The Stonemason Read Online Free PDF Page A

working three jobs. I don't see how she got pregnant the first time let alone twice.
    M AMA Girl you got a mouth on you, you know that?
    C ARLOTTA There's nothing wrong with saying that.
    M AMA Hmph.
    C ARLOTTA You think men are born with rights that women don't have. That they can come and go like migratory birds and it's perfectly natural. . .
    M AMA It is natural. Tryin to change nature. Women has babies. You cain't get around that. That's the plan the good Lord laid down and you won't change it. You can make up you own plan if you want to, and you can read it in ruin.
    C ARLOTTA Well, it wasn't the good Lord's plan that I ever heard of for men to be gone all hours of the day and night.
    M AMA You watch yourself girl. You hear? You just watch yourself.
    C ARLOTTA That's what it's about.
    M AMA I ain't goin to tell you again.
    C ARLOTTA I'll tell you what you told me. The truth's the truth.
    Mama gets up from the table and busies herself at the sideboard.
    C ARLOTTA You're right. It's none of my business.
    Mama has come back to the table and is picking up Melissa.
    M AMA Honey, you ready to put on your jammies? You ready to go nigh—night?

SCENE III
    The kitchen, Sunday morning. The family are coming in from outside, returning from church. They disperse through the kitchen and exit, steps on the stairs both up and down, leaving Papaw and Ben in the kitchen. Ben is putting the kettle on. Papaw has taken off his overcoat and hat and laid the coat across the back of a kitchen chair. He has on an old fashioned dark suit, white shirt with tie, high top black kid dress shoes. He sits at the kitchen table and puts his hat on the table. Ben is fixing tea.
    B EN Papaw, what did you think of the new minister?
    P APAW Well I liked him just fine. Liked him just fine. I didn't catch his name
    B EN Erickson. His name is Erickson.
    P APAW Erickson. I worked one time for a man named Erickson. He sure wasn't no minister.
    B EN ( Smiling ) I thought you might think he was a bit young for the job.
    P APAW Well he is young. But he seemed to have good sense. Bein old don't shelter people from ignorance. Ought to, but it don't.
    Ben pours the cups and brings them to the table.
    P APAW Thank you Benny. Thank you. A lot of the old time preachers used to preach all kinds of foolishness. Or it was to my ears. I heard any number of times how when colored folks got to heaven they'd be white. Well that don't make no more sense than a goose wearin gaiters. God didn't make the colored man colored just to see how he'd look. There ain't nothin triflin about God. He made everbody the color He wanted em to be and He meant for em to stay that way. And if that suits Him it’s got to suit me too, else I's just a damn fool.
    B EN Did you always feel that way?
    P APAW I think so. I know some coloreds don't, but I always did. It was the way I was raised.
    B EN Do you think it was easier growing up black back then?
    P APAW Many ways it was. Course in many ways it was easier don't matter what color you was. We lived out at the farm and we didn't have a whole lot of experience of the world. Our families, Telfair families, colored and white, we'd been together over a hundred year and we didn't encounter all that much meanness. They was good people and so was we. The first time I ever understood that the white man I was six year old and they was a circus show come to Louisville and Harris, he's the oldest, he made it up for all of us to go and he got extra work for everbody and we saved them pennies, saved them pennies. I think it costed a dime to get in but we raised it. And he carried us all over there, him and Aaron and Charles and me and sister Emmanuelle she come too. We got over there and Harris had heard about the monkeys and he wanted to see em awful bad and we tried to locate where they was at and after awhile he went up to this white man was sellin lemonade, soda pop, ever what it was, and he asked him, said Mister, can you tell us where the monkey cage is