The Color Purple by Alice Walker Page B

Mama, you know I don’t mean no harm.
    Shug like Squeak too, try to help her sing. They sit in Odessa’s front room with all the children crowded round them singing and singing. Sometime Swain come with his box, Harpo cook dinner, and me and Mr. _____ and the prizefighter bring our preshation.
    It nice.
    Shug say to Squeak, I mean, Mary Agnes, You ought to sing in public.
    Mary Agnes say, Naw. She think cause she don’t sing big and broad like Shug nobody want to hear her. But Shug say she wrong.
    What about all them funny voices you hear singing in church? Shug say. What about all them sounds that sound good but they not the sounds you thought folks could make? What bout that? Then she start moaning. Sound like death approaching, angels can’t prevent it. It raise the hair on the back of your neck. But it really sound sort of like panthers would sound if they could sing.
    I tell you something else, Shug say to Mary Agnes, listening to you sing, folks git to thinking bout a good screw.
    Aw, Miss Shug, say Mary Agnes, changing color.
    Shug say, What, too shamefaced to put singing and dancing and fucking together? She laugh. That’s the reason they call what us sing the devil’s music. Devils love to fuck. Listen, she say, Let’s go sing one night at Harpo place. Be like old times for me. And if I bring you before the crowd, they better listen with respect. Niggers don’t know how to act, but if you git through the first half of one song, you got ’em.
    You reckon that’s the truth? say Mary Agnes. She all big eyed and delight.
    I don’t know if I want her to sing, say Harpo.
    How come? ast Shug. That woman you got singing now can’t git her ass out the church. Folks don’t know whether to dance or creep to the mourner’s bench. Plus, you dress Mary Agnes up the right way and you’ll make piss pots of money. Yellow like she is, stringy hair and cloudy eyes, the men’ll be crazy bout her. Ain’t that right, Grady, she say.
    Grady look little sheepish. Grin. Mama you don’t miss a thing, he say.
    And don’t you forgit it, say Shug.

DEAR GOD,
    This the letter I been holding in my hand.
    Dear Celie,
    I know you think I am dead. But I am not. I been writing to you too, over the years, but Albert said you’d never hear from me again and since I never heard from you all this time, I guess he was right. Now I only write at Christmas and Easter hoping my letter get lost among the Christmas and Easter greetings, or that Albert get the holiday spirit and have pity on us.
    There is so much to tell you that I don’t know, hardly, where to begin—and anyway, you probably won’t get this letter, either. I’m sure Albert is still the only one to take mail out of the box.
    But if this do get through, one thing I want you to know, I love you, and I am not dead. And Olivia is fine and so is your son.
    We are all coming home before the end of another year.
    Your loving sister, Nettie
    One night in bed Shug ast me to tell her bout Nettie. What she like? Where she at?
    I tell her how Mr. _____ try to turn her head. How Nettie refuse him, and how he say Nettie have to go.
    Where she go? she ast.
    I don’t know, I say. She leave here.
    And no word from her yet? she ast.
    Naw, I say. Every day when Mr. _____ come from the mailbox I hope for news. But nothing come. She dead, I say.
    Shug say, She wouldn’t be someplace with funny stamps, you don’t reckon? She look like she studying. Say, Sometimes when Albert and me walk up to the mailbox there be a letter with a lot of funny looking stamps. He never say nothing bout it, just put it in his inside pocket. One time I ast him could I look at the stamps but he said he’d take it out later. But he never did.
    She was just on her way to town, I say. Stamps look like stamps round here. White men with long hair.
    Hm, she say, look like a little fat white woman was on one. What your sister Nettie like? she ast. Smart?
    Yes, Lord, I say. Smart as anything. Read the newspapers when she