Miranda and Indigo peeked out the window, being careful to stay behind the curtains. Uncle John was a slight man, copper colored. Indigo explained to Miranda that that was the Indian in him. His eyes had a sly look, like the eyes of those boys that came tearing after Cypress after school; giggling eyes, and a mouth fitting a proud man. Mrs. Yancey looked more like Sister Mary Louise to Indigo. Here she was prancing around, twitching, putting her hair this way and that, because Uncle John was at the door. That didn’t make no sense. No sense at all.

Uncle John had to push the bell three times. Finally, Mrs. Yancey slowly opened the wood door, leaving the screen door quite shut.

“Well, John Henderson, what are you doing on my front porch, looking how you look?”

She was right. Uncle John was a mite unkempt: white fuzzies curled from his ear, beneath his chin; his jacket was fraying at the lapels, and his shoes were covered with dirt. Mrs. Yancey hoped it was dirt, anyway. Uncle John, on the other hand, didn’t pay no mind to Mrs. Yancey. He just looked at her with those giggling eyes and said:

“I been passing by here more frequent than I usedta, M’am. I’m not a young man no more, an’ I been thinking how you collects nice things jus’ like I do, an’ how you still too smart looking to stay off by yourself all the time. I’m fixing to come calling in the nigh future if you don’t mind?”

“John Henderson, you don’t even have a place to live. You don’t take baths, or shave. And you think you gonna grace my house with your I-don’t-care-’bout-nothing-self. You don’t even have a place to live.”

“I’ll just pass by round dinner time, awright.” That’s all he said, though he was grinning even as he patted his horse, Yoki. He must have been saying sweet things, because Yoki neighed, seemed to blush, and then they were gone.

Miranda had not said much about Mrs. Yancey and Uncle John, but Indigo figured that the way Mrs. Yancey carried on after he left that she set more store by him than she let on. That’s why Indigo stole out of her mother’s house quickly after their dinner of okra, rice and ham hocks, to see if Uncle John really came back, like he said he would. She carried Marie-Hélène with her, along with Miranda, because Marie-Hélène was so frail that she didn’t get out much.