Weathers:I hope I didn't hurt it none, steppin' on it like that. We best leave that for the police.
Quennie: Oh, baby.
Weathers: I'll go.
Quennie:It's for sure nobody wanted to keep it. Come on, baby.
Woman: Quennie!
Quennie:I'll be back.
Woman: She went and messed herself all over again...
Quennie:Jane Childress, start her a bath. And mind your own business, Mrs Duprey. You'll bemessing yourself soon enough.
Hollister: Somebody stole my necklace.
Quennie:OK, Mrs Hollister, I'll be right with you. Go on back upstairs. You are as ugly as an old pot, but you still a child of God.
Woman: Queenie, she won't go take a bath without you.
Quennie:Mercy... I'll be right there! You just wait right here for me, okay?
Mrs Hollister: My sister gave me those pearls. I can't find them anywhere. Somebody's been stealing my jewelry.
Quennie:They are right here, Mrs Hollister. See? Right around your pretty white neck. Now come on.
Rose: Your heart is strong. You want to avoid any undue stimulation. I trust you ladies willhelp me out with that?
Rose: I've never seen anything like it, nearly blind from cataracts. I'm not sure if he can hear, bones indicate severe arthritis. His skin has lost all elasticity and his hands and feet are ossified. He shows all the deterioration, the infirmities not of a newborn, but of a man well in his eighties on his way to the grave.
Quennie:He's dying?
Rose: His body's failing him before his life's begun. Where did he come from?
Quennie:It's my sister's child, from Lafayette. She had an unfortunate adventure. Poor child, he got the worse of it. Come out white.
Rose: There are places for 'unwanted'babies like these, Queenie. No room for another mouth to feed here. The Nolan Foundation, despite their good intentions, thinks this place is a large nuisance as it is. A baby...
Quennie:You said he don't have long.
Rose: Queenie, some creatures aren't meant to survive.