Because the story is part of a larger collection, you can find it by searching for the full volume.

) are rarely hosted legally for free download, you can access the text through educational archives and library loans. Where to Find the Text Internet Archive : You can borrow the entire collection Tell Me a Riddle for free through the Internet Archive Digital Library

Have you read "O Yes" or other stories from Tell Me a Riddle ? Share your thoughts below—just don’t ask for direct PDF links in the comments, as we respect copyright law.

Reading the PDF allows you to see Olsen’s masterful use of (blending the narrator’s voice with the child’s thoughts). You can search the document for the repeated phrase "O Yes" to track the rhythm of the sermon and the slow decay of the friendship.

Tillie Olsen’s “O Yes” begins in the intimate, seemingly innocent world of two young girls—one white, one Black—who are “best friends” in a postwar American city. Yet by the story’s end, that friendship has been systematically dismantled, not by malice, but by the slow, grinding forces of racialized poverty, separate schooling, and religious difference. Olsen, a writer deeply shaped by leftist and feminist politics, refuses the sentimental narrative of individual goodwill overcoming racism. Instead, she shows how even the closest cross-racial childhood bond is no match for the institutional walls that rise between children as they grow. Through the widening rift between Carol (white) and Parry (Black), and the parallel, more painful rift between their mothers, “O Yes” argues that in a segregated, class-divided society, connection is possible only as a fragile prelude to loss.

Unlike Olsen’s more famous stories, such as I Stand Here Ironing or the title piece Tell Me a Riddle , "O Yes" focuses on the fragile boundary between childhood friendship and racial awakening.