I not only had to open my own bed,
but the beds for the other children, and
although I sometimes felt my mother's
hand tucking in the bedclothes round
me, she never stooped and kissed me on
the brow and said, "Bless you, my
child." No one, in all my experience,
had said, "Bless you, my child." When
the girl I have spoken of came into the
room, her mother reached out her arms
and said, before everybody, "Here
comes my dear little girl." When I
came into a room, I was usually told to
do something for somebody. It was
"Please see if the fire needs more
wood," or "Let the cat in, please," or
"I'd like you to weed the pansy bed be-
fore supper-time."

In these circumstances, life hardly
seemed worth living. I decided that I
had made a mistake in choosing my
family. It did not appreciate me, and
it failed to make my young life glad.
I knew my young life ought to be glad.
And it was not. It was drab, as drab
as Toot's old rain-coat.

Toot was "our coloured boy." That