Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard

One Sunday afternoon, I picked out
a wooly winter hat, sort of green, mabye.
Aunt Flossie thought a minute.
Aunt Flossie almost always thinks a minute
before she starts a hat story.
Then she sniffed the wooly hat.
"Just a little smoky smell now," she said.
Sarah and I sniffed the hat, too.
"Smoky smell, Aunt Flossie?"

"The big fire," Aunt Flossie said.
"The big fire in Baltimore..."

* * *
"A wonderful family story set matter-of-factly in an African-American environment."