March Forward, Girl by Melba Pattillo Beals

Author:Melba Pattillo Beals
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

“We’ll need lots of baking soda to help with the cleaning. Come on with me to the store,” she said.

“No. No, Grandma, please, not on my birthday. I don’t want to.” I still hated going to the grocery store. I didn’t want the mean white people there to treat me like I didn’t count on my birthday.

“Oh, what’s all this complaining, now? Get your coat and walk with me.”

I knew it wasn’t any use trying to talk my way out of it, so I pulled my heavy green woolen coat with the hood that Grandma had made for me off the rack. We walked out the front door, to face the chill air and a thick glaze of ice under our feet. I held Grandma’s arm even more tightly.

We walked the two blocks to the store, stepping carefully trying to avoid the patches of ice, looking down, trying not to skid into a fall. As we reached the store, what little sun there had been that day was setting and the sky blended into the gray haze that swallowed everything around us.

Grandma pulled open the heavy wooden door to the store, and we stepped inside. Wondrous aromas of potatoes, onions, smoked meat, and spices mixed to warm our faces and tease our nostrils. We walked directly over to the brightly colored sacks of flour, and Grandma reached above them to the stacked boxes of baking soda.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.