Rose kneels on the kitchen floor, scrubbing by hand, while Queen lounges in the parlor. Rose is looking forward to the start of the school year; education is her intended pathway out of Mississippi and escape from her grandmother’s plight. Though Ma Pearl, born in 1899 to two previously enslaved people, has an abundance of personal pride and claims tremendous affection for the Robinsons, Rose cannot imagine a fate worse than cooking and cleaning for a white family. Like Medgar Evers, Rose hopes to follow an academic path that will ensure opportunities to use her accomplishments to help her community. When a letter arrives from Anna, Ma Pearl, who is illiterate, needs Rose to read it to her. Rose is embarrassed for her mother, struggling to decipher her poor handwriting and terrible spelling. Ma Pearl is irritated that Anna hasn’t sent money, griping, “Folks want you to raise they chi’ren […] but they don’t want to send you nothing to help raise ‘em with. She better hurr’up and get her money right” (89).

Rose is excited to learn that Ma Pearl’s youngest daughter, Aunt Belle, will be visiting from Saint Louis. Queen warns that Belle needs to bring her better clothes than the “junk” garments Belle brought on her last visit.