybee in. Her mammy say She told her so. Her pappy say, Tramp. A woman at church say she dying— maybe two berkulosis or some kind of nasty woman disease. What? I want to ast, but don’t. The women at church sometime nice to me. Sometime not. They look at me there struggling with Mr. _____ children. Trying to drag ’em to the church, trying to keep ’em quiet after us get there. They some of the same ones used to be here both times I was big. Sometimes they think I don’t notice, they stare at me. Puzzle.
    I keep my head up, best I can. I do a right smart for the preacher. Clean the floor and windows, make the wine, wash the altar linen. Make sure there’s wood for the stove in wintertime. He call me Sister Celie. Sister Celie, he say, You faithful as the day is long. Then he talk to the other ladies and they mens. I scurry bout, doing this, doing that. Mr. _____ sit back by the door gazing here and there. The womens smile in his direction every chance they git. He never look at me or even notice.
    Even the preacher got his mouth on Shug Avery, now she down. He take her condition for his text. He don’t call no name, but he don’t have to. Everybody know who he mean. He talk bout a strumpet in short skirts, smoking cigarettes, drinking gin. Singing for money and taking other women mens. Talk bout slut, hussy, heifer and streetcleaner.
    I cut my eyes back at Mr. ____ when he say that. Streetcleaner. Somebody got to stand up for Shug, I think. But he don’t say nothing. He cross his legs first to one side, then to the other. He gaze out the window. The same women smile at him, say amen gainst Shug.
    But once us home he never stop to take off his clothes. He call down to Harpo and Sofia house. Harpo come running.
    Hitch up the wagon, he say.
    Where us going? say Harpo.
    Hitch up the wagon, he say again.
    Harpo hitch up the wagon. They stand there and talk a few minutes out by the barn. Then Mr. _____ drive off.
    One good thing bout the way he never do any work round the place, us never miss him when he gone.
    Five days later I look way off up the road and see the wagon coming back. It got sort of a canopy over it now, made out of old blankets or something. My heart begin to beat like furry, and the first thing I try to do is change my dress.
    But too late for that. By time I git my head and arm out the old dress, I see the wagon pull up in the yard. Plus a new dress won’t help none with my notty head and dusty headrag, my old everyday shoes and the way I smell.
    I don’t know what to do, I’m so beside myself. I stand there in the middle of the kitchen. Mind whirling. I feels like Who Would Have Thought.
    Celie, I hear Mr. _____ call. Harpo.
    I stick my head and my arm back in my old dress and wipe the sweat and dirt off my face as best I can. I come to the door. Yessir? I ast, and trip over the broom I was sweeping with when I first notice the wagon.
    Harpo and Sofia in the yard now, looking inside the wagon. They faces grim.
    Who this? Harpo ast.
    The woman should have been your mammy, he