<TITLE>13. Par 40-43</TITLE>L-40 So then, he was swindling. It was kind of drizzling rain out there then. He was--he was swindling like this, and he went ahead talking. And I thought, "Well, I hope you've quieten down." Well, I looked at him a little bit. And I looked all around. I thought, "Where's them fellows at? I got to get back in that building. Won't they come?"
Nobody knew me. I was standing there, you know. And after while, I heard somebody hollering, "Daddy, daddy?" I thought, "Where's that?" And there was as many people, practically, standing in them back places there, as there is seated in here tonight, right in that parking lot, right there in the light.
And coming down through the people... Now, down in the South, they have the Jim Crow law: that is colored and white can't mix together. So here come the--a colored girl, about seventeen, eighteen years old. And oh, she was in a... her... this... her eyes was as white with cataract as my shirt is. And she was coming, pressing through that crowd, saying, "Somebody please help me. Daddy."

L-41 And I thought, "Why don't some of those people help that poor girl?" So I thought while he wasn't looking, I'd move along a little. So I got over there. I kept getting right in her way. And watching for these men to come. And she come right up, and I stood like that. And she bumped into me. She--her hands tugged me. She said, "Excuse me, sir. Excuse me." Said, "Daddy?"
I thought... I said, "What you looking for?"
She said, "Sir, I've lost my daddy. I'm blind." She said, "And I can't find him. I don't know what to do." Said, "Nobody will help me. Will you help me, kind sir?"
And I said, "Well, I don't see no more colored people around here." I said, "Where you from?"
She said, "Memphis."

L-42 And I looked and there was a bunch of chartered buses setting there. I knowed one of them was Memphis, and that's how... I said, "What you doing over here?"
She said, "I's listening to the radio this morning." She said, "I heard about all those deaf and dumb people they had up there, that was deaf and dumb last night, speaking on the radio."
And I said, "And you're blind?" See? I said, "What'd you come over here for?"
She said, "I come to see the healah."
I said, "The what?"
She said, "The healah."
And I said, "You don't believe that, do you?"
"Oh, yes, suh."

L-43 Now, that--that looked like a hypocrite too, taking advantage of a blind woman. See? But I wanted to see whether she really believed it. I said, "Do you believe that's the truth?"
She said, "Yes, suh." And I begin to feel little. And she said--she said, "Yes, suh. I believes it."
And I said, "Why, you believe that God would do something like that, as far advanced as medical science is?"
She said, "Suh," said, "when I was a little girl, I got cataracts on my eyes. The doctor told me when they got ripe," I don't know what that means, but, "when it got ripe that they'd take them off." And said, "Now, that they're ripe," said, "they say if they'd take them out, they'd pull the optical nerves out of my eyes." And said, "I--I--I can't see, and the only hope I got is to get in there. And this is the man's last night here, and they tell me I can't even get near the building. I lost my daddy. I don't know what to do."
And I said, "Do you believe if you'd get in there, you'd be healed?"
She said, "Why, I heard of a man on the radio this morning, from up at Kennett, Missouri, had been blind for ten years, and he received his sight." Said, "Well, couldn't I be healed too?"
I said, "Do you believe that?"


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