"So that you can read books and know lots of things."
"Don't white folks make books?"
"Yes—most of the books."
"Pooh! I knows more than they do now—a heap more."
"In some ways you do; but they know things that give them power and wealth and make them rule."
"No, no. They don't really rule; they just thinks they rule. They just got things—heavy, dead things. We black folks is got the spirit. We'se lighter and cunninger; we fly right through them; we go and come again just as we wants to. Black folks is wonderful."
He did not understand what she meant; but he knew what he wanted and he tried again.
"Even if white folks don't know everything they know different things from us, and we ought to know what they know."
This appealed to her somewhat.
"I don't believe they know much," she concluded; "but I'll learn to read and just see."