Native Son by Richard Wright Page A

seen. Then he realized that Mrs. Dalton had turned and listened to the sound of his feet as he had walked. She knows exactly where I’m standing, he thought.
    “You like your room?” she asked; and as she spoke he realized that she had been standing there waiting to hear the sound of his glass as it had clinked on the sink.
    “Oh, yessum.”
    “I hope you’re a careful driver.”
    “Oh, yessum. I’ll be careful.”
    “Did you ever drive before?”
    “Yessum. But it was a grocery truck.”
    He had the feeling that talking to a blind person was like talking to someone whom he himself could scarcely see.
    “How far did you go in school, Bigger?”
    “To the eighth grade, mam.”
    “Do you ever think of going back?”
    “Well, I gotta work now, mam.”
    “Suppose you had the chance to go back?”
    “Well, I don’t know, mam.”
    “The last man who worked here went to night school and got an education.”
    “Yessum.”
    “What would you want to be if you had an education?”
    “I don’t know, mam.”
    “Did you ever think about it?”
    “No’m.”
    “You would rather work?”
    “I reckon I would, mam.”
    “Well, we’ll talk about that some other time. I think you’d better get the car for Miss Dalton now.”
    “Yessum.”
    He left her standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, exactly as he had found her. He did not know just how to take her; she made him feel that she would judge all he did harshly but kindly. He had a feeling toward her that was akin to that which he held toward his mother. The difference in his feelings toward Mrs. Dalton and his mother was that he felt that his mother wanted him to do the things she wanted him to do, and he felt that Mrs. Dalton wanted him to do the things she felt that he should have wanted todo. But he did not want to go to night school. Night school was allright; but he had other plans. Well, he didn’t know just what they were right now, but he was working them out.
    The night air had grown warmer. A wind had risen. He lit a cigarette and unlocked the garage; the door swung in and again he was surprised and pleased to see the lights spring on automatically These people’s got everything, he mused. He examined the car; it was a dark blue Buick, with steel spoke wheels and of a new make. He stepped back from it and looked it over; then he opened the door and looked at the dashboard. He was a little disappointed that the car was not so expensive as he had hoped, but what it lacked in price was more than made up for in color and style. “It’s all right,” he said half-aloud. He got in and backed it into the driveway and turned it round and pulled it up to the side door.
    “Is that you, Bigger?”
    The girl stood on the steps.
    “Yessum.”
    He got out and held the rear door open for her.
    “Thank you.”
    He touched his cap and wondered if it were the right thing to do
    “Is it that university-school out there on the Midway, mam?”
    Through the rear mirror above him he saw her hesitate before answering.
    “Yes; that’s the one.”
    He pulled the car into the street and headed south, driving about thirty-five miles an hour. He handled the car expertly, picking up speed at the beginning of each block and slowing slightly as he approached each street intersection.
    “You drive well,” she said.
    “Yessum,” he said proudly.
    He watched her through the rear mirror as he drove; she was kind of pretty, but very little. She looked like a doll in a show window: black eyes, white face, red lips. And she was not acting at all now as she had acted when he first saw her. In fact, she had a remote look in her eyes. He stopped the car at Forty-seventh Street for a red light; he did not have to stop again until he reached Fifty-first Street where a long line of cars formed in front of him and a long line in back. He held the steering wheel lightly, waiting for the line to move forward. He had a keen sense of power when driving; the feel of a car added