the Reverend, who had been walking around through the crowd shaking
hands with the people and patting the children’s heads, came up with
Leah, who was smiling and talking and putting on many fine airs. The
preacher said he was sure, Leah, Mrs. Locust, knew all about lemonade.
She could tell exactly if they’d have to send for more sugar or not.
Just give her a taste. She’d decide for them.
Zeda laughed out. Big Sue muttered something, but both stood aside to
make room for Leah, who giggled happily, and stepped up to the barrel.
The Reverend took up the long clean hickory paddle Uncle Bill had used
to mix it, and leaning over, gave it a vigorous stirring. He must have
stirred too hard, for the cold air rose up out of the barrel into
Leah’s nose, and before she had time even to turn her head, she gave
one loud sneeze and all her white teeth flew out of her mouth right
into the barrel of lemonade.
It was a bad time. Leah said she’d have to have her teeth back right
now. But they were mixed up with all those hundreds of lemon skins
and that big block of ice. Every man on the committee took a hand at
stirring for them, but the teeth rose up and grinned, then hid deep in
the bottom of the lemonade before anybody could snatch them out. The
preacher said pour the whole hogshead of lemonade out on the ground!
The idea! Breeze felt relieved when the committee was firm. Leah would
have to wait. The lemonade would soon be low in the barrel. The people
were thirsty. They’d drink it up in a hurry. Leah didn’t argue but
went off one side and began sniffling and crying with her mouth hidden
behind her pocket handkerchief. Big Sue chuckled out loud. Uncle Bill
stepped forward with a long-handled dipper and filling it brimming
full handed it to the Reverend, with a low bow, “Have de first drink,
Reverend. I know you’ throat’s dry after all de preachin’ an’ prayin’
you done to-day! Gawd bless you, suh!”
The Reverend fell back a step, and shook his head and coughed behind
his hand.
“If you’ll excuse me----” He stammered it, then coughed again, and
walked over to where Big Sue stood with a broad smile on her face.
But April suddenly appeared.
“What’s all dis?” he asked, looking straight at the Reverend, with a
glitter in his eyes.
“Your wife--ah--Mistress Locust--has--ah--met with a little
accident----”
“Didn’ Uncle Bill hand you a dipper o’ lemonade?”
“Why, yes, Brother Locust.”
“How come you didn’ drink em? Don’ you be brotherin’ me, either.”
“Why--ah, I’m really not thirsty, Mr. Locust.”
“You ain’ thirsty, eh?”
“Why, ah, no.”
April’s Sunday clothes made him look even taller than usual. His hair
was newly cut, and his face shaved clean, except for a small mustache.
He made a fine-looking, powerful figure to Breeze’s wide-stretched eyes.
His mouth smiled as he spoke to the preacher, but his words snarled.
It was plain that he was furiously angry. Breeze felt as if he’d choke
with excitement. The breath was squeezed out of his body as the crowd
pushed closer, and his bare feet were trod on until he felt his toes
were mashed too flat ever to walk again.
The stillness was broken only by Leah’s sniveling, and April’s hurried
breathing.
Uncle Bill put up a warning hand when April slowly took off his hat.
“Keep you’ hat on, April. Don’t you dare to butt dis servant of Gawd!
You’ll git struck dead, sho’ as you do!”
April smiled knowingly, then pulled his hat down tight on his head.
“I doubt if Gawd would knock me ’bout dat, but I don’ b’lieve I want to
dirty my skull on such a jackass, not no mo’. I butt him good de last
time we met. E ain’ fo’got.”
“Great Gawd! April, shut you’ mouth!”
“Did you cuss me for a jackass?” the preacher shrieked and darted
furiously at April.
Women screamed out. Children wailed. Men mumbled protests. But before
anybody suspected his intention April leaped forward and seized the
preacher’s head with two powerful hands, held it like a vise, and bit
a neat round mouthful out of the cheek next to him.
Making a horribly ugly face he spat out the morsel of flesh. Old
Louder, Uncle Bill’s faithful hound, caught it and swallowed it down.
A fearful outcry arose. Men groaned. Women shrieked and yelled. Some
went off into trances. The wounded preacher toppled, fell over, limp as
a rag, his high white collar reddening as it swallowed the blood that
streamed out of the hole in his face. Poor man. His face would rot off
now. Poison would swell it up, bloat it, then peel it off.
Uncle Bill scolded Louder terribly and frailed him with a stick until
the poor dog cried out pitifully. Breeze felt sick and faint enough
to die. His hair stood on end. His flesh shook cold on his bones. God
would strike April sure as the world.
The people rushed forward, some calling for water, some threatening
April. Everybody shouted until the noise and confusion waxed loud and
frightful.
Leah and Big Sue vied with each other in stormy torrents of words and
weeping.
April’s fury spent itself with the bite. His strained muscles unbraced,
unbuckled, he cleared his throat and spat. “Dat meat taste too
sickenin’,” he grumbled. Then squaring his shoulders he walked away.
Cool. Master of himself. Alone.
XV
FIELD WORK
All the cotton had been picked except scraps in the tip-top of the
stalks. When these were gathered, the last chance for the women to make
a little money would be over until early next spring when the stables
were cleaned out and the black manure put in piles for them to scatter
over the fields.
The sultry day was saturated with heat. The swollen sun shone white
through a fog that brought the sky low over the cotton field. The
cotton pickers swarmed thick, sweat poured off faces and hands and
feet. Slowly, steadily they moved, up and down the long rows of
tall rank stalks, carefully picking every wisp of staple out of the
wide-open brown burrs.
Everybody was barefooted, most of the boys and men wearing only shirts
and overalls, and the women had their skirts tied up almost to their
knees.
Not the smallest gust of wind stirred the steamy air. Sweat blackened
sleeves and shirts and dresses, yet the talk stayed bright and chatty.
Breeze had picked all morning except for one little while when he
stopped to eat a piece of cold corn-pone and drink a few swallows out
of his bottle of sweetened water. He wanted to pick a good weight, but
the cotton was light and sparse. April was paying a whole cent a pound
instead of the half a cent he paid when the cotton was green and heavy.
If Big Sue would pick faster instead of talking so much, together they
ought to get a hundred pounds. Maybe even a hundred and twenty-five.
Side by side they trudged along, but too often Big Sue stopped and
straightened up her bent shoulders and stretched her arms for a rest.
Leaning over so long had her all but in a cramp. Yet when Breeze
stopped to eat she scolded him. This was no time for lingering. Every
pound picked meant a cent.
“Wha’ de news f’om Joy?” Leah called across the rows.
“Joy wa’n’t so well when I heared last.”
“Wa’n’t Joy kinder sickly all last summer?”
Big Sue admitted it grumly.
“I hear-say Joy have changed e boardin’ place since e went back to
school.”
Big Sue took her time to answer. After picking several stalks clean she
said Joy had changed, fo’ true. She was staying right on the campus
now. Right with the teachers and the professors and all the high-up
people.
Leah spat on the ground. “Lawd, Joy must be know ev’yt’ing by now, long
as e’s been off at school. How much years? Five or six?”
“Joy do know a lot, but ’e ain’ been off but four years. You know it
too, Leah.”
“Joy’s a stylish gal, Big Sue. Even if e is puny.” Zeda was plainly
siding against Leah.
“Joy ought to look stylish, much money as I spent on em. When e went
back to school dis fall, Joy’s trunk looked fine as a white lady’s
trunk. Not a outin’ gown in em! Not a outin’ petticoat! Even to de
shimmys, Joy had ev’yt’ing made out o’ pink and blue and yellow crêpe.
Joy is a fine seamster, if I do say it myse’f. Joy’s clothes is fine as
any store-bought clothes.”
“Wha’s Joy gwine do when e finish college?” Leah asked presently.
Big Sue was uncertain. Joy was working to get a depluma. When she
got that she could be anything she liked. Joy was sickly last summer
because she had so much learning stirring around in her head. Leah
laughed--innocently. There was no need to worry, as long as a girl was
sickly from things stirring in her head.
“Wha you mean by dat, Leah?” Big Sue stopped short and her narrowed
eyes gazed fixedly at Leah who went on picking.
“I ain’ say nothin’ to vex you, Big Sue! You’s too touchous! Joy ain’
gold neither silver.”
“You keep Joy’s name out you’ mouth, Leah!” Big Sue snapped the words
out in a stinging tone that cut through the heat.
Zeda stood still and gave a wide-mouthed yawn and a lazy laugh. “Do
hush you’ wranglin’. When it’s hot like dis, I can’ stan’ to hear
nobody tryin’ to start a brawl. You womens ain’ chillen! Joy’s a nice
gal. Fo’ Gawd’s sake, le’ em ’lone!”
She looked up at the sun hanging low in a whitish glow, then down at
the short shadows and the heat wilted leaves. Not a bird chirped. Not a
locust or grasshopper spoke.
“I bet Joy’ll marry some o’ dem fine professors or either preachers,”
Bina drawled.
“Joy might, fo’ true,” Big Sue bragged.
Zeda said nothing, but her eyes darted a sharp look at Big Sue, then
turned toward the rice-fields where the river crept up without a murmur
or a shimmer of light on its surface.
Breeze picked on and on long after his back was tired and his fingers
sore from the sharp points of the stiff burrs. The crocus sheets
spread out along the road at the side of the field were piled higher
and higher with cotton which was heaped up, packed down, running over.
The last picking yielded more than anybody expected.
Thank God, the sun was setting at last. Wagons were rattling in the
distance, coming to haul the cotton to the big gin-house! This year’s
crop was done.
XVI
PLOWING
Breeze was to do his first plowing, but instead of being up and dressed
and ready to go to the fields when dawn first streaked the sky he lay
sobbing underneath the clean bright quilts, which were all rumpled up
over his bed, the big, high, soft feather-bed in the shed-room where
Big Sue’s Lijah used to sleep.
He was wretched and lonely and sore from head to heels. The feather-bed
hurt wherever it pressed its fat cushiony sides against his naked body,
although that feather-bed was made out of the finest down of wild ducks
and geese. Big Sue liked to tell how she took years to save so many,
for she wanted her Lijah to have the finest feather-bed on the whole
plantation. Whenever the hunters brought wild fowls to the kitchen for
her to roast in the big oven there, she carefully picked the softest
pinless feathers off the breasts, and put them in a bag and kept them
until she finally had enough for Lijah’s bed. Lijah liked a soft bed.
He was like her.
Joy was different. A feather-bed made Joy hot and unrestful, and she
liked to sleep on a mattress filled with cotton tacked tight to keep it
firm and hard and in place. Joy and Lijah were different altogether.
But Lijah left his feather-bed soon after it was made, and went away
to a far country. Big Sue was not sure whether the country was named
“Fluridy” or “Kintucky.” Sometimes she called it “Kintucky-Fluridy.”
The fine softness of Lijah’s bed meant little to Breeze, for he was
homesick and unhappy. He’d a lot rather go back to his mother’s cabin,
on Sandy Island, and sleep on a pallet made out of a ragged quilt
spread on the splintery hard floor, than to stay here with Big Sue and
sleep in this nest of down feathers that had once warmed and comforted
other children with bill and wings and webbed feet.
He turned and twisted and heaved with mute sobs. He felt all alone in
the world. He had learned not to cry out loud. Big Sue had taught him
that people with manners cry low and easy. Manly boys never cry at all.
If Big Sue would only take time to beat him right away when he did
wrong, he could somehow bear the pain better, but to be waked up before
daylight, and stripped naked, and made to stand still under the cuts of
a strap, or a switch, that’s hard.
When she waddled home at night, after the day’s work and pleasure were
done, she was too weary to do anything but drop down in a chair and
rest. Breeze had to undo the wide-strung-up shoes and take them off her
fat feet, and fill up her pipe and light it. She’d smoke a little while
and go to bed, worn-out, too tired to whip Breeze, no matter how much
he needed a licking. She always waited until next morning, when she
woke up fresh and strong, ready to raise Breeze and teach him manners.
Her usual morning greeting was, “Git up, Breeze. Git up and strip. I
want to git down to you’ rind,” his rind meaning his naked skin.
She declared that licking Breeze hurt her as much as it hurt him. She
hated to have to do it, but Breeze was a poor, ignorant, no-manners
boy. She had to beat him to do her duty by him.
A long, thin, black leather strap stayed up on the mantel-shelf, ready
to give lickings. It had a black-snake’s hiss, and a crack as sharp
as a pistol-shot. But this morning Big Sue couldn’t lay her hands on
it, so she broke a switch off the plum tree growing beside the cabin’s
front door. There were all kinds of switches outside. Big Sue could
easily have got a smoother, better one, but she was in a hurry and the
plum switch was in easy reach of her hand.
In the weak morning light she didn’t see that thorns stayed on it when
she pulled off its limbs. Those thorns had sharp teeth, and Big Sue
drove them deep into Breeze’s back and thighs. Now as he stroked his
hurts with both hands he felt blood warm and wet on them.
Breeze’s mother had never talked to him about manners. Big Sue said
she didn’t know them. At Blue Brook plantation, manners are the
most important things in the world, but they stand between you and
everything you want to do. Nobody ever eats the first sweet black
walnuts that fall on the ground, for eating green walnuts makes lice in
your head, and it is bad-mannered to be lousy.
To play with the funny hop-toadies, whose little black hands look just
like a tiny baby’s thumbs and all, makes warts come on your hands, and
it’s bad-mannered to have warts.
If you drink goat’s milk, although it is sweeter than cow’s milk,
you’ll hate water, just like goats hate it. You won’t want to wash. And
it’s bad-mannered not to like soap and water.
If your feet get cold as ice and you can’t get them warm any other way,
you must not put them on the warm black pots on the hearth, because the
soot on the pots will stick to your feet, and it’s bad-mannered to have
sooty feet.
To put a finger in your mouth is bad-mannered. Everything is
bad-mannered!
Breeze’s reflections and sobs were checked by a call from Big Sue to
get up! To make haste too! He hopped up and pulled on his clothes, and
taking a piece of cold bread in his hand, hurried to the barnyard.
Daylight had already spread through the sky, and was creeping over the
earth. The fall day smelled like spring. One old apple tree in the
orchard had been fooled into blooming by the drowsy warmth. Poor silly
thing!
The creek babbled low as the tide swelled it high up near the bank, and
a cow, followed by her new-born calf, ventured in knee-deep, and sucked
up the water noisily. As she lifted her head to look at Breeze, drops
falling from her mouth were suddenly shot through with a streak of
light. The sun was up! He was late! Lord, he must run! Every flower had
its face turned eastward to meet the day. They knew it had come.
Cocks began a fresh crowing. Jay-birds chahn-chahned. Partridges
whistled. A mocking-bird trilled. Tiny brown birds fluttered through
the thickets like dead leaves come back to life. Wagon wheels rumbled
on a road out of sight, the pop of a whip cracked out. Everything was
astir, ready for the day’s work.
In the barnyard a lively confusion of men and beasts made a thick din
that filled Breeze’s heart with excitement. To-day he would begin doing
a man’s work. On Saturday he’d get his pay, like Sherry and all the
other farm-hands.
He could hear the men hailing one another. The mules neighed.
Trace-chains tinkled between shouts of “Whoa” and “Gee” and “Haw” and
“Git up.” On the near side of the barnyard fence a long-legged funny
mule colt went staggering behind old Sally, Uncle Bill’s old bay mare.
When he lagged she whinnied to him to come on.
A litter of pigs huddled around a lean black sow wallowing comfortably
in a filthy mud-hole. They squealed to her to lie still and let them
feed, but she grunted lazily, and rolled still deeper in the mire. Near
by an old dominecker hen clucked sharply to her biddies and scratched
eagerly for worms in the rich black earth. She’d better mind. That old
sow would eat her up, feathers and all, and swallow the biddies down
like raw oysters.
The fine fall day felt like spring. Men and mules stepped briskly, glad
to go to work.
For the first time since the boll-weevils came and pestered the cotton,
the crop had been abundant, and now the field must be cleared of old
stalks for the winter.
The summer’s dry weather had been a big help. No rain came to wash the
poison off. Sherry ran the poison machine over the fields at night when
the cotton was wet with dew and the thirsty weevils drank poisoned
dew and died. It was a scary thing to see these great white clouds of
poison dust rising and settling to kill. The people scarcely dared to
look.
Now, every lock of cotton was picked, and the plows were to turn the
stalks under so deep in the earth the boll-weevils would not have
as much as one lone cotton leaf to eat during the winter. April was
planning already to make such a big crop next year, the gins would have
to run day and night when fall came, to get the cotton packed into
bales by Christmas! Money would be plentiful one more time!
A score of men were plowing, most of them tall strong fellows, straight
and slender as tree-trunks. Their ease and skill made Breeze almost
despair, for plowing was a hard job to him. But Sherry was chaffing
them, calling them scary ladies who stayed at home and slept with the
women and children while he and April fought boll-weevils all night
long.
He wouldn’t hold it against them if they’d work well in the daytime
and plow the crop fast and keep the ground-crust broken and the grass
killed. He and April could attend to the weevils next summer, all by
themselves. With that big poison machine and three mules, he could
poison forty acres a night. Instead of resenting what Sherry said, the
men laughed good-naturedly and declared they were satisfied to leave
the boll-weevils to Sherry and April. Let the devils fight the devils.
Leah’s Brudge was there, right in among the men. He plowed last year
and showed he felt important. At first he scarcely noticed Breeze who
struggled and strove to hold his unruly plow steady and straight like
Sherry’s.
Each man had his own mule, taught to his ways. Sherry’s mule, Clara,
was a beauty. Sleek and trim and spry, she understood every word Sherry
spoke. Brudge had Cleveland, an old brown mule with sprung fore-knees,
but with a steady gait and a nice coat of hair. Breeze had old Cæsar,
a shaggy, logy beast, mouse-colored, except where bald spots marked
his hide black. One blind eye was like a hard-boiled egg and the other
had an uncertain peep, but Sherry said Cæsar had sense like a man. All
Breeze needed to do was hold the lines and the plow handles together
and walk straight behind. Cæsar would do the rest. Breeze wished he
might have had a handsomer beast, but even old Cæsar made his heart
thrill.
The earth had been dried out by the warm autumn sunshine and it sent
up clouds of dust as the sharp steel of the plows cut it deep, and
long rows of rank stalks were uprooted and turned under and carefully
covered with dark smooth soil.
April stood alone, watching the men and mules walking sturdily across
the field, then back. When they neared him, their talking hushed except
for words spoken to the mules.
Overhead a blue sky looked down; the breath of the stirred earth,
scented strong with life, rose and brimmed up, filling the air.
When the plowmen reached the far side of the field again, turning
slowly they moved along, side by side, talking and laughing. Their gay
racket hushed in a hurry when April’s voice floated to them from where
he stood, a tall speck by the trees in the distance. Clear and sharp
his words fell through the sunshine.
“Hey dere! Yunnuh quit so much talkin’ and laughin’. I want all dem
cotton stalks covered up deep!”
Every man of them stepped a little slower, every plowstock was gripped
with a tighter hold after the correction. Merry chatter changed to
stern shouts that chided the patient mules. “Hey, mule!”, “Watch you
doin’s!”, “Gee!”, “Haw!”, “Come up!” The mules pulled harder and the
crunching of the earth as the plows cut deeper took the place of
laughter and gay bantering words.
The day moved on, warm and drowsy, with yellow sunshine still hot
enough to cast black shadows, and draw sweat out of both men and
beasts. April stood watching, hour after hour, while the swarm of mules
and men trudged back and forth from the water’s edge to the woods and
then back again, never stopping for even a breathing spell. The sun
rode high in the sky. Shadows shortened. Breeze longed for the noon
hour, time to stop and eat and drink and rest.
Once or twice as Brudge passed Breeze and Cæsar, he looked at the old
mule and giggled. Then he called out, “Breeze is plowin’ a spring
puppy!” When he had gone a little way past he looked back and said
something that made the plow-hands laugh out. But Sherry stopped Clara
short in her tracks.
“You better shut you’ mouth, Brudge!” he warned. “You gits too big for
your breeches sometimes. Breeze can’ lick you, but I kin an’ I will.”
Breeze couldn’t hear Brudge’s answer, but he caught up in time to hear
the end of Brudge’s outburst of abuse of Sherry. The other men went on
plowing, except one of the older ones, who stopped to shame Brudge for
the vile words he had used.
“What de matter ail yunnuh?” April called.
Nobody answered, so he started walking leisurely toward them.
Sherry stuck his plow’s point deep in the earth, dropped his plow lines
on the ground, then undid the trace-chains and hung them up on Clara’s
collar.
Brudge stood looking at him, then back at April. “I ain’ botherin’ you,
Sherry. You better left me ’lone,” he whined.
If Sherry heard him he gave no sign, but stepped lightly over the
furrows toward Brudge, who gave an outcry and started to run. Sherry’s
long arm reached out and caught him, drew him up close, held him fast,
while Sherry’s words fell fast and hard as fire-heated rocks.
“I ain’ gwine butt you fo’ what you called me. No. I’m gwine crack you’
skull for dat what you call my mammy.” Sherry tilted his head back, and
Brudge gave a shrill yell.
“Don’ butt me, Sherry!” The words were scarcely out when Sherry’s
slender powerful body swayed lightly forward from the hips, and his
forehead crashed down right on Brudge’s skull.
For a second or two after the terrible blow fell home, Brudge made no
sound. Sherry turned him loose, and he staggered a few paces and fell,
screaming at the top of his lungs. Sherry had killed him! His head was
broken to pieces. Prone on the soft plowed ground Brudge twisted and
writhed, like a fish out of water.
Sherry paid no attention to him at all, but went back to Clara, hitched
the trace-chains, took up the rope lines, and clicked his tongue. “Git
up, Clara!” he said quietly, and the mule stepped off.
To Breeze, April was the very greatest man on earth, but all of a
sudden Sherry seemed to grow. His limbs became taller, straighter, his
shoulders broader, his supple waist slenderer. His eyes were terrible
when they flashed at Brudge, ashine with furious light, and his strong
white teeth ground together as if they could bite Brudge’s body in two.
April was coming toward them. A little faster now. What would he say
when he got there? The plow-hands stopped and waited. One shamed Brudge
for his lack of manners, then turned his head away and spat on the
ground with disgust.
April’s long legs strode leisurely across the soft new furrows, his
stout hickory stick stepping lightly beside him. When his eyes looked
at Brudge there on the ground, holding his head in both hands, rolling
up his body and rocking it back and forth, then falling on the ground
again, howling with pain and shame and anger, April’s lips curled up
from his big yellow teeth in a scornful smile.