The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) Read Online Free PDF Page A

she had the same big idea and like she had had it a long time, too.
    The doctor was standing by me at the window all the time. He said nothing about what Old Gramma did, and now he stepped away from the window and so did I. I guess he felt the same way I did about the white man and that’s why he stepped away from the window. The big idea again. He was afraid the coloreds down below would yell up at us, did we see the white man pass by. The coloreds were crazy mad all right. One of them had the white man’s bugle and he banged on our door with it. I was worried Old Gramma had forgot to lock it and they might walk right in, and that would be the end of the white man and the big idea.
    But Old Gramma pulled another fast one. She ran out into the alley and pointed her old yellow finger in about three wrong directions. In a second the alley was quiet and empty, except for Old Gramma. She walked slowly over against our building, where somebody had kicked the brown bag, and picked it up.
    Old Gramma brought the white man right into our room, told him to sit down, and poured herself a cup of hot water. She sipped it and said the white man could leave whenever he wanted to, but it might be better to wait a bit. The white man said he was much obliged, he hated to give us any trouble, and, “Oh, oh, is somebody sick over there?” when he saw Mama, and that he’d just been passing by when a hundred nig—when he was attacked.
    Old Gramma sipped her hot water. The doctor turned away from the window and said, “Here they come again,” took another look, and said, “No, they’re going back.” He went over to Mama and held her wrist. I couldn’t tell anything about her from his face. She was sleeping just the same. The doctor asked the white man, still standing, to sit down. Carrie only opened her eyes once and closed them. She hadn’t changed her position in the good chair. Brother George and the baby stood in a corner with their eyes on the white man. The baby’s legs buckled then—she’d only been walking about a week—and she collapsed softly to the floor. She worked her way up again without taking her eyes off the white man. He even looked funny and out of place to me in our room. I guess the man for the rent and Father Egan were the only white people come to see us since I could remember; and now it was only the man for the rent since Father Egan died.
    The doctor asked the white man did he work or own a business in this neighborhood. The white man said, No, glancing down at his feet, no, he just happened to be passing by when he was suddenly attacked like he said before. The doctor told Old Gramma she might wash Mama’s face and neck again with warm water.
    There was noise again in the alley—windows breaking and fences being pushed over. The doctor said to the white man, “You could leave now; it’s a white mob this time; you’d be safe.”
    “No,” the white man said, “I should say not; I wouldn’t be seen with them; they’re as bad as the others almost.”
    “It is quite possible,” the doctor said.
    Old Gramma asked the white man if he would like a cup of tea.
    “Tea? No,” he said, “I don’t drink tea; I didn’t know you drank it.”
    “I didn’t know you knew her,” the doctor said, looking at Old Gramma and the white man.
    “You colored folks, I mean,” the white man said, “Americans, I mean. Me, I don’t drink tea—always considered it an English drink and bad for the kidneys.”
    The doctor did not answer. Old Gramma brought him a cup of tea.
    And then Daddy came in. He ran over to Mama and fell down on his knees like he was dead—like seeing Mama with her arm broke and her chest so pushed in killed him on the spot. He lifted his face from the bed and kissed Mama on the lips; and then, Daddy, I could see, was crying—the strongest man in the world was crying with tears in his big dark eyes and coming down the side of his big hard face. Mama called him her John Henry sometimes and