“That’s not what I mean, sweetheart. Those be shooting words. I was suggesting that whoever be announcing that I grin up in the faces of these folks is out of they minds. All I do is go round the house that I be cleaning, waxing, dusting, ironing, sweeping . . . my regular chores. And if I come ’cross something that I gotta yen for, I say to the Mrs., ‘I sho’ do like that.’ Then I stare at her, but with my eyes a lil bit going down and in a crooked direction. I look at what it was I wanted and look back at the white lady. I tell my soul to get all in what I want. Next thing you know the white lady can’t think of no reason why she should have whatever that is. And she turn round asking me don’t I want it, and of course I want it ’cause I done put all my soul in it. And I gotta have my soul in order to come on back round here to my house.”

Indigo and Miranda thought about what Mrs. Yancey had said for days, but not nearly so much as they did about Mrs. Yancey and Mr. Henderson, also known as Uncle John the junk man. He was looking bad most of the time. Indigo figured that before she was born, Uncle John would have been called a fine looking man. Mrs. Yancey found no fault with that. Yet every time Uncle John would come round in his horse and wagon with things everybody didn’t want, Mrs. Yancey would shudder, like the ugliness of whatall he carted startled her. She’d purse her lips, put her hands on her hips, whisper that cursing whisper Indigo had told Miranda about, or she would throw open her screen door and shout:

“John Henderson get that nasty mess out my face, get on away from my door with your trash, you hear me!”

Then she’d slam the door shut, brush her hands on her apron and pat her braids, as if she was making sure that nothing about her was as out of order as everything about Uncle John. Still, one day after she had shouted the daylights out the window for Uncle John to go on where ever it was that he laid his pitiful head, he came creeping up the steps.