Hazel felt disappointed and angry. “You must, Scip. Why won’t you?”
He gave his reason. “I ain’t got no money, and they won’t give stamps at the store.”
When she went home Hazel took Child Life out of the trunk and put it, almost savagely, on her table. “It’s a wicked shame,” she said to herself. “He works and works and he can’t have one single thing.” She took her pen, dipped it in the ink, and turning to the title page wrote under her own name, “To Scipio Lee.”
When she was done she looked at it hard and winked the tears from her eyes. Then she placed it on the shelf with the primer and the dictionary and the Jungle Book.
“Granny, will you write to me when I leave here?” she asked that night as they sat on the porch.
“Yes, sugar; but you mustn’t be surprised at my kind of writing. Colored children weren’t taught to read and write in slavery days, but your father he learned me. When he were about twelve he began. ‘It may be I done leave home and mammy by and by,’ he said, ‘and I wants to get letters from my mother.’ So he worked with me every day like you work with Scip.”
“I remember the letters you wrote. Father loved them. I would understand what they were about now. So you’ll surely write me,” she went on persistently.
“Yes, honey.”
“Then, Granny, will you let Scip put his letters inside of yours, because he hasn’t money to buy stamps?”
“I sure will, you dear child.”