we would open the store early so they could buy peanut patties, cans of sardines, hunks of cheese and take them out to the cotton fields. and then they would bring them back at dusk, just about dark. we would fold out of these wagons dead-tired, beat, but on saturday, big day saturday at the store, then the people would talk and they would be so sassy. and then, if a white person would come, they'd become meek and "sure, yessir, that's right." and you would see this thing that happened, this mask, or these masks, and paul laurence dunbar helped me to understand that. >> with that poem? >> with the poem -- "we wear the mask that grins and lies. it shades our cheeks and hides our eyes, this debt we pay to human guile. with torn and bleeding hearts we smile, and mouth myriad subtleties. why should the world be over-wise, in counting all our tears and sighs? nay, let them only see us, while we wear the masks." people used to come into the store and they'd say, "oh, sister henderson, it's just awful today. it's just terrible. i can't stand it. it's killing me, this heat," or this cold, and