sent dem here an’ we better leave dem lone. If I was you, I wouldn’t
run no pizen machine. At night too, when de cotton is wet wid dew,
a pizen dust’ll stick to you’ feets. When I look out o’ my door at
night and see dat pizen dust a-floatin’ over de cotton-fields in dem
big white cluds, an’ dat machine a-singin’ like a locust, a-creepin’
up and down de rows, th’owin’ out pizen I git too scared to look. No
wonder de mens hates to take part in it. Dem pizened blossoms is done
killed all de bees on de place, an’ a lot o’ de turkeys and de guineas
died from eatin’ de pizened evils. Better let weeds grow in de fields,
I say. We kin do widout money till we git some crop to take de place
o’ cotton. Cotton’s time is out. I ’member when dey had to give up
plantin’ indigo, and people said we was ruined. But cotton done just as
good. Now cotton is failed, and we ought to wait till we git some kind
o’ crop to take its place.” Uncle Bill heaved a mighty sigh as he said
it. “April is too brazen. E would buck Gawd A’mighty. Don’t you try to
be like em, Sherry. No. If April keeps on, e will land in Hell, sho’ as
e was born.”
“You t’ink de place’ll ever be sold, Uncle?” Sherry asked him presently.
“No, son. Not long as de li’l’ young Cap’n is livin’! E was born wid
two li’l’ teeth, and when dem two li’l’ teeth got ripe an’ fell out, my
Katy took ’em an’ went to de graveyard an’ buried ’em in a clear place
right longside his gran’pa.
“No matter whe’ da li’l’ boy goes or how long e stays gone from here,
dis place’ll hold to him. Dem li’l’ two teeth’ll make him come back
to die an’ be buried right here. You’ll see. It’s so. Just like I’m
tellin’ you. It’ll be dat way. Katy was a wise-minded ’oman.”
The boat moved steadily forward all the time, for Uncle Bill’s arms
didn’t slacken the oar’s paddling once.
As Breeze listened thoughtfully to all that was said, his eyes wandered
unseeing over the beauty that lay thick around him, for he was trying
to understand some of the things he had heard.
The rice-fields blurred by yellow sunshine were tinged with ripeness
and flecked with brilliant color. Purple shadows were cast by crimson
branches, scarlet berries sparkled on slender vines and adorning gray
thorny branches. The bright water, gay with reflections, ran sober
edges under blue cypress.
The tide of the year, more deliberate but as constant as the tide from
the sea, was almost full, almost at its height. It would soon pause,
mature and complete, its striving over, for a little rest; and start
ebbing.
A great owl, roused by the boat’s passing, spread out wide wings and
flew from the shadowy darkness of a dense moss-hung tree. Marsh-hens,
that couldn’t be seen, cackled out shrill strident notes from the
marsh-grown, water-covered mud flats. Solemn blue-and-white herons
stood motionless at the water’s edge, gravely watching the boat. High
overhead, thin lines of ducks sliced across the sky with swift slashing
wings. When the boat rounded a bend where the creek met the river,
Uncle Bill began a careful, precise paddling with his one long oar, and
with settled, even strokes thrust the boat forward into the wide dark
stream.
“For Gawd’s sake, be careful, Uncle! Don’ go too fast against dis
current. I’d sho’ hate to be turned over dis morning. Dat water looks
mighty cold.”
Sherry gave a shiver and laugh as he said it, but Uncle Bill’s reply
was full of reproach. Why would Sherry think of such a thing as turning
over? He was inviting trouble.
The boat had run silently for some little time, close to the river’s
bank, when Uncle Bill broke into a sputter of words. Breeze turned
to look at him. His eyes, two bright black berries in the dull black
surface of his skin, were fixed on something away ahead. Breeze tried
to see it too. He searched the distance ahead. But nothing showed
except miles of wide river swelled out beyond its banks into the flat
old rice-fields. Palmetto trees showed now and then among the willows
and cypresses. Low-lying marshy islands, fringed with vine-covered
scrubby bushes, were cut into patterns by narrow creeks.
Sherry was watching the distance too. “Wha’ kind is dey, Uncle?” he
murmured.
“Bull-neck, son,” Uncle Bill answered promptly.
“I wish my eyes was trained to see good like your’n. I wonder why dey
ain’!”
“I dunno, son. I dunno. I reckon dey ain’ had to look hard as mine,”
and he chuckled with pleasure at the compliment Sherry paid him.
Uncle’s calm black face filled with a warm friendly smile. Uncle’s
bright eyes, keen and cold, flitted swiftly from Sherry’s face to
Breeze’s, then beyond them to the ducks he saw in the distance. Breeze
began to see more in Uncle Bill’s black features than he did at first.
They were more than wrinkled flesh that time had creased and withered,
for not only shrewdness, but wisdom and pity shone in the clear-seeing
eyes; and the old mouth, where so many teeth were missing, tightened
its lips in a way that meant more than caution and prudence.
Breeze gazed at every bit of the surface ahead, starting with the water
where sunshine dazzled close beside the boat and ending where the hazy
sky dropped down to join the earth, but he couldn’t see any ducks.
“Looka right yonder!” Uncle Bill pointed to direct his eyes and he made
out two tiny black specks side by side on the water.
“You must shoot dose two,” Sherry said. “It ain’t against de law to
kill bull-necks, and maybe dey’ll stay on de water until we get in
gunshot.”
“You better shoot ’em, Cun Sherry. I can’t hit ’em.” Breeze hesitated
although his heart was beating fit to burst with excitement at the
thought of shooting a gun.
“No, dem’s you’ ducks. You must kill ’em,” Sherry insisted. “If you do
like I tell you, you can’ miss em. I don’ mind breakin’ de law, so I’ll
hit de summer ducks and you kill de lawful ones.”
“I’m scared I’ll miss ’em.” Breeze’s voice quivered so shakily Sherry
laughed.
“No you won’t. I’ll tell you how to do,” he said gently.
Uncle Bill headed the boat straight for the two small dots which
were swimming toward it, and soon Breeze could see the gray of their
feathers and the bright orange color of their bills. They seemed not
to know their danger even when Uncle Bill stopped paddling and Sherry
whispered to Breeze.
“Cock your gun now and hold em close up to you’ shoulder. Look straight
at de duck you want to kill and pull de front trigger.”
Breeze did just as Sherry told him, but the drake he aimed at sat
quite motionless on the water, as if he had not even heard the gun’s
explosion.
“Fine, son!” Sherry exclaimed. “He didn’ know wha’ hit him. Now, shoot
de hen duck. Hold you’ gun up close to you’ shoulder, den look straight
at em an’ pull de back trigger.”
Breeze’s fingers were trembling but he shot again, and the hen duck
made wild splutterings on the water.
“Po’ creeter! You hit em, but you got to shoot em again. Put us up a
li’l’ closer, Uncle. Load you’ gun, Breeze.”
Breeze’s tense fingers shook as he unbreached his gun and replaced the
two empty, smoking shells with heavy new ones. As the boat swung near
to the wounded duck that swam round and round its dead mate, Sherry
spoke to him sharply.
“Hurry up! Shoot em again!”
How could he do it? The poor wounded fowl was fluttering in agony now.
“Quit you’ triflin’, boy!” Sherry ordered sternly. “Put em out o’ dat
misery.”
Breeze’s fingers tightened on the trigger and the gray-feathered body
quivered into bloody shreds as the swift lead from his gun tore through
it. Breeze felt wretched. Killing that duck gave him no pleasure.
Uncle Bill paddled up close to the two dead bodies and Sherry picked
them up out of the water.
“Dey’s plump!” he commented as his fingers examined the breasts to see.
“We has all de ducks we can eat now, but dis boy ought to shoot one
flyin’ befo’ we go home.”
“Den we’ll go on,” Uncle agreed.
They crossed the river and entered a creek much like the first one. It
branched right and left, becoming narrower all the time. Uncle Bill
began a stealthy creeping around the wooded bends. Sometimes ducks were
there, sometimes not. Breeze shot wildly each time one rose. Sherry
declared he killed two of those that fell. He may have, he didn’t know.
Sherry may have just said so to encourage him.
This was a strange world to Breeze. Gray water, unfamiliar trees,
long stretches of ripening marsh grass where odd-looking birds made
outlandish cries as they passed.
Uncle Bill paddled steadily on with a measured stroke. Past islands
lined with ranges of sand-hills where tall pines above the willows
stood against the sky. Through channels choked with weeds where white
cranes fed. Long streets of water, curving, dustless, houseless,
settled only by light and shade and the images of trees and clouds and
sun they faithfully reflected.
At a sudden “S-st” from Uncle Bill, Breeze looked at the low wooded
hillside and glimpsed a doe, followed by her fawn. They had come down
to the water’s edge to drink. Sheer terror held them rigid for a brief
instant and then both were gone.
“Jedus, Sherry,” Uncle Bill chided. “You could ’a’ got all two if you
had ’a’ tried!”
“I didn’ want dem,” Sherry answered. “We’s done killed enough for one
day. My mammy says if you kill too much o’ t’ings at a time you’ll git
so you smell like death. I don’ want to. I kills a while and den I
stops.”
Uncle Bill laughed, and the silence was so deep that his voice echoed
and reechoed.
Breeze was glad the killing was over, for he’d rather hear the two men
talk than to see Sherry kill.
The boat flowed evenly, almost silently, over the water’s smooth
surface. Uncle Bill kept it close to the bank to avoid the full sweep
of the current in the middle of the stream.
Great dark birds, startled by its passing so close to their homes, flew
up out of the water with a loud flopping of wings, but there was little
talk for the rest of the way.
The water slipped swiftly past them. The small whirling circles made by
Uncle Bill’s paddle widened until they reached the bank’s willowy edges
where vines and bushes wound tight together, choking and strangling one
another as they wrestled for a narrow foothold.
When Uncle Bill paused and cleared his throat Breeze knew he was going
to ask Sherry a question.
“How come you don’ like April, here lately?”
“Who say I don’ like em?” Sherry answered.
“I say so.”
Sherry’s white grin was cold. Hard. His answer slow in coming.
“April’s legs is most too long fo’ de foreman of a big plantation like
Blue Brook.”
“Wha’ you mean, son?”
“Dey kin tote him too far f’om home sometimes.”
“You mean April kin walk too far atter dark?”
“Yes, suh,” Uncle Bill sighed.
“Gawd is de one made ’em long. April ain’ had nothin’ to do wid dat.
Gawd made you’ own not so short, Sherry. Don’ fo’git dat.”
Sherry said no more and Uncle Bill worked faster with his paddling.
The afternoon sun was a great red ball floating among thin smoky
clouds. A light haze was creeping out from underneath the trees on the
banks of the creeks. The shrill call of a cicada rose, swelled into
quick breathless notes, faded away, then was taken up, answered by a
mate. Yellow sunshine fell between lacy blue shadows cast by cypress
trees. Dark green thickets crouched wet-footed, beside narrow winding
paths of tide water.
The marshes were buried. All the sticky miry mud exposed by the morning
was hidden. Through old flood-gates the rising water gurgled and
bubbled into forsaken rice-fields. Grass, vines, trees, bushes rank,
thorny and fetid, crowded and trampled one another, trying to gain
a deeper, stronger foothold down in the broken dikes. Breeze gazed
around him with long looks. As far as his eyes could see the earth was
flooded. Wasted. Unsown. Abandoned.
Uncle Bill sighed. It made him sad to think how the tide had destroyed
the work of years. At first it crept timidly in, hardly enough for its
shallow trickling to show. But it grew bolder and stronger as it took
back the rich land, acre by acre, until it owned them all. All!
The first white men who came here found the whole face of the earth
covered with a thick forest growth of cypress and gum and ash, matted,
tangled with powerful vines, and held by the tides that rose and fell
as they do now, twice every day. Those men bought slaves, Breeze’s and
Sherry’s and his own great-grandfathers and mothers, African people
fresh from the Guinea Coast. The slaves diked and banked up the land
so the forest growth could be removed, then they canaled and ditched
and banked it into smaller well-drained tracts which were planted with
rice. And rice made the plantation owners rich.
For years the lands were held by children and grandchildren of those
first settlers, but nearly every old plantation home has been burned
or sold or abandoned. The rich rice-fields are deserted. The old dikes
and flood-gates that stood as guardians are broken and rotted. The tide
rolls over all as it did before the land was ever cleared. It has taken
back its own.
A whistle not far away gave a shrill ugly shriek. “Lawd, de boat is
lated to-day! Wha’ time it is, Uncle Bill?”
Uncle cast a quick glance up at the sun. “A li’l’ after four, son.”
Sherry considered. “De boat ain’ but two hours lated. Pretty good, for
dat old slow coach, enty?”
“Kin you tell de time, Breeze?”
“I kin tell if it ain’ cloudy, neither rainin’, in de daytime.”
Sherry said there were many other ways to tell; the tide runs true,
rain or shine, morning-glories and lots of other flowers open and close
by the time. Big Sue’s yard was full of four-o’clocks. They’d be wide
open now. Birds change their songs with the turn of the afternoon.
“Listen! You can hear a red-bird whistlin’ right now. Dis morning he
went so----” Sherry pursed his lips and mimicked a bar of bird song.
“Now e says to dis----” And he whistled a few notes that the bird
himself echoed. “Dat bird knows it’s past four. A red-bird knows de
time every bit as good as Uncle. Grass blades moves wid de day too. Dey
leans dis way an’ dat to get de light. A lot o’ t’ings is got mo’ sense
dan people, enty, Uncle?”
“Sho’!” Uncle Bill declared. “If you watch t’ings close, you’ll git
wise. Wise! Take Uncle Isaac; e can’ read readin’ or either writin’ but
he knows more’n any school-teacher or either preacher dat ever came to
Blue Brook.”
“Wha’ de name o’ de church Uncle Isaac b’longs to?”
Uncle Bill smiled gently. “Po’ Uncle! E j’ined de white folks
ch’uch yonder at de gate, long time ago. Dat’s named ’Piscopalian.
Den e went to town on de boat an’ seen a white folks’ chu’ch named
de Presbeteerin. Uncle mixed de two togedder. E calls hese’f a
’Piscoteerin’. Po’ Uncle! If e don’ mind, e’s gwine die in sin yet.
You boys mustn’ wait too long to pray. Pray soon. Git religion young.
It’s a heap easier den. I waited so long I mighty nigh missed gittin’
it myse’f. But I ruther have religion dan to have all Uncle Isaac’s
knowledge. E kin put a ‘hand’ on anybody long as dey’s in dis world. E
kin take a ‘spell’ off anybody long as dey’s dis side o’ de grave. But
dat ain’ so much after all. Dis life is short. It’s de other side o’
Jordan we got to fix for. Dem sweet fields in Eden, yonder in Canaan’s
land. Dat’s de country I’m aimin’ to reach. You boys must try to reach
em too.”
“Uncle, you believe any white folks is in Heaben?”
“Gawd knows, son. White folks is mighty smart people. Dey knows a lot
o’ tricks we don’ know.”
XIII
THE QUILTING
Before day was clean Big Sue got up out of bed and went to the front
door to look at the weather. The cool air was soft and still, trees and
birds were asleep. The earth itself was resting quietly, for the sun
tarried late in his bed. The stars had not yet faded from the clear
open sky, but Big Sue was full of excitement. Only a few hours more and
she must have everything ready at Maum Hannah’s for the quilting to
commence.
Her own big room was almost large enough for a quilting, but it was
better to go to Maum Hannah’s. The meeting benches could be brought in
from under the house where they stayed, to make seats enough for the
company, and Maum Hannah’s quilting poles stood always in the corner
waiting for work to do. Plenty of pots sat on her hearth and two big
ones out in the yard besides. Most of the plantation quiltings were
held at Maum Hannah’s house, the same as the night prayer-meetings.
The raw rations were all ready to cook. Plenty of rice and cornmeal.
White flour and coffee and sugar from the store. She’d pot-roast the
ducks, and fry the fish, and make the turtle into a stew. She’d roast
the potatoes in the ashes. The corn-pone would bake brown and nice in
the big oven on the hearth. With some nice fat white-flour biscuit to
eat last with the coffee, she would have enough to fill everybody full.
Breeze must get up and hustle! She called him and he tried to raise
up his drowsy head, but sleep had it too heavy for his strength to
lift. If she’d only let him take one more little nap! But she shook
him soundly by the shoulder. To-day was the day for the quilting. He
must get up and dress, and get some fat kindling wood to start a fire
under both the big pots in Maum Hannah’s yard. He’d have to fetch water
for those pots too, and tote all the quilts there, and the sack of
newly ginned cotton April had given her for lining the quilts, besides
all the rations that had to be cooked for the quilters to eat at
dinner-time.
With a sleepy groan Breeze rose and pulled on his shirt and breeches,
then his sluggish feet shambled toward the water-shelf where the tin
washbasin sat beside the water-bucket. Big Sue made him wash his face,
no matter how soon or cold the morning was. He might as well do it, and
get it over with.
As he reached a heavy hand up for the gourd that hung on a nail beside
the water-bucket, his arm lengthened into a lazy stretch, the other
arm joined in, and his mouth opened into a wide yawn. Then his fingers
dropped wearily on to his head where they began a slow tired scratching.
Big Sue stopped short in her tracks, and the sparkle in her beady black
eyes cut him clear through to the quick.
“Looka here, boy! Is you paralyze’? I ain’ got time to stop an’ lick
you, now. But if you don’ stir you’ stumps, you’ hide won’ hold out
to-night when I git back home. Dat strap yonder is eetchin’ to git on
you’ rind right now! Or would you ruther chaw a pod o’ red pepper?”
The long thin strip of leather, hanging limp and black against the
whitewashed wall not far from the mantel-shelf, looked dumb and
harmless enough, but Breeze gave a shiver and jumped wide awake as
his eyes followed Big Sue’s fat forefinger. That strap could whistle
and hiss through the air like a blacksnake when Big Sue laid its licks
home. Its stinging lash could bite deep into tender naked meat. But the
string of red pepper pods hanging outside by the front door were pure
fire.
He wanted to cry but fear crushed back the misery that seized him,
and gulping down a sob he hurried about his tasks. First he hastily
swallowed a bite of breakfast, then he took a big armful of folded
quilt tops, and holding them tight hurried to Maum Hannah’s house with
them.
The sun was up, and the morning tide rolled high and shiny in the
river. The air was cool, and the wind murmuring on the tree-tops
strewed the path with falling leaves. Some of them whirled over as
they left the swaying boughs, then lay still wherever they touched the
ground, while others flew sidewise, and skipped nimbly over the ground
on their stiff brown points.
The sunlight smelled warm, but the day’s breath was flavored with
things nipped by the frost. The sweet potato leaves were black, the
squash vines full of slimy green rags. The light frost on the cabin
steps sparkled with tinted radiance as the cool wind, that had all the
leaves trembling in a shiver, began to blow a bit warmer and melt it
back into dew.
This was the second frost of the fall. One more would bring rain. The
day knew it, for in spite of the sun’s brave shining, the shadows fell
heavy and green under the trees. Those cast by the old cedar stretched
across the yard’s white sand much blacker and more doleful than the
sun-spotted shade cast by the live-oaks.
Maum Hannah’s house was very old, and its foundations had weakened,
so the solid weight of its short square body leaned to one side. The
ridge-pole was warped, the mossy roof sagged down in the middle, and
feathery clumps of fern throve along the frazzled edge of the rotted
eaves.
Two big black iron washpots in Maum Hannah’s yard sat close enough to
the house to be handy, but far enough away to kill any spark that might
fly from their fires toward the house, trying to set fire to the old
shack, tottering with age and all but ready to fall.
Inside Maum Hannah, dressed up in her Sunday clothes, with a fresh
white headkerchief binding her head, a wide white apron almost hiding
the long full skirt of her black and white checked homespun dress,
awaited the guests. She was bending over the fire whose reddish light
glowed on her cheerful smile, making it brighter than ever.
“Come in, son. You’s a early bird dis mawnin’. You’s a strong bird too,
to tote sich a heavy load. Put de quilts on de bed in de shed-room, den
come eat some breakfast wid me. I can’ enjoy eatin’ by myse’f, and Emma
went last night to Zeda’s house, so e wouldn’t be in my way to-day.”
The bacon broiling on a bed of live coals, and fresh peeled sweet
potatoes just drawn out from the ashes where they had roasted, made
a temptation that caused Breeze’s mouth to water. But he hesitated.
Cousin Big Sue was waiting for him, and he knew better than to cross
her this morning.
“If you can’ set down, take a tater in you’ hand an’ eat em long de way
home. A tater’s good for you. It’ll stick to you’ ribs.”
Breeze took the hot bit from her hand and started to hurry away, but
she stopped him, “No, son! Don’ grab victuals an’ run! Put you’ hands
in front o’ you, so. Pull you’ foot an’ bow, an’ say ‘T’ank Gawd!’
Dat’s de way. You must do so ev’y day if you want Jedus to bless
you. All you got comes from Gawd. You mustn’ forgit to tell Him you’s
t’ankful.”
Most of the cabin doors were closed, but the smoke curling up out
of every chimney circled in wreaths overhead. Little clouds of mist
floated low over the marsh, where the marsh-hens kept up a noisy
cackling. Roosters crowed late. Ant-hills were piled high over the
ground. All sure signs of rain, even though no clouds showed in the
pale blue sky.
As soon as Breeze’s work was done, Big Sue had promised he could go to
Zeda’s house or to April’s, and spend the rest of the day playing with
their children, and now there were only a few more lightwood splinters
to split. The prospect of such fun ahead must have made him reckless,
or else the ax, newly sharpened on the big round grind-stone, had got
mean and tricky. Anyway, as Breeze brought it down hard and heavy on
the last fat chunk to be split, its keen edge glanced to one side and
with as straight an aim as if it had two good eyes, jumped between two
of his toes. How it stung! The blood poured out. But Breeze’s chief
thought was of how Big Sue would scold him. Hopping on a heel across
the yard to the door-step he called pitifully for Maum Hannah.
“Great Gawd!” she yelled out when she saw the bloody tracks on the
white sand. “What is you done, Breeze? Don’ come in dis house an’ track
up dis floor! Wha’ dat ail you’ foot?”
She made him lie flat on the ground and hold his foot up high, then
taking a healing leaf from a low bush, growing right beside her door,
she pressed it over the cut and held it until it stuck, then tied it
in place. That was all he needed, but he’d have to keep still to-day.
Maybe two or three days.
By ten o’clock Big Sue was outside the yard where Zeda stirred the
boiling washpots. Onion-flavored eel-stew scented the air. The stout
meeting benches had been brought in from under the house, two for
each quilt. The quilting poles leaned in a corner waiting to be used.
The older, more settled women came first. Each with her needle, ready
to sew. The younger ones straggled in later, with babies, or tiny
children, who kept their hands busy. They were all kin, and when they
first assembled the room rang with, “How you do, cousin?” “Howdy,
Auntie!” “How is you, sister?”
Leah, April’s wife, had on somewhat finer clothes than the other women.
The bottom of her white apron was edged with a band of wide lace, and
she wore a velvet hat with a feather in it over her plaid headkerchief.
But something ailed her speech. The words broke off in her mouth. Her
well-greased face looked troubled. Her round eyes sad.
“How you do, daughter?” Maum Hannah asked her kindly. “You look so nice
to-day. You got such a pretty hat on! Lawd! Is dem teeth you got in
you’ mouth? April ought to be proud o’ you.”
But instead of smiling Leah’s face looked ready to cry. “I ain’ well,
Auntie. My head feels too full all de time. Dese teeth is got me
fretted half to death. Dey’s got my gums all sore, an’ dey rattles when
I tries to walk like dey is gwine to jump down my throat. I can’ eat
wid ’em on to save life. De bottom ones is meaner dan de top ones. I
like to missed and swallowed ’em yestiddy.”
“How come you wears ’em if dey pesters you so bad?”
“April likes ’em. E say dey becomes me. E paid a lot o’ money fo’ dem,
too. E took me all de way to town on de boat to git ’em. But dey ain’
no sati’faction.” She sighed deep. “An’ de blood keeps all de time
rushin’ to my head ever since I was salivate.”