Little Old Rag

Little Old Rag I stayed a week with Mamaw last summer and ever shift end I dumb up to No. 6, to get Uncle Joe and carry his dinner bucket home for he'd be awful tired, and so black. My last day, I told Mamaw, I believe I'll carry up Uncle Joe a cool rag to wipe hisface, and boy, he was glad. Little old rag can't clean me off, he said, hut it sure could cool me down. He pressed it up against his face with both hands, patting around his cheeks and forehead and chin. He give it back to me, and we bust out laughing, for we seen he left a big old black face print on the rag. I kept it, but we did not tell Mamaw for she is bad to wash things, why she washed his clothes after he was gone. When them bad nights come, after Mama and Daddy is sleeping I get out my washrag and I stay all night with Uncle Joe's face laying over mine. Come morning, Mama will say, Walter, I swear, I don't know how you get dirty sleeping, you go wash—but then she don't make me. Then after while, she says, Lord, honey, some days you look so much like Joe. —Diane Gilliam Fisher 15 ...