Janie saw then that he had the gun in his hand that was hanging to his side.

Whut you slip off from me just now for?”

Don’t lak tuh be by mahself when Ah’m sick.”

But to kill her through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her.

Dawg bit ’im, did you say?”

“Water? How do you mean?”

That night the palm and banana trees began that long distance talk with rain.

Ah done quit beatin’ mah woman.

. He just slapped her around a bit to show he was boss.

Before the week was over he had whipped Janie.

All he ever done was cut de monkey for white folks.

Even if dey don’t take us in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves.”

White doctors always gits mah money. Ah don’t go in no nigger store tuh buy nothin’ neither. Colored folks don’t know nothin’ ’bout no business. Deliver me!”

Ah don’t blame de white folks from hatin’ ’em ’cause Ah can’t stand ’em mahself.

We oughta lighten up de race.”

She didn’t leave him itching and scratching in his work clothes, either. The kettle of hot water was already waiting when he got in.

She got to the place she could shoot a hawk out of a pine tree and not tear him up. Shoot his head off. She got to be a better shot than Tea Cake.

three hundred and twenty-two dollars

You done married one uh de best gamblers God ever made.

It was really worth sixty-five any day.

They stayed in the room two whole days then she woke up to find Who Flung and her money gone.

That was when she found out her two hundred dollars was gone.

Some of dese mornin’s and it won’t be long, you gointuh wake up callin’ me and Ah’ll be gone.”

Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine.”

Mis’ Tyler.”

Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting. Tea Cake and Janie gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie gone to Orlando to the movies. Tea Cake and Janie gone to a dance. Tea Cake making flower beds in Janie’s yard and seeding the garden for her. Chopping down that tree she never did like by the dining room window.

he seized and pulled her in with him.

she laid in bed and pretended to think scornfully of him

you oughtn’t ’low dat Tea Cake tuh be walkin’ tuh de house wid yuh. Ah’ll go wid yuh mahself after dis, if you’se skeered.”

she felt like a child breaking rules. That’s what made Janie like it.

Dey calls me Tea Cake for short.”

But you got good meat on yo’ head. You’ll learn. Have uh cool drink on me.”

Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.

She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people;

evenings she sat on the porch and listened and sent Hezekiah in to wait on late custom.

The icy sword of the square-toed one had cut off his breath

Shut up! Ah wish thunder and lightnin’ would kill yuh!”

Jody, no Joe, gave her a ferocious look

that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West.

she had him bring a doctor from Orlando without giving Joe a chance to refuse,

They came to the store and ostentatiously looked over whatever she was doing and went back to report to him at the house.

Ah just now got tuh bear de name uh poisonin’ him!

she had cast down his empty armor before men and they had laughed

It was like somebody snatched off part of a woman’s clothes while she wasn’t looking and the streets were crowded

more ridicule he poured over her body to point attention away from his own

began to talk about her age all the time,

No matter what Jody did, she said nothing.

God

Janie did what she had never done before, that is, thrust herself into the conversation.

He say he can’t bear tuh leave her and he hate to kill her, so ’tain’t nothin’ tuh do but put up wid her.”

Mrs. Tony’s ecstasy was divine. “Thank you, Mist’ Starks. You’se noble! You’se du most gentlemanfied man Ah ever did see. You’se uh king!”

She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen

She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about.

It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered.

It just made Joe do more. He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it.

The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom

Aw naw they don’t.

Naw it ain’t, it’s nature, cause nature makes caution

She had no right to be, the way he thought things out

The near ones got nearer and the far ones got near. A circle, a swoop and a hop with spread-out wings.

“ ’Cause it won’t be nobody heah tuh look after de store. Ah’m goin’ tuh de draggin’-out mahself.”

People ought to have some regard for helpless things.

Teasin’ dat poor brute beast lak they is! Done been worked tuh death;

That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store.

They’s jus’ some puny humans playin’ round de toes uh Time.”

He didn’t want her talking after such trashy people.

Mostly he talked about plans for the town when he got there.

Janie and Logan got married in Nanny’s parlor of a Saturday evening with three cakes and big platters of fried rabbit and chicken.

Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant

“You know, honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways.