XTHE BARNYARD
EarlySunday morning Uncle Isaac came to ask Big Sue for an old worn-out sieve. Uncle Bill was having a bad time. Hags rode all the horses at the barnyard every night God sent. Every morning the manes and tails were so tangled up it took Uncle Bill hours to get them greased and smoothed out again.
Red sunsets promised a killing frost and the white folks would be likely to come any time after that. Bill had the horses’ coats all rubbed down like satin, every fetlock trimmed, the bridles and saddles in good order, but the hags were deviling him to death. Big Sue said she had already given Uncle Bill a string of red pepper pods and a straw broom too, to hang up on the stable door. If they didn’t stop the hags, what good could a sieve do?
Uncle explained to her how hags are fools about counting things. They won’t go inside a door until they count the boards on the door-facing, and the nails, then they’d count all the pepper pods and the straws in the broom, and have time enough left before day to ride the horses, and plait their manes and tails. But a sieve would stop them, for by the time all the holes in the sieve were counted, those hags would be weary and ready to go home and rest.
Big Sue gave him the sieve and he invited Breeze to walk with him to the barnyard where Uncle Bill had a nice little milking goat to give him. Breeze could breakit to ride and drive, and the milk would be good to make him grow.
Breeze was delighted. All his life he had wanted a goat. But Big Sue shook her head. A milking goat wouldn’t do for Breeze. If he drank goat milk he’d be ruined for life. He hated soap and water already, and goat’s milk would make him worse. He’d never wash at all if he drank it. Breeze begged her to change her mind. If she’d let him have a goat he’d wash every night God sent. But she was firm. She had seen too many boys grow up into filthy men just from drinking goat’s milk when they were young. She wanted Breeze to be clean and nice so he could play with young Cap’n when he came home to spend the winters.
She changed the subject by asking Uncle Isaac how far guinea fowls could count. He said they could count five. She’d always thought that too, but lately she’d left five eggs in her guinea nest and they wouldn’t lay in it again.
“Did you put you’ hand in de nest when you took de eggs out?” Uncle Isaac asked. “Guineas kin smell. If dey smell you’ hand, dey’ll change dey nest.” Big Sue looked hard at Breeze. She had cautioned him about that and he declared he had been careful to take the eggs out with a long-handled spoon.
“Leave six eggs in de nest, Big Sue. I know a guinea can’ count to more dan six.”
“No, I gwine lick Breeze, dat’s wha’ I’m gwine do. He took dem eggs out wid his hand, and I know it.”
“No, daughter, no! You’s too hard-hearted!” He looked at her with twinkling eyes. “You treat em too bad. I’m sorry for em. An’ Bill’s gwine crazy if you don’ marry em! You ought not to plague we so!”
“Who? Me?”
“Sho’! You. Po’ Bill’s mighty nigh ruint hismouth tryin’ to be stylish an’ wear teeth on Sundays to please you.”
She giggled, then she squalled. “Do hush, Uncle! You know I got a livin’ husband right yonder to Wilmington.”
“Silas don’ count. Not now. When a man’s gone seven years, e don’ count. I’d risk dat.”
“Shucks!” Her tone was scornful. “It’ll take a younger man dan you or Uncle Bill to git me. You can put dat in you’ pipe an’ smoke it too.”
“We’ll see,” Uncle Isaac responded cheerfully. “Droppin’ water kin broke stone.”
As he turned away, Big Sue went up close and shouted in his ear that Breeze’s palate was down, and she was going to ask Maum Hannah to get it up for him.
“It might be de boy’s just got a li’l’ fresh cold. If e is, e ought to work round de stables. Dat’ll broke a cold, if it ain’t got too strong a holt on you. Let’s go by de stables now. Git you’ hat, Breeze.”
Uncle Isaac wanted Breeze to see him hang up the sieve for the hags. There was a right way and a wrong way to do such things. Uncle Bill loved those horses, yes Lord. Bill knew every horse and mule and cow and goat and sheep by name. All the grown hogs, too. When he called them they came. They knew he loved them. Uncle Bill was as tender with little new-born things as if they were human babies. But he couldn’t stand disobedience. He had no mercy on things that did wrong.
Alongside the path were wide-spread grape arbors. A double row of gnarled knotted fig trees, full of yellow leaves and belated ripe fruit, let rich honey ooze from tiny rifts in blue and brown and purple skins, tempting bees to plunder.
Uncle Bill had tried to teach the chickens to sleep in a fowl-house, but the younger ones would slip out here and roost in these fig trees. Uncle Isaac pointed to a handful of white bloody feathers that lay scattered over the grass. An owl caught the best white pullet last night. She would roost in the top of the fig tree, no matter how often she was shooed out. Foolish chicken. But Bill would get that owl. Sooner or later he’d get him. Bill was a dangerous man to cross. Uncle Isaac was emphatic.
Putting a kind hand on Breeze’s shoulder, he said, “You ax Bill to le’ you go wid him an’ l’arn how to call a owl. Bill kin call crows and wild turkeys an’ alligators too. E’ll larn you all dat, son, if you speak a good word for him to you’ Cun Big Sue. Bill is raven ’bout dat lady. Pure raven.”
“Do hush you’ fool talk, Uncle!” Big Sue chided, with a pleased laugh. “I ain’ got Uncle Bill to study ’bout.”
The great square barns were filled with corn and hay. A long narrow building cut into many stalls made a shelter for the mules and horses. As they opened the wide heavy gate, Uncle Bill came out of the barn door with a pitchfork full of hay on his shoulder. He was lining out two lines of a hymn to sing, but broke off in a laugh of delight when he spied them.
“Why, Miss Big Sue! Great Gawd! I too glad fo’ see you! Lawd! Look a’ de li’l’ boy.” He laughed again with pleasure.
“I got de sieve fo’ de hags, Bill, an’ I bring Breeze an’ Big Sue to hear you talk to de animals an’ de chickens. All two is got a fresh cold. Take ’em inside de stables first.”
Uncle Bill invited them to come look inside the stables. “I got ’em all clean, an’ full o’ de nicest pinestraw beddin’ ever was. I’m too sorry. Dey wouldn’ help you’ cold, not a bit, but come look at ’em, anyhow.”
“Whe’s de run-at cow?” Big Sue asked.
Uncle Bill laughed at her fear. The run-at cow was in the pasture—she needn’t be scared. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her.
In the long row of stables, bars of sunlight shining through the cracks were blurred with dust raised by hens, roosters and little chickens, scratching vigorously in the crisp dry straw. The cocks were saying brave things, the hens sang contentedly as they looked for the grains of corn and oats hidden under wisps of fodder and hay and straw.
“Scratch, chillen, scratch,” Uncle Bill encouraged them. “De mules will come in to dinner befo’ long, den you-all’ll have to go home.”
“Make dem go home now,” Big Sue requested. “I wan’ see how you rules dem, so I kin rule Breeze.”
He hesitated. “It ain’ quite time yet. De mules don’ come in till noon.”
“We won’ be here den,” she persisted.
“How come you sends de chickens home when de mules come?” Breeze asked.
“So dey won’t git trompled under foot, son. De hens is greedy, an’ a mule’s foot is blind. Whilst de mules is chawin’ an’ droppin’ grains, dey feet’ll step on a hen same as on pine straw.”
“Send de chickens home now,” Big Sue asked again with such a warm smile that he put down his fork full of hay and, standing in the stable door, waved his big arms and shouted:
“Shoo outa here, chickens! Git on home! Be quick as you kin! I hate to git a stick after you to-day! Dis is Sunday! Git on out an’ go home!”
The chickens became terribly excited. Some of themhuddled in the straw, trying to hide, others cackled and ran. The hens with little chickens clucked briskly and hurried away, for Uncle Bill’s face was hard until every feather was out of sight.
The straw lay still. The dust whirling in the sunlight took its time and dawdled. Stable flies, with shiny wings and short fat bodies, strutted out in buzzing circles. Uncle Bill’s practised eyes spied a scarlet comb away under a trough, far back in a corner.
“Who dat hidin’?” he demanded sternly, and a shamefaced young cockerel cackled out in terror.
“Didn’ I told you to go home?” Uncle Bill asked him. “You ain’ know yet you got to mind me? I ain’ got time to be foolin’ wid such as you. No, suh! I’m too busy.”
The poor frightened creature made a few weak gaggles and tried his best to hide.
“You’ head will be chop off to-morrow. I’d do it now if it wa’n’t Sunday. Dem I can’ rule, I kills. I don’ mean to mistreat nothin’, Miss Big Sue, but I got to be strict.”
He sighed as he came out and closed the door behind him. “Dat’s a fine young rooster. I was gwine to keep him for seed. I sho’ hates to kill him.”
“I wouldn’ kill him. Not dat nice rooster. You got to scuse a chicken sometimes.”
“I done already scused em. Dat’s how come e’s so spoilt. E’s ruint. If I let him live now e’d keep me worried all de time,” Uncle Bill contended.
“Fetch em to me an’ I’ll fry em nice fo’ you!” Big Sue offered so kindly that Uncle Bill declared, “Now, dat makes me feel a lot better.”
“Show us you’ hogs.” Big Sue smiled sweetly. “I wan’ to see if you got one as fine as my Jeems.”
“I got fine ones, but deys all out in de pasture.”
“You kin call dem in, enty?” she persisted, and Uncle Bill gave in with a happy laugh.
First he went by the open door and got a few ears of corn, then on to the edge of the short slope, down by the water, where he drew a deep breath that filled his great lungs. He gave a loud mellow call: “Melia! Oh, Melia!” Before the echoes had died away, to the right and the left was a hurried swishing of water, an eager grunting, the sucking sound of quick feet lifted out of mud.
“Dey’s a-comin’!” he laughed, then he called again, “Come on, Melia! Make haste, gal!”
His old face softened as they came in sight, crowds of them. The little pigs squealed with delight as they hurried to get to him. The older ones moved more slowly, for their bodies were heavy, but all the time they grunted encouragement to their children. Uncle Bill’s big hand let a few white grains of corn trickle through his fingers and fall near his feet. Their quick eyes saw, and running forward they snapped up the bits greedily, pushing one another, crowding, sniffing at Uncle Bill’s dusty brogan shoes, hunting for more.
Uncle Bill lifted the wide sagging gate and opened it wide. “Come on een!” he said, and the gluttonous crowd trooped inside. When every one had passed he threw them whole ears on the ground. As they scrunched the grains and smacked over them, he reached down and patted one on the head, scratched another’s back with a cob, said some kind thing to another. It was plain he loved them.
“Dese is my chillen,” he said to Breeze, with a kind smile filling his soft black eyes.
“Dey is fine chillen, too,” Big Sue praised them. “Uncle Bill’s hogs is de finest in dis whole country. I was dat proud when he brought me Jeems, yonder inmy pen, home. Uncle Bill raises fine hogs an’ nobody can’ cure hams, or make sausages to taste like de ones he fixes. Nobody.”
“Well, I tries my best.”
It was a wonderful sight to Breeze. The shade between the fence and the water held hogs of every shape and size. Huge and black, with soft silky hair, they lolled, resting, panting, feeding their young.
“Git up, Ellen, an’ come here,” Uncle Bill called out to one of them. “Le’ Miss Big Sue see you an’ you’ chillen good.” The words were hardly out of his mouth before a great beast roused and lazily got to her feet and walked toward him, followed by her children. Uncle Bill took an ear of corn from his pocket, shelled a few grains and tossed them over the ground, which made the pigs come faster.
“Po’ Ellen! E’s blind. I had to stick e eyes out. Lawd! I did hate to do it!”
“How come so?” Big Sue asked him.
“Ellen would catch de chickens an’ eat em. A deer couldn’ beat Ellen runnin’. A hen couldn’ git away f’om em nohow. Ellen would swallow down a mother an’ whole brood o’ biddies quicker’n I could swallow a pint o’ raw oysters. It’s de Gawd’s truth. E’d eat de mammy an’ all. I had to hinder em somehow. I didn’ wan’ to kill a fine hog like Ellen, so I hottened a wire till it was red an’ jobbed it in all two o’ e eyes. Ellen can’ see how to run chickens down, not no mo’. Po’ ol’ gal!”
“How come some pigs is different f’om de rest?” Breeze asked. “How come some is red an’ dey ma is black?”
Uncle Bill and Big Sue exchanged smiles. “May as well say, Uncle Bill. Boy-chillen has to know sich t’ings.”
The old man smiled behind his rough hand and said, “De ma’s name is Melia, son.”
Uncle Isaac drew nearer to hear, and Uncle Bill told how Melia had been the apple of his eye since the day she was born. He planned to have her raise the finest litters ever born on this plantation. But Melia was a headstrong person. She had a mind of her own.
Uncle Isaac chuckled and murmured, “Dat’s de Gawd’s truth!”
Jack, the boar heading the herd, would take a prize anywhere. He had tremendous size, yet he was so well-bred that in spite of his bulk his skin was smooth, his hair soft and fine. He had every mark of a perfect Poland-China.
Uncle Isaac agreed emphatically. “Yes, e sho’ is. Sho’! Sho’!”
But when Melia grew up she would have nothing to do with Jack. She didn’t like him. Uncle Bill tried to encourage her to do her duty, but Jack wasn’t to her taste, and that’s all there was to it. No amount of coaxing could make her change.
Last spring Uncle Bill made up his mind Melia would have to be killed. He hated to do it. The very thought cut at his heart-strings. But there was no use to keep Melia unless she had children. He’d have killed her then, but she was too large to be killed in hot weather. Her ham couldn’t be cured properly, and so she was left to be made into meat this winter.
Uncle Isaac broke out laughing. Lord, Bill was a doleful soul when he fixed on Melia’s death. Uncle Bill nodded:
“It’s de Gawd’s truth! I pure had to go off an’ pray, I was so fretted over Melia! My prayers was answered, too. Dey sho’ was!” He said soon after his sorrowful decision, he went to the pasture one morningand found a strange sight: the pasture fence had been broken down, and a low-down, ornery, red razor-back hog was inside. He was dirty and lean and ugly. His red hair was stiff and coarse and caked up with mud. He was a sneaky, no-mannered beast. But Melia liked him.
Before many moons Melia had a fine litter of pigs. Red pigs, that took their color from the father Melia chose for them, a scrubby, ugly no-account hog that came from God knows where.
“Dey’s fine pigs, dough. Dey’s out-growin’ all de rest. Melia’s a case. A heavy case.” His proud chuckle ended with a sigh. “I reckon I’m too easy on Melia. She played a bad trick on me. I know I ought not to let em do so. But I’m gittin’ old an’ soft-hearted, an’ Melia knows it. Melia’s got too much sense. God ought not to ’a’ made Melia a hog. No. Dat was a mistake. Ought I to ’a’ killed Melia, Uncle!”
“No. No,” Uncle Isaac said gently. “You couldn’ be hard, not on Melia. Melia had a right to choose her man. Ev’y ’oman ought to could do dat, enty?”
Big Sue laughed and curtsied good-by, after thanking Uncle Bill for showing Breeze the barnyard creatures, and Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac both pulled back a foot and bowed and touched their bald foreheads, where forelocks should have been.
With a happy heart Breeze followed Big Sue on the path that swung along the edge of an open field, close to tall pines whose dark plumy tops lifted high above the red ripened leaves fluttering on bushes at their feet. The dogwood was crimson; haws and wild plum thickets gay scarlet. Partridges whistled. Across a reaped field larks rose and called out plaintively to one another from the stubble. High vines of black muskadines perfumed the air. Persimmon trees bent with fruit waiting forfrost to make it mellow and sweet. The sun beat down hot, but summer had given way to fall.
The road to the Quarters, strewn with fallen leaves that almost hid its ruts and holes, ran past sugar-cane patches where green blades rustled noisily over purple stalks. Sweet potatoes cracked the earth under vines shading the long rows. Pindars were blooming. Okra bushes were full of creamy red-hearted blossoms and pointed green pods. Butter-bean vines clambered over the hand-split clapboard garden fences that kept pigs and chickens out of small enclosures, where wide-leaved collards waited for frost to make them crisp, and scarlet tomatoes spotted straggly broken-down bushes.
Birds chirruped everywhere. The fields murmured in the soft wind. The Quarters, although made up of houses that tottered and leaned crank-sided, seethed with noise and life.
A large wagon, drawn by two mules, and with new planks laid across its high body for seats, rolled by, filled with church-goers. A flutter of hand-waves and a chorus of “good mawnin’s” greeted Big Sue as she stopped to let it pass.
“How come you ain’ gwine to church to-day, Big Sue?” somebody called out.
“I ain’ no Still-water Baptist, gal! I wouldn’ go to hear no Still-water preacher. No, ma’am!” she answered. “Jedus was baptized in de River Jurdan, an’ dat’s runnin’ water. Still water gits stale an’ scummy too quick. It can’ wash away sin! No! Sin needs runnin’ water.”
The Quarters’ houses, long, low, shabby buildings, had two front doors apiece. Each house sheltered two families, a huge chimney in the middle marking the division. Moss adorned the gray shingles of the sagging roofs. Steps were worn thin. Rust reddened the oldhand-wrought hinges of the leaning doors and gave a creak to wry window shutters.
Maum Hannah lived in the house where she and her mother and her grandmother were born. As they approached it a miscellany of goats and chickens and pigs and dogs and half-clothed little children scampered away from the door-step. The door was ajar, but a chorus of voices called out:
“Maum Hannah ain’ home. E’s yonder down de street!”
“Come look inside de door at Maum Hannah’s nice house,” Big Sue pushed the door wider open with a stick, so Breeze could see. The huge chimney had big strong black andirons, where heavy logs of wood were slowly being charred in two by a sleepy fire. All kinds of pots sat around on the clean white sand of the hearth. One pot on a pot-hook that reached out from the chimney’s back had steam spurting from under its cover, filling the room with a savory smell. Big Sue sniffed. “Dat goat-meat stew is seasoned mighty high,” she said. “De floor was scoured wid mighty strong lye soap, too.”
The thing that took Breeze’s eye was the tiny black child that sat on the hearth warming its bare feet on the naked sooty pots. He knew it was Emma, but if he had not seen her before he could never have told if she were a girl or a boy, her small features were so sharp and her clothes so shapeless.
“Looka, Emma!” Big Sue called out with a laugh, and the child’s small head perched on one side, one round black eye narrowed and a broad grin showed her two rows of milk-white teeth.
“You’s Maum Hannah’s heart-string, enty, Emma?”
But Emma didn’t answer a word.
Big Sue said Emma’s mother was dead and she hadno daddy, but she was worth a lot, for she had power to cure sickness and sorrow by the touch of her hand. That was because she had never looked on her daddy’s face. Somebody stepped over her when she was a baby; that was why she had never grown much. She’d never grow, although she sat there on the hearth roasting potatoes and eating them all day long.
All children loved to come here and sit inside Maum Hannah’s chimney on the end of a log. Big Sue used to sit there and watch Maum Hannah put ash-cake in the ashes to cook, and sweet potatoes to roast. The fire never went out in Maum Hannah’s fireplace. It’s bad luck for a fire to die in a house and this fire had never gone out altogether since it was first started by Maum Hannah’s great-grandpa, who was brought from across the sea to be a slave. The first houses ever built here were sheds to keep the fires from the rain and wind, for nobody had any matches in those days. The fires that burned in all the Quarter houses came from that same first fire that had burned for years and years. It was a lot older than anybody on the plantation. Big Sue’s fire was a piece of it. It burned hotter than match fire. Steadier too. It’s unlucky to start a new fire with a match. Breeze must learn how to bank the live coals with ashes every night, so the next morning they can be uncovered and started into a blaze. If the fire goes out, borrow a start from Maum Hannah, or one of the neighbors who have the old fire.
Maum Hannah’s cabin was very clean. Newspapers were pasted all over the walls, the dark naked rafters almost hidden by fringed papers that swung from the barrel hoops on which they were tied. A few split hickory chairs sat near the small pine table, a water-shelf beside the door held a wooden bucket and a long-handled gourd. The wide boards of the floor were scrubbeduntil they were almost white, and a string of eggshells by the chimney dangled in the draught. They’d been hung there to make the hens lay.
Between the two rows of dingy old houses that squatted low under the great oak trees the hot sunshine brought rank scents up out of the earth. Odors of pig-pens and cow-stalls and fowl-houses and goats, mixed with Hoyt’s German cologne and the smell of human beings.
Children were playing around almost every door-step. Plump. Bright-eyed. Boys with loose-hanging, ripped-open trousers, their black bodies showing where shirt-fronts lay wide open. Girls with short, ragged skirts flapping around slim prancing legs. Babies cried. Tethered goats bleated. Penned pigs squealed. Men, women, some in every-day clothes, others in their Sunday best, sat on the door-steps, leaned out of windows, lolled on the bare earth, where there was sunshine. Talking. Parading. Laughing. Some of them combing and wrapping hair, others putting shoe-strings in shoes, or smoking and idling.
As Big Sue passed, she bowed or curtsied, and called out hearty good mornings that fell limpid on the lazy hum of voices.
“Whe’s Maum Hannah?” Big Sue asked, and everybody pointed to the last house where an old woman sat in a chair in the yard in front of a doorway, near a group of black children playing in the dirt.
A large clean white cloth, folded into three corners, lay across her head and shaded her eyes from the sun. Her arms were crossed, and each narrow flat bare foot rested on a brick. Side by side they slept, almost hidden by the wide white apron that fell stiffly from her lap in starched folds, with corners that reached the ground.
“Maum Hannah don’ trust de ground. E won’t as much as let her feet sleep on it. I bet e’s been awake all night, an’ e’s makin’ up for lost time now.”
Maum Hannah’s face bore a strong resemblance to Uncle Isaac’s. It was smoother and had smaller features, but the same rich brown tone was on the black skin. The wool that edged out from under her black headkerchief was snow-white too, but her face was almost unlined, except for the wrinkles that smiles had marked around her mouth.
The little black children stared and giggled as Big Sue went tripping forward and put both her fat hands over Maum Hannah’s eyes:
“Guess who, Mauma!”
“Oh, I know you good,” Maum Hannah answered. “Dis is my Big Sue. I went to sleep a-thinkin’ ’bout you, gal. My mind must ’a’ called you till you come.”
“I declare!” Big Sue mirated. “I knowed it! I called you’ name, too, in de night. Dis is de boy-chile I fetched f’om Sandy Island. I want you to tie up his palate lock. E coughs so bad at night I can’ sleep.”
Maum Hannah gave Breeze a warm kindly smile, and her keen black eyes, deep-set underneath her bony brow, scanned him swiftly from his head to his heels. “Lawd, son, I too glad to see you. De last time we met, you wasn’ no bigger’n my hand. How come you’ palate is down? I too sorry. Did you know I had to gi’ you de first spankin’ you ever had? Lawd, I had to pop you hard to make you holler! I hope you is hard to make cry, yet.”
The little black children playing in the dirt around her forgot all about their games, so engrossed were they in Breeze, and what Maum Hannah said. They forgot their manners, too, until she prompted them.
“Yunnuh speak to you’ Cousin Big Sue. Git up!Stan’ up straight an’ pull you’ foot an’ bow nice! Dis li’l’ boy is yunnuh cousin, too. E come f’om over de river. Tell him good mawnin’. Gawd bless him!”
There was great scrambling and giggling, and many shy “good mawnin’s.” The sleek bodies were half-clad, but the whiteness of teeth, and brightness of eyes made up for lack of garments.
Maum Hannah’s own teeth were strong and sound, and set in deep blue gums which stressed their yellow tinge. The cane stem of a rank-smelling pipe showed above the top of her apron pocket.
“Lawd, you’ pipe do smell pleasant!” Big Sue sighed. “But looka my li’l’ boy. Who does e favor?”
Maum Hannah’s warm wrinkled hand gently lifted Breeze’s chin so the sun could shine full on his face. “Dis boy is de very spit o’ April. Gawd bless em, all two!”
Breeze felt that her wise old eyes took account of everything he was. No secret could be hidden from them.
“I glad you got a li’l’ boy-chile fo’ raise. I too love boy-chillen myself, even if dey does bring most of de trouble what’s een dis world. My old mammy used to say ev’y boy-chile ought to be killed soon as it’s born.”
“I ruther have boy-chillen dan gal-chillen,” Big Sue said. “But I know good and well boy-chillen does bring most o’ de misery dat’s een dis world.”
Maum Hannah nodded sorrowfully, as if she weighed Big Sue’s words, then she spoke slowly:
“I dunno how come mek so.
“Gawd mus’ be makes boy-chillen and trouble, all two, one time.
“Eby ’oman hab joy when e buth one.
“Eby gal hab joy when e love one.
“Dey ain’ see misery hide behime joy.
“Till de misery grow.
“Grow big till e choke de joy!
“Till e bust de ’oman heart open.
“Boy-chillen brings most o’ de misery dat’s een dis worl’.
“Boy-chillen!”
“Dat’s de Gawd’s truth, Maum Hannah! I know so. I was so crazy ’bout my Lijah, yonder to Fluridy, an’ e run off an’ left me when e wasn’t much higher’n dis same boy-chile.”
“How’s Lijah when you heard las’?” Maum Hannah inquired.
“Fine! Fine as kin be. E sent me a’ answer to say e’s de baddest man at de town whe’ e stay.”
“Dat’s nice. I glad to hear good news f’om Lijah. But e better not be too rash. No. When you write em back tell em I say don’ git so bad e can’ rule hisself.”
Big Sue laughed.
“I’ll sho’ do it. I’m gwine git a letter wrote to him as soon as Uncle Bill has time to come by my house an’ do em.”
Maum Hannah raised her eyes to Big Sue’s face and laughed. “Git de letter wrote to you’ boy, but don’ tarry too long wid de writin’. Gi’ Uncle Bill time to court some, too.”
Big Sue laughed too, until Maum Hannah added, “Better keep out de Big House, honey. You’ll hab sin if you don’ mind!”
“How come so, Maum Hannah?” Big Sue appeared to be surprised.
“You know how come good as me. Better’n me, too. But dat’s you’ business. Not my own. My business is workin’ for Him up yonder.” Maum Hannah held up her arms to the sky and lifted her face as if she were praying, but her gaze became so fixed that they alllooked up. There, away above them in the sky like a tiny bird, sailed something so high that its buzz was hardly more than the hum of the wind.
Maum Hannah got to her feet, and quickly untying her white apron, held it up and waved it overhead as she called out loud as she could:
“Pray, chillen, pray! Talk wid Jedus! I too sorry to see you dis mawnin’!” She shook her old head, and shouted again. “Gawd don’ like mens to go up in de elements! Dis is His day, too! Pray, chillen, pray! Do, Jedus, hab mussy on dem. I hope dey ain’ none o’ we white folks.”
“I hope not,” Big Sue joined in. “But most white folks is sinners, Maum Hannah.”
“I dunno, gal. I can’ see inside nobody’s heart, an’ I tries to love de sinners same as de rest.”
“You love sinners, Maum Hannah?” Big Sue was amazed.
“Sho’, honey, I loves de sinners, an’ hates de sin.”
“Dat’s right, Mauma. Right.” She gave the old shoulder an affectionate pat. “Dat’s how come you has such good luck catchin’ chillen. Gawd blesses you. How much did you catch last night?”
Both old hands went up with a gesture of importance. Two!
She’d caught two children last night. Two angels since first dark. The spring love-making was bearing fruit early this fall.
“When’s de white folks comin’ home?” she asked with a sudden change of expression.
Big Sue didn’t know for certain, but she thought soon as white frost came to kill the fever.
“How come you want to know?” Big Sue was curious.
Maum Hannah hoped they would hurry and comewhile she was well and able to talk with them. Something was on her mind, worrying her, and she wanted to get it settled. She was fretted about the graveyard. It was too full. Every grave dug lately uncovered old bones. There was no more room, and a new graveyard ought to be started.
“Do, Jedus!” Big Sue exclaimed. “I sho’ would hate to be de first one buried in a new graveyard. Dey say you wouldn’ never rest, not till Judgment Day, if you gits buried first, off by you’ lonesome self.”
“Not if you trust Gawd, honey.”
“I trust Gawd, Maum Hannah, but I ever did hear dat de first one to be bury in a new graveyard is bound to be unrestless.”
A gentle smile shone on Maum Hannah’s face. “I know, honey. I ever did hear so too. Gawd knows if it’s so or not. But I done made up my mind to dis: I’m willin’ to be de first one. I’m gwine ask de white folks to set off a piece o’ new ground an’ when my time is come to let me be de first one to be buried in em.”
“Great Gawd!” Big Sue panted. “You’s got a strong heart, fo’ true, Mauma. I couldn’t do dat to save life.”
“I know, chile. My heart gits weak as branch water too when I t’ink on death. But I’m done old. I got to go soon. I may’s well put my trust in Jedus. E knows I done de best I could. I talk wid Him every night. I talk wid em ’bout de graveyard in de new ground. I’m gwine to hab faith dat E’ll help me to rise up on Judgment Day an’ fly straight to glory, same as if I was a-layin’ yonder longside my mammy an’ all dem what’s gone befo’ me.”
Big Sue pondered and shook her head. She couldn’t stand to let her mind run on death. She couldn’t sleep at night if she did.
“Dat’s ’cause you’s healthy. If you was weakened down wid a sickness you’d as soon go as stay.”
“Not me! No, Jedus! I hope I kin stay till I’m old and dry as Aun’ Trecia!”
“I hope you kin if you craves dat. But I know my time is most out. I’m willin’ to sleep in new ground when my work is done.”
“Nobody else’ll mind a new graveyard if you sleeps dere ahead of dem, Mauma.”
“I can’ do nobody no good if dey dies in sin. You must git right befo’ you’ time comes. Do, honey, git right. Right wid Jedus!”
Big Sue answered shewasright. And she wanted to stay right. But she was worried half to death now, because she had broken a looking-glass.
“Now, dat is a pity! I too sorry you broke a lookin’-glass. But you go see Emma. Emma kin help you git shet o’ dat back luck. Po’ chile, e had ear-ache e’se’f las’ night. Dat cow make em run an’ fret e’se’f so bad. Emma pure cuss de cow!” Maum Hannah burst into a laugh. “Emma’s bad! Bad! I haffa all de time lick em! Po’ li’l’ creeter! Emma will cuss dat cow!”
“Emma is too small to lick fast, enty, Mauma? Looks like lickin’ would stunt em worser.”
Maum Hannah laughed again, and all the children laughed too.
“Lickin’ don’ stunt chillen! No. Lickin’ loosens up dey hide, an’ makes ’em grow. Now, Emma’s small, but e hab sense. Since de nights is cool e sets by de fire an’ warms e feet on de pots. Dem same smutty pots I cooks de victuals in. I tell em to don’ do so! But Emma keeps right on. Dat smut leaves de pots to stick on Emma’s feets, den when Emma goes to bed de smut leaves e feets to stick on my clean sheets an’ quilts. It takes tight scrubbin’ to make ’em git off. Smut tooloves cloth! Dat’s how come I lick Emma so much. I try fo’ make em hate smut same ez I hate sin. But Emma’s feets is so black e can’ see de smut on ’em.”
“Why you don’ git Emma some shoes, Mauma? Dey’ll keep her feets warm, better dan de pots.”
“No, honey. I ain’ got de heart to make po’ li’l’ Emma wear shoes. E too love to jump round an’ dance an’ shout. Shoes would hinder em. I’ll dis keep on lickin’ em till e knows better. I’ll break em f’om de pots soon ez I git time. I been too busy lately. All de chillen needs so much doctorin’. De womens run round too much, a-pleasurin’ deyselves, to hab good chillen dese days. Times is changed, honey. Womens ain’ quiet an’ steady like dey used to be. No.”
She sighed and pointed to the head of a little girl where a bit of wool was tied so tight right over the middle of her forehead that the poor child could hardly blink her eyes.
“I had to tie up Tingie’s palate lock dis mawnin’.” Tingie’s big eyes looked up solemnly, and Tingie’s sore throat gulped with a great effort to swallow. “Tingie hab de so’ t’roat, bad.”
“I’s feelin’ better now,” Tingie declared huskily.
“You’ll soon be well, honey,” Maum Hannah told her with a kind smile, and the child smiled back, sure that Maum Hannah knew.
“I needs some buzzard-claw mighty bad, Big Sue. I wish you’d tell Uncle Bill so. De babies is teethin’ so bad dis fall. I tried puttin’ a hog-teeth on a string roun’ dey neck, but hog-teeth is too weak to do any good. Do tell Uncle Bill to shoot me a few buzzards. De gal-chillen is teethin’ ’most hard as boy-chillen dis year. But boy-chillen is mighty scarce. De womens pleasure deyself too much to hab boy-chillen. Boy-chillen picks sober womens fo’ dey mammy. Dese gals buy so muchtrash out de sto’ to eat, dey breast-milk is weak as water. I tell ’em so, but dey don’ listen at me. No.”
“My Lijah was plagued wid de grow-fast. You ’member, Mauma?”
Maum Hannah nodded. “I ’member, but grow-fast is a easy complaint to cure. I had to work on one yeste’day.” She told how she and the mother had taken the child into the room where it was born, and stood in opposite corners to throw it back and forth to each other, singing the grow-fast song as they did. A sure cure for grow-fast. “When de room is big, it’s stiff treatment. My arms mighty near broke yeste’day.”
Instead of going home the way they came, Big Sue followed a path through the woods, and crossed a clear brown stream that flowed without a single ripple to break its smooth dark surface, or coat it with foam. The water’s breath smelt warm as it rose into the cooler shadows.
In a small hollow, near its banks, washtubs were turned upside down on wooden benches, and a big black washpot sat over dead embers. Waiting for Friday, the plantation wash-day. All the first days of the week are field-days. On Friday the women gather and wash their clothes and gossip. It is a great day for them. A sort of holiday. Full of things to talk about. Every bit of the sunshine between the trees is strung with clothes-lines, heavy weighted with clothes, the old trees stand around silent and dolesome, with black shadows cooling their feet.
By Saturday noon the ironing is done, the week’s work over, then the fun begins. Crap games and parties and dances for the sinners; prayer-meetings and church for the Christians. Something goes on all the time until Monday morning. Everything that mattershappens between Saturday night and Monday morning. A week’s earnings can be lost, or a wife, or a sweetheart.
Even one’s soul!
When they passed a smooth clean piece of ground with a pile of charred blackened sticks on it, Big Sue laughed and said, “Do look! De crap-shooters been here last night. See where dey had a fire? Firelight makes de bones rattle better, so dey say. An’ naked ground brings luck to de players.”
“Is you a sinner or a Christian, Cun Big Sue?” Breeze blurted out before he knew it.
“Who? Me? Great Gawd! I been a Christian ever since I was twelve years old.” After a minute she added, “I did got turned out o’ de church one time. I stayed out mighty nigh a year. Silas was de cause of my havin’ sin. E deviled me too bad befo’ e left me. But de earthquake come dat summer, an’ I got so scared it didn’ take me long to seek and find peace. I joined de church an’ I been in it ever since. You’s mighty nigh twelve, enty? When you’s twelve Gawd’ll hold you responsible fo’ you’ sins.”
Near the creek stood the schoolhouse for the black children on the plantation. A log house with a doorway cut in one end, and fitted with a rude door made of clapboards swung on iron hinges. The big chimney at the other end was overspread with clay mortar. This cabin occupied a lovely spot, overshadowed with a great oak tree from whose roots a small spring trickled and ran to join the larger stream behind it.
Big Sue said there were too many children to get inside the schoolhouse at one time. Half of them had recess while the other half recited lessons. The teacher taught with a long keen whip in her hand, and she made every child learn the lessons. One word missed brought a sharp cut across the palm of the offender’s hand. Twowords brought four cuts that would not soon be forgotten. Big Sue said she had never bothered to learn to read and write. She didn’t have any use for either. Sometimes she’d like to read a new receipt. Still, she could cook better out of her head than most people could cook out of a book.
The old people didn’t believe in book learning. They thought learning signs and charms more important, and they discouraged having a school. But Zeda’s girl, raised right on the plantation, was the teacher, and she worked wonders with the children. Lijah had never liked books. Playing and riding and shooting and swimming interested him more. He’d have made a good conjure doctor. Once he put some of his own hair in a hole in a tree, and it cured his sprained ankle. He cut an elder stick for Maum Hannah’s asthma, and tied it by the neck and hung it up in the loft, and it cured her, too. For a while, before he ran away, he saved all his toe-nails and finger-nails to put in his coffin, but that was so much trouble he quit after he got one little bottle full. It takes a lot of learning to be a good conjure doctor, for there’s black magic as well as white. Magic can save as well as kill. Breeze ought either to pray now or start learning magic. He was almost twelve.
The path ran close to a group of trees surrounded by an old rusty iron fence, where tombstones gleamed white. Deep shadows rippled whenever a breeze made its way through the thick, moss-hung woods. Enormous live-oaks stood at regular intervals, all of them festooned with trailing moss that made a weird roof overhead.
Cicadas chanted shrilly in a tangle of rose vines and honeysuckles. White oleanders and japonicas crowded one another, the fragrance of the blossoms mingling with the stench of decaying leaves and wood. Raising the rusted creaking latch of the iron gate, Big Suetipped inside the enclosure where gnarled roots of the old trees crawled across the paths and slipped under pink-plumed tamarisk bushes. They disappeared, but they tilted the heavy tombstones, and crumbled the brick foundations from under marble slabs thick with words.
Some of the graves were smooth and clean, others were smothered with vines stretched across sunken hollows. Plantation masters and mistresses had been crumbled, melted, to feed blind groping roots.
Big Sue went toward a corner where a massive gray stone marked a grave. “Old Cap’n lays here. Gawd! Dat was a man! Not scared o’ anyt’ing or anybody! Mean! Jedus, he was mean!”
Big Sue sighed. How times change! That same man lying in his grave had lorded it over this whole Neck, once. Not only over the black people who worked his fields after freedom the same as in slavery days, but over the white people too. Most white people hereabout now were trash. Poor buckra. Gray-necks. Children and grandchildren of overseers. When the war to free the slaves was going on they stayed home and sold whisky. They ran under the bed and hid if anybody started a racket. They made money and saved their skins. Some of them owned plantations now, and lived in houses whose front doors had been shut to their grandfathers!
Times had changed. The man who had ridden over this country with the loosest rein and the sharpest spur, was down under the ground feeding tree roots and worms to-day. One little boy, one lone grandson, was all that was left of his seed, and he was being raised up-North, among Yankees. The child’s own ma was dead and his stepma had taught him the strange ugly speech of the Yankees. Enough to make his grandpa turn over in his grave! Wouldn’t the old man curse!
This land must be too rich, too rank for white people to thrive on it. Their skins were too thin, their blood too weak to bear the summer heat, and the fevers and sickness that hid in the marsh in the daytime, then came out to do their devilment after dark.
Black people ruled sickness with magic, but white people got sick and died. White people leave money to their children, but black people leave signs. Give her signs every time! Uncle Isaac was getting old. He might die soon. Breeze had better start learning all he could right now, before Uncle Isaac’s mind failed. She’d see Uncle Isaac and tell him.
As she spoke a faint rustle of wind went through the trees and a lizard, carefully colored to match the soil, scurried across the path, rattling dead leaves as it slid under the solid gravestone. Big Sue leaned over the grave and stirred the earth, selecting bits of the coarser sand.
“I want seven li’l’ rocks now. One fo’ ev’y night in de week. I gwine keep ’em tie up in my pocket-hankcher, so I would stop havin’ so much bad dreams all de time.”
Breeze shivered. If spirits of the dead ever haunt the paths of the living, they lurked in the deep gloom of the shade made by the overgrown shrubbery, by those coiling, writhing twisted vines. The swift wings of a cardinal spun a scarlet thread before them. Clear notes were flung in a spray of song from the top of the tallest tree. Big Sue called up at him: “It’s twelve o’clock, enty? I hear you sayin’ dis is de brightest time o’ de day!” She tried to make her lips smile bright enough to fit her words, but Breeze could see that the graveyard had made her afraid too. “Le’s go, son. Le’s git out o’ here,” she said.
She trampled on a wild rose, full of frail blossoms.As Breeze stepped aside to keep from crushing another, a soft wind seized the delicate petals and scattered them over leaves that were already dead.
The road went through the woods past a cleared place, then brought them to the negro graveyard. Every grave held something valued by the dead. A white china pitcher and basin. Old bottles, still holding medicine. Small colored glass vases. Cups and saucers. A few plates. Some of the graves were decorated with clusters of wooden sticks, skilfully carved to make heads of wheat. Breeze wanted to take one, but Big Sue objected. To take one off a grave would be bad luck. Uncle Isaac would be glad to make him one if he’d ask him.
Bright and early Monday morning, Big Sue began fitting together small, carefully cut scraps of cloth, sewing them into squares with strong ball thread. Breeze sat on the step in the pleasant sunshine threading her big-eyed needle as fast as it worked up arm-lengths of thread into firm-holding stitches, while she sat in a low chair on the porch.
Squirrels chased one another across the yard, and up into the live-oak trees. Showers of ripe acorns jarred down by their playing spattered over the ground. Those acorns were sweet as chinquapins, and the squirrels were fat with eating so many. But Big Sue would not let Breeze kill even one for dinner. His fine new sling-shot, made out of a dogwood prong, could hit almost as hard as a gun, but Big Sue said the white folks who lived in the Big House wanted the squirrels left. Even if they ate up all the pecans in the fall, and all the peaches in the summer, not one was to be killed. White people have foolish notions, but it is better not to cross them if you can help it.
She was working hard to get her quilts quilted beforethe white folks came down for the duck shooting this winter. They didn’t stay long these last years. They had another home up-North, so li’l’ “Young Cap’n” could go to a fine school there. Poor little boy! He liked this home a lot better, but his Yankee stepma ruled him and his pa too.
Each day got shorter now. She must sew fast. Get all her squares patched and ready. She’d scarcely have time to draw a long breath for the turn of cooking to be done after they came. Nobody else on the plantation could season victuals to suit them. Zeda helped sometimes, but Zeda didn’t know when ducks were done to a turn and not too done. Zeda was apt to get venison as dry as a chip, and if she as much as looked at a waffle it fell flat.
Uncle Isaac’s wife was the cook before Big Sue. She used to be the finest cook on the whole Neck. Nobody knew how she made things taste so good. She wouldn’t tell. One day she dropped dead. Right in the kitchen. Some people thought she was conjured, but too much rich eating may have done it. After that Uncle Isaac tried to train two or three people to fix the food, for he knew a lot of his wife’s secrets from watching her. Big Sue was a girl then, but she was a natural-born cook. When Uncle Isaac found that out, he let her have her own way. She could beat everybody now. Lord! When she had the right kind of victuals, people gnawed their fingers and bit their tongues just to smell the steam when she lifted the pot lids.
The next moon might bring cold weather. She must hurry and get these quilts pieced and have a quilting. She had quilts enough for herself. These were for Joy. She’d ask all the plantation women to Maum Hannah’s house, where the big room stayed ready for meeting on Wednesday nights, and for quiltings anyday in the week. If it turned cold, Sherry would kill enough wild ducks for her to cook for the women to eat with the rice. Wild ducks and rice are fine. If it stayed warm, she’d cook chickens and rice, instead. Make a pilau, with plenty of hard-boiled eggs. Uncle Bill would give her the chickens.
Sherry loved Joy so much he’d get anything she wanted for this quilting! The women could easily quilt ten quilts a day. If they came early and worked fast they could do fifteen, but she’d be satisfied with six, for she wanted hers quilted right. With fine stitches, run in rows close together. Then the cotton batting could never slip, no matter how many times the quilts were washed.
She was piecing a “Monkey wrench” quilt now. She had a “Log-cabin” finished, and a “Primrose” and a “Star of Bethlehem” and a “Wild-goose Chase” and a “Pine-burr.” She had begun a “State-house Steps,” but that was a hard one to do. It couldn’t be worked out in a hurry and look right. She’d wait and finish it next year. Joy could wait for that one.
Some women don’t care how their quilts look. They piece the squares together any sort of way, but she couldn’t stand careless sewing. She wanted her quilts, and Joy’s, made right. Quilts stay a long time after people are gone from this world, and witness about them for good or bad. She wanted people to see, when she was gone, that she’d never been a shiftless or don’t-care woman.