Her sleeve was wet with sweat, her body hot and steamy, but her hand
was cold and shaking like a leaf. How weak and frail she looked beside
the fat outsider, who held out a thick hot hand to shake Breeze’s. The
gold rings on it matched the gold hoop earrings glittering in her small
ears, and they felt hard as they pressed against his fingers.
In the silence that followed Breeze looked at the big woman’s sleek
smooth face. It was round and tight like her fleshy body but with
dimples in its cheeks like baby Sonny’s. She took a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles out of her pocket and put them on, then leaned back in her
chair and laughed a queer gurgling laugh that widened her flat nostrils
and stretched her full lips.
“Lawd, ain’t it funny how dat boy favors his pa! Dat’s a pity too. A
boy-chile ought to favor his ma to be lucky. I hope e ain’ gwine be de
devil April ever was. April was born wid a caul de same way. Lawd, e’s
a case too!”
Without giving his mother time to answer she talked on; her son Lijah
was like her and her girl, Joy, the image of Silas, her husband. Thank
God, Joy didn’t have ways like Silas. He was good-looking enough, but
God never made a more trifling creature than Silas. He ran off and
left her seven years ago and she had raised those two children all by
herself. Lijah was in Fluridy now. Or maybe it was Kintucky, she wasn’t
certain which; but he was the worst man in the town where he lived.
Everybody was scared to meddle with Lijah. She laughed and rubbed her
fat hands together. Nobody would ever run over her Lijah. He took after
her that way. Now Joy was different. Joy was weak and easy. But she was
a nice girl. She was in town, going to college, getting educated. Joy
wouldn’t rest until she got a depluma. When she got it, she’d teach
school or marry some fine stylish town man. Joy was a stylish girl
herself. Maybe too slim, now, but she’d thicken out. When she was Joy’s
age, Silas could span her waist with his two hands. Joy would fatten up
too when she reached a settled age.
Cousin Big Sue rolled out her talk without stopping to catch one
breath, and all the time her small sparkleberry eyes roved from
Breeze’s face to his mother’s, then back to Breeze again.
The mother sat huddled low in her chair, her forehead wrinkled, her
shoulders drooped. She reached out and took baby Sonny from Sis, and
with fingers that shook she unbuttoned her dirty sweaty dress to feed
him. For the first time in his life Breeze noticed her poor ragged
underclothes and her bony feet and legs. They looked so lean and skinny
beside Cousin Big Sue’s tight-filled stockings and wide laced-up shoes.
Two bright tears fell swiftly in baby Sonny’s fuzzy wool and shone
there, two clear drops. Breeze was about to cry himself for his
mother’s stooped body looked so pitiful. The corners of her mouth were
pinched in and the back of her dress, all darkened with sweat from the
hard work she had been doing, was humped out in two places by the bones
of her thin shoulder-blades. But baby Sonny bobbed his head in such a
funny way as he seized the long thin breast that came flopping out. He
crowed and kicked his little feet with joy just as if that ugly flesh
was the finest thing in the world. Breeze forgot himself and laughed
out loud.
Cousin Big Sue’s fat hands stroked each other gently, and the laugh
that oozed out of her mouth squeezed her eyes almost shut.
“Dat boy Breeze is got nice teeth, enty? But Lawd, his gums sho’ is
blue! April’s got ’em too. An’ April’s wife, Leah, is got ’em. Dat’s
dog eat dog, enty? I wish dis boy didn’ had ’em, but I know e won’t
never bite me. Will you, son?”
Breeze felt so shamefaced he shut his mouth tight and hung his head,
and his mother began telling Big Sue about the terrible dry-drought.
How it had worked a lot of deviltry since June. The crops had promised
to make a fair yield, and she kept stirring the earth to encourage them
to hold on to their leaves and blossoms, even if they couldn’t grow.
But the hot sun wouldn’t let a drop of rain fall, no matter how the
clouds sailed overhead full of thunder and lightning. The leaves all
got limp and dry. Sis said they were hanging their heads to pray, but
they stayed limp, then they parched brown and dried up and fell off.
The peas-patch didn’t make enough hay to stuff a mattress. The corn
planted on the hill looked like dried onions. The patch of corn in the
rich low-ground, close by the spring branch, had done little better.
Mid-summer found every blade with its hands shut up tight, trying to
hold on to what little sap the sun left. The grass quit trying to
be green and the cow had nothing to eat but the coarse bitter weeds
growing alongside the spring branch. She was nearly gone dry. What
little milk she gave was skimpy and rank, and turned to clabber soon as
it cooled. The cream was ropy, and the curds tough. When the butter was
churned it wouldn’t gather, but laid down flat like melted lard.
The hens had quit laying and spent the summer panting air in and out of
wide-open mouths, with their wings away off from their bodies, trying
to get cool. The old sow had quit rooting and stayed in the mud-hole
wallowing, until the mud baked into squares like an alligator’s hide.
She had no milk for her pigs, and those that didn’t starve turned into
runts.
Winter was coming. Not a leaf of collards was growing, the few nubbins
of corn left wouldn’t make bread to last until Christmas. God only knew
how she’d feed the children.
When she leaned down to wipe her eyes on her skirt, baby Sonny raised
up his hard little head and jerked it down on her breast with a hungry
butt, and Breeze forgot again and snickered out. Not that he would ever
make sport of Sonny. Never in the world. He loved every crinkly tuft of
wool on the baby’s head, every tiny finger and toe. Even if he didn’t
grow a bit, his lightness made him easy to hold. Breeze loved him
better than all the other children put together because he was small
and weak.
Big Sue broke into a bright smile. “Son, I’m sho’ glad you love to
laugh. I love to laugh my own self.” Her narrow eyes sparkled through
her gold-rimmed spectacles, and her wide loose lips spread across
her face. “De people on Blue Brook is almost quit laughin’ since de
boll-evils come. But boll-evils don’ fret me. I cooks at de Big House.
An’ no matter if de buckra is at Blue Brook or up-North whe’ dey stays
most o’ de time, I has all de victuals an’ money I wants. I has more’n
I kin use. It’s de Gawd’s truth. You’ll sho’ have sin, if you don’ give
me dat boy to raise. Po’ as you is, much mouths as you got to fill,
you ought to be glad to git shet o’ one. You better listen good at all
I say. I’ll train em good. I’ll fatten em up. I’ll learn em to have
manners. Dis same boy might git to be foreman at Blue Brook yet. E
comes from dat foreman breed. You sho’ ought not to stand in his way.
No, ma’am.”
If she wanted a boy-child to raise why didn’t Cousin Big Sue choose
one of the others? Maybe she didn’t like the way their shirts were
unbuttoned, with their naked bodies showing down to their waists. Their
ragged breeches were not only dirty but ripped open.
Breeze’s heart fluttered like a trapped bird’s. Fright had him
paralyzed so he couldn’t run off and hide. His mother looked shrunken,
withered. A few tears fell from her eyes as they stared out of the door.
“I bet you ain’t got decent victuals for supper right now. I got
plenty, yonder home.”
Cousin Big Sue’s eyes were riveted on Breeze, as she declared he’d be
far better off with her than here with his mother, and a house full of
starved-out children, growing up in ignorance and rags. She’d teach him
and train him and raise him to be a fine man, to know how to do all
kinds of work, to make money and wear shoes and fine clothes like her
Lijah.
“April”--she peeped sidewise at the mother when she spoke the
name--“April’s de foreman at Blue Brook, an’ e’ll help me raise Breeze.
E tol’ me so las’ night.”
The mother listened and looked at Sis. Sis slowly nodded back, yes.
Breeze burst out crying. He begged them not to give him away. He didn’t
want to leave home. He wanted to stay right there and be hungry and
ragged. He liked to grow up in ignorance and sin.
The shed-room was open so that Big Sue saw the beds covered with old
quilts worn into holes. She said Breeze would have good quilts and
a feather-bed at her house. The softest lightest feather-bed in the
world. It was stuffed with breast feathers plucked off the wild ducks
she’d picked and cooked for the white folks at the Big House. Breeze
would think he was sleeping on air. She had dry-picked the ducks so
the feathers would be puffy, though scalding would have made picking
easier.
She’d buy him a pair of ready-made pants from the store, and two or
three shirts. She’d get shirts with tails on them like a grown man’s
shirt.
After that first outcry Breeze couldn’t make a sound with his voice,
for a lump rose in his throat and choked him. He’d rather stay at home
and do without bread, or bed.
“Please, please----” he wailed. But his words were dumb and his crying
did no good.
The day was moving. The shadow cast by the china-berry tree had
stretched from the front steps to the four-o’clocks over on the other
side. Big Sue said she must go. A long walk was ahead, and her feet
were not frisky these days.
Breeze could scarcely take in what had happened. He was given away.
When Big Sue closed her warm, wet-feeling hand over his and led him
away down the path that followed the deep, wide black river, he wanted
to scream out, to yell that he didn’t want to go. But he couldn’t. He
couldn’t even stop his feet from stepping side by side with hers, one
step after another.
Something about this big fat woman kept his mouth shut. Even when the
long sandy path was behind, and he could see the ferry-flat, that would
take him across the river, he couldn’t speak, and the throat lump had
swelled to a great big ache in his breast.
When a sudden patter of feet sounded behind him Breeze looked around
expecting to see a fawn go across the road, but instead, there was Sis,
with her arms outspread. She ran straight to him, fast as she could,
and with a sharp little cry hugged him tight. She pressed her soft
cheek, wet with tears, on his and whispered in his ear that he must go
like a man, and try to be a good boy. She held him close for a minute,
then without another word let him go, and ran. She was soon hidden
from his eyes by the bend in the road. He strove for one more glimpse
of her, but he could see nothing but trees and shadows.
They had reached the far end of the island and the dim road turned to
drop down to the river where the flat waited, floating with one end
tied up close to a cypress knee. Nobody was in sight. Big Sue stopped.
“Whe’ is you, Uncle?” She shouted. Echoes answered and reechoed. “Come
on, Uncle! Le’s go!” She waited, then grumbled. “Lawd! Uncle’s too
deef.”
A few steps nearer the river showed a little old man, sitting crumpled
up with his back against a tree. His head was dropped forward, his old
cap awry, showing the milk-white wool on his head. Big Sue broke out
laughing and went close enough to him to yell in his ear. At once he
jumped awake, jerked his chin up off his breast, sat up straight. His
eyes, dazed with sleep, gazed around, groping for the sound. When they
found Big Sue hiding, he joined her laughter with a hearty cackle that
bared his pink toothless gums set in the midst of the bristling white
whiskers that stood out around his jaws and chin, fiercely denying the
bright twinkle in his eyes.
“Takin’ a li’l’ nap, Uncle? I couldn’t sleep on Sandy Island, not to
save life.”
Yes, he admitted, he had dropped off. No use to lie, for he’d been
caught. Sleep was a tricky thing. A sly-moving thief. Always stealing
time from somebody. He gave a wide-mouthed yawn, stretched his arms to
try the sleeves of his long-tailed faded black coat, then strove to get
his crooked legs straightened, to unbend his knock-knees, and get his
stumbling feet clear of the rough footing made by the great puckered
roots around the tree. When he finally reached the clear ground he
appeared to see Breeze for the first time.
“Lawd, Big Sue, you had luck fo’ true! I too glad! Wha’ you’ name, son?
Come shake hands wid Uncle.”
He made a polite bow when he took Breeze’s hand, his dry old face
shone with a kindly smile, his frock coat opened, showing a flowered
waistcoat underneath.
“A good-size boy too. E ought to could plow by next spring. Sho’! How
old you is, son?” Uncle stood back on his heels, straight as a ram-rod,
his eyes sparkling as he praised Breeze’s looks.
“I gwine on twelve, suh,” Breeze answered. But Big Sue put her mouth up
close to the old man’s ear and bawled:
“His mammy say e’s gwine on twelve, but e looks mighty small to me. You
t’ink e’s a runt?”
Uncle’s eyes watched her lips.
“No, no, Sue, dis boy ain’ no runt. You feed em up. E’ll fill out an’
grow. Bread an’ meat all two is been sca’ce on Sandy Island since de
dry-drought hit em las’ summer. You keep de boy’s belly full, an’ dis
time nex’ year you wouldn’ know em.”
“I wouldn’ live on such po’ land!” Big Sue bawled again. “Not me! Dis
sand looks white as sugar. T’ank Gawd, us home yonder is on black land
what kin hold water!”
“You like de black land, enty? No wonder, black as you is, gal!” Uncle
chuckled at his joke.
“Sho’! Gi’ me black land eve’y time! You ain’t so white you’self,
Uncle.”
Uncle missed her last words. He was too busy laughing and talking.
“You like you own color, enty, gal?”
Big Sue nodded and joined in heartily with his hollow clattering
guffaws.
“Gi’ me de black all de time. White t’ings is too weakly!” she shouted
gaily, as Uncle led the way toward the flat. Big Sue followed, holding
Breeze’s hand tight. She picked her way down the short sandy hill with
slow uncertain steps.
“I ain’ use to shoes an’ dey hinders my feet in dis sand,” she
explained loudly, but Uncle was busy starting the flat across the
river. Grunting, straining until veins showed in his forehead, he
finally got the waterlogged hulk to moving by means of a rusty cable
and a curious narrow board with notches cut in one side so it could
clutch the cable tight.
The sun fell lower as they slowly crossed. Colors of the sky on the
still water made a band of flame, of scarlet and purple down the middle
of the dark stream, that spread out into the marshy forest.
The old ferryman paused in his pulling and muttered, as he gazed at
the sunset; then with a bright look at Breeze, and a chuckle, he began
pulling hard again. A flock of crows streaked the sky, going home;
a lone fish-hawk sailed not far behind them; tiny swamp sparrows
twittered and chattered.
Night was coming and the whole world knew it. The wind dropped into a
quiet whispering, waiting for the tide to turn. Every tree and leaf and
bough, even the water itself, was darkening. Squirrels chittered softly
in their nests, a wildcat yeowled gently. Breeze’s heart, that had been
thumping miserably in his breast, now beat up in his throat and the
lump that had risen when he told his mother good-by swelled bigger and
harder than ever. Tears that had been stinging his eyes all the way
began rolling down his cheeks.
He turned his back, and easing a hand stealthily up to his face, tried
to brush them away. Cousin Big Sue mustn’t see him cry. Sis said he
must be a man and try to be good.
He suddenly forgot his sorrow when swarms of tiny, almost invisible
insects rose from nowhere, and settled in his eyes and ears and
nostrils and teeth, with a fierce singing and stinging that was
maddening. He took off his ragged hat and tried to fight them away,
but they ignored its waving. As fast as he killed what seemed to be
handfuls, by crushing them on his face and neck and bare legs, others
took their places. Sand-flies and mosquitoes were eating him up. Cousin
Big Sue had to fight them too, but Uncle was not troubled at all.
“Is de sand-flies pesterin’ yunnuh?” he asked mildly.
“Great Gawd, dey sho’ is!”
“Git some sweat out you’ armpits an’ rub on you’ face. Dat’ll run ’em!”
“Do, Uncle! Fo’ Gawd’s sake! I ain’ no filthy ol’ man like you! I
washes myself!”
“Wha’ dat you say, daughter?”
Big Sue broke into a laugh. “I ain’ say nuttin! Not nuttin!”
Uncle calmly worked on, unconscious of what she said. Sweat trickled
over his wrinkled face, but it kept its pleasant smile. More than once
Big Sue opened her mouth to speak, but closed it without a word, and
her face was as doleful as if, like Breeze, she was lonely and homesick.
Breeze wondered bitterly why he hadn’t run away and hidden down in
the branch where nobody would ever find him? Baby partridges, or new
hatched guineas, will sneak under a leaf and stay there until they die
before they’ll let a stranger find them. Why didn’t he do it? He would
rather die by himself in the woods than be here on his way to live with
this strange woman whose wind was broken.
The sticky mud on the bank had shown no respect for Big Sue’s
wide-laced shoes. It clung to their soles and stained their shiny
tops. The hem of her stiff starched white apron was streaked with dirt.
Everything here was strange and unfriendly. The water and trees, the
tangled vines and rank undergrowth were all dark and scary. Snakes and
alligators and hog-bears and jack-o’-lanterns lived in such places.
More than likely hants and plat-eyes and fever and spirits were thick
all around. Suppose he’d see them now, with his second-sight! He didn’t
want to see anything but his home yonder behind him, and it was too far
to see even the smoke rising out of its low clay chimney. A thick green
dusk had risen up from the earth, cutting off the shore on the other
side of the river.
The cable slapped the water as it drew the flat across. The old man
kept up his grunting and straining. He was not afraid, although he was
so old that the years had dried up the flesh on his crooked bones.
Breeze jumped sharply, startled and bewildered, when, without any
warning, the old man’s laughter cackled out. Looking down where the old
bent forefinger pointed, he caught sight of an alligator which settled
slowly, noiselessly, under the water until two eyes and a nose tip made
three small dark bumps above the smooth surface.
“De alligator see you, son!” the old man squeaked out gleefully, and
Big Sue broke into shouts of laughter.
“Great Gawd,” she cried. “Do look how e gaze at you, Breeze. E mus’ be
hongry! E don’ see how you’s po’ as a snake! You’ li’l’ bones would
pure rattle inside dat big creeter’s belly.”
Stinging homesickness filled Breeze’s heart. Why had he come? Truly,
this was out of his world. But there was no way to turn back. None.
Shrill piercing bird-cries that rose and fell out of the sky answered
something that ached in his heart.
IV
JULIA
Overhead the high thin air swished, beaten by the wings of wild ducks
that flew swiftly across the sky in an even fan-shaped line. Uncle kept
looking up at them. Once when he spoke to them in strange muttered
words, Big Sue observed:
“Lawd, do listen at Uncle! A-talkin’ to dem ducks same as if dey was
speerits!”
The trees leaned dreamily over the water which trembled as the sun
turned it to dark blood. Uncle’s pulling slackened. The flat touched
the firm earth at last.
With amazing nimbleness the old man hopped out and tied it fast to a
tree, his crooked fingers fumbling stubbornly with the frayed rope
until he was satisfied it would hold; then he followed Big Sue and
Breeze up a short sandy climb where the road made a swift bend and ran
underneath great trees whose thick branches lapped overhead, shutting
out all but small white pieces of the sky.
A bony gray mule hitched to a two-wheeled car stood tethered to a limb.
Uncle hobbled to the beast’s head: “Wake up, Julia! Open you’ eyes,
gal! You too love to nod! Dat’s de biggest fault I got to find wid you!
Lula was a wakeful mule! Lawd, yes!”
Big Sue was panting and climbing in over the cart’s wheel, using the
hub for a step. She sat on a board laid across the body. Breeze got in
and sat on the floor. Uncle crawled over the dashboard, and jerking
the rope lines urged Julia to move on.
“Mind, Julia! Don’ git me vexed! I ain’ used to no triflin’ ways!
Lula was pearter’n dis!” Uncle sat up very straight and his tone was
terribly threatening.
Julia shook the gnats out of her ears, then snorted them out of her
nose, but not until Uncle got to his feet and, raising a long dry stick
high as his arm could reach, brought it down on her hip with a powerful
whack did she move out of her tracks.
“Git up, Julia!” He gave her another lick, and she turned slowly about
and got into the sandy road.
Big Sue heaved a weary sigh.
“Julia is de laziest mule I ever seen in my life, Uncle! Whilst you was
a-buyin’ one, whyn’t you git a spry one?”
“Julia ain’ lazy. E’s just careful. Julia knows dis cart ain’ so
strong.”
“I hear-say Julia kicks awful bad sometimes!”
“Who? Julia? No, ma’am! Julia’s kind as kin be!”
“E looks awful old, Uncle.”
“Julia ain’ no more’n ten.”
“How come e front knees is so bent over if e ain’ old?”
“Bent over? Julia’s got to bend e knees to walk, enty?”
“Well do, fo’ Gawd’s sake, lick em an’ make em walk a li’l’ faster. We
wouldn’t git home befo’ to-morrow if you don’t. Lawd, I’m sorry Lula’s
dead.”
“Me too, Big Sue. Now Lula was a mule fo’ true. Lula was de finest mule
ever was on Blue Brook. Julia ain’ got no time wid em. Lula had sense
like people. I miss em too bad. I ruther de boll-evils had eat up all
de cotton on de plantation dan to ’a’ had Lula pizened. I told April
to don’ fetch dat pizen to de place. I knowed somet’ing bad was gwine
happen soon as he done it. But April is a headstrong man. Nobody can’
change him when he gits his mind made up.”
“April tries to be big doins’ like de buckra, enty?”
“No, gal, not like de buckra. April’s done passed by de buckra! April
aims to do like Gawd now!”
“Shut you’ mouth, Uncle! You’s a case!” Big Sue roared with laughter.
“April better quit pizenin’ all dem bugs Gawd put in de cotton!” Uncle
contended.
Big Sue pondered over this, but presently she grinned and slipped a
look at Uncle.
“When Lula died, whyn’t you bought a awtymobile, Uncle? I hear-say you
got plenty o’ money buried all round you’ house.”
“Who? Me? Great Gawd! I ain’ got fi’ cents buried! But if I had a
t’ousand dollars I wouldn’ buy a awtymobile! Not me!”
“How come so?”
“Lawd, dey smells too bad! An’ I seen how dey treats de buckra. Dey
goes sound to sleep on de road any time dey gits ready. Soon’s dey gits
in deep sand whe’ de pullin’ is tight, dey squats right down an’ dozes
off. You can’ lick ’em wid no stick like I licks Julia to wake ’em up.
No, ma’am. You have to set an’ wait on ’em till dey nap is out. Dey kin
dead easy too. I wouldn’ trust to buy one. No, Jedus. Dey breath is
stink as a pole-cat too.”
“Lawd, Uncle, you is a case in dis world! A heavy case!”
Uncle’s eyes twinkled. “You ax me so much a questions, now le’ me ax
you one. How come you’ wind is so short, daughter? You been puffin’
like a steamboat ever since you come up dat li’l’ small hill.”
Big Sue’s hands caught at each other anxiously. “I dunno, Uncle. My
wind is short fo’ true. E’s been short since last Sunday was a week. I
eat a piece o’ possum what was kinder spoilt fo’ my supper last night,
an’ I ain’ been hardly able to travel all day. Spoilt victuals never
did set right in my stomach, somehow. I don’ know how come so.”
As Uncle studied, his eyes snapped. “Sp’ilt possum meat wouldn’ hurt
nobody. You looks to me like you’s conjured. You’ eyes looks strainin’.
You must ’a’ crossed somebody dat Sunday.”
Big Sue’s fat face looked ready to cry. “I ain’ never done nobody a
harm t’ing in my life, Uncle. I stays home all de time. I goes to
church on Sunday, den I comes straight back home. I don’ hardly go to
meetin’ on Wednesday night. I went all de way to Sandy Island to git
dis boy, by I was so lonesome yonder home by myself. Who you reckon
would conjure me, Uncle?”
Uncle shook his head gravely. That was hard to tell. Some people get
mighty mean if you cross them.
“I don’ cross nobody, Uncle.” Big Sue was whimpering. “Not nobody! I
ever was peaceable.”
“Is you an’ Leah friendly dese days? Leah is a mighty jealous ’oman,
Big Sue.” Uncle’s eyes sparkled as they sought Big Sue’s, but she met
them boldly.
“I ain’ got April to study ’bout, Uncle.”
A smile twitched Uncle’s dry wrinkled face. “How ’bout de new town
preacher, daughter? I hear-say you an’ Leah all two is raven ’bout em.
Better mind. De next t’ing you know dat same preacher’ll make you have
sin.”