“They is little young snakes,” said Simple, “else big old sleepy snakes that ain’t woke up good yet till the sun strikes them. That is why I do not like summer, because the sun is so hot it makes even a cold snake mad. Spring is my season. Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Fall was made for the clothing-store people to coin money because every human has to buy a overcoat, muffler, heavy socks, and gloves. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants. But spring! Throw your overcoat on the pawnshop counter, tell the landlady to kiss your foot, open your windows, let the fresh air in. Me, myself, I love spring!

“Why, if I was down home now, daddy-o, I would get out my fishing pole and take me a good old Virginia ham sandwich and go set on the banks of the river all day and just dream and fish and fish and dream. I might have me a big old quart bottle of beer tied on a string down in the water to keep cool, and I would just fish and dream and dream and fish.”

“You would not have any job?” I asked.

“I would respect work just like I respected my mother and not hit her a lick. I would be far away from all this six A.M. alarm-clock business, crowded subways, gulping down my coffee to get to the man’s job in time, and working all day shut up inside where you can’t even smell the spring—and me still smelling ether and worried about my winter hospital bill. If I was down home, buddy-o, I would pull off my shoes and let my toes air and just set on the riverbank and dream and fish and fish and dream, and I would not worry about no job.”

“Why didn’t you stay down home when you were there?”

“You know why I didn’t stay,” said Simple. “I did not like them white folks and they did not like me. Maybe if it wasn’t for white folks, I would’ve stayed down South where spring comes earlier than it do up here. White folks is the cause of a lot of inconveniences in my life.”

“They’ve even driven you away from an early spring.”