Harpo went and brought Sofia and the baby
home. They got married in Sofia's sister's house. Sister’s husband stands up with
Harpo. Another sister sneaks away from home to stand up with Sofia. Another sister
comes to hold the baby. Say he cry right through the service, his mama stop
everything to nurse him. Finish saying I do with a big ole nursing boy in her
arms. Harpo fixes up the little creek house for him and his family. Mr. _____
daddy used it for a shed. But it sounds. Got windows now, a porch, back door.
Plus it is cool and green down by the creek. He asked me to make some curtains and I
make some out of a flour sack. It is not big, but it is homey. Got a bed, a dresser, a
looking glass, and some chairs. Cookstove for cooking and heating, too. Harpo
daddy gives him wages for working now. He says Harpo wasn’t working hard like he
should. Maybe little money goose his interest. Harpo told me, Miss Celie, I’m
going on strike. On what? I ain’t going to work. And he doesn’t. He comes to the
field, pulls two ears of corn, lets the birds and weevil eat two hundred. We
don’t make anything much this year. But now Sofia coming, he is always busy. He
chops, he hammer, he plows. He sings and whistles. Sofia looks half her size. But
she is still a big strong girl. Arms got muscle. Legs, too. She swings that baby
about like it was nothing. She got a little pot on her now and gives you the feeling
she is all there. Solid. Like if she sits down on something, it is mash. She tells
Harpo, Hold the baby, while she comes back in the house with me to get some
thread. She making some sheets. He takes the baby, gives it a kiss, chucks it
under the chin. Grin, look upon the porch at his daddy.
Mr. _____ blow smoke, look down at him,
and say, Yeah, I see now she going to switch the traces on you
Harpo wants to know what to do to make
Sofia mind. He sits out on the porch with Mr. ____. He says I tell her one
thing, she does another. Never do what I say. Always backtalk. To tell the truth,
he sounds a little proud of this to me. Mr. _____ doesn’t say anything. Blow smoke.
I tell her she can’t be the time going to visit her sister. Us married now,
I tell her. Your place is here with the children. She says I’ll take the
children with me. I say, Your place is with me. She says You want to come? She
keeps primping in front of the glass, getting the children ready at the same
time. You ever hit her? Mr. _____ asked. Harpo looks down at his hands. Naw suh,
he says low, embarrass. Well, how you spect to make her mind? Wives are like
children. You have to let ’em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do that
better than a good sound beating. He puffs on his pipe. Sofia thinks too much of
herself anyway, he says. She needs to be taken down a peg. I like Sofia, but she
doesn’t act like me at all. If she talking when Harpo and Mr. _____ come into the
room, she keeps right on. If they ask her where something is at, she says she doesn’t
know. Keep talking. I think bout this when Harpo asked me what he ought to do to
her to make her mind. I don’t mention how happy he is now. How three years pass
and he still whistle and sing. I think bout how every time I jump when Mr.
_____ call me, she looks surprised. And like she pities me. Beat her. I say. The next time we see Harpo his face is a mess of bruises. His lip cut. One of his eyes shut
like a fist. He walks stiffly and says his teeth ache.
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Novels: The color purple: Alice Walker: Chapter 1
I say,
What happens to you, Harpo? He says, Oh, me and that mule. She is fractious, you
know. She went crazy in the field the other day. By the time I got her to head for
home, I was all banged up. Then when I got home, I walked smack dab into the
crib door. Hit my eye and scratch my chin. Then when that storm come up last
night I shut the window down on my hand. Well, I say, After all that, I don’t
spect you had a chance to see if you could make Sofia mind. Nome, he says. But
he keeps trying
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Novels: The color purple: Alice Walker: Chapter 2
Just when
I was bout to call out that I was coming in the yard, I hear something crash.
It comes from inside the house, so I run up on the porch. The two children are
making mud pies on the edge of the creek, they don’t even look up. I open the
door cautious, thinking bout robbers and murderers. Horsethieves and hants. But
it is Harpo and Sofia. They fight like two men. Every piece of furniture they
got is turned over. Every plate looks like it broke. The looking glass hangs
crooked, the curtains torn. The bed look like the stuffing pulled out. They
don’t notice. They fight. He tries to slap her. What did he do that for? She reaches
down and grabs a piece of stove wood and whack him across the eyes. He punches her
in the stomach, she doubles over groaning but comes up with both hands lock right
under his privates. He rolls on the floor. He grabs her dress tail and pulls. She
stands there in her slip. She never blinks an eye. He jumps up to put a hammerlock
under her chin, she throws him over her back. He falls bam up against the stove. I
don’t know how long this has been going on. I don’t know when they spect to
conclude. I ease on back out, wave to the children by the creek, walk back on
up home. Saturday morning early, we hear the wagon. Harpo, Sofia, the two
babies are going off for the weekend, to visit Sofia's sister.
For over a month I have had trouble sleeping. I stay up late as I can before Mr. _____ start
complaining bout the price of kerosene, then I soak myself in a warm bath with
milk and Epsom salts, then sprinkle little witch hazel on my pillow and curtain
out all the moonlight. Sometimes I get a few hours of sleep. Then just when it
looks like it ought to be getting good, I wake up. At first, I’d git up quick
and drink some milk. Then I’d think bout counting fence posts. Then I’d think
bout reading the Bible. What it is? I ask myself. A little voice says Something
you did wrong. Somebody spirit you sin against. Maybe. Way late one night it
comes to me. Sofia. I sin against Sofia's spirit. I pray she doesn’t find out, but
she does. Harpo told. The minute she hears it she comes marching up the path,
toting a sack. Little cut all blue and red under her eye. She says, Just want
you to know I looked to you for help. Ain’t I been helpful? I asked. She opens up
her sack. Here your curtains, she says. Here is your thread. Here a dollar fur
letting me use ’em. They your, I say, trying to push them back. I’m glad to
help out. Do what I can. You told Harpo to beat me, she said. No, I didn’t, I
said. Don’t lie, she said. I didn’t mean it, I said. Then what do you say it for?
she asked. She standing there looking me straight in the eye. She looks tired and
her jaws full of air. I say it cause I’m a fool, I say. I say it cause I’m
jealous of you. I say it cause you do what I can’t. What that? she says. Fight.
I say. She stands there a long time, like what I said took the wind out of her
jaws. She was mad before, sad now. She says All my life I had to fight. I had to
fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my
uncles. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I never thought I’d
have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I love Harpo, she says.
God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me. Now if you
want a dead son-in-law you just keep on advising him like you doing. She put
her hand on her hip. I used to hunt game with a bow and arrow, she says. I stop
the little trembling that started when I saw her coming. I’m so the shame of
myself, I say. And the Lord he did whip my little bit too. The Lord doesn’t like
ugly, she says. And he ain’t stuck on pretty. This opens the way for our talk to
turn another way. I say You feel sorry for me, don’t you? She thinks a minute.
Yes, ma’am, she says slow, I do. I think I know how come, but I asked her anyhow.
She says, To tell the truth, you remind me of my mama. She is under my daddy's thumb.
Naw, she under my daddy's foot. Anything he says goes. She says nothing
back. She never stands up for herself. Try to make a little half stand sometime
for the children but that always backfires. The more she stands up for us, the harder
time he gives her. He hates children and he hates where they come from. Tho from
all the children he got, you’d never know it. I never know anything bout her
family. I thought, looking at her, nobody in her family could be scared
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How many has he got? I asked. Twelve. She says.
Whew, I say. My daddy got six by my mama before she dies, I say. He got four
more by the wife he got now. I don’t mention the two he got by me. How many
girls? she asked. Five, I say. How bout your family? Six boys, six girls. All
the girls are big and strong like me. Boys are big and strong too, but all the girls
stick together. Two brothers stick with us too, sometimes. Us git in a fight,
it’s a sight to see. I ain’t never struck a living thing, I say. Oh, when I was
at home I tap the little ones on the behind to make ’em behave, but not hard
enough to hurt. What do you do when you get mad? she asked. I think. I can’t even remember
the last time I felt mad, I say. I used to get mad at my mammy cause she put a
lot of work on me. Then I see how sick she is. Couldn’t stay mad at her.
Couldn’t be mad at my daddy cause he was my daddy. Bible says, Honor father and
mother no matter what. Then a while every time I got mad, or start to feel
mad, I got sick. Felt like throwing up. Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel
nothing at all. Sofia frown. Nothing at all? Well, sometimes Mr. _____ git on me
pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he is my husband. I shrug my
shoulders. This life soon is over, I say. Heaven last all ways. You ought to
bash Mr. _____ head open, she says. Think bout heaven later. Not much fun for
me. That funny. I laugh. She laughs. Then we both laugh so hard we flop down on
the step. Let’s make quilt pieces out of these messed-up curtains, she says. And
I run git my pattern book. I sleep like a baby now.
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Novels: The color purple: Alice Walker: Chapter 3
Shug Avery sick and nobody in this town
want to take Queen Honeybee in. Her mammy says She told her so. Her pappy
says, Tramp. A woman at church says she dying— maybe two tuberculosis or some kind
of nasty woman disease. What? I want toast but don’t. The women at church are sometimes nice to me. Sometimes not. They look at me there struggling with Mr.
_____ children. Trying to drag ’em to the church, trying to keep ’em quiet
after we get there. They some of the same ones used to be here both times I was
big. Sometimes they think I don’t notice, they stare at me. Puzzle. I keep my
head up, best I can. I do a right smart for the preacher. Clean the floor and
windows, make the wine, wash the altar linen. Make sure there’s wood for the
stove in wintertime.
He calls me Sister Celie. Sister Celie, he
says, You faithful as the day is long. Then he talks to the other ladies and the
men. I scurry bout, doing this, doing that. Mr. _____ sits back by the door
gazing here and there. The women smile in his direction every chance they git.
He never looks at me or even notices. Even the preacher got his mouth on Shug
Avery, now she is down. He takes her condition for his text. He doesn’t call no name,
but he doesn’t have to. Everybody knows who he means. He talks bout a strumpet in
short skirts, smoking cigarettes, drinking gin. Singing for money and taking
other women men. Talk bout slut, hussy, heifer, and streetcleaner. I cut my
eyes back at Mr. ____ when he says that. Streetcleaner. Somebody got to stand up
for Shug, I think. But he doesn’t say anything. He crosses his legs first to one
side, then to the other. He gazes out the window. The same women smile at him,
say amen gainst Shug. But once we are home he never stops to take off his clothes.
He calls down to Harpo and Sofia's house. Harpo comes running. Hitch up the wagon,
he says.
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Novels: The war of the worlds: The eve of the war: Chapter two
Where us going? say Harpo. Hitch up the
wagon, he says again. Harpo hitch up the wagon. They stand there and talk a few
minutes out by the barn. Then Mr. _____ drives off. One good thing bout the way
he never does any work around the place, we never miss him when he went. Five days
later I look way off up the road and see the wagon coming back. It got sort of
a canopy over it now, made out of old blankets or something. My heart begins to
beat like furry, and the first thing I try to do is change my dress. But too
late for that. By the time I git my head and arm out the old dress, I see the wagon
pull up in the yard. Plus a new dress won’t help none with my snotty head and
dusty head rag, my old everyday shoes, and the way I smell. I don’t know what to
do, I’m so beside myself. I stand there in the middle of the kitchen. Mind
whirling. I feel like Who Would Have Thought. Celie, I hear Mr. _____ call.
Harpo. I stick my head and my arm back in my old dress and wipe the sweat and
dirt off my face as best I can. I come to the door. Yessir? I asked, and trip
over the broom I was sweeping with when I first notice the wagon. Harpo and
Sofia are in the yard now, looking inside the wagon. Their faces are grim. Who this?
Harpo asked. The woman should have been your mammy, he says. Shug Avery? Harpo
asked. He looks up at me. Help me get her in the house, Mr. _____ says. I think my heart
gon fly out my mouth when I see one of her feet come poking out. She not lying
down. She climbing down tween Harpo and Mr. ____. And she dresses to kill. She
got on a red wool dress and a chestful of black beads. A shiny black hat with
what looks like chickenhawk feathers curve downside one cheek, and she carrying
a little snakeskin bag, match her shoes.
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Novels: The war of the worlds: on horsell common: Chapter three
She looks so stylish it like the trees all
around the house draw themself up tall for a better look. Now I see she stumble,
tween the two men. She doesn’t seem that well acquainted with her feet. Close up
I see all this yellow powder caked upon her face. Red rouge. She looks like she
ain’t long for this world but dressed well for the next. But I know better.
Come on in, I want to cry. To shout. Come on in. With God's help, Celie going to
make you well. But I don’t say anything. It's not my house. Also, I ain’t been told
nothing. They git halfway up the step, Mr. _____ looks up at me. Celie, he says.
This here Shug Avery. An old friend of the family. Fix up the spare room. Then he
looks down at her, holds her in one arm, holds on to the rail with the other.
Harpo on the other side, looking sad. Sofia and the children are in the yard,
watching. I don’t move at once, cause I can’t. I need to see her eyes. I feel
like once I see her eyes my feet can let go of the spot where they stuck. Git
moving, he says, sharp. And then she lookup. Under all that powder her face
black as Harpo. She got a long pointed nose and big fleshy mouth. Lips look
like black plum. Eyes big, glossy. Feverish. And mean. Like, sick as she is, if
a snake crosses her path, she kills it. She looks me over from head to foot. Then
she cackles. Sound like a death rattle. You sure is ugly, she says like she
ain’t believed it.
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