“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 25c 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 50c 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.”

I said, “I don’t have one.”  Then I said teasingly, “Why you think I have a nickel?”

She said, “You look like it.”

I opened my purse and gave her a dime.  She went over to the bread and picked up a loaf or two, feeling it.  The same man said, “Let that alone.”

The old woman slowly went on out.  I was amazed at his scolding.  Then he said to me, “She begs up and down this street every day, cold or hot, rain or shine, and I have to watch her from the time she enters that door till she leaves.  I give her scrap meat,” he added.

“How old is she?”

“She was about fifty years old sixty years ago when she came to Brinkley.  She is close to a hundred years.  People say she has been here since soon after the town started.”  He remarked, “She won’t spend that dime you gave her.”

“Well, I will go tell her what to buy with it,” I replied.

I hurried out lest I loose her.  She had gained time on me and was crossing the Cotton Belt Ry. tracks.  I caught up with her before she went into a small country grocery store on #70 highway.  She had passed several Negro stores, restaurants, etc, “I want a nickel’s worth of meal, please, sir.”

I said, “Auntie, buy a dime’s worth of meal.”

“I don’t want but a nickel’s worth.”  The man handed it to her to put in the basket.  “Give me a piece candy.”  The merchant gave her a nice hard stick.  She broke it half in to and offered me a piece.

I said, “No, thank you, Auntie.”  She really wanted me to have it, but I refused it.

She blowed her nose on her soiled old white underskirt.  She wormed and went on out.

I asked the merchant “How old is she?”

“Bless her heart, I expect she is ninety years old or more.  I give her some hard candy every time she comes in here.  I give her a lot of things.  She spends her money with me.”

Then I asked if she drew an Old Age Pension.

He said, “I think she does, but that is about 30c and it runs out before she gets another one.  She begs a great deal.”

I lagged behind.  The way she made her way across the Broadway of America made me scringe.  I crossed and caught up with her as she turned off to a path between a garage and blacksmith shop.