(MARETHA nods.)

We got a whole truckload out front. You can have as many as you want. What you been doing?

MARETHA: Nothing.

BOY WILLIE: Don’t be shy now. Look at you getting all big. How old is you?

MARETHA: Eleven. I’m gonna be twelve soon.

BOY WILLIE: You like it up here? You like the North?

MARETHA: It’s alright.

BOY WILLIE: That there’s Lymon. Did you say hi to Lymon?

MARETHA: Hi.

LYMON: How you doing? You look just like your mama. I remember you when you was wearing diapers.

BOY WILLIE: You gonna come down South and see me? Uncle Boy Willie gonna get him a farm. Gonna get a great big old farm. Come down there and I’ll teach you how to ride a mule. Teach you how to kill a chicken, too.

MARETHA: I seen my mama do that.

BOY WILLIE: Ain’t nothing to it. You just grab him by his neck and twist it. Get you a real good grip and then you just wring his neck and throw him in the pot. Cook him up. Then you got some good eating. What you like to eat? What kind of food you like?

MARETHA: I like everything . . . except I don’t like no black-eyed peas.

BOY WILLIE: Uncle Doaker tell me your mama got you playing that piano. Come on play something for me. (BOY WILLIE crosses over to the piano followed by MARETHA.)

Show me what you can do. Come on now. Here . . . Uncle Boy Willie give you a dime . . . show me what you can do. Don’t be bashful now. That dime say you can’t be bashful.

(MARETHA plays. It is something any beginner first learns.)

Here, let me show you something.

(BOY WILLIE sits and plays a simple boogie-woogie.)

See that? See what I’m doing? That’s what you call the boogie-woogie. See now . . . you can get up and dance to that. That’s how good it sound. It sound like you wanna dance. You can dance to that. It’ll hold you up. Whatever kind of dance you wanna do you can dance to that right there. See that? See how it go? Ain’t nothing to it. Go on you do it.

MARETHA: I got to read it on the paper.

BOY WILLIE: You don’t need no paper. Go on. Do just like that there.

BERNIECE: Maretha! You get up here and get ready to go so you be on time. Ain’t no need you trying to take advantage of company.

MARETHA: I got to go.

BOY WILLIE: Uncle Boy Willie gonna get you a guitar. Let Uncle Doaker teach you how to play that. You don’t need to read no paper to play the guitar. Your mama told you about that piano? You know how them pictures got on there?

MARETHA: She say it just always been like that since she got it.

BOY WILLIE: You hear that, Doaker? And you sitting up here in the house with Berniece.