The Color Purple by Alice Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

at me best he can out his fat little eyes. Yes ma’am? he say.
    Mr. _____ marry me to take care of his children. I marry him cause my daddy made me. I don’t love Mr. _____ and he don’t love me.
    But you his wife, he say, just like Sofia mine. The wife spose to mind.
    Do Shug Avery mind Mr. ____? I ast. She the woman he wanted to marry. She call him Albert, tell him his drawers stink in a minute. Little as he is, when she git her weight back she can sit on him if he try to bother her.
    Why I mention weight. Harpo start to cry again. Then he start to be sick. He lean over the edge of the step and vomit and vomit. Look like every piece of pie for the last year come up. When he empty I put him in the bed next to Shug’s little room. He fall right off to sleep.

DEAR GOD,
    I go visit Sofia, she still working on the roof.
    The darn thing leak, she say.
    She out to the woodpile making shingles. She put a big square piece of wood on the chopping block and chop, chop, she make big flat shingles. She put the ax down and ast me do I want some lemonade.
    I look at her good. Except for a bruise on her wrist, she don’t look like she got a scratch on her.
    How it going with you and Harpo? I ast.
    Well, she say, he stop eating so much. But maybe this just a spell.
    He trying to git as big as you, I say.
    She suck in her breath. I kinda thought so, she say, and let out her breath real slow.
    All the children come running up, Mama, Mama, us want lemonade. She pour out five glasses for them, two for us. Us sit in a wooden swing she made last summer and hung on the shady end of the porch.
    I’m gitting tired of Harpo, she say. All he think about since us married is how to make me mind. He don’t want a wife, he want a dog.
    He your husband, I say. Got to stay with him. Else, what you gon do?
    My sister husband caught in the draft, she say. They don’t have no children, Odessa love children. He left her on a little farm. Maybe I go stay with them a while. Me and my children.
    I think bout my sister Nettie. Thought so sharp it go through me like a pain. Somebody to run to. It seem too sweet to bear.
    Sofia go on, frowning at her glass.
    I don’t like to go to bed with him no more, she say. Used to be when he. touch me I’d go all out my head. Now when he touch me I just don’t want to be bothered. Once he git on top of me I think bout how that’s where he always want to be. She sip her lemonade. I use to love that part of it, she say. I use to chase him home from the field. Git all hot just watching him put the children to bed. But no more. Now I feels tired all the time. No interest.
    Now, now, I say. Sleep on it some, maybe it come back. But I say this just to be saying something. I don’t know nothing bout it. Mr. _____ clam on top of me, do his business, in ten minutes us both sleep. Only time I feel something stirring down there is when I think bout Shug. And that like running to the end of the road and it turn back on itself.
    You know the worst part? she say. The worst part is I don’t think he notice. He git up there and enjoy himself just the same. No matter what I’m thinking. No matter what I feel. It just him. Heartfeeling don’t even seem to enter into it. She snort. The fact he can do it like that make me want to kill him.
    Us look up the path to the house, see Shug and Mr. _____ sitting on the steps. He reaches over and pick something out her hair.
    I don’t know, say Sofia. Maybe I won’t go. Deep down I still love Harpo, but—he just makes me real tired. She yawn. Laugh. I need a vacation, she say. Then she go back to the woodpile, start making some more shingles for the roof.

DEAR GOD,
    Sofia right about her sisters. They all big strong healthy girls, look like amazons. They come early one morning in two wagons to pick Sofia up. She don’t have much to take, her and the children clothes, a mattress she made last winter, a looking glass and a rocking chair. The children.
    Harpo sit on the steps acting like