Page 17 - ELA_CA_HighSchool_Sampler_Flipbook

my mother had returned, and I vaguely listened to the conversation that was audible through the thin walls that separated our rooms. At first I heard no words, only voices. My mother’s voice was like a cool, dark room in summer—peaceful, soothing, quiet.
I loved to listen to it; it made things seem all right somehow. But my father’s voice cut through hers, shattering the peace.
36 “Twenty-two years, Maybelle, twenty-two years,” he was saying, “and I got nothing for you, nothing, nothing.”
37 “It’s all right, honey, you’ll get something. Everybody out of work now, you know that.”
38 “It ain’t right. Ain’t no man ought to eat his woman’s food year in and year out, and see his children running wild. Ain’t nothing right about that.”
39 “Honey, you took good care of us when you had it. Ain’t nobody got nothing nowadays.”
40 “I ain’t talking about nobody else, I’m talking about me. God knows I try.” My mother said something I could not hear, and my father cried out louder, “What must a man do, tell me that?”
41 “Look, we ain’t starving. I get paid every week, and Mrs. Ellis is real nice about giving me things. She gonna let me have Mr. Ellis’s old coat for you this winter—“
42 “Damn Mr. Ellis’s coat! And damn his money! You think I want white folks’ leavings? Damn, Maybelle”—and suddenly he sobbed, loudly and painfully, and cried helplessly and hopelessly in the dark night. I had never heard a man cry before. I did not know men ever cried. I covered my ears with my hand but could not cut off the sound of my father’s harsh, painful, despairing sobs. My father was a strong man who could whisk a child upon his shoulders and go singing through the house. My father whittled toys for us, and laughed so loud that the great oak seemed to laugh with him, and taught us how to fish and hunt rabbits. How could it be that my father was crying? But the sobs went on, unstifled, finally quieting until I could hear my mother’s voice, deep and rich, humming softly as she used to hum to a frightened child.
43 The world had lost its boundary lines. My mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; my father, who was the rock on which the family had been built, was sobbing like the tiniest child. Everything was suddenly out of tune, like a broken accordion. Where did I fit into this crazy picture? I do not now remember my thoughts, only a feeling of great bewilderment and fear.
44 Long after the sobbing and humming had stopped, I lay on the pallet, still as stone with my hands over my ears, wishing that I too could cry and be comforted. The night was silent now except for the sound of the crickets and of Joey’s soft breathing. But the room was too crowded with fear to allow me to sleep, and finally, feeling the terrible aloneness of 4 A.M., I decided to awaken Joey.
45 “Ouch! What’s the matter with you? What you want?” he demanded disagreeably when I had pinched and slapped him awake.
46 “Come on, wake up.”
47 “What for? Go ‘way.”
48 I was lost for a reasonable reply. I could not say, “I’m scared and I don’t want to be
alone,” so I merely said, “I’m going out. If you want to come, come on.”
49 The promise of adventure awoke him. “Going out now? Where to, Lizabeth? What you going to do?”
My Notes
ACTIVITY 1.5
continued
whittled: cut and shaped from wood
Unit 1 • Coming of Age 21
9781457304651_TCB_SE_G9_U1_B1.indd 21 10/6/15 12:37 PM
ACTIVITY 1.5 continued
Teacher Notes
Unit 1 • Coming of Age 21
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.