Did you ever think what a dear old thing anybody's black mammy is, my
diary, especially when she's done all the cooking (and raised you) for
twenty-five years? Mammy Lou has belonged to us just like father and
mother ever since we've been at housekeeping, and my heart almost
breaks to-night when I think of the fire in our stove that won't burn
and the dasher in our churn that is still. Ever since I've been
keeping a diary I've been awfully glad to hear about anybody being in
love, and took great pleasure in watching them and writing it all out,
for I could _always_ imagine it was _me_ that was the lady. But I
would rather never keep a diary another day than to have such a thing
happen to Mammy Lou.
When mother heard about it she said not to be an old fool, but Mammy
Lou said, "either Marse Shakespeare or Marse Solomon said a old fool
was the biggest fool and she wasn't going to make him out no lie. So
marry that Yankee nigger she was!"
Bill Williams first came here to teach school, being very proud and
educated. Then he got to be Dilsey's beau and they expected to marry.
When he first commenced going to see Dilsey Mammy Lou would cook the
nicest kind of things for her to take to picnics, hoping to help her
catch him in a motherly way. But when he started to promising to give
Dilsey a rocking-chair and take her to "George Washington" if she
would marry him, Mammy Lou changed about. She had always wanted to see
a large city _herself_, and she thought it wasn't any use of letting
Dilsey get all the best things in life, even if she was her child.
Pretty soon she commenced wearing red ribbon around her neck and
having her hair wrapped fresh once a week. Then she told him she was
the good cook that cooked all the picnic things, and ironed all of
Dilsey's clean dresses; also that she had seventy-five dollars saved
up that she would be willing to spend on a grand bridal trip the next
time she got married. Mammy Lou is a smart old thing, and so she
talked to him until he said, well, he would just as soon marry her as
Dilsey, if she would stop cooking for us, and cook for _him_ and iron
_his_ shirts all the time. She promised him she would do this, like
people always do when they're trying to marry a person, although it
looks very different afterward. None of mammy's other husbands had
been so proud. _They_ would not only let her cook, but would come
around every meal time, in the friendliest kind of way, and help her
draw a bucket of water. This is why the whole family's heart is
breaking and we feel so hungry to-night. She's quit, and the wedding
is to-morrow.
This morning early she came up to the house to ask mother if it would
be excusable to take off her widow's bonnet, not being divorced from
Uncle Mose but four months; also how she had better carry her money to
keep Bill from getting "a holt" of it. She said she wouldn't trust any
white Yankee with a half a dollar that she ever saw, much less a
coffee-colored one. Mother was so mad at her, and so troubled about
the sad biscuits and the watery gravy at breakfast that she said she
hoped he would steal every cent of the seventy-five dollars before the
ceremony was over, and maybe _that_ would bring her to her senses.
"And me not to get to go to George Washington!" mammy said in a
hurt-like voice. "Why, Mis' Mary!"
"Where is this George Washington?" mother took time to ask, thinking
mammy would know she was just poking fun at her, but she didn't.
"Law! Ain't it surprising how little my white folks do know! Why, it's
the place where the president and his wife lives. Mr. Williams is
mighty well acquainted with the president and says he's shore I could
git a job cooking for the fambly if I was 'round lookin' for jobs. But
I ain't to cook for nobody but _him_ from now on."
Mother didn't encourage her to talk about her love and matrimony any,
so she took me by the hand and we went out and sat down on the kitchen
doorstep and had a long conversation. She seemed mighty sad at the
notion of leaving us, but was so delighted at the idea of marrying a
young man (as anybody naturally _would be_) that she couldn't think of
giving that up. Pretty soon in our conversation she commenced telling
me about the things that happened many years ago, when I was a little
child, like they say folks do when they're going on a long journey or
die.
She began from the time I was born, and said I was such a brown little
thing that I looked like I had tobacco-juice running through me
instead of blood. And I made use of a bottle until I was four years
old. Because I was the only one of mother's and father's children that
lived and was born to them like Isaac (_I_ don't know of any special
way that Isaac was born, but two of mammy's husbands have been
preachers, so _she_ knows what she's talking about) they let me keep
the bottle to humor me. It had a long rubber thing to it so I would
find it more convenient. Mammy said the old muley cow was just laid
aside for my benefit, they thought so much of me, and when I got big
enough to walk I'd go with her into the cow-lot every hour in the day
and drag my bottle behind me to be milked into. I enjoyed being milked
into my mouth, too, if my bottle was too dirty to hold it just then.
Mammy said I always admired the sunshine so much that I would sit out
in it on hot days till my milk bottle would clabber, which was one
cause of my brownness. When I found out I couldn't draw anything up
through the rubber, being all clabbered, I'd begin to cry and run with
my bottle to mammy. And she would quiet me by digging out all the
clabber with a little twig and feed it to the chickens. They got to
knowing the sound of me and my bottle rattling over the gravels so
well that they'd all come a running like they do when they hear you
scrape the plates.
This, of course, was very touching to us both and we nearly cried when
she talked about going off to Washington where the people are too
stylish to keep a muley cow. They won't even keep a baby in the
families there, but the ladies keep little dogs and get divorces.
Mother wouldn't go to the wedding, for dinner and supper were worse
than breakfast. The rest of the family all went except Dilsey, who
didn't much like the way her mother had treated her about Bill.
Professor and Mrs. Young went, being still down there and a great
pleasure to us all. They were delighted, being raised up North, and
wanted to take pictures of everything. Whenever we would pass a cabin
door with a nigger and his guitar sitting in it and picking on it
they would stop and say that it was so "picturesque." And the real old
uncles with white hair and the mammies with their heads tied up they
said reminded them of "Aunty Bellum days."
Everything went off as nice as could be expected under the
circumstances until the preacher said, "Salute your bride." Then, when
Bill started to kiss her, Mammy Lou laid her hand against the side of
his head so hard you could have heard the pop up to the big house and
said she would show him how to be impudent to a woman of sixty, even
if he was a Yankee and educated. Everybody passed it off as a joke,
but the slap didn't seem to set very well with Bill, being nineteen
years old and not used to such. We left right after the ceremony and
Mammy Lou and the others walked on down to her house to wait for the
twelve o'clock train that they were going to leave on.
Although I always enjoy going to places with the Youngs on account of
the curious words and the camera they use, and although it was the
sixth marriage of my old nurse, which you don't get a chance to see
_every_ day, still when I think of breakfast, I must say it was the
saddest wedding I ever witnessed.
This morning when I first woke up and heard that regular old tune,
_Play on Your Harp, Little David_, coming so natural and lifelike from
the kitchen I thought surely it must be a dream, mammy being hundreds
of miles away in Washington. The song kept on, though, just like it
has done every morning for twenty-five years, mother says:
"_Shad_-rach, _Me_-shach, _Abed_-ne-_go_,
The _Lord_ has _washed_ me _white_ as _snow_,"
so I got up. It never does take me a minute to wash my face of a
morning, and this morning it took even less time. I hopped into my
clothes and flew down-stairs. It wasn't any dream! There was mammy,
not looking like she was married nor anything, and a good, cheerful
fire in the stove, and the bacon smelling like you were nearly
starved. I didn't ask any questions, but just said, "Mammy," and she
said, "Baby," and there I was hugging her fit to turn over the churn.
I asked her if mother knew that she come back and she said no, she had
been easy and not made any noise, so as to surprise us all. I reckon
mother and father are so used to having Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
wake them up of a morning that they thought it was a dream, too.
Pretty soon they heard us talking though and came in. Mother came
first, for it is the gentleman's place to let the lady go first into
the kitchen, especially when they think that breakfast is to be got.
Mother said, "What are you doing here?" and Mammy Lou said, "Getting
breakfast, Mis' Mary," which was about as straightforward as they
could have been with each other. Mother asked her if she wasn't still
married, and she said no, for she had "had occasion to give that
uppish Yankee nigger a good whippin' las' night." And then she went on
to say that she told Dilsey _she_ could have him if she still wanted
him, and said she hoped Dilsey would take him for she would just
_admire_ to be mother-in-law to that nigger.
Just then father came in, hearing the last remark about "that nigger,"
and asked Mammy Lou what the trouble was between her and her new
husband. Mammy was breaking eggs into the big yellow bowl which she
was going to scramble for breakfast, and as she commenced telling us
about her marrying troubles she began to beat them very hard, which
seemed to ease her. It is a great help to people to think of their
enemies when they are beating things, for it makes them beat all the
harder and don't really hurt the enemies.
Mammy said when they got home from the wedding she started to change
her white dress and veil and put on her good cashmere dress to ride
on the train in. Just about that time Mr. Williams spoke up and said
he was sleepy and wanted to get a good night's rest so he was going to
bed, but he wanted mammy to have him a nice rare steak for his
breakfast. Mammy then asked him if he had been born a fool or just
turned that way since he had married so far above his station. He said
he would mighty soon find out who the _fool_ was in that family--and
she better have good beaten biscuits to go with the steak. When he
said this mammy gave him another sample of her strength like she did
in the church and told him to get out of there and change his clothes
to go to George Washington. Then he gave a big ha! ha! laugh in her
face, right before Dilsey and the neighbors and said why, didn't she
know that George Washington had been dead and buried behind the church
door for a hundred years? He kept on laughing and said the "ignorance
of country niggers is really amusable."
Mammy said she hated to do it with her veil on, being a new veil and
she hadn't used it but twice, but she couldn't wait to take it off,
him grinning like a picture-taking man at his funny joke. All his
teeth were showing, and, as mammy had always admired them for being so
big and white, she decided she would keep a handful to remember him
by; so she gave him one good lick in the mouth with her wedding
slipper, which was large and easy to come off. This broke a good half
of his front tooth, she said, besides drawing a lot of blood to
relieve her feelings. While he was busy wiping away the blood and
trying to open his eyes enough to see candle-light again, mammy sat
down by him, and, before he knew it, she had dragged him across her
lap and was paddling him like he was her own dear son instead of her
husband. Then she called Dilsey and told her she might feel safe about
marrying him now, if she still wanted him, for he had better sense
than to try to fool with any member of _that_ family again. Mammy Lou
said of course _she_ couldn't stay married to a man she could paddle.
She was too much of a lady. But Dilsey turned up her nose and said she
wouldn't have any second-hand nigger, much less a whipped one.
Father spoke up then and said she couldn't give Bill to Dilsey without
getting a divorce from him first. Mammy Lou said, well, Marse Sheriff
might arrest her and Marse Judge might fine her, but she would see
them all in the place that was prepared for them before she would
waste twenty-five dollars for just _that_ little speck of marrying!
Father went on out to feed the chickens and mother went to wake up
Bertha (but not the baby) for breakfast, and Mammy Lou scraped the
eggs into the dish I had brought her.
"Divorce _nothin'_," I heard her remark as she soused the hot skillet
into water that sizzled, "I done bought a hundred dollars' worth o'
divorces _already_, and if the lawyers wasn't all scribes and
Pharisees they'd let _that_ run me the rest o' my days."