Page 103 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade6_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 1.15
continued
In the end
my Notes
92 “I used to travel around and make money to feed my wife and Jesse—that’s my boy’s name. Used to feed them good, too. Then his mama died, and he stayed with his mama’s sister. He growed up to be a man, and when the war come he saw fit to go off and fight in it. I didn’t have nothing to give him except these things that told him who I was, and what he come from. If you know your pappy did something, you know you can do something too.
93 “Anyway, he went off to war, and I went off still playing and singing. ‘Course by then I wasn’t as much as I used to be, not without somebody to make it worth the while. You know what I mean?”
94 “Yeah.” Greg nodded, not quite really knowing.
95 “I traveled around, and one time I come home, and there was this letter saying Jesse
got killed in the war. Broke my heart, it truly did.
96 “They sent back what he had with him over there, and what it was is this old mouth fiddle and these clippings. Him carrying it around with him like that told me it meant something to him. That was my treasure, and when I give it to him he treated it just like that, a treasure. Ain’t that something?”
97 “Yeah, I guess so,” Greg said.
98 “You guess so?” Lemon Brown’s voice rose an octave as he started to put his
treasure back into the plastic. “Well, you got to guess ‘cause you sure don’t know nothing. Don’t know enough to get home when it’s raining.”
99 “I guess . . . I mean, you’re right.”
100 “You OK for a youngster,” the old man said as he tied the strings around his leg,
“better than those scalawags what come here looking for my treasure. That’s for sure.”
101 “You really think that treasure of yours was worth fighting for?” Greg asked. “Against a pipe?”
102 “What else a man got ‘cepting what he can pass on to his son, or his daughter, if she be his oldest?” Lemon Brown said. “For a big-headed boy you sure do ask the foolishest questions.”
103 Lemon Brown got up after patting his rags in place and looked out the window again. “Looks like they’re gone. You get on out of here and get yourself home. I’ll be watching from the window so you’ll be all right.”
104 Lemon Brown went down the stairs behind Greg. When they reached the front door the old man looked out first, saw the street was clear and told Greg to scoot on home.
105 “You sure you’ll be OK?” Greg asked.
106 “Now didn’t I tell you I was going to East St. Louis in the morning?” Lemon Brown
asked. “Don’t that sound OK to you?”
107 “Sure it does,” Greg said. “Sure it does. And you take care of that treasure of yours.”
108 “That I’ll do,” Lemon said, the wrinkles around his eyes suggesting a smile. “That I’ll do.”
76 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 6
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