dey is lots of other colored folks dat don’t know you, honey. And if you say that, you know, about their skins, about their coloh, they goan think you’re trying to be mean to em. They goan to feel awful bad and maybe they be mad at you too, when Victoria knows you doan mean nuthin by it, cause they don’t know you like Victoria do. Do you understand me, chile?” He looked earnestly up at her. “Don’t say nuthin bout skins, or coloh, wheah colored people can heah you. Cause they goana think you’re mean to em. So you be careful.” And again she squeezed his hand.
He thought about Victoria while they walked and he wished that she was happy, and he felt that it was because of him that she was not happy. “ Victoria,” he said.
“What is it, honey?”
“I didn’t want to be mean to you.”
She stopped abruptly and with creaking and difficulty squatted down in the middle of the sidewalk so that a man who was passing stepped suddenly aside and looked coldly down as he went by. She put both hands on his shoulders and her large, kind face and her kind smell were close to him. “Lord bless you, baby, Victoria knows you didn’t! Victoria knows you is de goodest little boy in all dis world! She just had to tell you, you see. Cause colored folks has a hard time in dis world and she knows you wouldn’t want to make em feel bad, not even if you didn’t mean to.”
“I didn’t want to make you feel bad.”
“Bless your little heart. I don’t feel bad, not one bit. You make me feel happy, and your mama makes me feel happy, and there’s not one thing in the world I wouldn’t do for de bole of you, honey, and dat you know. Dat you know,” she said again, rocking her head and smiling and patting both his shoulders. “I missed you terrible, honey,” she said, but somehow he felt that she was not talking exactly to him. “I couldn’t hardly love you more if you was my own baby.” A
