One morning early I (Irene Robertson) got off the bus and started up Main Street. I hadn't gone far before I noticed a small form of a woman. She wore men's heavy shoes, an old dark dress and a large fringed woolen shawl; the fringe was well gone and the shawl, once black, was now brown with age. I passed her and looked back into her face. I saw she was a Negro, dark brown. Her face was small with unusually nice features for a woman of her race. She carried a slick, knotted, heavy walking stick—a very nice-looking one. On the other arm was a rectangular split basket with wires run through for a handle and wrapped with a dirty white rag to keep the wire from cutting into her hand or arm.
I stopped and said, "Auntie, could you direct me to Molly Brown's house?"
"I'm her," she replied.
"Well, I want to go home with you."
"What you want to go out there for?"
"I want you to tell me about times when you were a girl," I said.
"I'm not going home yet. I got to get somethin' for dinner."
"Well, you go ahead and I'll follow along."
"Very well," she said.
I window shopped outside, and I noticed she had a box of candy, but it was a 25¢ box and had been opened, so I thought it may be nearly anything just put in the box. The next store she went into was a nice-looking meat market and grocery combined, I followed in behind her. A nice-looking middle-aged man gave her a bundle that was large enough to hold a 50¢ meat roast. It was neatly tied, and the wrapping paper was white, I observed. She thanked him. She turned to me and said, "Give me a nickel."