I want to read a little section of a children's book
about a little girl.
I like to write for children--
this is just a little--
well, little section.
I like to write about older people with children
because children don't see very old people that often anymore.
When I was young, I did, but I always
say children now think I am very old people,
and that's ridiculous.
But anyway, this is about a little girl whose name
is Tee, who's called Sweet Tee.
And her great grandmother whose name is Mrs. Eliza F Pickens--
the F stands for Free--
tells her stories.
And this is from a book called The Lucky Stone,
and it's about a stone that was passed down
through some generations of Black women.
And this is based on a story that my father used to tell me.
Tell me a story, grandma.
And that smile was all Mrs. Pickens needed.
That smile you got remind me of a lady,
her great grandmother began.
Remind me of a lady long, long, long time ago.
This lady was named, Vashti.
And she lived with her mama right
down the road from me and mine.
Her and her mama used to sit out in the summertime
on their front porch just rocking like this
and smiling just like you.
So pretty and polite.
But we was all scared of them because they
had real long fingernails on their fingers
and real long toenails on their toes.
They never did say nothing to us or one another.
So one day me and my friends was passing by them soft-like
and they was smiling and rocking on their porch.
And the one Vashti leaned across the railing and whispered
right to me, girl, you bring me a glass of cool water,
I give you a lucky stone.
Now you know that scared me half to death
but it wondered me too.
And so I decided to light out and run back home and fetch
back to that porch a long drink of cool water.
Yes, and I can still hear them long fingernails clicking
on the glass while she drank it all down her long throat.
Then she made me come close to her
and she reached in her bosom and handed me a warm stone,
shiny like it's night time, except for a scratch,
looked just like the letter, A. And she
said the stone was mine.
I'll tell you, Sweet Tee, I was saying
my prayers I was so scared, but I didn't let on.
Thank you ma'am, but that's all right, I said to her.
But she come right close with her face to the porch rail.
Take it.
I got no other chick nor child.
It's a lucky stone, she said.
So I took it and kept it and got it still.
And one fine day I'm going to give it to you, Sweet Tee.
And the story of that stone is this,
when Vashti's mama, Miss Mandy, was a little girl,
it was slavery time.
One day when she was working in the hot sun picking cotton,
a mean, old snake come creeping up on her by a foot
and she'd give a holler and fell down and dumped the sack
she was carrying.
It split wide open and all the cotton
was ruined, don't you know, a whole load of cotton.
Now, she was just a girl but she was
scared because she was due for a beating indeed
and she didn't want to be whipped by that mean, old boss
man.
She had never been whipped before
and she had promised herself she never would be.
So she just started creeping easy and fast and low
down in the field so nobody could see her.
But the boss man saw her anyhow and started toward her
on his horse with the whip in his hand.
And she lit out so scared and ran off
from the field and hid in a cave.
Come dark, she was too scared to go back.
And come day again, she was too scared
because she had been gone all night.
One day become 2 and 2 days become 3.
And on the third day she heard dogs far off
and knew she couldn't go back or move from where she was.
That little girl.
Well, didn't nobody know where she was, slave nor free.
When one evening, after near a week had gone by,
an old driver from the plantation
was riding by that cave, bringing
the carriage, when a stone shot out and spooked his horse.
That horse reared up but the driver
held him and got him stopped and steady.
And then he got down to see what it was that hit his horse.
And he found on the ground a stone black as night.
Well, that old man was disgusted that one little stone was
making him lose time like that so he picked it up and threw it
back into the cave.
And Tee, do you know that while he was walking back
to the carriage, that stone come sailing out of the cave again
and hit him on the neck?
That old driver grabbed it up where it fell and looked at it
and knew it for the same stone, black as night,
but this time, it had the letter A scratched on one side.
Now, Miss Mandy's right name was Amanda.
And her old miss had showed her the letters of it one time.
So of course, now, everybody's slave
knew where the child was hid.
After that, every week regular, some slave
would walk or ride by the way of that cave
and lose something there.
Sometime a chicken and sometimes some fruit
and sometimes some potatoes and homemade bread.
Every natural week until emancipation, weeks and months,
Tee, baby, more than a year.
After emancipation, the girl come out
from that cave with wild hair and eyes
and with them long fingernails on her fingers
and long toenails on her toes.
And she had that stone with her and she give it
to her daughter, Vashti, when she got one.
And like I had told you, Vashti give it to me.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.