Free The Street by Ann Petry

exact center of a pair of ropes, jumping first on one foot and then the other. All the way from the corner she could hear groups of children chanting, ‘Down in Mississippi and a bo-bo push! Down in Mississippi and a bo-bo push!’ She stopped to watch them, and she wanted to put her packages down on the sidewalk and jump with them; she found her foot was patting the sidewalk in the exact rhythm of their jumping and her hands were ready to push the jumper out of the rope at the word ‘push.’
    You’d better get your dinner started, Ben Franklin, she said to herself and walked on past the children who were jumping rope. All up and down the street kids were shining shoes. ‘Shine, Miss? Shine, Miss?’ the eager question greeted her on all sides.
    She ignored the shoeshine boys. The weather hadchanged, she thought. Just last week it was freezing cold and now there was a mildness in the air that suggested early spring and the good weather had brought a lot of people out on the street. Most of the women had been marketing, for they carried bulging shopping bags. She noticed how heavily they walked on feet that obviously hurt despite the wide, cracked shoes they wore. They’ve been out all day working in the white folks’ kitchens, she thought, then they come home and cook and clean for their own families half the night. And again she remembered Mrs. Pizzini’s words, ‘Not good for the woman to work when she’s young. Not good for the man.’ Obviously she had been right, for here on this street the women trudged along overburdened, overworked, their own homes neglected while they looked after someone else’s while the men on the street swung along empty-handed, well dressed, and carefree. Or they lounged against the sides of the buildings, their hands in their pockets while they stared at the women who walked past, probably deciding which woman they should select to replace the wife who was out working all day.
    And yet, she thought, what else is a woman to do when her man can’t get a job? What else had there been for her to do that time Jim couldn’t get a job? She didn’t know, and she lingered in the sunlight watching a group of kids who were gathered around a boy fishing through a grating in the street. She looked down through the grating, curious to see what odds and ends had floated down under the sidewalk. And again she heard that eager question, ‘Shine, Miss? Shine, Miss?’
    She walked on, thinking, That’s another thing. These kids should have some better way of earning money than by shining shoes. It was all wrong. It was like conditioning them beforehand for the role they were supposed to play. If they start out young like this shining shoes, they’ll take it for granted they’ve got to sweep floors and mop stairs the rest of their lives.
    Just before she reached her own door, she heard the question again, ‘Shine, Miss?’ And then a giggle. ‘Gosh, Mom, you didn’t even know me.’
    She turned around quickly and she was so startled she had to look twice to be sure. Yes. It was Bub. He was sitting astride a shoeshine box, his round head silhouetted against the brick wall of the apartment house behind him. He was smiling at her, utterly delighted that he had succeeded in surprising her. His head was thrown back and she could see all his even, firm teeth.
    In the brief moment it took her to shift all the small packages under her left arm, she saw all the details of the shoeshine box. There was a worn piece of red carpet tacked on the seat of the box. The brassy thumbtacks that held it in place picked up the glow from the sunset so that they sparkled. Ten-cent bottles of shoe polish, a worn shoe brush and a dauber, were neatly lined up on a little shelf under the seat. He had decorated the sides of the box with part of his collection of book matches.
    Then she slapped him sharply across the face. His look of utter