How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When they were sure the twister had finally gone, Patience and the other women laughed nervously. The children whimpered. Mother Barker's husband, the foreman, and the only man in the field, adjusted his straw hat on his head. (1.16)
The field where Patience harvests cotton is filled with women… but they're watched over by a man.
Quote #2
The women hummed together like light coming together after the sun had risen noon high, while pain and wonder wrapped around each of them in the humming. And the pain sat down on Patience and smothered her.
"Oh glory."
"Push."
Each woman felt the pain.
"Push."
Each woman felt the pain and wonder as old as time, as old as the sound of the women themselves as they rocked together, humming. Who could push pain away?
"Breathe deep, more deeper."
"Push down. Harder, I say." (2.15-22)
As Patience labors, the women come together almost as a unified body. Yes, Patience is technically the one pushing the baby out, but the women around her are right there with her, completely caught up in the experience of birth. Notice how we don't know who says what here—the women cease to be differentiated in this moment.
Quote #3
They were particularly interested in the new baby, Abyssinia. They women of Ponca City considered themselves midwives-in-common at her birth.
She filled their conversations.
"Remember it like it was only yesterday," one of them commented.
"Born in the cotton field."
"Came here marked, too."
"Marked by fire!"
"Baptized with the fire!"
"Foreman built the fire."
"Boiled water for the birthing."
"Patience spread out on her pallet of cotton sacks."
"And here comes our baby."
"An ember jumped out of the blaze and branded the child.
"Marked at birth!"
"A birthmark."
"Placed the new child on a soft sack of cotton."
"Laid her in a cotton manger."
"A black girl in a manger."
The women sat rocking on their porches. They wanted to hear each other's version of what the new child meant.
Now and then the people could hear the cries coming from Patience and Strong's house. Baby Abyssinia was a special project for the Ponca City women. (3.1-19)
Just like during Abyssinia's birth, here we again have women's voices blending together, creating a sort of larger-than-life female presence that transcends any individual perspective or contribution. Importantly, the only distinctive individual is Abyssinia. As the women discuss her, Abby is both apart from and a part of the women of Ponca City.
Quote #4
He began. "They say, if you put a pea under a mattress, a queen can feel the bump in the bed and will scream holy murder. And if you pile ten mattresses on top of that one, the queen will still feel the bump. So it is with a black woman. She knows when something's not right. She's not evil, she's queenly." (5.17)
This is the start of Strong's story of Patience tucking a diaper into his suit pocket instead of a handkerchief when he refuses to take her out partying with him after Abyssinia's born. The moral of the story? Women are not to be trifled with.
Quote #5
"Stuck my wedding band in my pocket and went to the party. The women there!" Strong rolled his eyes. "Chocolate-drop beauties! Caramel-colored wonders! Cinnamon babies! Nutmeg numbers! They had all the women!"
"What you say!" the winos commented.
"Well, I picked out this apricot, light-skinned chick. Had some legs on her big as Georgia hams. talk about shapely!"
Strong licked his lips. (5.38-40)
As we near the end of Strong's story of Patience pulling one over on him, women are repeatedly compared to food. Strong is ready to be unfaithful to the woman who only recently gave birth to his child, and talks about the women at the party as things to be consumed—"chocolate," "caramel," "cinnamon," "nutmeg, " and more.
Quote #6
"I know it was rosebay," Mother Barker said.
"Rosebay!?" said the astonished Abby. "Why, that'll kill you!"
"How could you tell it was rosebay?" someone asked.
"By the way it smelled," said Mother Barker.
"Oleander does have a peculiar smell all right," one of the women agreed.
"Then I saw the petals," Mother Barker revealed. "The children kept arguing over who had the most blossoms floating in their teacups."
[…]
"She might really harm somebody someday," the snuff dipper said.
"She bears close watching," Mother Barker said quietly to the concerned woman. (19.2-11)
Trembling Sally is a problem in town. Sometimes she tries to kill Abby, sometimes she tries to kill the Lightsey kids, but pretty much all the time, she's up to no good. And who mulls over how to handle her? Why the women, of course. Here they are talking through Sally's behavior, trying to figure out just how to handle her.
Quote #7
"A tornado must be a woman," Abby decided.
The women on the porch clicked their agreement with their sewing needles. (19.22-23)
Abby comes to this conclusion during a conversation about Trembling Sally, shortly after a discussion about how Sally blames Abby for the tornado that destroyed her. Interestingly, Mother Barker assures Abby that they all know she didn't cause the tornado—and yet just a few moments later, Abby decides that "a tornado must be a woman," and all the other women agree. What do you think they're all identifying in this moment?
Quote #8
"Call the police, they look at you like you're some kind of old dog," Lily said.
"Have you tried that?"
"No. Winnie Mae told me about the time she tried talking to the law. They think you must like getting whipped."
Abyssinia took a piece of red flannel out of another pocket and soaked it in the steeped mixture.
"Maybe that's because nobody ever beat them," she told Lily.
"Women don't ever beat men," said Lily Norene. (27.9-14)
For all of the ways in which we are shown women are powerful in this book, this moment really drives home their powerlessness on a broader social level. Instead of seeing women who are beaten by men as victims, the cops see them as somehow asking for it. Ugh.
Quote #9
Soon the Ponca City women began to arrive. They came to join Abby in the celebration of the saving of the children's lives. They brought offerings of canned mulberries, okra, collard greens, smoked turkey, and hot pans of yeast rolls recently popped from the oven. They sat in a quilting bee circle stitching bedcovers for the orphans and listening to Abby tell how they had fled the fire and trudged through the snow to the safety and welcome of this residence that had belonged to the Barkers and which was now Abby's home. (30.6)
What happens after Trembling Sally tries to kill Abyssinia and Lily's daughters? Why the women of Ponca City rally together, of course, providing food and warmth and reassurance that their survival is a cause of celebration. You go, girls.
Quote #10
"There are two things children must remember," Patience advised.
"What is that?" asked Abby.
"Fire is warmth, and fire can burn."
"And when it burns… ?"
"Yes?" the women echoed in a chorus.
"The holy water of women can mock the fires of hell," Patience witnessed.
"Turn its groaning rages to singing embers," another whispered. (30.19-25)
The moral of this story? Don't mess with women. Not even the "fires of hell" stand a chance in the face of feminine power. Boom.