Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered

154/260“Aw mah God, naw! Reckon Ah better step over dere tomorrowand have some chat wid Janie. She jus’ ain’t thinkin’ whut she doin’,dat’s all.”The next morning Pheoby picked her way over to Janie’s house likea hen to a neighbor’s garden. Stopped and talked a little with everyoneshe met, turned aside momentarily to pause at a porch or two—goingstraight by walking crooked. So her firm intention looked like an accidentand she didn’t have to give her opinion to folks along the way.Janie acted glad to see her and after a while Pheoby broached herwith, “Janie, everybody’s talkin’ ’bout how dat Tea Cake is draggin’ youround tuh places you ain’t used tuh. Baseball games and huntin’ andfishin’. He don’t know you’se useter uh more high time crowd thandat. You always did class off.”“Jody classed me off. Ah didn’t. Naw, Pheoby, Tea Cake ain’t draggin’me off nowhere Ah don’t want tuh go. Ah always did want tuh gitround uh whole heap, but Jody wouldn’t ’low me tuh. When Ah wasn’tin de store he wanted me tuh jes sit wid folded hands and sit dere. AndAh’d sit dere wid de walls creepin’ up on me and squeezin’ all de lifeouta me. Pheoby, dese educated women got uh heap of things to sitdown and consider. Somebody done tole ’em what to set down for.Nobody ain’t told poor me, so sittin’ still worries me. Ah wants tuhutilize mahself all over.”“But, Janie, Tea Cake, whilst he ain’t no jail-bird, he ain’t got uhdime tuh cry. Ain’t you skeered he’s jes after yo’ money—him bein’younger than you?”“He ain’t never ast de first penny from me yet, and if he love propertyhe ain’t no different from all de rest of us. All dese ole men dat’ssettin’ round me is after de same thing. They’s three mo’ widder