Character Analysis
Mr. Amos is the strong, silent type. He's really just an extension of Mrs. Amos, so we'll focus on her. Mrs. Amos is Bud's second pain in the neck (the first being her darling son Todd), and she's the one who has all the power over Bud's life for a while. She has no patience, no understanding, no kindness, and no sympathy for Bud or anyone outside her own family for that matter. Taking in foster kids is all business for her, and she looks upon it not as a neighborly gesture but as income and, she says, as a moral duty.
Mrs. Amos tells Bud, "I do not have time to put up with the foolishness of those members of our race who do not want to be uplifted" (2.37). In other words, she thinks that when black foster children struggle in her home, it means that they don't want help. She doesn't realize that there is a pattern, or that her son is a terrible bully. She and her family are actually bad for the kids they bring in, but she and the other Amoses are too blind to see it. Basically, Mrs. Amos character is the opposite of Lefty and of Miss Thomas.