"Learned what?"
"Learned what is the most important thing."
"What‘s that?" I asked her.
"It‘s different for everyone," she said. "You findout on your own. But in the meantime, you got toremember, you can‘t always judge people by thethings they done. You got to judge them by whatthey are doing now. You judge Otis by the pretty- P96
music he plays and how kind he is to them animals,
because that‘s all you know about him right now.
All right?"
"Yes ma‘am," I said.- P97
I didn‘t go to sleep right away. I lay there andthought how life was like a Littmus Lozenge, howthe sweet and the sad were all mixed up togetherand how hard it was to separate them out. It wasconfusing.
"Daddy!" I shouted.
After a minute, he opened the door and raisedhis eyebrows at me.
"What was that word you said? The word thatmeant sad?"
"Melancholy," he said.
"Melancholy," I repeated. I liked the way itsounded, like there was music hidden somewhereinside it.- P126
"We‘ll keep looking," said the preacher. "Thetwo of us will keep looking for him. But do youknow what? I just realized something, India Opal.
When I told you your mama took everything withher, I forgot one thing, one very important thingthat she left behind."
"What?" I asked.
"You," he said. "Thank God your mama left meyou." And he hugged me tighter.- P167
