The boy’s mother appears on two occasions, both times near the beginning of the story. When B. Wordsworth appears in their yard and requests to watch the bees that live in the palm trees, she treats him with suspicion and then has the boy send him away when B. Wordsworth offers to sell them a poem. She seems to treat the boy rather roughly. The boy tells B. Wordsworth that he likes his mother when she’s not beating him, and a short time later, when he comes home late from school after visiting B. Wordsworth, she does in fact beat him. Because there is no mention of a father in the story, it is possible that she is raising the boy on her own, and her actions are those of a stressed, impatient woman. The boy’s friendship with B. Wordsworth may in part be due to his interest in escaping a difficult home life.
The Boy’s Mother Quotes in B. Wordsworth
The B. Wordsworth quotes below are all either spoken by The Boy’s Mother or refer to The Boy’s Mother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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B. Wordsworth
Quotes
His English was so good it didn’t sound natural, and I could see my mother was worried.
She said to me, ‘Stay here and watch him while he watch the bees.’
The man said, ‘Thank you, Madam. You have done a good deed today.’
He spoke very slowly and very correctly, as though every word was costing him money.
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