“We won’ be here den,” she persisted.
“How come you sends de chickens home when de mules come?” Breeze asked.
“So dey won’t git trompled under foot, son. De hens is greedy, an’ a
mule’s foot is blind. Whilst de mules is chawin’ an’ droppin’ grains,
dey feet’ll step on a hen same as on pine straw.”
“Send de chickens home now,” Big Sue asked again with such a warm smile
that he put down his fork full of hay and, standing in the stable door,
waved his big arms and shouted:
“Shoo outa here, chickens! Git on home! Be quick as you kin! I hate to
git a stick after you to-day! Dis is Sunday! Git on out an’ go home!”
The chickens became terribly excited. Some of them huddled in the
straw, trying to hide, others cackled and ran. The hens with little
chickens clucked briskly and hurried away, for Uncle Bill’s face was
hard until every feather was out of sight.
The straw lay still. The dust whirling in the sunlight took its time
and dawdled. Stable flies, with shiny wings and short fat bodies,
strutted out in buzzing circles. Uncle Bill’s practised eyes spied a
scarlet comb away under a trough, far back in a corner.
“Who dat hidin’?” he demanded sternly, and a shamefaced young cockerel
cackled out in terror.
“Didn’ I told you to go home?” Uncle Bill asked him. “You ain’ know yet
you got to mind me? I ain’ got time to be foolin’ wid such as you. No,
suh! I’m too busy.”
The poor frightened creature made a few weak gaggles and tried his best
to hide.
“You’ head will be chop off to-morrow. I’d do it now if it wa’n’t
Sunday. Dem I can’ rule, I kills. I don’ mean to mistreat nothin’, Miss
Big Sue, but I got to be strict.”
He sighed as he came out and closed the door behind him. “Dat’s a fine
young rooster. I was gwine to keep him for seed. I sho’ hates to kill
him.”
“I wouldn’ kill him. Not dat nice rooster. You got to scuse a chicken
sometimes.”
“I done already scused em. Dat’s how come e’s so spoilt. E’s ruint.
If I let him live now e’d keep me worried all de time,” Uncle Bill
contended.
“Fetch em to me an’ I’ll fry em nice fo’ you!” Big Sue offered so
kindly that Uncle Bill declared, “Now, dat makes me feel a lot better.”
“Show us you’ hogs.” Big Sue smiled sweetly. “I wan’ to see if you got
one as fine as my Jeems.”
“I got fine ones, but deys all out in de pasture.”
“You kin call dem in, enty?” she persisted, and Uncle Bill gave in with
a happy laugh.
First he went by the open door and got a few ears of corn, then on to
the edge of the short slope, down by the water, where he drew a deep
breath that filled his great lungs. He gave a loud mellow call: “Melia!
Oh, Melia!” Before the echoes had died away, to the right and the left
was a hurried swishing of water, an eager grunting, the sucking sound
of quick feet lifted out of mud.
“Dey’s a-comin’!” he laughed, then he called again, “Come on, Melia!
Make haste, gal!”
His old face softened as they came in sight, crowds of them. The little
pigs squealed with delight as they hurried to get to him. The older
ones moved more slowly, for their bodies were heavy, but all the time
they grunted encouragement to their children. Uncle Bill’s big hand let
a few white grains of corn trickle through his fingers and fall near
his feet. Their quick eyes saw, and running forward they snapped up the
bits greedily, pushing one another, crowding, sniffing at Uncle Bill’s
dusty brogan shoes, hunting for more.
Uncle Bill lifted the wide sagging gate and opened it wide. “Come on
een!” he said, and the gluttonous crowd trooped inside. When every one
had passed he threw them whole ears on the ground. As they scrunched
the grains and smacked over them, he reached down and patted one on
the head, scratched another’s back with a cob, said some kind thing to
another. It was plain he loved them.
“Dese is my chillen,” he said to Breeze, with a kind smile filling his
soft black eyes.
“Dey is fine chillen, too,” Big Sue praised them. “Uncle Bill’s hogs
is de finest in dis whole country. I was dat proud when he brought
me Jeems, yonder in my pen, home. Uncle Bill raises fine hogs an’
nobody can’ cure hams, or make sausages to taste like de ones he fixes.
Nobody.”
“Well, I tries my best.”
It was a wonderful sight to Breeze. The shade between the fence and
the water held hogs of every shape and size. Huge and black, with soft
silky hair, they lolled, resting, panting, feeding their young.
“Git up, Ellen, an’ come here,” Uncle Bill called out to one of them.
“Le’ Miss Big Sue see you an’ you’ chillen good.” The words were hardly
out of his mouth before a great beast roused and lazily got to her feet
and walked toward him, followed by her children. Uncle Bill took an ear
of corn from his pocket, shelled a few grains and tossed them over the
ground, which made the pigs come faster.
“Po’ Ellen! E’s blind. I had to stick e eyes out. Lawd! I did hate to
do it!”
“How come so?” Big Sue asked him.
“Ellen would catch de chickens an’ eat em. A deer couldn’ beat Ellen
runnin’. A hen couldn’ git away f’om em nohow. Ellen would swallow down
a mother an’ whole brood o’ biddies quicker’n I could swallow a pint
o’ raw oysters. It’s de Gawd’s truth. E’d eat de mammy an’ all. I had
to hinder em somehow. I didn’ wan’ to kill a fine hog like Ellen, so
I hottened a wire till it was red an’ jobbed it in all two o’ e eyes.
Ellen can’ see how to run chickens down, not no mo’. Po’ ol’ gal!”
“How come some pigs is different f’om de rest?” Breeze asked. “How come
some is red an’ dey ma is black?”
Uncle Bill and Big Sue exchanged smiles. “May as well say, Uncle Bill.
Boy-chillen has to know sich t’ings.”
The old man smiled behind his rough hand and said, “De ma’s name is
Melia, son.”
Uncle Isaac drew nearer to hear, and Uncle Bill told how Melia had been
the apple of his eye since the day she was born. He planned to have her
raise the finest litters ever born on this plantation. But Melia was a
headstrong person. She had a mind of her own.
Uncle Isaac chuckled and murmured, “Dat’s de Gawd’s truth!”
Jack, the boar heading the herd, would take a prize anywhere. He had
tremendous size, yet he was so well-bred that in spite of his bulk his
skin was smooth, his hair soft and fine. He had every mark of a perfect
Poland-China.
Uncle Isaac agreed emphatically. “Yes, e sho’ is. Sho’! Sho’!”
But when Melia grew up she would have nothing to do with Jack. She
didn’t like him. Uncle Bill tried to encourage her to do her duty, but
Jack wasn’t to her taste, and that’s all there was to it. No amount of
coaxing could make her change.
Last spring Uncle Bill made up his mind Melia would have to be killed.
He hated to do it. The very thought cut at his heart-strings. But there
was no use to keep Melia unless she had children. He’d have killed
her then, but she was too large to be killed in hot weather. Her ham
couldn’t be cured properly, and so she was left to be made into meat
this winter.
Uncle Isaac broke out laughing. Lord, Bill was a doleful soul when he
fixed on Melia’s death. Uncle Bill nodded:
“It’s de Gawd’s truth! I pure had to go off an’ pray, I was so fretted
over Melia! My prayers was answered, too. Dey sho’ was!” He said soon
after his sorrowful decision, he went to the pasture one morning and
found a strange sight: the pasture fence had been broken down, and a
low-down, ornery, red razor-back hog was inside. He was dirty and lean
and ugly. His red hair was stiff and coarse and caked up with mud. He
was a sneaky, no-mannered beast. But Melia liked him.
Before many moons Melia had a fine litter of pigs. Red pigs, that took
their color from the father Melia chose for them, a scrubby, ugly
no-account hog that came from God knows where.
“Dey’s fine pigs, dough. Dey’s out-growin’ all de rest. Melia’s a case.
A heavy case.” His proud chuckle ended with a sigh. “I reckon I’m too
easy on Melia. She played a bad trick on me. I know I ought not to let
em do so. But I’m gittin’ old an’ soft-hearted, an’ Melia knows it.
Melia’s got too much sense. God ought not to ’a’ made Melia a hog. No.
Dat was a mistake. Ought I to ’a’ killed Melia, Uncle!”
“No. No,” Uncle Isaac said gently. “You couldn’ be hard, not on Melia.
Melia had a right to choose her man. Ev’y ’oman ought to could do dat,
enty?”
Big Sue laughed and curtsied good-by, after thanking Uncle Bill for
showing Breeze the barnyard creatures, and Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac
both pulled back a foot and bowed and touched their bald foreheads,
where forelocks should have been.
With a happy heart Breeze followed Big Sue on the path that swung along
the edge of an open field, close to tall pines whose dark plumy tops
lifted high above the red ripened leaves fluttering on bushes at their
feet. The dogwood was crimson; haws and wild plum thickets gay scarlet.
Partridges whistled. Across a reaped field larks rose and called out
plaintively to one another from the stubble. High vines of black
muskadines perfumed the air. Persimmon trees bent with fruit waiting
for frost to make it mellow and sweet. The sun beat down hot, but
summer had given way to fall.
The road to the Quarters, strewn with fallen leaves that almost hid its
ruts and holes, ran past sugar-cane patches where green blades rustled
noisily over purple stalks. Sweet potatoes cracked the earth under
vines shading the long rows. Pindars were blooming. Okra bushes were
full of creamy red-hearted blossoms and pointed green pods. Butter-bean
vines clambered over the hand-split clapboard garden fences that kept
pigs and chickens out of small enclosures, where wide-leaved collards
waited for frost to make them crisp, and scarlet tomatoes spotted
straggly broken-down bushes.
Birds chirruped everywhere. The fields murmured in the soft wind.
The Quarters, although made up of houses that tottered and leaned
crank-sided, seethed with noise and life.
A large wagon, drawn by two mules, and with new planks laid across its
high body for seats, rolled by, filled with church-goers. A flutter
of hand-waves and a chorus of “good mawnin’s” greeted Big Sue as she
stopped to let it pass.
“How come you ain’ gwine to church to-day, Big Sue?” somebody called
out.
“I ain’ no Still-water Baptist, gal! I wouldn’ go to hear no
Still-water preacher. No, ma’am!” she answered. “Jedus was baptized in
de River Jurdan, an’ dat’s runnin’ water. Still water gits stale an’
scummy too quick. It can’ wash away sin! No! Sin needs runnin’ water.”
The Quarters’ houses, long, low, shabby buildings, had two front doors
apiece. Each house sheltered two families, a huge chimney in the middle
marking the division. Moss adorned the gray shingles of the sagging
roofs. Steps were worn thin. Rust reddened the old hand-wrought hinges
of the leaning doors and gave a creak to wry window shutters.
Maum Hannah lived in the house where she and her mother and her
grandmother were born. As they approached it a miscellany of goats and
chickens and pigs and dogs and half-clothed little children scampered
away from the door-step. The door was ajar, but a chorus of voices
called out:
“Maum Hannah ain’ home. E’s yonder down de street!”
“Come look inside de door at Maum Hannah’s nice house,” Big Sue pushed
the door wider open with a stick, so Breeze could see. The huge chimney
had big strong black andirons, where heavy logs of wood were slowly
being charred in two by a sleepy fire. All kinds of pots sat around on
the clean white sand of the hearth. One pot on a pot-hook that reached
out from the chimney’s back had steam spurting from under its cover,
filling the room with a savory smell. Big Sue sniffed. “Dat goat-meat
stew is seasoned mighty high,” she said. “De floor was scoured wid
mighty strong lye soap, too.”
The thing that took Breeze’s eye was the tiny black child that sat on
the hearth warming its bare feet on the naked sooty pots. He knew it
was Emma, but if he had not seen her before he could never have told
if she were a girl or a boy, her small features were so sharp and her
clothes so shapeless.
“Looka, Emma!” Big Sue called out with a laugh, and the child’s small
head perched on one side, one round black eye narrowed and a broad grin
showed her two rows of milk-white teeth.
“You’s Maum Hannah’s heart-string, enty, Emma?”
But Emma didn’t answer a word.
Big Sue said Emma’s mother was dead and she had no daddy, but she
was worth a lot, for she had power to cure sickness and sorrow by the
touch of her hand. That was because she had never looked on her daddy’s
face. Somebody stepped over her when she was a baby; that was why she
had never grown much. She’d never grow, although she sat there on the
hearth roasting potatoes and eating them all day long.
All children loved to come here and sit inside Maum Hannah’s chimney on
the end of a log. Big Sue used to sit there and watch Maum Hannah put
ash-cake in the ashes to cook, and sweet potatoes to roast. The fire
never went out in Maum Hannah’s fireplace. It’s bad luck for a fire
to die in a house and this fire had never gone out altogether since
it was first started by Maum Hannah’s great-grandpa, who was brought
from across the sea to be a slave. The first houses ever built here
were sheds to keep the fires from the rain and wind, for nobody had any
matches in those days. The fires that burned in all the Quarter houses
came from that same first fire that had burned for years and years.
It was a lot older than anybody on the plantation. Big Sue’s fire was
a piece of it. It burned hotter than match fire. Steadier too. It’s
unlucky to start a new fire with a match. Breeze must learn how to bank
the live coals with ashes every night, so the next morning they can
be uncovered and started into a blaze. If the fire goes out, borrow a
start from Maum Hannah, or one of the neighbors who have the old fire.
Maum Hannah’s cabin was very clean. Newspapers were pasted all over
the walls, the dark naked rafters almost hidden by fringed papers
that swung from the barrel hoops on which they were tied. A few split
hickory chairs sat near the small pine table, a water-shelf beside the
door held a wooden bucket and a long-handled gourd. The wide boards of
the floor were scrubbed until they were almost white, and a string of
eggshells by the chimney dangled in the draught. They’d been hung there
to make the hens lay.
Between the two rows of dingy old houses that squatted low under the
great oak trees the hot sunshine brought rank scents up out of the
earth. Odors of pig-pens and cow-stalls and fowl-houses and goats,
mixed with Hoyt’s German cologne and the smell of human beings.
Children were playing around almost every door-step. Plump.
Bright-eyed. Boys with loose-hanging, ripped-open trousers, their
black bodies showing where shirt-fronts lay wide open. Girls with
short, ragged skirts flapping around slim prancing legs. Babies cried.
Tethered goats bleated. Penned pigs squealed. Men, women, some in
every-day clothes, others in their Sunday best, sat on the door-steps,
leaned out of windows, lolled on the bare earth, where there was
sunshine. Talking. Parading. Laughing. Some of them combing and
wrapping hair, others putting shoe-strings in shoes, or smoking and
idling.
As Big Sue passed, she bowed or curtsied, and called out hearty good
mornings that fell limpid on the lazy hum of voices.
* * * * *
“Whe’s Maum Hannah?” Big Sue asked, and everybody pointed to the last
house where an old woman sat in a chair in the yard in front of a
doorway, near a group of black children playing in the dirt.
A large clean white cloth, folded into three corners, lay across her
head and shaded her eyes from the sun. Her arms were crossed, and each
narrow flat bare foot rested on a brick. Side by side they slept,
almost hidden by the wide white apron that fell stiffly from her lap in
starched folds, with corners that reached the ground.
“Maum Hannah don’ trust de ground. E won’t as much as let her feet
sleep on it. I bet e’s been awake all night, an’ e’s makin’ up for lost
time now.”
Maum Hannah’s face bore a strong resemblance to Uncle Isaac’s. It
was smoother and had smaller features, but the same rich brown tone
was on the black skin. The wool that edged out from under her black
headkerchief was snow-white too, but her face was almost unlined,
except for the wrinkles that smiles had marked around her mouth.
The little black children stared and giggled as Big Sue went tripping
forward and put both her fat hands over Maum Hannah’s eyes:
“Guess who, Mauma!”
“Oh, I know you good,” Maum Hannah answered. “Dis is my Big Sue. I went
to sleep a-thinkin’ ’bout you, gal. My mind must ’a’ called you till
you come.”
“I declare!” Big Sue mirated. “I knowed it! I called you’ name, too, in
de night. Dis is de boy-chile I fetched f’om Sandy Island. I want you
to tie up his palate lock. E coughs so bad at night I can’ sleep.”
Maum Hannah gave Breeze a warm kindly smile, and her keen black eyes,
deep-set underneath her bony brow, scanned him swiftly from his head to
his heels. “Lawd, son, I too glad to see you. De last time we met, you
wasn’ no bigger’n my hand. How come you’ palate is down? I too sorry.
Did you know I had to gi’ you de first spankin’ you ever had? Lawd, I
had to pop you hard to make you holler! I hope you is hard to make cry,
yet.”
The little black children playing in the dirt around her forgot all
about their games, so engrossed were they in Breeze, and what Maum
Hannah said. They forgot their manners, too, until she prompted them.
“Yunnuh speak to you’ Cousin Big Sue. Git up! Stan’ up straight an’
pull you’ foot an’ bow nice! Dis li’l’ boy is yunnuh cousin, too. E
come f’om over de river. Tell him good mawnin’. Gawd bless him!”
There was great scrambling and giggling, and many shy “good mawnin’s.”
The sleek bodies were half-clad, but the whiteness of teeth, and
brightness of eyes made up for lack of garments.
Maum Hannah’s own teeth were strong and sound, and set in deep
blue gums which stressed their yellow tinge. The cane stem of a
rank-smelling pipe showed above the top of her apron pocket.
“Lawd, you’ pipe do smell pleasant!” Big Sue sighed. “But looka my
li’l’ boy. Who does e favor?”
Maum Hannah’s warm wrinkled hand gently lifted Breeze’s chin so the sun
could shine full on his face. “Dis boy is de very spit o’ April. Gawd
bless em, all two!”
Breeze felt that her wise old eyes took account of everything he was.
No secret could be hidden from them.
“I glad you got a li’l’ boy-chile fo’ raise. I too love boy-chillen
myself, even if dey does bring most of de trouble what’s een dis world.
My old mammy used to say ev’y boy-chile ought to be killed soon as it’s
born.”
“I ruther have boy-chillen dan gal-chillen,” Big Sue said. “But I know
good and well boy-chillen does bring most o’ de misery dat’s een dis
world.”
Maum Hannah nodded sorrowfully, as if she weighed Big Sue’s words, then
she spoke slowly:
“I dunno how come mek so.
“Gawd mus’ be makes boy-chillen and trouble, all two, one time.
“Eby ’oman hab joy when e buth one.
“Eby gal hab joy when e love one.
“Dey ain’ see misery hide behime joy.
“Till de misery grow.
“Grow big till e choke de joy!
“Till e bust de ’oman heart open.
“Boy-chillen brings most o’ de misery dat’s een dis worl’.
“Boy-chillen!”
“Dat’s de Gawd’s truth, Maum Hannah! I know so. I was so crazy ’bout my
Lijah, yonder to Fluridy, an’ e run off an’ left me when e wasn’t much
higher’n dis same boy-chile.”
“How’s Lijah when you heard las’?” Maum Hannah inquired.
“Fine! Fine as kin be. E sent me a’ answer to say e’s de baddest man at
de town whe’ e stay.”
“Dat’s nice. I glad to hear good news f’om Lijah. But e better not be
too rash. No. When you write em back tell em I say don’ git so bad e
can’ rule hisself.”
Big Sue laughed.
“I’ll sho’ do it. I’m gwine git a letter wrote to him as soon as Uncle
Bill has time to come by my house an’ do em.”
Maum Hannah raised her eyes to Big Sue’s face and laughed. “Git de
letter wrote to you’ boy, but don’ tarry too long wid de writin’. Gi’
Uncle Bill time to court some, too.”
Big Sue laughed too, until Maum Hannah added, “Better keep out de Big
House, honey. You’ll hab sin if you don’ mind!”
“How come so, Maum Hannah?” Big Sue appeared to be surprised.
“You know how come good as me. Better’n me, too. But dat’s you’
business. Not my own. My business is workin’ for Him up yonder.” Maum
Hannah held up her arms to the sky and lifted her face as if she were
praying, but her gaze became so fixed that they all looked up. There,
away above them in the sky like a tiny bird, sailed something so high
that its buzz was hardly more than the hum of the wind.
Maum Hannah got to her feet, and quickly untying her white apron, held
it up and waved it overhead as she called out loud as she could:
“Pray, chillen, pray! Talk wid Jedus! I too sorry to see you dis
mawnin’!” She shook her old head, and shouted again. “Gawd don’ like
mens to go up in de elements! Dis is His day, too! Pray, chillen, pray!
Do, Jedus, hab mussy on dem. I hope dey ain’ none o’ we white folks.”
“I hope not,” Big Sue joined in. “But most white folks is sinners, Maum
Hannah.”
“I dunno, gal. I can’ see inside nobody’s heart, an’ I tries to love de
sinners same as de rest.”
“You love sinners, Maum Hannah?” Big Sue was amazed.
“Sho’, honey, I loves de sinners, an’ hates de sin.”
“Dat’s right, Mauma. Right.” She gave the old shoulder an affectionate
pat. “Dat’s how come you has such good luck catchin’ chillen. Gawd
blesses you. How much did you catch last night?”
Both old hands went up with a gesture of importance. Two!
She’d caught two children last night. Two angels since first dark. The
spring love-making was bearing fruit early this fall.
“When’s de white folks comin’ home?” she asked with a sudden change of
expression.
Big Sue didn’t know for certain, but she thought soon as white frost
came to kill the fever.
“How come you want to know?” Big Sue was curious.
Maum Hannah hoped they would hurry and come while she was well and
able to talk with them. Something was on her mind, worrying her, and
she wanted to get it settled. She was fretted about the graveyard. It
was too full. Every grave dug lately uncovered old bones. There was no
more room, and a new graveyard ought to be started.
“Do, Jedus!” Big Sue exclaimed. “I sho’ would hate to be de first one
buried in a new graveyard. Dey say you wouldn’ never rest, not till
Judgment Day, if you gits buried first, off by you’ lonesome self.”
“Not if you trust Gawd, honey.”
“I trust Gawd, Maum Hannah, but I ever did hear dat de first one to be
bury in a new graveyard is bound to be unrestless.”
A gentle smile shone on Maum Hannah’s face. “I know, honey. I ever did
hear so too. Gawd knows if it’s so or not. But I done made up my mind
to dis: I’m willin’ to be de first one. I’m gwine ask de white folks to
set off a piece o’ new ground an’ when my time is come to let me be de
first one to be buried in em.”
“Great Gawd!” Big Sue panted. “You’s got a strong heart, fo’ true,
Mauma. I couldn’t do dat to save life.”
“I know, chile. My heart gits weak as branch water too when I t’ink on
death. But I’m done old. I got to go soon. I may’s well put my trust in
Jedus. E knows I done de best I could. I talk wid Him every night. I
talk wid em ’bout de graveyard in de new ground. I’m gwine to hab faith
dat E’ll help me to rise up on Judgment Day an’ fly straight to glory,
same as if I was a-layin’ yonder longside my mammy an’ all dem what’s
gone befo’ me.”
Big Sue pondered and shook her head. She couldn’t stand to let her mind
run on death. She couldn’t sleep at night if she did.
“Dat’s ’cause you’s healthy. If you was weakened down wid a sickness
you’d as soon go as stay.”
“Not me! No, Jedus! I hope I kin stay till I’m old and dry as Aun’
Trecia!”
“I hope you kin if you craves dat. But I know my time is most out. I’m
willin’ to sleep in new ground when my work is done.”
“Nobody else’ll mind a new graveyard if you sleeps dere ahead of dem,
Mauma.”
“I can’ do nobody no good if dey dies in sin. You must git right befo’
you’ time comes. Do, honey, git right. Right wid Jedus!”
Big Sue answered she _was_ right. And she wanted to stay right. But she
was worried half to death now, because she had broken a looking-glass.
“Now, dat is a pity! I too sorry you broke a lookin’-glass. But you go
see Emma. Emma kin help you git shet o’ dat back luck. Po’ chile, e had
ear-ache e’se’f las’ night. Dat cow make em run an’ fret e’se’f so bad.
Emma pure cuss de cow!” Maum Hannah burst into a laugh. “Emma’s bad!
Bad! I haffa all de time lick em! Po’ li’l’ creeter! Emma will cuss dat
cow!”
“Emma is too small to lick fast, enty, Mauma? Looks like lickin’ would
stunt em worser.”
Maum Hannah laughed again, and all the children laughed too.