Stella Cole loitered, fascinated by the glisten of the new Judson
kitchen. She addressed the cook, with that shade of superiority family
servants invariably feel to newcomers.
"Could you ask Miss' Mary to step heah a secon', Mahaly?"
The girl departed, sniffing superciliously at the old mountain woman who
still had the monopoly of the Judson laundry.
The gaunt-cheeked negress faced her mistress with an elemental dignity.
"Miss' Mary, kin you ask Mr. Judson a favor fo' me?"
"Surely, Stella. What is it?"
She traced the linoleum pattern slowly with the frowsy toe of a black
slipper. "Hit's dis way, Miss' Mary. Ah'se movin'."
"Moving! From the mountain?"
"Yassum."
"It isn't----" she hesitated a moment. "It isn't--the strike?"
Mary Judson shivered as she spoke the word. The overtones to that word
jangled horribly, summoning with their ghastly discord troops of
disordered pictures, fragments of sorrows, jagged moments of agony.
Around that word she grouped mentally Pelham's distressing breach with
his father, the son's growth away from her, the dead-fingered protest of
Duckworth's suicide, glimpses of red death staining the kindly mountain,
the wilful burning of the house that had stored memories which, next to
the Jackson childhood, were the most poignantly joyful life had given
her. That word summoned the defacing of the mountain's beauty and
harmony, and her present exile from it; as well as a spiritual exile,
the cold-visioned knowledge of the chasm between her and Paul that had
widened irrevocably in the hushed storms that were their quarrels born
out of the strike.
The keen black eyes took in something of this, as it shadowed
momentarily the lined, tortured face of the wife of Paul Judson. Mary
Judson had grown old, older than the soft gray of her hair and the gray
prints around her mouth indicated: old with the timeless age of torn
illusions and murdered dreams: old with the age that the same three
years had brought to Stella Cole.
"No'm, Miss' Mary.... Yassum, dat is.... Ah'se movin'."
A spasm of pity smoothed the mistress' drawn cheeks, as she felt gripped
by the roughened brownish face, gnarled by its helpless acceptance of
the death of hope. "Do you.... Have you found a house, Stella? Do you
know where you're going?"
"Yessum. Ah knows whar Ah'se gwine."
"And you're going----"
"Home, Miss' Mary."
"Home?"
"Yessum...." Feeling that more was required, her face wrinkled with an
old shy eagerness. "To Macon, Miss' Mary; Macon, Georgy. Whar me 'n' Tom
comed f'um, afore we done moved to Atlanta.... Afore we done come here."
"We'll hate to lose you from the mountain, Stella."
"Yessum." She recrossed her hands uneasily, and straightened up from the
table against which her hip had swayed for its solid rest.
Mary Judson studied the face of the mother before her with a hidden
hunger, trying to read in its blackened lineaments the elusive recipe
that had brought that flicker of happiness at the mention of home.
"Your boys.... You have Ed still, haven't you?"
"No'm." The rich tones grew gossipy, in a detached way. "Ah ain't got
none of 'em. Jim he die fu'st, Miss' Mary; he die w'en de mine oxploded.
De Lawd tuk him fu'st; he wuz a good chile. Den Babe. He wuz mah baby;
dey shot him. Dat wuz two. Den Will an' Diana dey die, w'en de house
burn down. Dey shoot dem too. Dey wuz good chillun too, Miss' Mary. Ah
ain't ben 'specially a sinful 'ooman; Ah s'pose dey desu'ved it somehow,
Ah caint figger out.... Dat makes ... yessum, dat makes fo'. Tom he die;
he wuz ole, it wuz his time. Dat lef' Ed. De las' time dey bruk up dem
strikers, dey shoot Ed." She gulped, closed her eyes a minute.
"I--I hadn't heard."
"No'm. Ed wuz diff'runt. Ed he kill a man. A white man. But de jedge
tu'n him loose. Dey wuzn't nothin' wrong dar, de jedge he say. Dey made
Ed a depity. Den dey kill him....
"Ah tole dem boys, Miss' Mary, Ah tole 'em a powerful time ago, hit
wuzn't no nigger's business ter meddle in white folkses' fusses. Dey
seed diff'runt. De Lawd done tuk 'em all, 'cep' me. Ah ain't got no
business here, Miss' Mary. Ain't got no folkses here. Ah got two
brudders in Macon, Georgy. So Ah'se movin'."
Mary bit her lips, to steady her words, to force back the tears that
insistently crept down her own cheeks. "Anything that Mr. Judson can do
for you, Stella----"
The negress dug around in the littered bulge of the handbag the mistress
had given her, and brought up a greasy leather-covered book. "Dis here's
Diana's bank book, what she save f'um her wu'k. Ah thought maybe Mr.
Judson could git me de money. Dar's thuhty fo' dollars, she tole me. An'
Ah got Tom's benefit money f'um de Galileum Fishermens, it comed in a
letter." She discovered the creased check, and handed it over. "Den
Ah'll have some money over w'en Ah gits to Macon; dey'll be gladder to
see me; you know how it is, Miss' Mary. An' if Peter could drive me 'n'
mah stuff to de depot, if he wuzn't too busy----"
"Of course I'll see that you have Peter. What day are you leaving?"
"Sad'day. De train goes at two erclock."
"I'll see that he gets there in plenty of time."
Stella's eyes roamed unconcernedly around the shining rows of aluminum
pans; she sighed with satisfaction. "How's Miss Susie an' Miss Nell?"
"Both doing finely. Susie's living in Detroit, you know; and Nell is
studying art in her neighborhood."
The old mammy leaned forward. "Ah seed Mistuh Hollis w'en he wuz heah
las' monf. He do make a fine sojer, Miss' Mary."
"We are both proud of him. And now with Ned visiting in Jackson, there
are only two of us here."
"Mistuh Pelham ain't come roun' much, is he? He doan't git along wid his
paw, do he?... Dat's what mah boys dey say, in dat union...."