LATE THAT NIGHT when everybody was in bed, I heard Mammy moving about in the kitchen, so I got up and went downstairs.

She was churning butter. A fresh loaf of bread lay on the table in front of her.

She smiled at me as I approached. "You heard?" I asked.

"Yes, child, I heard. Old Mammy got ears like the debil, though they ain't been painted green."

"I don't know whether to worry about George or Levi first," I told her.

"Worry 'bout yourself. You gots enough to worry 'bout. You goin' away to school in the fall and then there's movin'."

"Moving? Who's moving?"

"They ain't told you?"

"No."

"Your daddy been biddin' for Palmentier's Inn. It for sale."

How Mammy Sally knew everything that went on in the family before I did was a matter of mystery to me. Maybe because she did have ears like the debil. At any rate I had no trouble attributing special powers to her. Black people did have special powers, I'd long since decided. They must have, to put up with what they had to bear. Besides, those like Mammy had to continually move between two worlds.

But moving! Moving out of the house where I'd been brought up, where Mama had lived? And died? I suspected George and Levi wouldn't think much of the house on Main Street even if it was grander than this.

And then another thought came to me.

"What about the runaways?" I asked Mammy.

She shook her head. "I just hafta pass the word on that they shud come to the new house. It got a barn an' a fence around it. You wanna paint some flowers on that fence when the time comes?"

I took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Good."

"Mammy, what would I do without you?"

"You'd be jus' fine. You're quality, Mary. You'd be jus' fine."

"I don't ever want to leave you." I stifled a sob.

"You gots to leave sometime. You find yourself another mammy somewhere along the way."

"Is there anything you can do for George and Levi?"

"I kin' talk to 'em. Not sayin' they'll listen."

I hugged her. She gave me a piece of fresh bread and butter before I went to bed.