Complexities of race

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Liked for myself – by Maya Angelou

For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the Store, the school and the 1

church, like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible. Then I met, or rather got to

know, the lady who threw me my first life line.

Mrs. Bertha Flowers was the aristocrat of Black Stamps. She had the grace of 2

control to appear warm in the coldest weather, and on the Arkansas summer

days it seemed she had a private breeze which swirled around, cooling her. She

was thin without the taut look of wiry people, and her printed voile dresses

and flowered hats were as right for her as denim overalls for a farmer. She was

our side’s answer to the richest white woman in town.

Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged, but 3

then no one would have thought of getting close enough to Mrs. Flowers to

ruffle her dress, let alone snag her skin. She didn’t encourage familiarity. She

wore gloves too.

I don’t think I ever saw Mrs. Flowers laugh, but she smiled often. A slow 4

widening of her thin black lips to show even, small white teeth, then the slow

effortless closing. When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank

her. The action was so graceful and inclusively benign.

She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained 5

throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be. . . .

One summer afternoon, sweet-milk fresh in my memory, she stopped at the 6

Store to buy provisions. Another Negro woman of her health and age would

have been expected to carry the paper sacks home in one hand, but Momma

said, “Sister Flowers, I’ll send Bailey up to your house with these things.”

She smiled that slow dragging smile, “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I’d prefer 7

Marguerite, though.” My name was beautiful when she said it. “I’ve been meaning

to talk to her, anyway.” They gave each other age-group looks. . . .

There was a little path beside the rocky road, and Mrs. Flowers walked in 8

front swinging her arms and picking her way over the stones.

148 _ Self with Friends

She said, without turning her head, to me, “I hear you’re doing very good 9

school work, Marguerite, but that it’s all written. The teachers report that they

have trouble getting you to talk in class.” We passed the triangular farm on our

left and the path widened to allow us to walk together. I hung back in the separate

unasked and unanswerable questions.

“Come and walk along with me, Marguerite.” I couldn’t have refused even if 10

I wanted to. She pronounced my name so nicely. Or more correctly, she spoke

each word with such clarity that I was certain a foreigner who didn’t understand

English could have understood her.

“Now no one is going to make you talk—possibly no one can. But bear in 11

mind, language is man’s way of communicating with his fellow man and it is

language alone which separates him from the lower animals.” That was a totally

new idea to me, and I would need time to think about it.

“Your grandmother says you read a lot. Every chance you get. That’s good, 12

but not good enough. Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It

takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.”

I memorized the part about the human voice infusing words. It seemed so 13

valid and poetic.

She said she was going to give me some books and that I not only must read 14

them, I must read them aloud. She suggested that I try to make a sentence

sound in as many different ways as possible.

“I’ll accept no excuse if you return a book to me that has been badly han- 15

dled.” My imagination boggled at the punishment I would deserve if in fact I

did abuse a book of Mrs. Flowers’. Death would be too kind and brief.

The odors in the house surprised me. Somehow I had never connected Mrs. 16

Flowers with food or eating or any other common experience of common people.

There must have been an outhouse, too, but my mind never recorded it.

The sweet scent of vanilla had met us as she opened the door. 17

“I made tea cookies this morning. You see, I had planned to invite you for 18

cookies and lemonade so we could have this little chat. The lemonade is in the

icebox.”

It followed that Mrs. Flowers would have ice on an ordinary day, when most 19

families in our town bought ice late on Saturdays only a few times during the

summer to be used in the wooden ice-cream freezers.

She took the bags from me and disappeared through the kitchen door. I 20

looked around the room that I had never in my wildest fantasies imagined I

would see. Browned photographs leered or threatened from the walls and the

white, freshly done curtains pushed against themselves and against the wind. I

wanted to gobble up the room entire and take it to Bailey, who would help me

analyze and enjoy it.

“Have a seat, Marguerite. Over there by the table.” She carried a platter cov- 21

ered with a tea towel. Although she warned that she hadn’t tried her hand at

baking sweets for some time, I was certain that like everything else about her

the cookies would be perfect.

They were flat round wafers, slightly browned on the edges and butter- 22

yellow in the center. With the cold lemonade they were sufficient for childhood’s

lifelong diet. Remembering my manners, I took nice little lady-like bites

off the edges. She said she had made them expressly for me and that she had a

few in the kitchen that I could take home to my brother. So I jammed one

whole cake in my mouth and the rough crumbs scratched the insides of my

jaws, and if I hadn’t had to swallow, it would have been a dream come true.

As I ate she began the first of what we later called “my lessons in living.” She 23

said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.

That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even

more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully

to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was

couched the collective wisdom of generations.

When I finished the cookies she brushed off the table and brought a thick, 24

**small book from the bookcase. I had read A Tale of Two Cities and found it up**

to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry

for the first time in my life.

“It was the best of times and the worst of times . . .” Her voice slid in and 25

curved down through and over the words. She was nearly singing. I wanted to

look at the pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes,

music, lined on the pages, as in a hymn book? Her sounds began cascading

gently. I knew from listening to a thousand preachers that she was nearing the

end of her reading, and I hadn’t really heard, heard to understand, a single

word.

“How do you like that?” 26

It occurred to me that she expected a response. The sweet vanilla flavor was 27

still on my tongue and her reading was a wonder in my ears. I had to speak.

I said, “Yes,ma’am.” It was the least I could do, but it was the most also. 28

“There’s one more thing. Take this book of poems and memorize one for 29

me. Next time you pay me a visit, I want you to recite.”

I have tried often to search behind the sophistication of years for the en- 30

chantment I so easily found in those gifts. The essence escapes but its aura remains.

To be allowed, no, invited, into the private lives of strangers, and to

share their joys and fears, was a chance to exchange the Southern bitter wormwood

for a cup of mead with Beowulf or a hot cup of tea and milk with Oliver

Twist. When I said aloud, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever

done . . .” tears of love filled my eyes at my selfishness.

On that first day, I ran down the hill and into the road (few cars ever came 31

along it) and had the good sense to stop running before I reached the Store.

I was liked, and what a difference it made. I was respected not as Mrs. Hen- 32

derson’s grandchild or Bailey’s sister but for just being Marguerite Johnson.

Childhood’s logic never asks to be proved (all conclusions are absolute). I 33