Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/42

 agine any one preparing to enter college saying “Is you,” and, to make it worse, right before all these white people, these staring white people, so eager and ready to laugh. Emma Lou’s face burned.

“Two mo’, then I goes in my sock.”

Emma Lou was almost at the place where she was ready to take even this statement literally, and was on the verge of leaving the line. Supposing this creature did “go in her sock!” God forbid!

“Wonder where all the spades keep themselves? I ain’t seen but two ’sides you.”

“I really do not know,” Emma Lou returned precisely and chillily. She had no intentions of becoming friendly with this sort of person. Why she would be ashamed even to be seen on the street with her, dressed as she was in a red-stripped sport suit, a white hat, and white shoes and stockings. Didn’t she know that black people had to be careful about the colors they affected?

The girl had finally reached the bursar’s window and was paying her fees, and loudly differing with the cashier about the total amount due.

“I tell you it ain’t that much,” she shouted through the window bars. “I figured it up myself before I left home.”

The cashier obligingly turned to her adding machine and once more obtained the same total.