The Color Purple - Alice Walker [2]
Mr. _____ he don’t say nothing. I stop crying I’m so surprise.
She ugly. He say. But she ain’t no stranger to hard work. And she clean. And God done fixed her. You can do everything just like you want to and she ain’t gonna make you feed it or clothe it.
Mr. _____ still don’t say nothing. I take out the picture of Shug Avery. I look into her eyes. Her eyes say Yeah, it bees that way sometime.
Fact is, he say, I got to git rid of her. She too old to be living here at home. And she a bad influence on my other girls. She’d come with her own linen. She can take that cow she raise down there back of the crib. But Nettie you flat out can’t have. Not now. Not never.
Mr. _____ finally speak. Clearing his throat. I ain’t never really look at that one, he say.
Well, next time you come you can look at her. She ugly. Don’t even look like she kin to Nettie. But she’ll make the better wife. She ain’t smart either, and I’ll just be fair, you have to watch her or she’ll give away everything you own. But she can work like a man.
Mr. _____ say How old she is?
He say, She near twenty. And another thing—She tell lies.
DEAR GOD,
It took him the whole spring, from March to June, to make up his mind to take me. All I thought about was Nettie. How she could come to me if I marry him and he be so love struck with her I could figure out a way for us to run away. Us both be hitting Nettie’s schoolbooks pretty hard, cause us know we got to be smart to git away. I know I’m not as pretty or as smart as Nettie, but she say I ain’t dumb.
The way you know who discover America, Nettie say, is think bout cucumbers. That what Columbus sound like. I learned all about Columbus in first grade, but look like he the first thing I forgot. She say Columbus come here in boats call the Neater, the Peter, and the Santomareater. Indians so nice to him he force a bunch of ’em back home with him to wait on the queen.
But it hard to think with gitting married to Mr. _____ hanging over my head.
The first time I got big Pa took me out of school. He never care that I love it. Nettie stood there at the gate holding tight to my hand. I was all dress for first day. You too dumb to keep going to school, Pa say. Nettie the clever one in this bunch.
But Pa, Nettie say, crying, Celie smart too. Even Miss Beasley say so. Nettie dote on Miss Beasley. Think nobody like her in the world.
Pa say, Whoever listen to anything Addie Beasley have to say. She run off at the mouth so much no man would have her. That how come she have to teach school. He never look up from cleaning his gun. Pretty soon a bunch of white mens come walking cross the yard. They have guns too.
Pa git up and follow ’em. The rest of the week I vomit and dress wild game.
But Nettie never give up. Next thing I know Miss Beasley at our house trying to talk to Pa. She say long as she been a teacher she never know nobody want to learn bad as Nettie and me. But when Pa call me out and she see how tight my dress is, she stop talking and go.
Nettie still don’t understand. I don’t neither. All us notice is I’m all the time sick and fat.
I feel bad sometime Nettie done pass me in learnin. But look like nothing she say can git in my brain and stay. She try to tell me something bout the ground not being flat. I just say, Yeah, like I know it. I never tell her how flat it look to me.
Mr.come finally one day looking all drug out.
The woman he had helping him done quit. His mammy done said No More.
He say, Let me see her again.
Pa call me. Celie, he say. Like it wasn’t nothing. Mr. _____ want another look at you.
I go stand in the door. The