Outside, near the road, Brudge, a black boy as ragged as Breeze, but apparently happy, parched peanuts in a round, black, fire-heated oven. Over and over he patiently turned the sooty cylinder with a black iron handle, all the time chattering and grinning, as from time to time he dished out paper sacks-full, not only for the children, but for grown men and women who bought them to eat right then. The smell of the peanuts was delicious, but it was almost smothered by the scent of fried fish, which came from a shack near by.
Big Sue said it was a restaurant, and Breeze was craning his neck to see inside when April took him by the hand and led him in, while Big Sue, laughing as she came, walked behind them. The afternoon light, aided by a large kerosene lamp, whose glass shade was dim with smoke, shone on the white oil-cloth that covered several small tables. Big Sue said, “Set down, Breeze,” and he dropped into a chair by a table. He ate big thick slices of store-bought baker’s bread that the boat had brought from town and squares of fried fish that Big Sue said were caught in the sea by regular fishermen.
April had a powerful look. He was very tall, his forehead high, his mouth straight and wide, his bony chin and cheek-bones set forward. He left most of his good bread broken all up but uneaten on the greasy tin plate.
“Whyn’t you eat you’ victuals, April?” Big Sue asked him.
“I ain’ so hongry, not dis evenin’,” he answered, smiling and with his glowing eyes on Breeze.
Reaching a long hand down in his pants pocket, he took out a piece of paper money and gave it to her. “Buy de boy some clothes, Big Sue. Feed em good, too. I want em to grow.”
Big Sue took it and told Breeze to go outside and watch the people until she came.
Some of the women and girls were fat and funny-looking, but others were slender, with well-formed bodies. All of them looked at Breeze searchingly, some slyly, but most of them with brazen eyes. Many of the older women were smoking small clay pipes, and when they laughed their teeth showed brown, stained with tobacco.
Young men strutted past them, with hats cocked on one side of their heads. Some caught the girls’ hands and held them and offered to treat them. Bottles of coca-cola and bags of candy rivaled peanuts and the small sweet-cakes, just come on the boat from town in a big wooden box that opened like a trunk. As Breeze gazed, his mouth watered at the sight of so many good things to eat.