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Work Projects Administration

"Arkansas Narratives, Part 2"

He smiled and accepted with alacrity.
Later when the interviewer had found Mose and brought him back to the
house to be questioned, the grandson brought forth his long new pencil
and showed it with heartfelt pride.
On up the street went the interviewer. Arrived at 451 she approached the
house through a yard strewn, with wood chips and piled with cordwood.
Nobody answered her knock. Two blocks back toward town she was stopped
by the same woman who had accosted her before. "Did you find him?" "No,"
replied the interviewer. "Well he's somewhere on the street. He's
a'carrying a cane. You just stop any man you see with a cane and ask him
if he ain't Mose Evans." The advice was sound/ The first elderly man
coming north was carrying a cane. He was Mose Evans.
"So you-all got together?" called the officious neighbor. "Mose, you
ought of asked her--when you see her coming up the street if she wasn't
looking for you." "Maybe," said Mose, "but then I didn't know, and I
don't want to butt into other folks business" "Huh," snorted the woman,
"spose I hadn't butted in. Where'd you be. You wouldn't have found her
and she wouldn't have found you!" Both Mose and the interviewer wore
forced to admit that she was right--but from Mose's disapproving
expression he, like the interviewer, was sorry of it.


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