The Alley

Because you are four years old the candle is all dressed up in a new frill. And stars nod to you through the hole in the curtain, (except the big stiff planets too fat to move about much,) and you curtsey back to the stars when no one is looking. You feel sorry for the poor wooden chair that knows it isn't nice to sit on, and no one is sad but mama. You don't like mama to be sad when you are four years old, so you pretend you like the bitter gold-pale tea-- you pretend if you don't drink it up pretty quick a little gold-fish will think it is a pond and come and get born in it.

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It's hot in our street and the breeze is a dirty little broom that sweeps dust into our room and bits of paper out of the alley. You are not let to play with the children in the alley But you must be very polite-- so you pass them and say good day and when they fling banana skins you fling them back again.

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There is no one to play with and the flies on the window buzz and buzz... ...you can pull out their legs and stick pins in their bodies but still they buzz... and mama says: When Nero was a little boy he caught flies on his mama's window and pulled out their legs and stuck pins in their bodies and nobody loved him. Buzz, blue-bellied flies-- buzz, nasty black wheel of mama's machine-- you are the biggest fly of all-- you have the loudest buzz. I hear you at dawn before the locusts. But I like the picture of the Flood and the little babies getting drowned.... If I were there I would save them, but as I can't save them I like to watch them getting drowned.

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When mama buys of Ling Ho, he smiles very wide and picks her the largest loquots. The greens-man gave her a cabbage and she held it against her black bodice and said what a beautiful green it was and put it on the table as though it had been a flower. But next day we boiled and ate it with salt. It was our dinner.

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Christmas day I found Janie on my pillow. Janie is made of rubber. Her red and blue jacket won't come off. Christmas dinner was green and white chicken and lettuce and peas and drops of oil on the salad smiley and full of light like the gold on the lady's teeth.

But mama said politely Thank you, we are dining out. She wouldn't let you take one pea to put in the hole where the whistle was at the back of Janie's head, so Janie should have some dinner So you went to the park with biscuits and black tea in a bottle.

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You feel very sad when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks-- till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her face and it didn't come back? Suppose it were to drop out of the string of white faces like the pearl out of my chain I never found again?

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Mabel minds you while mama is out, she washes while she sings Three blind mice! they all run away from the farmer's wife who cut off their tails with a carving knife-- Wind blows out Mabel's sheets, way you blow in a bag before you burst it. Wind has a soapy smell. It's heavier'n sun that lies all over you without any weight and makes you feel happy and crinkly like bubbling water. There's no sun on the empty house-- sly-looking house-- you can't see in its windows that watch you out of their corners. Perhaps there's a big spider there spinning gray threads over the windows till they look like dead people's faces.... Jimmie says: Jimmie's hair is white as a white mouse. His lashes are gold as mama's wedding ring and his mouth feels cool and smooth like a flower wet with rain. You wouldn't believe Jimmie was different... till he showed you....

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Blind wet sheets flapping on the lines... sun in your eyes, dark gold sun full of little black spots, you have to blink and blink... round eyes of Jimmie.... Jimmie's blue jumper... blue shadow of wall... all the world holding still as when a clock stops... streets still... people still... no streets... no people... only sky and wall... sun glaring bright as God down at you and Jimmie... shadow like a purple cloth trailing off the wall...

Wild wet sheets flapping in the wind... big slippered feet flapping too... big-balloon-face rushing up the alley... houses closing up again... windows looking round... ... Mabel pulls you in the gate and shakes you and tells you not to tell your mama... And you wonder if God has spoiled Jimmie.