she’d ask Uncle Isaac to supper to-night. He could tell so many funny
stories. He could explain, exactly, why the grass is green and the sky
is blue. Why the sun shines in the daytime and the moon and stars shine
at night. He knew what the thunder said when it spoke. He could whistle
the first tune the wind ever whistled. One time, the night was a great
big black giant that ran round the sun, trying and trying to catch
the day. Uncle Isaac said so and he knew more about the first men and
women who ever lived than Adam and Eve ever dreamed of. He got it all
at first-hand, by word of mouth, from Africa, where the world itself
was born and a terrible black God made all men black. Big Sue’s narrow
black eyes softened, her voice grew mild, her fat fingers toyed with a
rose. She said Uncle Isaac knew a strange tale about the high-tide and
the evening star, and another about why the morning clouds eclipse the
moon. They were pretty tales, all about love, but Breeze was too small
to hear them.
IX
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Soon after the noon bell rang on Saturday, Big Sue gave Breeze a panful
of dinner, cooked on the hearth where a sleepy fire nodded and dozed
over a few chunks of hard oak wood.
“Hurry an’ eat, son, I want you to go wid me to de sto’. I got a lot
to buy, an’ I’m scared to come home by myself after dark. To-morrow’s
Sunday. I got to buy a kerosene an’ some rations. I’m gwine to git you
some clothes, too.”
As he followed Big Sue down the long avenue Breeze was careful not to
step in her tracks. Outside the gate, the road ran through a gloomy
forest, where tall pines and live-oaks stood among magnolias and cedars
and fragrant myrtle thickets. Big Sue talked about the country as they
walked on.
The old road, now dwindled to this narrow dim way, was once a fine
highway. Important gentlemen and lovely ladies used to drive over it
in fine carriages drawn by fiery horses. The gold and silver on the
harness used to blind people’s eyes the same as summer lightning. Men
who had run the whole country had gone along here many a time, right
where the trees sprung tall in the old dead ruts. Thorny yupon branches
reached out and scratched Breeze on the arm, trying to tear the holes
in his shirt bigger than they were. Big Sue called out greetings, for
numbers of black people were walking the same way. Some in groups. Some
walking by twos and threes. All dressed in their Sunday best, going to
the Landing.
The boat stopped on its way up and down the river twice a week,
bringing supplies and mail from the town in the river’s mouth to the
shabby little stores that squatted along the water’s edge. This row of
dilapidated houses was strung close together, and scrawny, mule-bitten
hackberry trees, some with hollows clear through their bodies, stood in
front of the wide-open doors, making hitching-posts for the restless
beasts that had to be tethered. Many of the mules and oxen stood free
to go if they liked, but they waited, dozing, switching flies, the oxen
chewing cuds.
Flashy colors of hats and ribbons, gay headkerchiefs and curiously
fashioned dresses wove in and out as crowds of black girls and women
tramped up and down the path that ran from one shop to another. Sunday
shoes, dulled with gray dust, made a cheerful squeaking as they blotted
out tracks made in the soft dirt by bare feet.
Some of the men were tall, with bold strong faces. Brawny muscles of
powerful arms and legs could be seen bulging under faded patched shirts
and overalls.
Droll shapes of merry laughter mixed with greeting voices. There were
graceful bows and handshakes and kindly inquiries. Old men, who might
have had great-grandchildren, tottered about importantly on uncertain
legs, bantering the girls with words that belied the white hairs
bristling from their withered ears. White wool peeped through their
tattered wool hats. Rheumatism spitefully twinged their joints and put
a hitch in every gay step. But lively spirits cheered their shriveled
flesh and lightened clouded eyes. Laughter deepened the creases in old
wrinkled faces, and swelled the tendons in ropy wilted throats.
Uncle Isaac and Uncle Bill sat, side by side, on a box outside the
post-office, chewing tobacco and spitting with calm delight. After each
bit of close talk, Uncle Isaac broke into sudden fits of high cracked
laughter, and pounded Uncle Bill gleefully on the back. He was old and
deaf, yet he took a full part in the pattern of Saturday’s joy. Breeze
wished he could hear one of the stories that made him laugh so, but he
knew by Uncle Bill’s bashful look that those stories should never have
been told at all.
“How’s you’ rheumatism?” Uncle Bill shouted, to change the subject.
“E’s better. A lot better dan e been. I been totin’ a’ oak-gall in my
pocket ’stead o’ dem buckeyes. I b’lieve de oak-gall is stronger. Seems
to me like I kin git ’roun’ more better since I made de change.”
Uncle Bill looked doubtful and his head shook a little, but he spat
thoughtfully, then yelled, “I made me a li’l’ pokeberry wine, an’ I
tell you, suh, it’s a fine t’ing! A fine t’ing! I ain’ hardly been
bothered wid any kind o’ misery since I been drinkin’ em.”
Uncle Isaac’s mild old eyes watched every word, for they had to help
his deaf ears understand. “You say elderberry wine?” he queried.
“No! Pokeberry! You know pokeberry, enty? Elderberry wine wouldn’ do
rheumatism no good. My Gawd, no,” Uncle Bill answered, laughing at such
a mistake. “You ain’ turned to no lady, is yuh?”
“No, t’ank Gawd!” Uncle Isaac screeched. “If it wan’t fo’ my crippled
knee, I wouldn’ feel no more’n forty years old. No, suh. Not a bit
more’n forty. April’s gwine git a rattlesnake to make me some snake
tea. Dat’s a good medicine.”
“E might be fo’ true,” Uncle Bill agreed. “I ever did hear say so. But
my stomach is too weak to stand sich a strongness. Rattlesnake tea be
de same as con’trated lye! Better mind how you projec’ wid em, Uncle!”
“Sho’! Sho’! I’m old enough to know medicine ain’ somet’ing fo’ play
wid. I ain’ no chillen, son. I been in dis world a good while.”
The mail was not open yet, and Big Sue waited for it all to be given
out so the storekeeper, who was postmaster too, could let her have what
she wanted. Breeze stood close beside her, watching the black people
who loitered and laughed and talked, as they crowded into the dirty
crank-sided store. Each man invariably paid her a compliment, such as,
“I declare to Gawd, Miss Big Sue, you look sweet,” or, “It do my eyes
good to see you.” Uncle Bill said, “I’m gwine buy you a treat soon as
de mail is finished.”
The men took off their hats and pulled a forelock and drew one foot
back to make their bows. The women made easy graceful curtsies. Big Sue
whispered to Breeze that he must pull his foot and bow too. Look at
Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac. He must learn manners. But Breeze hadn’t
the heart to try here where so many would see him.
Outside, near the road, Brudge, a black boy as ragged as Breeze, but
apparently happy, parched peanuts in a round, black, fire-heated oven.
Over and over he patiently turned the sooty cylinder with a black iron
handle, all the time chattering and grinning, as from time to time
he dished out paper sacks-full, not only for the children, but for
grown men and women who bought them to eat right then. The smell of
the peanuts was delicious, but it was almost smothered by the scent of
fried fish, which came from a shack near by.
Big Sue said it was a restaurant, and Breeze was craning his neck to
see inside when April took him by the hand and led him in, while Big
Sue, laughing as she came, walked behind them. The afternoon light,
aided by a large kerosene lamp, whose glass shade was dim with smoke,
shone on the white oil-cloth that covered several small tables. Big
Sue said, “Set down, Breeze,” and he dropped into a chair by a table.
He ate big thick slices of store-bought baker’s bread that the boat
had brought from town and squares of fried fish that Big Sue said were
caught in the sea by regular fishermen.
April had a powerful look. He was very tall, his forehead high, his
mouth straight and wide, his bony chin and cheek-bones set forward. He
left most of his good bread broken all up but uneaten on the greasy tin
plate.
“Whyn’t you eat you’ victuals, April?” Big Sue asked him.
“I ain’ so hongry, not dis evenin’,” he answered, smiling and with his
glowing eyes on Breeze.
Reaching a long hand down in his pants pocket, he took out a piece of
paper money and gave it to her. “Buy de boy some clothes, Big Sue. Feed
em good, too. I want em to grow.”
Big Sue took it and told Breeze to go outside and watch the people
until she came.
* * * * *
Some of the women and girls were fat and funny-looking, but others
were slender, with well-formed bodies. All of them looked at Breeze
searchingly, some slyly, but most of them with brazen eyes. Many of the
older women were smoking small clay pipes, and when they laughed their
teeth showed brown, stained with tobacco.
Young men strutted past them, with hats cocked on one side of their
heads. Some caught the girls’ hands and held them and offered to treat
them. Bottles of coca-cola and bags of candy rivaled peanuts and the
small sweet-cakes, just come on the boat from town in a big wooden box
that opened like a trunk. As Breeze gazed, his mouth watered at the
sight of so many good things to eat.
Big Sue kept talking to April, who stood strong as an oak, his eyes
riveted on her face. She looked uneasily at the door when he took her
hand. As she drew it away he laughed, then spat far outside and left
her.
Pulling up her skirt, Big Sue got a handkerchief out of her underneath
pocket, and untying the knot in its corner, added the piece of paper
money to what it already held. She gave Breeze two pennies. “Go buy you
a cake, son,” she bade him. Then she halted him with, “Wait, gi’ me
back dem pennies. Here’s a nickel. Git t’ree. I want one o’ dem cakes
myself.”
Forgetting his fear in his eagerness for the sweet-cake, Breeze ran
into the store next door. Every man and woman who had come to do
serious purchasing carried a crocus sack into which the things were
crammed: groceries, cloth, shoes, were all crowded in on one another.
Those who bought kerosene had it in quart glass bottles tied with
strings around the necks.
Breeze had never seen so many red sweaters in his life. They were in
all shapes and sizes and conditions. Some quite new. Some patched and
faded. Some with rolled collars. Some with frayed elbows. They were
worn with blue overalls and khaki breeches, white aprons and full
skirts and short skimpy dresses. Old and young wore them jauntily, as a
sort of badge of Saturday’s joy.
The doorway was hidden as the happy people pressed in and out of the
store. The sidewalk, thick flaked with bits of white oyster shell,
became trashy with empty peanut hulls, and scraps of tissue-paper torn
from candy kisses.
Everybody looked happy and light-hearted. Breeze envied them their easy
friendly ways, their gaiety. As he stood apart, looking on, listening
to them, he felt more homesick than ever. Even the sweet-cake, that
dropped rich crumbs on the floor with every bite he took, couldn’t make
him forget that he was a stranger here.
The postmaster called out Big Sue’s name, and there was a dead silence,
then much laughter. “Who? Big Sue Goodwine? My Gawd! Who dat wrote she
a letter?” Breeze was sent in a hurry to call her to come get it. There
was much chaffing. “It’s de sheriff, Big Sue. Dat’s who.” And, “You got
so much beaux you can’ member who is home an’ who’s gone off.”
When Big Sue stumbled in half out of breath, they called out to her,
“Hurry up an’ read em. Le’ we hear de news!”
But Big Sue sucked her teeth and said, “I don’ tell ev’ybody my
business. Not me!” She took the letter and put it deep down in her
apron pocket where not a soul could even see it.
The mail was all given out at last, and the buying was done. The
threads of color unraveled as the negroes left the stores and walked
away down the road, some young couples hand in hand. Big Sue was among
the last to start buying, for she had spent the time talking with her
friends. She waited until the store was almost empty, then she chose a
pair of pants and two shirts for Breeze, holding the garments up to his
body to get the right size. She gave him the package to hold, saying,
“Walk roun’ an’ look at de store. I want to git my letter read.”
The store was almost clear of people, but its air was still thick with
the acrid smell of hot sweaty bodies. Breeze knew few of the things
offered for sale, for the rickety shelves were crammed with much
besides cloth and shoes. He recognized the gay paper-covered tin cans
of salmon, but the little bottles of cologne labeled “Hoyt’s German”
were strangers to him. He couldn’t read, so he couldn’t tell that paper
covers on a big batch of china jars claimed in emphatic black words
that they held a cure for the darkness of dusky skins, or that the few
bottles left on a shelf that was lately full would straighten the kinks
out of crinkly hair.
Heavy sacks of green coffee berries were piled high between paunchy
barrels of moist brown sugar, and smaller, neater barrels of pure white
flour. Bolts of scarlet flannel waited to make garments that would keep
the cold from old painful knees and shoulders. Rolls of gay outing and
checked homespun for dresses were out on the counter. Piles of strong
brogans were only a few steps away from boxes of Sunday shoes. Kits
of chewing tobacco stood near a lot of little cloth bags full of Bull
Durham. Cakes with pink and white icing, and red-striped sticks of
candy were under a glass case along with black and white ball thread
and needles and fish-hooks.
The big kerosene lamp, tied with a wire to a rafter overhead, filled
the room with a pale yellow flare of light that showed the floor,
whitened with cornmeal, and spattered with stains of greasy salt that
fell on it whenever fat chunks of cured hog-meat were taken out of the
barrels and passed over the counter to the customers.
When at last nobody else was in the store, Big Sue reached down in her
pocket and got out her letter. “Please, suh, read em fo’ me. I’m ravin’
to know who’s wrote me a letter,” she asked. The storekeeper was a
kind-looking white man with blue eyes and red skin, and a mouth stained
at both corners with tobacco. He wiped his hand on his trousers, then
took the letter and tore it open and took out a single sheet covered
with pencil writing.
“It’s from Silas Locust. He’s your own husband, isn’t he?”
“Great Gawd!” Big Sue fairly panted. She put the fat hand up to her
breast and held it there for a minute before she could get breath
enough to say, “Do hurry, suh. Tell me wha’ dat nigger is writin’ to me
’bout.”
The letter said Silas was in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was a
preacher now, and married to a big fine-looking yellow woman, who had
three nice children for him. But lately his mind kept turning back to
Big Sue and Blue Brook Plantation. He wanted to see them. He was coming
home, in short. Big Sue repeated the words “in short” two or three
times. She seemed to have no feeling against Silas at all, or against
the fine-looking yellow woman he had married.
When the storekeeper handed the letter back to her, saying, “You may
as well get married, too, now that Silas has a wife,” she gave a
shamefaced giggle at the idea and said she couldn’t marry, not with a
living husband. The storekeeper said she needn’t laugh, she’d do it
yet, and she owned that she had thought about it a little.
The last time she went on an excursion to town, a man who had a nice
restaurant took her to ride in a painted hack, and said he’d buy her an
organ if she’d marry him. They could run the restaurant together. (She
giggled again.) But now she was glad she hadn’t done it, since Silas
was a preacher, and he’d be a-coming to see her, in short. Her sides
shook, and her round eyes rolled, until a serious thought came to her
mind, and she inquired, soberly, “Did Silas say if he’s Runnin’ Water
Baptist, or a Stale Water?” The storekeeper said Silas hadn’t mentioned
either one, and Big Sue pondered over it until the white man asked her
if Silas came back what she’d do with all her other beaux. Jake and
Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac, too, and what about the foreman, April?
“Great Gawd! Do hush!” Big Sue shouted with clamorous laughter, as each
name was mentioned. “You make me too shame. I don’ care nothin’ ’bout
none o’ dem old mens! Not me! An’ April just got me to fetch dis li’l’
boy here to Blue Brook. E’s April’s own, by a ’oman on Sandy Island.”
But the storekeeper was in earnest, and he said, “If I were you,
whether Silas ever comes home or not, I’d leave April alone. Leah will
get you if you don’t. You’ve forgotten her gums are blue, haven’t you?
She’ll bite you some day, and what will happen then? You’ll die, and
those white folks will have to hunt another cook when they come to Blue
Brook to shoot ducks. Better be careful. Blue gums are worse than a
rattlesnake bite. Leah’s not going to stand outside that restaurant and
see you eating bread and fish with her husband inside, without doing
something about it. I heard her say so a while ago.”
Big Sue tossed her head. “Humph! I ain’ scared o’ Leah. Fat as e is,
I could squeeze em to deat’ in one hand.” She opened and clenched her
powerful fists. Years of kneading dough had given strength to her
thick wrists and round fingers, for all the soft cushion of flesh that
covered them.
It was late and Big Sue and Breeze took a short-cut by a path that
ran through the woods, then by a smooth planted field where new oats
sprouted green tips and covered the earth. They looked tender against
the dark even green of the trees. The evening light was thin and
misty. Shadows and colors and forms all melted into a cool pale dusk.
Big Sue warned, “Watch out for snakes, son. I can’ smell good. A fresh
cold is got my nose kinder stop up. A cold ever did hinder my smellin’.
I must go stand round de stables a while to-morrow. Dat’ll broke up a
cold quicker’n anyt’ing else.”
X
THE BARNYARD
Early Sunday morning Uncle Isaac came to ask Big Sue for an old
worn-out sieve. Uncle Bill was having a bad time. Hags rode all the
horses at the barnyard every night God sent. Every morning the manes
and tails were so tangled up it took Uncle Bill hours to get them
greased and smoothed out again.
Red sunsets promised a killing frost and the white folks would be
likely to come any time after that. Bill had the horses’ coats all
rubbed down like satin, every fetlock trimmed, the bridles and saddles
in good order, but the hags were deviling him to death. Big Sue said
she had already given Uncle Bill a string of red pepper pods and a
straw broom too, to hang up on the stable door. If they didn’t stop the
hags, what good could a sieve do?
Uncle explained to her how hags are fools about counting things. They
won’t go inside a door until they count the boards on the door-facing,
and the nails, then they’d count all the pepper pods and the straws in
the broom, and have time enough left before day to ride the horses, and
plait their manes and tails. But a sieve would stop them, for by the
time all the holes in the sieve were counted, those hags would be weary
and ready to go home and rest.
Big Sue gave him the sieve and he invited Breeze to walk with him to
the barnyard where Uncle Bill had a nice little milking goat to give
him. Breeze could break it to ride and drive, and the milk would be
good to make him grow.
Breeze was delighted. All his life he had wanted a goat. But Big Sue
shook her head. A milking goat wouldn’t do for Breeze. If he drank goat
milk he’d be ruined for life. He hated soap and water already, and
goat’s milk would make him worse. He’d never wash at all if he drank
it. Breeze begged her to change her mind. If she’d let him have a goat
he’d wash every night God sent. But she was firm. She had seen too many
boys grow up into filthy men just from drinking goat’s milk when they
were young. She wanted Breeze to be clean and nice so he could play
with young Cap’n when he came home to spend the winters.
She changed the subject by asking Uncle Isaac how far guinea fowls
could count. He said they could count five. She’d always thought that
too, but lately she’d left five eggs in her guinea nest and they
wouldn’t lay in it again.
“Did you put you’ hand in de nest when you took de eggs out?” Uncle
Isaac asked. “Guineas kin smell. If dey smell you’ hand, dey’ll change
dey nest.” Big Sue looked hard at Breeze. She had cautioned him about
that and he declared he had been careful to take the eggs out with a
long-handled spoon.
“Leave six eggs in de nest, Big Sue. I know a guinea can’ count to more
dan six.”
“No, I gwine lick Breeze, dat’s wha’ I’m gwine do. He took dem eggs out
wid his hand, and I know it.”
“No, daughter, no! You’s too hard-hearted!” He looked at her with
twinkling eyes. “You treat em too bad. I’m sorry for em. An’ Bill’s
gwine crazy if you don’ marry em! You ought not to plague we so!”
“Who? Me?”
“Sho’! You. Po’ Bill’s mighty nigh ruint his mouth tryin’ to be
stylish an’ wear teeth on Sundays to please you.”
She giggled, then she squalled. “Do hush, Uncle! You know I got a
livin’ husband right yonder to Wilmington.”
“Silas don’ count. Not now. When a man’s gone seven years, e don’
count. I’d risk dat.”
“Shucks!” Her tone was scornful. “It’ll take a younger man dan you or
Uncle Bill to git me. You can put dat in you’ pipe an’ smoke it too.”
“We’ll see,” Uncle Isaac responded cheerfully. “Droppin’ water kin
broke stone.”
As he turned away, Big Sue went up close and shouted in his ear that
Breeze’s palate was down, and she was going to ask Maum Hannah to get
it up for him.
“It might be de boy’s just got a li’l’ fresh cold. If e is, e ought to
work round de stables. Dat’ll broke a cold, if it ain’t got too strong
a holt on you. Let’s go by de stables now. Git you’ hat, Breeze.”
Uncle Isaac wanted Breeze to see him hang up the sieve for the hags.
There was a right way and a wrong way to do such things. Uncle Bill
loved those horses, yes Lord. Bill knew every horse and mule and cow
and goat and sheep by name. All the grown hogs, too. When he called
them they came. They knew he loved them. Uncle Bill was as tender with
little new-born things as if they were human babies. But he couldn’t
stand disobedience. He had no mercy on things that did wrong.
Alongside the path were wide-spread grape arbors. A double row of
gnarled knotted fig trees, full of yellow leaves and belated ripe
fruit, let rich honey ooze from tiny rifts in blue and brown and purple
skins, tempting bees to plunder.
Uncle Bill had tried to teach the chickens to sleep in a fowl-house,
but the younger ones would slip out here and roost in these fig trees.
Uncle Isaac pointed to a handful of white bloody feathers that lay
scattered over the grass. An owl caught the best white pullet last
night. She would roost in the top of the fig tree, no matter how often
she was shooed out. Foolish chicken. But Bill would get that owl.
Sooner or later he’d get him. Bill was a dangerous man to cross. Uncle
Isaac was emphatic.
Putting a kind hand on Breeze’s shoulder, he said, “You ax Bill to le’
you go wid him an’ l’arn how to call a owl. Bill kin call crows and
wild turkeys an’ alligators too. E’ll larn you all dat, son, if you
speak a good word for him to you’ Cun Big Sue. Bill is raven ’bout dat
lady. Pure raven.”
“Do hush you’ fool talk, Uncle!” Big Sue chided, with a pleased laugh.
“I ain’ got Uncle Bill to study ’bout.”
The great square barns were filled with corn and hay. A long narrow
building cut into many stalls made a shelter for the mules and horses.
As they opened the wide heavy gate, Uncle Bill came out of the barn
door with a pitchfork full of hay on his shoulder. He was lining out
two lines of a hymn to sing, but broke off in a laugh of delight when
he spied them.
“Why, Miss Big Sue! Great Gawd! I too glad fo’ see you! Lawd! Look a’
de li’l’ boy.” He laughed again with pleasure.
“I got de sieve fo’ de hags, Bill, an’ I bring Breeze an’ Big Sue to
hear you talk to de animals an’ de chickens. All two is got a fresh
cold. Take ’em inside de stables first.”
Uncle Bill invited them to come look inside the stables. “I got ’em
all clean, an’ full o’ de nicest pine straw beddin’ ever was. I’m too
sorry. Dey wouldn’ help you’ cold, not a bit, but come look at ’em,
anyhow.”
“Whe’s de run-at cow?” Big Sue asked.
Uncle Bill laughed at her fear. The run-at cow was in the pasture--she
needn’t be scared. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her.
In the long row of stables, bars of sunlight shining through the cracks
were blurred with dust raised by hens, roosters and little chickens,
scratching vigorously in the crisp dry straw. The cocks were saying
brave things, the hens sang contentedly as they looked for the grains
of corn and oats hidden under wisps of fodder and hay and straw.
“Scratch, chillen, scratch,” Uncle Bill encouraged them. “De mules will
come in to dinner befo’ long, den you-all’ll have to go home.”
“Make dem go home now,” Big Sue requested. “I wan’ see how you rules
dem, so I kin rule Breeze.”