Color Purple, The - Alice Walker [8]
He ast me to make some curtains and I make some out of flower sack. It not big, but it homey. Got a bed, a dresser, a looking glass, and some chairs. Cookstove for cooking and heating, too. Harpo daddy give him wages for working now. He say Harpo wasn't working hard like he should. Maybe little money goose his interest.
Harpo told me, Miss Celie, I'm going on strike.
On what?
I ain't going to work.
And he don't. He come to the field, pull two ears of corn, let the birds and weevil eat two hundred. Us don't make nothing much this year.
But now Sofia coming, he always busy. He chop, he hammer, he plow. He sing and whistle.
Sofia look half her size. But she still a big strong girl. Arms got muscle. Legs, too. She swing that baby about like it nothing.
She got a little pot on her now and give you the feeling she all there. Solid. Like if she sit down on something, it be mash.
She tell Harpo, Hold the baby, while she come back in the house with me to git some thread. She making some sheets. He take the baby, give it a kiss, chuck it under the chin. Grin, look up on the porch at his daddy.
Mr.??? blow smoke, look down at him, and say, Yeah, I see now she going to switch the traces on you.
Harpo want to know what to do to make Sofia! mind. He sit out on the porch with Mr.???. He say, I tell her one thing, she do another.
Never do what I say. Always backtalk.
To tell the truth, he sound a little proud of this to me.
Mr.??? don't say nothing. Blow smoke.
I tell her she can't be all the time going to visit her sister. Us married now, I tell her. Your place is here with the children.
She say, Til take the children with me. I say, Your place is with me. She say, You want to come? She keep primping in front of the glass, getting the children ready at the same time.
You ever hit her? Mr.??? ast.
Harpo look down at his hands. Naw sub, he say low, embarrass.
Well how you spect to make her mind? Wives is like children. You have to let 'em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do that better than a good sound beating.
He puff on bis pipe.
Sofia think too much of herself anyway, he say. She need to be taken down a peg.
I like Sofia, but she don't act like me at all. If she talking when Harpo and Mr.??? come in the room, she keep right on. If they ast her where something at, she say she don't know. Keep talking.
I think bout this when Harpo ast me what he ought to do to her to make her mind. I don't mention how happy he is now. How three years pass and he still whistle and sing. I think bout how every time I jump when Mr. _??? call me, she look surprise. And like she pity me.
Beat her. I say.
Next time us see Harpo his face a mess of bruises. His lip cut. One of his eyes shut like a fist. He walk stiff and say his teef ache.
I say, What happen to you, Harpo?
He say, Oh, me and that mule. She fractious, you know. She went crazy in the field the other day. By time I got her to head for home I was all banged up. Then when I got home, I walked smack dab into the crib door. Hit my eye and scratch my chin. Then when that storm come up last night I shet the window down on my hand.
Well, I say, After all that, I don't spect you had a chance to see if you could make Sofia mind.
Nome, he say.
But he keep trying.
Just when I was bout to call out that I was coming in the yard, I hear something crash. It come from inside the house, so I run up on the porch. The two children be making mud pies on the edge of the creek, they don't even look up.
I open the door cautious, thinking bout robbers and murderers. Horsethieves and hants. But it Harpo and Sofia. They fighting like two mens. Every piece of furniture they got is turned over. Every plate look like it broke. The looking glass hang crooked, the curtains torn. The bed look like the stuffing pulled out. They dont notice. They fight. He try to slap her. What he do that for?
She reach down and grab a piece of stove wood and whack him cross the eyes. He punch her in the stomach, she double over groaning but come up with both hands lock right under his privates. He roll on