Which excerpt from Carson McCullers's The Ballad of the Sad Café best shows that the protagonist of the story, Amelia, is a social misfit? The Ballad of the Sad Café
by Carson McCullers (excerpt)
Miss Amelia was rich. In addition to the store she operated a still three miles back in the swamp, and ran out the best liquor in the county. She
was a dark, tall woman with bones and muscles like a man. Her hair was cut short and brushed back from the forehead, and there was about
her sunburned face a tense, haggard quality. She might have been a handsome woman if, even then, she was not slightly cross-eyed. There were
those who would have courted her, but Miss Amelia cared nothing for the love of men and was a solitary person.
Miss Amelia crossed the porch with two slow, gangling strides. She went down the steps and stood looking thoughtfully at the stranger.
Gingerly, with one long brown forefinger, she touched the hump on his back. The hunchback still wept, but he was quieter now. The night was
silent and the moon still shone with a soft, dear light -- it was getting colder. Then Miss Amelia did a rare thing she pulled out a bottle from her
hip pocket and after polishing off the top with the palm of her hand she handed it to the hunchback to drink.
This office was also the place where Miss Amella received sick people, for she enjoyed doctoring and did a great deal of it. Two whole shelves
were crowded with bottles and various paraphernalla. Against the wall was a bench where the patients sat. She could sew up a wound with a
burnt needle so that it would not turn green. For burns she had a cool, sweet syrup. For unlocated sickness there were any number of different
medicines which she had brewed herself from unknown recipes.
Miss Amelia stood with her hands in her pockets, one foot resting on the second step of the stairs. She had been silent for a long time. Her face
had the expression often seen in slightly cross-eyed persons who are thinking deeply, a look that appears to be both very wise and very crazy. At
last she said: "I don't know your name." "I'm Lymon Willis," said the hunchback.