Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/247

 school, go to work, and marry her; and Emma Lou, while not anticipating any such sudden consummation, remained blind to everything save his color and the attention he paid to her.

Benson had suggested their walk and Emma Lou had chosen Seventh Avenue in preference to some of the more quiet side streets. She still loved to promenade up and down Harlem’s main thoroughfare. As usual on a warm night, it was crowded. Street speakers and their audiences monopolized the corners. Pedestrians and loiterers monopolized all of the remaining sidewalk space. The street was jammed with traffic. Emma Lou was more convinced than ever that there was nothing like it anywhere. She tried to formulate some of her impressions and attempted to convey them to Benson, but he couldn’t see anything unusual or novel or interesting in a “lot of niggers hanging out here to be seen.” Then, Seventh Avenue wasn’t so much. What about Broadway or Fifth Avenue downtown where the white folks gathered and strolled. Now those were the streets, Seventh Avenue, Harlem’s Seventh Avenue, didn’t enter into it.

Emma Lou didn’t feel like arguing. She walked along in silence, holding tightly to Benson’s arm and wondering whether or not Alva was somewhere on Seventh Avenue. Strange she had never seen him.