and the solid hand-hewn beams of oak of the pre-war cotton factory,
dusk came. Up from the dusk the full moon came. Glowing like a fired
pine-knot, it illumined the great door and soft showered the Negro
shanties aligned along the single street of factory town. The full moon
in the great door was an omen. Negro women improvised songs against its
spell.
Louisa sang as she came over the crest of the hill from the white
folks’ kitchen. Her skin was the color of oak leaves on young trees
in fall. Her breasts, firm and up-pointed like ripe acorns. And her
singing had the low murmur of winds in fig trees. Bob Stone, younger
son of the people she worked for, loved her. By the way the world
reckons things, he had won her. By measure of that warm glow which came
into her mind at thought of him, he had won her. Tom Burwell, whom the
whole town called Big Boy, also loved her. But working in the fields
all day, and far away from her, gave him no chance to show it. Though
often enough of evenings he had tried to. Somehow, he never got along.
Strong as he was with hands upon the ax or plow, he found it difficult
to hold her. Or so he thought. But the fact was that he held her to
factory town more firmly than he thought for. His black balanced, and
pulled against, the white of Stone, when she thought of them. And her
mind was vaguely upon them as she came over the crest of the hill,
coming from the white folks’ kitchen. As she sang softly at the evil
face of the full moon.
A strange stir was in her. Indolently, she tried to fix upon Bob or
Tom as the cause of it. To meet Bob in the canebrake, as she was going
to do an hour or so later, was nothing new. And Tom’s proposal which
she felt on its way to her could be indefinitely put off. Separately,
there was no unusual significance to either one. But for some reason,
they jumbled when her eyes gazed vacantly at the rising moon. And from
the jumble came the stir that was strangely within her. Her lips
trembled. The slow rhythm of her song grew agitant and restless. Rusty
black and tan spotted hounds, lying in the dark corners of porches
or prowling around back yards, put their noses in the air and caught
its tremor. They began plaintively to yelp and howl. Chickens woke up
and cackled. Intermittently, all over the countryside dogs barked and
roosters crowed as if heralding a weird dawn or some ungodly awakening.
The women sang lustily. Their songs were cotton-wads to stop their
ears. Louisa came down into factory town and sank wearily upon the step
before her home. The moon was rising towards a thick cloud-bank which
soon would hide it.
Red nigger moon. Sinner!
Blood-burning moon. Sinner!
Come out that fact’ry door.
2
Up from the deep dusk of a cleared spot on the edge of the forest a
mellow glow arose and spread fan-wise into the low-hanging heavens.
And all around the air was heavy with the scent of boiling cane. A
large pile of cane-stalks lay like ribboned shadows upon the ground. A
mule, harnessed to a pole, trudged lazily round and round the pivot of
the grinder. Beneath a swaying oil lamp, a Negro alternately whipped
out at the mule, and fed cane-stalks to the grinder. A fat boy waddled
pails of fresh ground juice between the grinder and the boiling stove.
Steam came from the copper boiling pan. The scent of cane came from the
copper pan and drenched the forest and the hill that sloped to factory
town, beneath its fragrance. It drenched the men in circle seated
around the stove. Some of them chewed at the white pulp of stalks, but
there was no need for them to, if all they wanted was to taste the
cane. One tasted it in factory town. And from factory town one could
see the soft haze thrown by the glowing stove upon the low-hanging
heavens.
Old David Georgia stirred the thickening syrup with a long ladle, and
ever so often drew it off. Old David Georgia tended his stove and told
tales about the white folks, about moonshining and cotton picking,
and about sweet nigger gals, to the men who sat there about his stove
to listen to him. Tom Burwell chewed cane-stalk and laughed with the
others till someone mentioned Louisa. Till some one said something
about Louisa and Bob Stone, about the silk stockings she must have
gotten from him. Blood ran up Tom’s neck hotter than the glow that
flooded from the stove. He sprang up. Glared at the men and said,
“She’s my gal.” Will Manning laughed. Tom strode over to him. Yanked
him up and knocked him to the ground. Several of Manning’s friends got
up to fight for him. Tom whipped out a long knife and would have cut
them to shreds if they hadnt ducked into the woods. Tom had had enough.
He nodded to Old David Georgia and swung down the path to factory town.
Just then, the dogs started barking and the roosters began to crow.
Tom felt funny. Away from the fight, away from the stove, chill got
to him. He shivered. He shuddered when he saw the full moon rising
towards the cloud-bank. He who didnt give a godam for the fears of
old women. He forced his mind to fasten on Louisa. Bob Stone. Better
not be. He turned into the street and saw Louisa sitting before her
home. He went towards her, ambling, touched the brim of a marvelously
shaped, spotted, felt hat, said he wanted to say something to her, and
then found that he didnt know what he had to say, or if he did, that he
couldnt say it. He shoved his big fists in his overalls, grinned, and
started to move off.
“Youall want me, Tom?”
“Thats what us wants, sho, Louisa.”
“Well, here I am—”
“An here I is, but that aint ahelpin none, all th same.”
“You wanted to say something?..”
“I did that, sho. But words is like th spots on dice: no matter how y
fumbles em, there’s times when they jes wont come. I dunno why. Seems
like th love I feels fo yo done stole m tongue. I got it now. Whee!
Louisa, honey, I oughtnt tell y, I feel I oughtnt cause yo is young
an goes t church an I has had other gals, but Louisa I sho do love
y. Lil gal, Ise watched y from them first days when youall sat right
here befo yo door befo th well an sang sometimes in a way that like t
broke m heart. Ise carried y with me into th fields, day after day, an
after that, an I sho can plow when yo is there, an I can pick cotton.
Yassur! Come near beatin Barlo yesterday. I sho did. Yassur! An next
year if ole Stone’ll trust me, I’ll have a farm. My own. My bales will
buy yo what y gets from white folks now. Silk stockings an purple
dresses—course I dont believe what some folks been whisperin as t how
y gets them things now. White folks always did do for niggers what they
likes. An they jes cant help alikin yo, Louisa. Bob Stone likes y.
Course he does. But not th way folks is awhisperin. Does he, hon?”
“I dont know what you mean, Tom.”
“Course y dont. Ise already cut two niggers. Had t hon, t tell em so.
Niggers always tryin t make somethin out a nothin. An then besides,
white folks aint up t them tricks so much nowadays. Godam better not
be. Leastawise not with yo. Cause I wouldnt stand f it. Nassur.”
“What would you do, Tom?”
“Cut him jes like I cut a nigger.”
“No, Tom—”
“I said I would an there aint no mo to it. But that aint th talk f now.
Sing, honey Louisa, an while I’m listenin t y I’ll be makin love.”
Tom took her hand in his. Against the tough thickness of his own, hers
felt soft and small. His huge body slipped down to the step beside her.
The full moon sank upward into the deep purple of the cloud-bank. An
old woman brought a lighted lamp and hung it on the common well whose
bulky shadow squatted in the middle of the road, opposite Tom and
Louisa. The old woman lifted the well-lid, took hold the chain, and
began drawing up the heavy bucket. As she did so, she sang. Figures
shifted, restless-like, between lamp and window in the front rooms of
the shanties. Shadows of the figures fought each other on the gray dust
of the road. Figures raised the windows and joined the old woman in
song. Louisa and Tom, the whole street, singing:
Red nigger moon. Sinner!
Blood-burning moon. Sinner!
Come out that fact’ry door.
3
Bob Stone sauntered from his veranda out into the gloom of fir trees
and magnolias. The clear white of his skin paled, and the flush of his
cheeks turned purple. As if to balance this outer change, his mind
became consciously a white man’s. He passed the house with its huge
open hearth which, in the days of slavery, was the plantation cookery.
He saw Louisa bent over that hearth. He went in as a master should
and took her. Direct, honest, bold. None of this sneaking that he had
to go through now. The contrast was repulsive to him. His family had
lost ground. Hell no, his family still owned the niggers, practically.
Damned if they did, or he wouldnt have to duck around so. What would
they think if they knew? His mother? His sister? He shouldnt mention
them, shouldnt think of them in this connection. There in the dusk
he blushed at doing so. Fellows about town were all right, but how
about his friends up North? He could see them incredible, repulsed.
They didnt know. The thought first made him laugh. Then, with their
eyes still upon him, he began to feel embarrassed. He felt the need of
explaining things to them. Explain hell. They wouldnt understand, and
moreover, who ever heard of a Southerner getting on his knees to any
Yankee, or anyone. No sir. He was going to see Louisa to-night, and
love her. She was lovely—in her way. Nigger way. What way was that?
Damned if he knew. Must know. He’d known her long enough to know. Was
there something about niggers that you couldnt know? Listening to
them at church didnt tell you anything. Looking at them didnt tell
you anything. Talking to them didnt tell you anything—unless it was
gossip, unless they wanted to talk. Of course, about farming, and
licker, and craps—but those werent nigger. Nigger was something more.
How much more? Something to be afraid of, more? Hell no. Who ever heard
of being afraid of a nigger? Tom Burwell. Cartwell had told him that
Tom went with Louisa after she reached home. No sir. No nigger had ever
been with his girl. He’d like to see one try. Some position for him
to be in. Him, Bob Stone, of the old Stone family, in a scrap with a
nigger over a nigger girl. In the good old days... Ha! Those were the
days. His family had lost ground. Not so much, though. Enough for him
to have to cut through old Lemon’s canefield by way of the woods, that
he might meet her. She was worth it. Beautiful nigger gal. Why nigger?
Why not, just gal? No, it was because she was nigger that he went to
her. Sweet... The scent of boiling cane came to him. Then he saw the
rich glow of the stove. He heard the voices of the men circled around
it. He was about to skirt the clearing when he heard his own name
mentioned. He stopped. Quivering. Leaning against a tree, he listened.
“Bad nigger. Yassur, he sho is one bad nigger when he gets started.”
“Tom Burwell’s been on th gang three times fo cuttin men.”
“What y think he’s agwine t do t Bob Stone?”
“Dunno yet. He aint found out. When he does— Baby!”
“Aint no tellin.”
“Young Stone aint no quitter an I ken tell y that. Blood of th old uns
in his veins.”
“Thats right. He’ll scrap, sho.”
“Be gettin too hot f niggers round this away.”
“Shut up, nigger. Y dont know what y talkin bout.”
Bob Stone’s ears burned as though he had been holding them over the
stove. Sizzling heat welled up within him. His feet felt as if they
rested on red-hot coals. They stung him to quick movement. He circled
the fringe of the glowing. Not a twig cracked beneath his feet. He
reached the path that led to factory town. Plunged furiously down it.
Halfway along, a blindness within him veered him aside. He crashed into
the bordering canebrake. Cane leaves cut his face and lips. He tasted
blood. He threw himself down and dug his fingers in the ground. The
earth was cool. Cane-roots took the fever from his hands. After a long
while, or so it seemed to him, the thought came to him that it must
be time to see Louisa. He got to his feet and walked calmly to their
meeting place. No Louisa. Tom Burwell had her. Veins in his forehead
bulged and distended. Saliva moistened the dried blood on his lips. He
bit down on his lips. He tasted blood. Not his own blood; Tom Burwell’s
blood. Bob drove through the cane and out again upon the road. A hound
swung down the path before him towards factory town. Bob couldnt see
it. The dog loped aside to let him pass. Bob’s blind rushing made him
stumble over it. He fell with a thud that dazed him. The hound yelped.
Answering yelps came from all over the countryside. Chickens cackled.
Roosters crowed, heralding the bloodshot eyes of southern awakening.
Singers in the town were silenced. They shut their windows down.
Palpitant between the rooster crows, a chill hush settled upon the
huddled forms of Tom and Louisa. A figure rushed from the shadow and
stood before them. Tom popped to his feet.
“Whats y want?”
“I’m Bob Stone.”
“Yassur—an I’m Tom Burwell. Whats y want?”
Bob lunged at him. Tom side-stepped, caught him by the shoulder, and
flung him to the ground. Straddled him.
“Let me up.”
“Yassur—but watch yo doins, Bob Stone.”
A few dark figures, drawn by the sound of scuffle stood about them. Bob
sprang to his feet.
“Fight like a man, Tom Burwell, an I’ll lick y.”
Again he lunged. Tom side-stepped and flung him to the ground.
Straddled him.
“Get off me, you godam nigger you.”
“Yo sho has started somethin now. Get up.”
Tom yanked him up and began hammering at him. Each blow sounded as if
it smashed into a precious, irreplaceable soft something. Beneath them,
Bob staggered back. He reached in his pocket and whipped out a knife.
“Thats my game, sho.”
Blue flash, a steel blade slashed across Bob Stone’s throat. He had
a sweetish sick feeling. Blood began to flow. Then he felt a sharp
twitch of pain. He let his knife drop. He slapped one hand against his
neck. He pressed the other on top of his head as if to hold it down.
He groaned. He turned, and staggered towards the crest of the hill in
the direction of white town. Negroes who had seen the fight slunk into
their homes and blew the lamps out. Louisa, dazed, hysterical, refused
to go indoors. She slipped, crumbled, her body loosely propped against
the woodwork of the well. Tom Burwell leaned against it. He seemed
rooted there.
Bob reached Broad Street. White men rushed up to him. He collapsed in
their arms.
“Tom Burwell....”
White men like ants upon a forage rushed about. Except for the taut hum
of their moving, all was silent. Shotguns, revolvers, rope, kerosene,
torches. Two high-powered cars with glaring search-lights. They came
together. The taut hum rose to a low roar. Then nothing could be heard
but the flop of their feet in the thick dust of the road. The moving
body of their silence preceded them over the crest of the hill into
factory town. It flattened the Negroes beneath it. It rolled to the
wall of the factory, where it stopped. Tom knew that they were coming.
He couldnt move. And then he saw the search-lights of the two cars
glaring down on him. A quick shock went through him. He stiffened. He
started to run. A yell went up from the mob. Tom wheeled about and
faced them. They poured down on him. They swarmed. A large man with
dead-white face and flabby cheeks came to him and almost jabbed a
gun-barrel through his guts.
“Hands behind y, nigger.”
Tom’s wrist were bound. The big man shoved him to the well. Burn him
over it, and when the woodwork caved in, his body would drop to the
bottom. Two deaths for a godam nigger. Louisa was driven back. The mob
pushed in. Its pressure, its momentum was too great. Drag him to the
factory. Wood and stakes already there. Tom moved in the direction
indicated. But they had to drag him. They reached the great door. Too
many to get in there. The mob divided and flowed around the walls to
either side. The big man shoved him through the door. The mob pressed
in from the sides. Taut humming. No words. A stake was sunk into the
ground. Rotting floor boards piled around it. Kerosene poured on the
rotting floor boards. Tom bound to the stake. His breast was bare.
Nails scratches let little lines of blood trickle down and mat into
the hair. His face, his eyes were set and stony. Except for irregular
breathing, one would have thought him already dead. Torches were flung
onto the pile. A great flare muffled in black smoke shot upward. The
mob yelled. The mob was silent. Now Tom could be seen within the
flames. Only his head, erect, lean, like a blackened stone. Stench
of burning flesh soaked the air. Tom’s eyes popped. His head settled
downward. The mob yelled. Its yell echoed against the skeleton stone
walls and sounded like a hundred yells. Like a hundred mobs yelling.
Its yell thudded against the thick front wall and fell back. Ghost of a
yell slipped through the flames and out the great door of the factory.
It fluttered like a dying thing down the single street of factory town.
Louisa, upon the step before her home, did not hear it, but her eyes
opened slowly. They saw the full moon glowing in the great door. The
full moon, an evil thing, an omen, soft showering the homes of folks
she knew. Where were they, these people? She’d sing, and perhaps they’d
come out and join her. Perhaps Tom Burwell would come. At any rate, the
full moon in the great door was an omen which she must sing to:
Red nigger moon. Sinner!
Blood-burning moon. Sinner!
Come out that fact’ry door.
[Illustration]
SEVENTH STREET
Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.
Seventh Street is a bastard of Prohibition and the War. A crude-boned,
soft-skinned wedge of nigger life breathing its loafer air, jazz
songs and love, thrusting unconscious rhythms, black reddish blood
into the white and whitewashed wood of Washington. Stale soggy wood
of Washington. Wedges rust in soggy wood... Split it! In two! Again!
Shred it! .. the sun. Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet
wood dry and blow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned
soft-skinned life, who set you flowing? Blood suckers of the War would
spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood. Prohibition
would put a stop to it. Who set you flowing? White and whitewash
disappear in blood. Who set you flowing? Flowing down the smooth
asphalt of Seventh Street, in shanties, brick office buildings,
theaters, drug stores, restaurants, and cabarets? Eddying on the
corners? Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in
heaven? God would not dare to suck black red blood. A Nigger God! He
would duck his head in shame and call for the Judgment Day. Who set you
flowing?
Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.
RHOBERT
Rhobert wears a house, like a monstrous diver’s helmet, on his head.
His legs are banty-bowed and shaky because as a child he had rickets.
He is way down. Rods of the house like antennæ of a dead thing,
stuffed, prop up in the air. He is way down. He is sinking. His house
is a dead thing that weights him down. He is sinking as a diver would
sink in mud should the water be drawn off. Life is a murky, wiggling,
microscopic water that compresses him. Compresses his helmet and would
crush it the minute that he pulled his head out. He has to keep it in.
Life is water that is being drawn off.
Brother, life is water that is being drawn off.
Brother, life is water that is being drawn off.
The dead house is stuffed. The stuffing is alive. It is sinful to draw
one’s head out of live stuffing in a dead house. The propped-up antennæ
would cave in and the stuffing be strewn .. shredded life-pulp .. in
the water. It is sinful to have one’s own head crushed. Rhobert is an
upright man whose legs are banty-bowed and shaky because as a child
he had rickets. The earth is round. Heaven is a sphere that surrounds
it. Sink where you will. God is a Red Cross man with a dredge and a
respiration-pump who’s waiting for you at the opposite periphery. God
built the house. He blew His breath into its stuffing. It is good to
die obeying Him who can do these things.
A futile something like the dead house wraps the live stuffing of the
question: how long before the water will be drawn off? Rhobert does not
care. Like most men who wear monstrous helmets, the pressure it exerts
is enough to convince him of its practical infinity. And he cares not
two straws as to whether or not he will ever see his wife and children
again. Many a time he’s seen them drown in his dreams and has kicked
about joyously in the mud for days after. One thing about him goes
straight to the heart. He has an Adam’s-apple which strains sometimes
as if he were painfully gulping great globules of air .. air floating
shredded life-pulp. It is a sad thing to see a banty-bowed, shaky,
ricket-legged man straining the raw insides of his throat against
smooth air. Holding furtive thoughts about the glory of pulp-heads
strewn in water.. He is way down. Down. Mud, coming to his banty
knees, almost hides them. Soon people will be looking at him and
calling him a strong man. No doubt he is for one who has had rickets.
Lets give it to him. Lets call him great when the water shall have been
all drawn off. Lets build a monument and set it in the ooze where he
goes down. A monument of hewn oak, carved in nigger-heads. Lets open
our throats, brother, and sing “Deep River” when he goes down.
Brother, Rhobert is sinking.
Lets open our throats, brother,
Lets sing Deep River when he goes down.
AVEY
For a long while she was nothing more to me than one of those skirted
beings whom boys at a certain age disdain to play with. Just how I
came to love her, timidly, and with secret blushes, I do not know.
But that I did was brought home to me one night, the first night that
Ned wore his long pants. Us fellers were seated on the curb before an
apartment house where she had gone in. The young trees had not outgrown
their boxes then. V Street was lined with them. When our legs grew
cramped and stiff from the cold of the stone, we’d stand around a box
and whittle it. I like to think now that there was a hidden purpose in
the way we hacked them with our knives. I like to feel that something
deep in me responded to the trees, the young trees that whinnied like
colts impatient to be let free... On the particular night I have in
mind, we were waiting for the top-floor light to go out. We wanted to
see Avey leave the flat. This night she stayed longer than usual and
gave us a chance to complete the plans of how we were going to stone
and beat that feller on the top floor out of town. Ned especially had
it in for him. He was about to throw a brick up at the window when at
last the room went dark. Some minutes passed. Then Avey, as unconcerned
as if she had been paying an old-maid aunt a visit, came out. I don’t
remember what she had on, and all that sort of thing. But I do know
that I turned hot as bare pavements in the summertime at Ned’s boast:
“Hell, bet I could get her too if you little niggers weren’t always
spying and crabbing everything.” I didnt say a word to him. It wasnt
my way then. I just stood there like the others, and something like
a fuse burned up inside of me. She never noticed us, but swung along
lazy and easy as anything. We sauntered to the corner and watched her
till her door banged to. Ned repeated what he’d said. I didnt seem
to care. Sitting around old Mush-Head’s bread box, the discussion
began. “Hang if I can see how she gets away with it,” Doc started.
Ned knew, of course. There was nothing he didnt know when it came to
women. He dilated on the emotional needs of girls. Said they werent
much different from men in that respect. And concluded with the solemn
avowal: “It does em good.” None of us liked Ned much. We all talked
dirt; but it was the way he said it. And then too, a couple of the
fellers had sisters and had caught Ned playing with them. But there was
no disputing the superiority of his smutty wisdom. Bubs Sanborn, whose
mother was friendly with Avey’s, had overheard the old ladies talking.
“Avey’s mother’s ont her,” he said. We thought that only natural and
began to guess at what would happen. Some one said she’d marry that
feller on the top floor. Ned called that a lie because Avey was going
to marry nobody but him. We had our doubts about that, but we did agree
that she’d soon leave school and marry some one. The gang broke up, and
I went home, picturing myself as married.
• • • • •