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- 3 -
and somehow I imagined this was the house, that is, until I saw the
books: then I became so interested I hoped I might buy some from
whoever might own them."

"Hit too late now," she said, "but I wish to de Lawd you had
er got 'em er long time ago, fer they ain't enver done Mr. Charlie
no good, nor nobody else, ef you ax me." She walked slowly into
the room and through the door where I had entered, and out the back.
"De front door done been boa'ded up," she added, "caze don't nobody
never come here no mo'," putting into the cryptic sentence all that
I had somehow felt. For here was a once proud place now tuned in a
minor key to a jumble of shattering discords.

I followed her down the back steps and across a narrow plank
walk to a small cabin which I had somehow not seen on the far side
of the house. "If this is your house," I said, "won't you let me
come in and talk with you while, and tell me something of yourself,
and your family, and what you do and where you come from?" (Her
dialect I had noticed, was different from that of the Alabama Black
Belt, Negro's).

With an apparent distrust, not only of me, but of life in general,
she sat down on the steps, and in her haunting voice said, "T'ain't
no use to come in caze I ain't got nothin' ter tell, 'cause I don't know
nothin'. My name is Hester; jes' lack I said, Hessie Frye is what I
goes by. I ain't never been married ter nobody, _ that is, I ain't had
what you might call no reg'lar husban'. En all I does is jes' stay here
and look after Mr. Charlie. I ain't never been no fiel' hand. Jes'
stays in de house. I ain't got no folks, deys all gone too long ago.
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