Free The Color Purple by Alice Walker

much like some ole uncle Tomming to me.
    Shug snort, Well, she say, Uncle Tom wasn’t call Uncle for nothing.

DEAR GOD,
    Poor little Squeak come home with a limp. Her dress rip. Her hat missing and one of the heels come off her shoe.
    What happen? us ast.
    He saw the Hodges in me, she say. And he didn’t like it one bit.
    Harpo come up the steps from the car. My wife beat up, my woman rape, he say. I ought to go back out there with guns, maybe set fire to the place, burn the crackers up.
    Shut up, Harpo, say Squeak. I’m telling it.
    And she do.
    Say, the minute I walk through the door, he remembered me.
    What he say? us ast.
    Say, What you want? I say, I come out of the interest I haves in seeing justice is done. What you say you want? he ast again.
    I say what yall told me to say. Bout Sofia not being punish enough. Say she happy in prison, strong girl like her. Her main worry is just the thought of ever being some white woman maid. That what start the fight, you know, I say. Mayor’s wife ask Sofia to be her maid. Sofia say she never going to be no white woman’s nothing, let alone maid.
    That so? he ast, all the time looking me over real good.
    Yessir, I say. Say, prison suit her just fine. Shoot, washing and ironing all day is all she do at home. She got six children, you know.
    That a fact? he say.
    He come from behind his desk, lean over my chair.
    Who your folks? he ast.
    I tell him my mama’s name, grandmama’s name. Grandpa’s name.
    Who your daddy? he ast. Where you git them eyes?
    Ain’t got no daddy, I say.
    Come on now, he say. Ain’t I seen you before?
    I say, Yessir. And one time bout ten years ago, when I was a little girl, you give me a quarter. I sure did preshate it, I say.
    I don’t remember that, he say.
    You come by the house with my mama friend, Mr. Jimmy, I say.
    Squeak look round at all of us. Then take a deep breath. Mumble.
    Say what? ast Odessa.
    Yeah, say Shug, if you can’t tell us, who you gon tell, God?
    He took my hat off, say Squeak. Told me to undo my dress. She drop her head, put her face in her hands.
    My God, say Odessa, and he your uncle.
    He say if he was my uncle he wouldn’t do it to me. That be a sin. But this just little fornication. Everybody guilty of that.
    She turn her face up to Harpo. Harpo, she say, do you really love me, or just my color?
    Harpo say, I love you, Squeak. He kneel down and try to put his arms round her waist.
    She stand up. My name Mary Agnes, she say.

DEAR GOD,
    6 months after Mary Agnes went to git Sofia out of prison, she begin to sing. First she sing Shug’s songs, then she begin to make up songs her own self.
    She got the kind of voice you never think of trying to sing a song. It little, it high, it sort of meowing. But Mary Agnes don’t care.
    Pretty soon, us git used to it. Then us like it a whole lot.
    Harpo don’t know what to make of it.
    It seem funny to me, he say to me and Mr. ____. So sudden. It put me in the mind of a gramaphone. Sit in the corner a year silent as the grave. Then you put a record on, it come to life.
    Wonder if she still mad Sofia knock her teef out? I ast.
    Yeah, she mad. But what good being mad gon do? She not evil, she know Sofia life hard to bear right now.
    How she git long with the children? ast Mr. ____.
    They love her, say Harpo. She let ’em do anything they want.
    Oh-oh, I say.
    Besides, he say, Odessa and Sofia other sisters always on hand to take up the slack. They bring up children like military.
    Squeak sing,
    They calls me yellow
    like yellow be my name
    They calls me yellow
    like yellow be my name
    But if yellow is a name
    Why ain’t black the same
    Well, if I say Hey black girl
     Lord, she try to ruin my game

DEAR GOD,
    Sofia say to me today, I just can’t understand it.
    What that? I ast.
    Why we ain’t already kill them off.
    Three years after she beat she out of the wash house, got her color and her weight back, look like her old self, just all time think bout killing somebody.
    Too