“Pretend, you great oaf! I was born on a show boat on the Mississippi, and proud of it. Everybody knows that.”
Mrs. Hawks, bustling into the show-boat kitchen with her unerring gift for scenting an atmosphere of mellow enjoyment, and dissipating it, would find Magnolia perched on a chair, both elbows on the table, her palms propping her chin as she regarded with round-eyed fascination Queenie’s magic manipulations. Or perhaps Jo, the charming and shiftless, would be singing for her one of the Negro plantation songs, wistful with longing and pain; the folk songs of a wronged race, later to come into a blaze of popularity as spirituals.
For some nautical reason, a broad beam, about six inches high and correspondingly wide, stretched across the kitchen floor from side to side, dividing the room. Through long use Jo and Queenie had become accustomed to stepping over this obstruction, Queenie ponderously, Jo with an effortless swing of his lank legs. On this Magnolia used to sit, her arms hugging her knees, her great eyes in the little sallow pointed face fixed attentively on Jo. The kitchen was very clean and shining and stuffy. Jo’s legs were crossed, one foot in its great low shapeless shoe hooked in the chair rung, his banjo cradled in his lap. The once white parchment face of the instrument was now almost as black as Jo’s, what with much strumming by work-stained fingers.
“Which one, Miss Magnolia?”
“I Got Shoes,” Magnolia would answer, promptly.
Jo would throw back his head, his sombre eyes half shut:
[Lyrics]
I got a shoes, you got a shoes.
All of God’s chil-dren got a shoes;