Lesson 9, Ex. 3

I want to see our Jenny. Maude thinks she’s in her room upstairs.

I never been in the rest of the house. It’s big, with lots of stairs that I keep stopping on ‘cause there’s so much to see. On the walls there’s paintings and drawings of all sorts of things, buildings and people but mostly birds and flowers. Some of the birds I know from the cemetery, and some of the flowers too. The rugs on the stairs and in the hallways are mostly green, with some yellow and blue and red bits in a pattern. Each landing has a plant on it.

I go on up until I’m on the top landing. There are two doors up there, both closed. I have to choose, so I open one and go in. It’s Maude’s room. I stand and look a long time. There’s so many toys and books, more than I ever seen in a room. There’s a whole s helf of dolls, all different sizes, and another shelf of games – boxes full of things, puzzles and such. There’s lots of shelves of books. There’s a brown and white hobby-horse with a black leather saddle that moves back and forth on rollers. There’s a wood dolls’ house with fancy furniture in all the rooms, miniature rugs and chairs and tables. There’s pictures on the walls of Maude’s room, children and dogs and cats, and something that looks like a map of the sky, with all the stars connected up with lines to make pictures like what I saw in the stars that cold night in the grave.

It’s toasty warm in the room – there’s a fireplace just had a fire burning, and a fender in front of it with clothes hanging on it to air. I want to stay here, but I can’t – I has to find our Jenny.

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I go out and down the stairs. I get to the next landing, and there are four closed doors there. I never been in a house like this. Five or six families could live in this house. I look at the doors. They’re all oak, with brass handles shining.

I heard about rooms like this but ain’t ever seen one. There’s tiles everywhere, white tiles on the floor and up the sides of the walls to just over my head. One row of the tiles at the top has flowers on ‘em, like tulips, red and green. There’s a big white bathtub, and a white sink, with the silver pipes and taps. There’s big white towels hanging on a rack, and I touch one. Where I’ve touched it I leave a black mark and I feel bad ‘cause it’s so clean in here otherwise.

In a little room off this one is a WC, white too, with a seat made of mahogany, like some of the rich people’s coffins. I think of the privy and bucket me and our Pa use, and it’s so different from this; they don’t even seem like they’re meant for the same thing.

I go out and choose another door, to the room at the front of the house. The walls are yellow, and though it’s facing north, there’s two big windows, with balconies you can walk out on, and the light that comes in turns gold when it hits the walls. There’s two sofas pushed together to make an L, and shawls decorated with butterflies and flowers spread over ‘em. There’s a piano and little tables with books and magazines on them, and a sideboard with photographs on it.

Then I hear our Jenny talking out on the landing. There ain’t time to get out of the room, and somehow I know she and Mrs. C. will come in here. I crouch down quick behind one of the sofas…

UNIT 3

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