Big Auntie’s Pearls: A Choreo-novel

By Hope Gregory

The Choreo-novel, “Big Auntie’s Pearls” is my attempt to expand upon the form of dramatic expression known as “Choreopoem” which combines poetry, dance music and song with traditional African-American storytelling. My story’s implied plot uses theme elements with specific characters to hopefully create an emotional response from readers also its listeners. Nontraditional spelling and vernacular are written in the Concert format with each chapter called an Opus with three different movements as found in a Sonata or acts of an Opera or Ballet. The four Opuses are infused with Intermezzo and in Three-quarters time giving those of us with short attention spans maybe a twelve-hour read or an hour for one movement.  The Google interactive version contains links to music; fashion; food and culture with also fast cars of the times to enhance the readers experience and maybe even do a little shopping.

 
My story is Historical "Inspirational Fiction” using pseudonyms of persons and Venerable Institutions in a respectful fictitious manner to help Annamitta (Anna-mē-ta) tell her story of her Big Auntie’s whispered “High Pearls of Burden.”
 
I invite you on this journey to my native Southwest Georgia in the “Morning Star Suite” and a debut recital in the Southern hamlet of Boston before spanning through time with stops in Washington DC, Miami until Annamitta’s “New Day” at Savannah’s College by the Sea.   

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 057868618X

Book preview

Copyright:

Copyright © February 25, 2020 Hope Gregory All rights Reserved:

Big Auntie’s Pearls is Historical Inspirational Fiction inspired by oral and documented history with also some life’s experiences and observations of those living and deceased. The book does not represent any actual sequence of events or experiences of actual persons but rather is a loose re-imagining evoked with storytelling liberties and humor from the author’s imagination. The resemblance to any actual persons living or dead or of actual events may be only coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or manually without permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-0-578-68618-9

Historical, Cultural and Technical Reference data found in Library of Congress Cataloging of Original Manuscript per Copyright case number: 1-8582464891 at: https://eco.copyright.gov

INTRODUCTION

The Choreo-novel, Big Auntie’s Pearls is an attempt to expand upon form of dramatic expression known as Choreopoem which combines poetry with dance music and song. This term is believed to have been first coined by the Great Ntozake Shange in her usage of the traditional African-American storytelling method in entertaining and to teach. My story with its implied plot uses theme elements and specific characters to hopefully create an emotional response from readers or its listeners. My story uses nontraditional spelling and vernacular written in Concert format with each chapter called an Opus divided into three continuous movements as found in a Sonata or acts of an opera or ballet. The four Opuses are infused with Intermezzo and written in three-quarters time giving those of us with short attention spans maybe a twelve-hour read or only an hour for a movement.

The characters are mostly of my imagination fused with a matriarchal surname in a fictitious manner in helping Annamitta (Anna-mē-ta) tell her story of Big Auntie’s whispered High Pearls of Burden combined with pseudonyms of persons also some venerable Institutions so not to disparage. I invite you to join this journey leading into the early 1900s in my native Southwest Georgia in the Morning Star Suite beginning with Big Auntie’s debut recital in a Southern hamlet of Boston before heading to college in Washington DC.

Annamitta’s enters the story as a six-year old before her Sonatina begins with a Polonaise North where she learns dignified protest while also discovering a talent for sewing. Annamitta’s adult dance kicks-off in what I like to call the Honey Pot Suite before Big Auntie’s Pearls journey into that New Day of late 1959 when Annamitta’s skills help to secure her admittance into Savannah’s College by the Sea. Although disagreeing over the Politics of Fashion she and roommate W. Joan from New York find shared dismay over some Institutional formalities but they form coalition to combine academics with having a good time while easing the pressures of taking on more traditional roles amongst Precious Pearls of the Sea.

May all your Life be a Song!

DEDICATION

In memory of Mama with enduring Gratitude to my Father

Dedicated to All the People.

The Overture

The persistent rainfall during Home Going services for Annamitta brought more despair to gray days and the darker nights of those now left behind grieving their loss of a beloved matriarch. Her seventy-six years seemed an ordinary life but was lived with resolve to transcend any perceived obstacles but soon it would be discovered her existence was filled with wonderment. Her final wake was now taking place on Easter Jubilee weekend which was a last Friday in March also it was a reunion of sorts for those coming not only to mourn but celebrate a renewal of life. Just outside the city of Albany in Southwest Georgia folks came to Annamitta’s home with fresh collard greens along with homemade sweet potato pies served with mounds of grilled pork and plenty of chicken. Then a Rich Man’s Boil begin brewing as evening skies began clearing stocked with jumbo shrimp and blue-devil crabs rushed in from Southeastern Georgia coast as gesture of some ties to the Gullah Low country. Annamitta’s home was bursting with Easter azaleas along with potted Peace lilies and the final bloom of weeping petunias. There were proclamations also several cards of condolence that were sent from all over with even the local mayor calling on the family offering encouragement while she examined certain Tributary documentation.

Respecting a spirit of tradition was important to Annamitta as she hoped that all her hereditary also acknowledged children would feel compelled to according to abiding example. Her immediate survivors included her devoted husband of more than fifty-years but it was her youngest son Patrick who had been intrusted with a last testament so he now faced conflict over what first appeared was a small matter of benefaction. Many of Annamitta’s younger female relatives had long admired her modest jewelry collection laying claim to some necklace or certain set of earrings insisting, Auntie wanted me to have this to remember her by, after she was gone!

There were instructions left for which surviving relative should be inheriting jewelry but after specified claims were settled, Patrick was confronted by some who felt entitled to something else insisting they needed Around Table Sit-down at the end of evening. Some known as Annamitta’s daughters, nieces also her great nieces sat rummaging through stacks of obituaries and other artifacts while a few youngsters went about snapping pictures of floral arrangements with phones and posting videos while commenting about Annamitta’s porcelain swan and her tea rose collection.

Upon thanking the departing guest for their graciousness displayed throughout the evening, Patrick was seated with what now seemed to be this covenant of cousins when one senior lady put a photo on the table asking, Patrick, sorry as we do realize your grievin and all but where are Big Auntie’s pearls?

He inspected the photo of a young Annamitta wearing a uniquely yoked pearl necklace in sweetheart attire but he did not recognize the young man in that picture who was not his father but perhaps her escort to some formal event when Patrick replied, I don’t remember ever seein this necklace assumin that’s what ya’ll talkin about though gonna look for it whenever having a chance and then maybe I can get back with ya’ll later.

Most of the ladies at the table expressed an interest but none gave any account about monetary value or told a compelling story of their significance nor their origins but they all did seem to agree that those pearls once belonged to Big Auntie.

One such youngster that was presented as Big Auntie’s third Great niece added to her plea by declaring, Patrick, my Grandmama use’da do yo mama’s hair when they were girls but she couldn’t make it here, but she sent ya’ll up a crate of grapefruit!

The women around the table all gave account of their mother’s or grandmother’s relationship with Big Auntie then maybe an obligatory nod to Annamitta when after all of the late evening testimonies were done, Patrick stood on the front porch bidding those late leaving Ladies goodnight. His elder cousin lingered then as she finally left the porch she declared, Patrick, since you ain’t never been known to hold onto a honeypot, I’ll be here in early morning to take my place beside you in that lead Imperial limousine and I do trust you gone do right when you find my Big Auntie’s pearls!

His had been a challenging week and tonight’s meeting now caused Patrick to ponder his elder cousin’s comments also her presumptions of entitlement to some pearls and she should now be repositioned as lead Matriarch. His Great Auntie Anne passed over twenty years ago leaving his mother her heirloom hat collection along with pieces of unique jewelry. Big Auntie was the respected elder who moved north that played piano and the organ but what Patrick mostly remembered was that he never found out exactly where Big Auntie once worked inside the White House.

He was exhausted when he again saw the pile of photographs still on the dining table reminding him of the request that an old friend of his mother made as he now felt worse about not returning a call with details of tomorrow’s funeral. Once when a small child, Patrick was chastised for doodling on the photo of someone he thought was other as now he heard, "Don’t ever throw any pictures away cause it’s like throwin away somebody’s story," which were Annamitta’s words so also guiding him tonight.

Patrick then rumbled through keepsakes kept inside their old piano bench finding photos telling of some different life story before being known as just his Mama to him. He was about to lower the lid of the bench when noticing the candy tin beside an orange book with its beautiful pictures observing four with a same name circled but after a closer look, one did not have a story.

Patrick had made a discovery but there was still a matter of those believed to be Big Auntie’s Pearls but now understood such desire to become their next keeper if only for symbolic value. The destiny of some lost pearls has become the catalyst for chronicling this journey and how such an everyday existence may someday even become the compelling story.

* * *

Opus No: 1 (The Morning Star Suite)

I. Quail run Prélude

II. An Étude for Anne

III. Annamitta’s Easter Jubilee

Prelude

&

(1911– 1944)

I. Quail Run Prélude

Thomas County is home to Rose City of Thomasville Georgia and the county seat in the Southwestern corner of state bordering Florida being only thirty-five miles north of Tallahassee. Thomasville is well known for its annual Rose Festival and their beautiful Municipal rose gardens and it is flanked on the east by a small town of Boston along with Meigs and Ochlocknee that are rural micro towns encompassing a northern half of this county and once where the largest Antebellum plantations were located with more fertile soil than sandy wiregrass lands found further south. This area was originally the home hunting ground of the Lower Creek and Apalachee Natives but advancement of the White settlers pressured the Federal Government to implement the Creek Indian Removal Act to accommodate such an accelerated demand for their land. This farmland cultivated corn, sweet potatoes, tobacco and cotton that were dependent upon large numbers of slaves for clearing timber; plowing fields then haul in the harvest plus tend to many other domestic tasks needed to maintain such geographically isolated and massive plantations.

This heavy dependence on slaves as the main revenue base and life sustaining resource meant that by beginning of a Civil War, enslaved Negroes outnumbered a free White population by over two-thousand in Thomas County. The volatile interdependence between master and slave was made more peculiar by a presence of the few Natives who resisted their forced removal becoming either indentured servants or yeomen farmers. Such a uniquely intimate co-existence is also what characterized life on the Quail Timber Plantation that had once stood as a symbol of opulence with its Grand hilltop mansion surrounded by miles of valuable timber and many acres of cash crops but it was mostly known for its grassland habitat that accommodated the largest Quail hunting parties. However at the time Annamitta’s grandmother Ma Sue was born, the old Quail Hunting Place had fallen into a state of war-torn chaos.

There was not much known about Ma Sue’s earlier life not even by her own large extended family except that she was born on a declining Quail Timber Plantation April 9th 1865 on the day the Civil War ended but it was believed her mother was born into either a Seminole or the Apalachee tribe. She hardly spoke or her nor did Ma Sue speak about her birth father since she had been raised by her mother’s brother on remnant lands of Quail Timber and settlements around nearby Boston and Meigs. It had been whispered that Ma Sue’s birth father was the Quail Timber patriarch in those times the Baron Franklin VonBostock or probably one of his adult sons or some other White man employed as yeoman farmer but it was her uncle that took an orphaned Ma Sue into his home. Before the start of the Civil War, her Uncle Leroy had married Aunt Geneva who came from the neighboring plantation and began their family amongst the enslaved Negros on the Quail Timber Plantation as they cared for Ma Sue as their own daughter along with their five other children.

After an end to the Civil War and a steady parceling off of Plantation lands, the multi-raced slaves of Quail Timber navigated a new life of freedom as best they could with many fleeing to some Northern states or down to Florida though some remained on Quail Timber but many relocated elsewhere around Thomas County. With the passing years; Ma Sue lost touch with some she once called brother, sister or cousin due to distance also keeping in contact with local others was difficult since a few found acceptance within existing White communities but most found sanctuary within a newly freed Negro community called Morningstar. Whether they had fled or remained, how descendants of those that once ruled or had been enslaved on Old Quail Place chose to identify not only depended on skin complexation but on financial means and one’s level of education. Ma Sue often lamented about the communion of blood relations disturbed not only by choice of one’s own being but by the Law and even by Church Covenant but in spite of restrictions, Ma Sue’s Uncle Leroy with a few others still kept the desire and the courage to maintain limited bonds with kinfolk living in separate communities.

Ma Sue left what remained of Quail Timber as the young woman shortly after meeting Nathaniel who was some years older who once had been enslaved in Middle Georgia before working his way down to Thomas County as a journeyman carpenter. But after the War and Emancipation, Nathaniel did not care to take on any part of a former master’s last name instead he took on the Bostick surname as ode to a Matriarchal culture of Apalachee tribes who determined ancestry and their communal hierarchy through the Mother’s bloodline. Nathaniel along with Ma Sue helped in the building of Morningstar Settlement just outside town of Boston where they raised four children including Big Auntie Anne.

Ma Sue still had attachment to First Methodist Episcopal Church of Boston where she attended Sunday School with other Negro children that once lived on Quail Timber. At turn of the century, Boston was a Southern hamlet quickly becoming this lumber and produce shipping boomtown after the Civil War since it was re-established along a new railroad. The train also brought wealthy tourists to town that invested in local agricultural industries and bought old plantation land that still made excellent quail hunting venues. The VonBostock Family of old Quail Timber branched off from the Old German speaking Lutherans that had originally landed in then Colonial Savannah upon their exile from the Catholic Lands of Salzburg Austria. The VonBostocks were drawn to the Boston Methodist Episcopal Church when the sanctuary was being constructed upon its founding during the conflicting times of a civil Reconstruction.

The Greater Methodist Episcopal Church had officially opposed slavery in their beginning but Biblical and political clash over slavery and abolition compelled some churches in the South to form separate denominations more accommodating to demands of wealthy planters and the ensuing culture of oppression after bondage ended. Although the Methodist Episcopal Church favored racial tolerance with a spirit of Evangelical reform, Negroes were still not extended equality nor a full communion within the church provoking them to form their own congregations or join other denominations. The Morning Star Baptist Church became the bedrock for Big Auntie Anne’s spiritual guidance also providing foundation of her sense of communal cooperation but it was Ma Sue who served as living example the merits of preserving certain familiar bonds regardless of how obscure or clandestine those relationships may appear to be.

* * *

II. An Étude for Anne

The summer of 1911 in Thomas County was the hottest on record as now on a late August Friday afternoon it seemed nearly one-hundred degrees under the lumber shed where sixteen year-old Anne Bostick worked at Kirby Millworks Company on an outskirt of Boston. Anne was the second child of Daddy Nathaniel and Ma Sue also with three siblings including Frank the eldest at twenty and was already married with his own home. Her brother Leroy also nicknamed Candy Boy because of a ravenous sweet tooth was fourteen with youngest being her sister Minnie Lou who was ten but still considered by Anne to be a close companion. They had all been raised in Morningstar working alongside their parents or other extended family as domestic help and chopping tobacco or harvesting cotton and often in lumber production primarily on lands once part of Quail Timber Plantation. The children mostly resembled their parents having sharp cheekbones with strong noses and light brown complexions that had a reddish hue especially in the sunshine of summertime. Anne mostly favored Ma Sue having same robust stature and well-defined hips but Anne’s face was dotted with brown freckles along with eyes that appeared to be amber-green during certain daylight.

Anne first attended school in their one classroom at Morning Star Baptist Church that went no further than eighth-grade with only those students having high academic marks or displaying notable talent and the support of their family and some goodwill of the community were recommended for high school advancement. With help of her family and the financial support from the American Missionary Association; Anne had recently graduated from Allen Normal Preparatory School in Thomasville and this was her last day applying a tung-oil finish to pine timber utility poles before heading off to Freedmen University in Washington DC.

Anne massaged hot tung-oil onto the last pine log on the saw table deep into her thoughts about what needed to be done before she could leave for college. She was grateful for the thirty-cents per hour earned working fulltime for a whole summer with money now saved to cover her train fare from Boston to Savannah then fare from Savannah on to Washington DC which totaled around nine-dollars including the small gratuity for porters. She was jolted from her daydreams when hearing Daddy Nathaniel hollering, Miss Anne, come get on da wagon! I got more folks to pick up than just you!

Daddy, I’m comin! Just let me get cleaned up then pack my bag, Anne replied as she ladled cool water from a bucket then scurried out to the wagon climbing onto front bench next to her father reaching for the mule reins while asking,

Daddy, do you need me to hold onto these mules until you finish drinking all yo water?

Oh no mam, I handle this wagon by myself day’s long, declared Nathaniel as he gripped the mule reins under fold of the remainder of his left arm.

Fine Daddy, let’s go cause I need to pick up Miss Eva’s medicine and I don’t wanna be late on today, replied Anne as she scooted over to her place on the wagon bench.

Daddy Nathaniel gulped his water then he maneuvered the wagon with only a right hand through trails picking up other workers rolling into downtown Boston. After losing the lower portion of his left arm in a sawmill accident, Nathaniel began driving this work wagon that hauled folks to Lumber Mills and other work places in Boston from out in Morningstar. The short ride into town was rather smooth except when crossing the train tracks serving as a border between the Negro and the White communities.

The wagon turned the corner at the Boston train depot at almost a quarter to five that afternoon onto South Main Street when Nathaniel stopped to let remaining passengers get off. Anne could now see the crowning twin Steeples and Cathedral glass windows of the redbrick First Methodist Episcopal Church where she was taught piano when Anne said, Daddy, I’m gonna get off here and hurry into da drug sto to get Miss Eva her medicine then I can go-head and walk over to the church from down here.

That’s fine, yea, get Miss Eva’s so called medicine but you know that ain’t nothin but good ‘Ole Grand Daddy’ whiskey that’s put into some lil tonic bottles, chuckled Nathaniel.

Daddy, you oughta not call Miss Eva un-tempered and she say I need good lye soap to scrub my hands cause that hot sticky turpentine is makin my fingertips numb to da touch of piano keys, replied Anne picking dirt from under her fingernails.

Anne, You tell Miss Eva to come work down at the saw mill one day in yo place since she so worried about you playin on da piano, grinned Nathaniel.

Anne giggled at her father’s suggestion as she leapt off the wagon then bidded, Bye Daddy, I’ll see you when you get back! rushing off to get inside Adams Drug store.

It was a short sweltering walk to the church but since the buildings in downtown Boston were built around the depot with electrical lines strung along the railway unlike the outlying communities so it would be cooler inside the Church with high ceilings and electric oscillating fan in the musician’s enclave.

Anne was soon on Church grounds waiving at two White children coming down front steps of the double doors of the vestibule then she ran around to a lower side door anxious about her final lesson before graduation recital. She began taking piano lessons at nine progressing so quickly that Miss Eva taught her pipe organ and as she entered the Parish hall, another student was leaving.

She was glad to be on time looking at the wall clock as her teacher emerged looking a professional Victorian Lady in grey skirt flaring at her ankles and white ruffled blouse pinned at neck by a tea rose cameo with sandy brown hair high into Empire bun enhancing a petite frame then Miss Eva beckoned,

Hey Anne, come on in, there’s a lot to cover, with silver-rimmed eyeglasses in her right hand.

Yes Mam, I’m excited about tomorrow but still nervous and here you go Miss Eva, I stopped to pick up your package like you asked, greeted Anne as she handed her teacher a white paper bag then she followed her into the sanctuary.

Anne was seated at the piano bench but before placing her fingers into start position Miss Eva consoled,

Well child, no need bein nervous since you’ve already memorized all the music so today is for perfectin yo artistic interpretation, as she poured a dose of tonic into her tea rose goblet.

Today Anne began with For Elizabeth one of Beethoven's most famous Études to exercise her fingers and for sharping technical skills then went into her recital repertoire as Miss Eva followed with sheet music while listening for any wrong notes and missed phrases as she sipped from her medicinal spiced tea.

After done with rehearsal, Anne was given an encouraging critique then some coaching before attention was turned to performance attire with Miss Eva advising,

Anne, insure your foundation garments are loose because a tight corset is restrictive to movement and wear a boot with a modest heel for a better command of the foot pedals.

Anne sat listening and nodded in agreement when prompted then Miss Eva asked, Miss Anne, did Ma Sue ever tell you a long time ago, I was once married?

Yes mam, she did but I don’t remember her saying what become of your husband except he wasn’t from around here, replied Anne as she began gathering her sheet music.

No Anne, he came from Northern Europe but I was presented my Weddin Pearls in Olden Mercer Institute Chapel upon my graduation from Middle Georgia Female Conservatory where I studied music as the celebrated ‘Magnolia’ who bore the Swan Crest. My Daddy stood in approval cause my own dead Mama was from das Olden lands as well but I never had chance to sail back overseas with my husband, bemoaned Miss Eva.

Oh no, please don’t tell me yo husband went home without taking you with him? asked Anne.

She stood pouring more tonic in her mug taking a sip then further Miss Eva lamented, No child, it was back in eighteen seventy-nine, I was summonsed to return to das Grand Plantage von Quail Timber to care for my ailing father but my husband became restless so he moved on to Atlanta to begin his medical practice but before I could join my sweetheart, he was killed as his carriage overturned speeding around Ponce de Leon Circle.

Anne was perplexed by this account of a long lost husband by her usually cheerful instructor who rarely talked of anything but music at these times together then was about to offer further consolation when Miss Eva interrupted, Hold on child, I think I heard your mama and those comin in da basement door.

Ma Sue was coming into the parsonage to prepare for the reception following the recital bringing along Anne's eldest brother Frank with another male cousin both carrying large blocks of ice also they had come to help with some other heavy lifting.

Miss Eva swayed into the parish hall bellowing, Ma Sue, you still my doll-baby! And thank you for brangin da boys to move that piano for tomorrow so put that ice in the cold chest then follow me so I can show ya’ll where to put it.

The young men left to go do their work then Anne joined Ma Sue to help with reception preparations. Ma Sue was also employed here as a caretaker which involved cleaning the parish houses and cooking for the Bishop and for Miss Eva who lived in an adjoining Musician’s Cottage since serving as the Choral Mistress. The extra money earned helped Ma Sue pay fifty-cents per music lesson plus sheet music with additional instruction and Ma Sue's job allowed Anne use of a church studio piano and the organ for practice since there was no piano out at the house in Morningstar.

Anne, yo baby sista is glad you’re playin at this church tomorrow and she comin to help after leaving Miss Eva's but I wish some more of our folks could come hear you play da Grand Piano, said Ma Sue as she lit fire inside a claw foot stove.

Yes mam, I wish that everybody that wanted to could come here tomorrow but Pastor asked me to play at service on Sunday so all the folks at Morning Star can hear some other renderin of different kinds of piano music, replied Anne as she sliced cucumbers onto a granite tabletop butcher’s slab.

Miss Eva soon returned with the piano movers walking them over to the basement door just as Minnie Lou had arrived then she strolled over to their kitchenette discreetly inspecting food preparations when Miss Eva greeted,

Lil Min’Lou, I swear you growin like a bean pole and gettin just as pretty as yo mama and big sister now!

Thank you Miss Eva, I finished cleanin yo place and I caught that mouse then put him outside and didn’t kill him like you asked so now I’m here helpin Mama, replied Minnie Lou as she now towel dried a bone china luncheon plate.

Well Minnie Lou, we thank you for helpin us since there’s gonna be a lotta folks comin on the train from far as Macon and Atlanta just to hear your sister play that Grand piano so we also gonna need your help tomorrow, rang Miss Eva.

Miss Eva, you gonna be overrun if you don’t start settin out traps and poison in your house plus stop just puttin rats outta da doh before they dead, seem you oughta done learned by now that rats keep comin back sniffin around for some mo that they know don’t belongst to’em just like some low folks you let up into your house way back when, admonished Ma Sue.

Ma Sue, stop all that ugly talkin please! This is a joyous time and we have plenty work left to get ready for tomorrow that’s gone be the Imperial day for us all, proclaimed Miss Eva!

The recital preparations were finished by late evening when Frank ran inside belting, Ma Sue! We gotta go before dark cause it ain't but one good horse pullin my buckboard wagon! Then they all piled onto Frank’s small wagon now rolling northwest along Old Coffee Road as a Southwest Georgia sun faded.

Saturday arrived in the Morningstar community finding the Bosticks living in this weathered wood framed house awake at dawn since was still much to do before a first note on the piano which was slated to be heard by two thirty-six on that afternoon. Slab bacon sizzled atop the coal burning iron stove beside eggs scrambling in a seasoned skillet as Anne came twirling into the kitchen chirping, Good mornin Ma Sue, now what you have cookin in both of yo big ole ovens that’s smellin so good already?

Good morning precious! I gotta Boston butt pork roast in one and bread in da other since Miss Eva wanted somethin more substantial to feed her fancy houseguest that we’re takin into town with us, replied Ma Sue pulling steaming yeast rolls from an oven.

Well, can I have just one to eat with my eggs? I know that daddy already left to haul folks off to work but I hope he’s gone come back in time enough to get ready for my concert, asked Anne as she took her seat at the kitchen table.

"You can have a bisquit on yo day. But I’m sorry, your daddy and big brother won’t be attendin now sayin they gotta work da whole day plus neither one of them too keen on yo classical piano playin though Cora Lee’s commin to help us get ready for