MAMMY JUNE HELPS
Of course, Russ Bunker should not have done it. He was always ready to
try new things and wasn't much afraid of anything that turned up. But
trying to catch a big catfish with his hands was ridiculous.
Perhaps he realized this when he fell off the log into the stream; but
it was too late then to know how foolish it was.
The chorus of screams from the children on the bank was the first
announcement that Mammy June had of the mischief that was afoot. The
colored children shouted and Frane, Junior, ran right off the log and
came screaming to the cabin:
"He's gone down! He's gone down!"
"What is the matter with you, Frane?" demanded the old woman, coming
heavily down off the porch. "Who's gone down? Wha's he gone down to?"
"Russ has gone down," announced Frane. "He's gone down after the
catfish."
"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mammy June. "Is that li'le boy got into the
branch?"
Rose and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, as well as the two
Armatage girls, all came running, too. For the first minute none of them
understood what had happened to Russ.
But when they reached the bank of the stream they saw something
splashing in the middle of the pool under the bridge. They couldn't see
Russ, but they knew that something was struggling there.
"Is that a fish?" demanded Laddie. "It must be a whale."
"Oh!" shrieked Rose. "It's Russ! He'll be drowned!"
"Don't let him get wet, Rose," cried Margy. "Mother won't want him to
get his clothes wet."
But if there was any part of Russ Bunker that was not wet when he
managed to get on his feet and his head and shoulders appeared above
the water, Rose couldn't imagine what part it could be. He was just the
wettest boy she had ever seen.
Russ had got a footing finally upon the stone beside which the big
catfish had lain. The water was too deep all around him for him to wade
out. The bottom of the pool was so deep that it was over the boy's head.
He had to stand on the rock and gasp for breath for he had swallowed a
good deal of water, having gone down with his mouth open.
"What did I tell you?" demanded Frane, Junior, from the bank. "You
couldn't catch that cat."
"I know it!" jerked out Russ. "I know it now."
"Lawsy me!" ejaculated Mammy June. "Is that the way you ketches catfish
up Norf?"
The other little Bunkers did not understand this. Vi wanted to know at
once if Russ had a kitty in the water with him. But nobody paid any
attention to her questions.
"Here, you 'Lias and Henery!" commanded Mammy June to two of the older
colored boys. "What you standin' there idle for? Go out on that bridge
and haul that poor chile ashore. What a state he is in, to be sure!"
It did not take long to help Russ up on to the log again. The water just
poured off him; but it was not very cold and his teeth didn't
chatter--much. Mammy June showed anxiety, however.
"You come right into de house, honey," she said to Russ. "Now, little
Miss," she added to Rose, "yo' mustn't scold him now. Wait till we wring
his clothes out and get him dry. Yo' 'Lias, bring some dry bresh and
some good sticks. We'll want a hot fire."
Mammy June had no stove in her cabin, but a broad and smoke-blackened
open fireplace. There was a small fire in it, over which her teakettle
hung. In five minutes the negro boys made a roaring blaze. Then the old
woman drove them all out of the cabin save Russ, whom she helped off
with his wet clothes, rubbed dry with a big towel, and to whom she gave
a shirt and trousers to put on while she wrung out his clothing and hung
it all about the fire to dry.
"That shirt and them pants," she said, "b'longs to my Sneezer--my
Ebenezer. If he was here this wouldn't have happened to yo', honey. He
wouldn't have let no w'ite boy fall into that branch--no, sir. But these
no-'count other young ones didn't know 'nough to tell yo' that that
ain't the way to catch catfish."
"I found out myself," admitted Russ rather ruefully.
Rose came to the door and begged to know if Russ was all right.
"He's going to be just as soon as I get him made a hot drink," declared
Mammy June.
"Has he got all over being drowned?" Margy demanded.
And even Mun Bun was a good deal troubled because Russ had got so wet.
"If you had any candy in your pocket, Russ," the little boy said, "it
must be all soft now. It won't be good to eat."
"I didn't have any candy, Mun Bun," Russ told him. Russ was feeling a
whole lot better now. Mammy June gave him a nice hot, sweet drink. He
didn't mind if it was a little "stingy" too.
"Yo' all come in yere--yo' little w'ite folks," said Mammy June, "and
we'll make some 'lasses taffy. I got plenty sorgum 'lasses. We can make
it w'ile this catfish boy is getting dry."
She continued to call Russ "the catfish boy" and chuckled over his
adventure. But she warned him, when his clothing was dry, that he must
be more careful when he was playing about the water.
"An' yo' got to tell yo' mudder and daddy about it," she instructed
Russ. "Don't never hide nothin' from 'em."
"Oh, we don't!" Rose broke in. "We always tell Mother and Daddy
everything."
"That's what I tell my Philly and Ally and Frane, Junior. Always must
tell they parents."
"And get scolded for it," said Phillis rather crossly.
"Well, then," said Mammy June cheerfully, "you mustn't do things to get
scolded for. So I tell all these grandchildren of mine. Scat, you
children!" for she saw several of the smaller colored boys and girls
trying to steal in at the cabin door. "Ain't room for you in here
noways. Yo' shall have yo' share of the 'lasses candy when it's done."
That "taffy pull" was a famous one. The six little Bunkers thought they
had never eaten such nice molasses candy as Mammy June made. Phillis
Armatage made believe that she did a lot to help for she buttered the
pans. But it was Mammy June who really did it all.
"I think," confessed Rose to Alice, "that it is awfully nice to have
both a mammy and a mother, as you girls have. Of course, a mammy can't
be just what Mother Bunker is to us; but Mammy June is nice."
"She's lots better to us than our mother, in some ways," said Alice
bluntly. "Mother doesn't want us to play noisy in the house. She has
headaches and stays on the couch a lot. We have to step soft and can't
talk loud. But Mammy June never has the fidgets."
"What's 'fidgets'?" asked Rose, quite shocked by the way Alice spoke of
her mother.
"What ladies have," explained Alice. "Don't your mother have 'em?"
"I guess not. I never heard about them," Rose answered. "Then if your
mother is sick, I don't suppose she can help it. It is lucky you have
got a mammy."
That first afternoon ("evening" all these Southern folks called it) at
Mammy June's was a very pleasant experience. Russ did not mind his
ducking--much. He only grinned a little when Mammy June called him "the
catfish boy."
"Serves me good and right," he confessed to Rose. "I ought not to have
gone into that brook without a bathing suit. And, anyway, I guess a boy
can't catch fish of any kind with his hands."
Mun Bun and Margy and the smaller colored children managed to spread the
molasses taffy over face and hands to a greater or less degree; but they
enjoyed the taffy pull as much as the older children did. Finally, after
Mammy June had washed his face and hands, Mun Bun climbed up into her
comfortable lap and went fast asleep.
The old woman, who loved children so dearly and was so kind to them,
looked at one of her older grandsons, Elias, and ordered him to "get de
boxwagon to take dis bressed baby home in."
A soapbox on a plank between two pairs of wheels being produced and the
box made comfortable with a quilt and a pillow belonging to Mammy June,
Mun Bun was laid, still fast asleep, in this vehicle, and Russ started
to drag his little brother home.
"Yo' 'Lias!" exclaimed Mammy June, from the doorway of her cabin,
"whar's yo' manners? Don't you let that w'ite visitor boy drag that
boxwagon. You get busy, 'Lias."
Russ and the other Bunker children were not used to being waited on at
every step and turn. But they became better used to it as the time
passed. The white folks on the Meiggs Plantation seemed to expect all
this aid from the colored folks, and the latter seemed willing and eager
to attend.
Russ was not scolded for his involuntary plunge into the branch. In fact
his father laughed immensely at the tale. But Mother Bunker had to be
assured that the stream was neither deep nor boisterous before she could
laugh much.
The children had all had a lovely afternoon at Mammy June's and after
that day they found most of their enjoyment in running down to her cabin
and playing there. This delight was shared by the Armatages too. And the
latter's father and mother seemed perfectly content if the children
were in mammy's care.
The days passed all too swiftly. Everybody, darkies and all, were on
tiptoe about the coming festival of Christmas and New Year's. The six
little Bunkers learned that these holidays were celebrated in different
style on this Georgia plantation from what they were in the North.