The Future Has a Past Read Online Free PDF

that wood stacked outside and in the house and finding ways to keep from going outside. Sides, I read books. I always did love books. They keep my mind full.
    My neighbor Luella cried last night. Again.
    See, some of these little houses sit mighty close together and sometime you be in your neighbor’s house without trying to be. Luella’s family house sits on the corner of Hope Street and Wayward Lane, and my house is right next to it on Hope Street. Her other neighbor is Mattie, she on Wayward Lane. My house has a long backyard, so my land runs the length of Luella’s and Mattie’s. All these houses started out belonging to our parents. Now . . . I am not a nosy person, but I can get interested sometime. A little fence and a thin wall . . . things carry.
    Luella cried last night. Again.
    Luella’s mother, Sedalia, was in the same class in school with me and Mattie. She was a nice girl who could have been fast; if you know what I mean. Cause she was cute and the boys teased her a lot. She was a thin, nervous-type girl, always watching everything and everybody but her books. I loved books, but Sedalia seemed to like boys more, leastways one or two. She was poor, a poor family, but we was all poor. Don’t care what you say though, she washed them two dresses she had so they was clean every day she came to school cept one or two times her daddy had beat her so bad she could hardly move. But she made it to school in a dress, then torn and mended by unlearned hands, but clean. I magine she rather be at school than at home no matter which way she had to come.
    Oh, she worked too, from the earliest days, helping her mother wash clothes for others. Her mother was a thin, nervous woman, too. Sickly. Her father looked strong, but he drank; a lot. Sedalia was their only child cause they just didn’t seem to be able to make any more children. Prob’ly was a good thing.
    Then Sedalia started doing other folks’ clothes on her own. Was always two or three big tin tubs half full of clothes sitting out back of the house. And she takin care of babies or the neighbors, whenever she could, cause they poor too. Her mama took the money, had to, cause her daddy didn’t provide. But, enough of that, cause I done had enough of sad songs. Most everybody got one to sing.
    But, now, I members just plain as day, we were in our last month of school and everybody was getting ready for the prom, such as it was. But, Sedalia, she knew she wasn’t going because she had no prom clothes to wear. Nobody had asked her to go with them anyway. Scared to, I guess, scared of her papa.
    The night of the prom Sedalia came anyway, still in one of her mended dresses. But, she didn’t come in the brightly lighted, decorated gym where the prom was held, she stood outside, watching everybody else go in. When it seemed everyone was in, she sat on the grass, just looking at the building, listening to the blaring music, I guess.
    Some of the boy-men, after a few stolen drinks of somebody’s cheap wine, hatched a trick-plan to send a fellow out to play a little joke on Sedalia and ask her to dance on the grass. One of the boys she had liked and stared at all the time while he was with other girls at school volunteered to go do it. I’m shamed not one of us girls spoke up to shame them from doing it, I guess we wanted to laugh too. Thought it was all in fun and I even thought she might like to dance at her prom even if it was outside on the grass. It must take common sense to be a decent person, cause none of us had any.
    That boy, Wiley, went out there and a flustered, needy, pitiful Sedalia smiled up at him and when he held out his hand, she reached for it. He was, maybe, supposed to run off then, but he didn’t. Maybe cause of the tears in her eyes, but he didn’t run off, he danced with her. Slowly, even though the music was a swing dance. He must have made her very happy because hope rose in her little wrung-out heart and when he stayed to dance a second