XVIIIJOY AND APRIL
Fordays after Joy’s child was born, Big Sue kept to her cabin. Joy had disgraced her, made her ashamed to show her face in company. She’d never forgive Joy as long as she lived. Never. Joy saw Leah drop dead in her face, yet she went straight on and married Leah’s husband. A shame! Joy would sup sorrow yet. She might bewitch April and make a plumb fool out of him, but she’d pay for bringing disgrace on her mother who had worked her knuckles to the bone to keep Joy in school!
If Joy had behaved herself, she might have married anybody instead of a man old as her daddy, and conjured to boot. That death-sheet had put a spell on April. Sure as preaching. He’d never be the same man again. He’d have run Joy out of his house if he had been in his right mind.
She talked so fast and loud one morning she didn’t see Uncle Bill until he was at the door-step. “How come you tiptoes around so easy dis mornin’!” she asked tartly.
“Gawd knows how I’m a-walkin’, I’m so fretted.”
“Wha’ dat ail you now?”
“Joy sent me to tell you.”
“How come Joy don’ fetch e own answer?”
“Joy’s too troub-led.”
Big Sue shot a look at him and sucked her teeth.“Joy’s mighty late gittin’ troub-led,” and a hard, wicked smile touched her mouth.
“Joy’s troub-led about April. April ain’ well, Miss Big Sue.”
Big Sue sniffed and said April was due to have something wrong with him, wicked as he had lived, hard as he had been with everybody that crossed him. What kind of sickness did April have?
“Somet’ing ails his feets.”
“Dat ain’ surprisin’. April slept wid a death-sheet on ’em a whole night.”
“Uncle Isaac took dat spell off em.”
“Well, who put dis spell on em, den?”
Uncle Bill sat down on the step. He was so troubled in his mind, it was difficult for him to say what ailed April. At first it favored chilblains; then ground-itch, for April went out barefooted in the dew every morning God sent, and any little scratch that lets dew get inside your skin may give you ground-itch. But none of the chilblain or ground-itch cures helped him at all. His appetite was clean gone. He had eaten nothing but spoon-victuals for a week. He was thin as a fence rail.
Big Sue made an ugly mouth. What did she care? Why hadn’t April married a settled woman who could cook decent rations instead of a scatter-brained girl like Joy who didn’t know the name of one pot from another? He needn’t be sending word here about victuals. Let April eat what Joy fixed for him. Love would season up lumpy hominy and make doughy bread taste good.
Uncle Bill sat frowning, chewing his tobacco wearily, studying. Joy had said she hated to worry Big Sue. She was sorry for all that had happened. Joy was a good girl. She had slipped up once, and made a bad mistake, but any young inexperienced girl is likely to miss and do that. April did right to excuse her.
Big Sue sneered. Joy had worked one sharp trick. Leah herself couldn’t have fooled April any slicker. Joy ever was tricky, though. Just like Silas for the world. Likely as not, Joy had April conjured right now.
Uncle Bill pursed up his lips so tight, they looked as if they’d never open and speak again, and his eyes were full of worry.
“Whyn’ you go see Uncle Isaac? E might could help April?” Big Sue asked presently.
“I done seen em. When de bear-grass poultices and de violet-leaves tea failed, I went an’ got Uncle Isaac. Joy sent me. I don’ like charms. I don’ trust ’em. I know a Christian man ain’ got no business foolin’ wid ’em. But Joy was so fretted, I done it to please her. I kept a-studyin’ over it; one mind said do it; another mind said, no, I better ask all de Christian people to hold a prayer-meetin’ an’ ask Gawd to help April; I listened at dem two minds arguin’ one whole night befo’ I give in to Joy. An’ now I wish to Gawd I didn’ heed em.”
“How come so? April wouldn’ wear em, I bet you!” Big Sue was listening with interest now, anxious to know what happened, but Uncle Bill took his time.
April did everything Joy said. Wilful and unruly as he was with every one else, he tried to please Joy. And yet when Joy brought that charm to him and began coaxing him to let her tie it around his neck, he balked. Joy had to outtalk him.
For a whole day and night April wore it, a little cloth bag, tied with a white horse hair; but because it didn’t cure his feet right away, he jerked it off and threw it in the fire. Such a pity. Even strong charms take time to start working. April ever was a short-patienced man. He made trouble for himself by hastiness.A man can be hot-blooded and pettish with people but not with charms or magic.
Joy snatched the bag out of the flames, but it was scorched and a hole burned in one side. A speck of the mixture inside it spilled out on the coals and smoked such a strong smoke, April sneezed three times!
Right then, the gristles in April’s feet got hard. Hard as a rock! God only knew if they’d ever go back to their rightful softness.
Uncle Isaac made Joy take the bag off to the woods and bury it at the foot of a locust tree, but April got worse and worse. His feet were numb and hard and dry. Joy wanted to send for a white doctor. They might get one to come on the boat from town, and with the crop so promising they’d have money to pay him next fall. But April wouldn’t have it. He said Maum Hannah knew more than any white doctor.
Big Sue kept shaking her head and grunting shamelessly until Uncle Bill got up painfully to go. Something in his sad face must have moved her, for all of a sudden she scrambled to her feet, letting her scraps fall on the floor. “I made some nice little sweetened breads dis mawnin’. Take some to April. I sho’ am sorry ’bout his feets. You tell em so. I’m gwine broil em a fat pullet, too.”
“Ev’y man has to manage his own dueness, but how ’bout gwine along wid me, to see April, Miss Big Sue? You done chastise Joy long enough. De gal’s in trouble.”
“I can’ go, not so well, right now, Uncle Bill, but Breeze kin go if e’ll thread me two or three needles first.” She started to say more, but she changed her mind and kept silent, her eyes cast down on her sewing. When she did speak it was to say Joy had been mighty shut-mouthed about April. Joy had funny ways.
Breeze and Uncle Bill found April with a quilt around him, sitting alone by the fire, looking at his feet. Looking and looking. His heavy black brows overshadowed his sad eyes as they lifted and hovered over Breeze, then Uncle Bill. But as soon as he shook hands and said “thank you” for the food, they fell, and settled on his feet, which were bare and on the hearth very close to the fire.
The weather had turned off cool in the night, but there was no reason for April to keep his feet so close to the fire. Uncle Bill told him he’d scorch them, but April shook his head and said they felt no heat at all. Not a bit. They had gone to sleep or something. They felt like blocks of wood. And he moved them stiffly, as if they were.
He complained that he had no appetite. He was tired too. Sitting still was the hardest work he had ever done in his life. If he could read, or if he had somebody to talk to, if he had something pleasant to think about, it would help pass the time. But he couldn’t read, and he didn’t want anybody to stay at home out of the field. Cotton needs fast hoeing during these warm wet days. He wished he could stop off thinking. Stop short off. He’d like to go to sleep and never wake up any more. He’d go crazy if he had to stay still and look at his feet much longer. What in God’s name ailed them! Nobody seemed to know!
Uncle Bill tried to tell him the plantation news, but April’s eyes stayed on his feet. Uncle Bill offered to teach him to read if he wanted to learn. Now would be a good time for April to learn how to write. He ought to learn to write his name if no more. Every man ought to know how to write his name. But April said he never had much faith in books and reading. Black people were better off without it. It takes theirmind off their work. It makes them think about things they can’t have. They’re better off without knowing how. Uncle Bill didn’t argue.
All of a sudden a coal popped out of the hearth with a sharp explosion. It fell right between April’s feet, as if it could see and did it on purpose. It lay there, red, bright, like a dare. April opened his tired eyes wide, and leaned forward and looked at it, for instead of dying out it burned freer. April carefully raised one long black bony foot and placed its heel on the coal. He waited a moment; then he lifted it up and stared at Uncle Bill. His scared eyes told what had happened. Breeze knew too.
April had felt no heat. His foot was dead. It couldn’t feel fire! April grabbed the fire shovel, and scraped up a batch of live coals from under the fire and dropped them on the hearth. He’d see if fire had stopped being hot. Uncle Bill didn’t raise a finger to stop him when he lifted his other foot and pressed its heel down on the coals and mashed hard on them.
The bitter smell of his burned flesh stung the air. April’s eyes glared, and he laughed a harsh discordant laugh. But a sob quickly caught him by the throat and choked him. He leaned over and picked up a live coal in his fingers, then dropped it quickly, for his fingers were alive. They could feel. The coal burned them. But his feet were dead. They couldn’t feel even fire!
“Oh, Gawd!” he moaned, and his long fingers knotted and clenched, his strong tobacco-yellowed teeth ground together.
Joy came in from the field to feed her little baby. Nobody heard her bare footsteps, until she spoke to Uncle Bill and Breeze. She went up to April and put a hand on his arm, and asked how his feet were. She leaned over and looked at them, but he drew them underneathhis chair. He didn’t want her to see. He reached for the quilt on the floor beside him and covered them over.
“My feets is all right,” he told her gruffly.
But Joy sniffed the air once or twice, she searched the fire with her eyes, then she swept the hearth clean of the coals. She patted April’s shoulder, and said gentle things to him. He must have patience. She’d make some fresh violet-leaves tea and soak his feet. She was sure that would help them.
Bright tears ran out of April’s eyes, down his thin hard cheeks, and fell on the bony clasped hands that held tight to each other in his lap. Breeze could hardly bear to see those tears. Uncle Bill got up and tried to say something, but his voice broke, and he began punching the fire. For April was crying out loud. Saying he had given out! He couldn’t go on any longer!
Joy put her arms around him and held his head on her bosom, and patted his face and tried to hush him. She wiped his tears away with her homespun apron, and smoothed his eyelids softly. Her fingers were trembling, but April became quieter. She stroked his head and begged him to go back to bed and lie down and rest.
He was hard and sullen, and frowned as if she had insulted him. He’d stay right where he was. Bed and chair were the same to him now. Joy stood with her eyes on the red embers, never answering back a single time, even when anger made the words strangle in his throat. It was hard for him to bend his neck under such a galling, hellish yoke.
Until now he had never asked a favor of anybody in his whole life. He had always worked, and made others work. His women and children too. And now his feet, the feet that had carried him faithfully through all these years, the only ones he could ever have, had failedhim. They made game of him. And it was more than he could bear. He bellowed out recklessly, but Joy got a pan and spoon and dipped some hot soup from a pot on the hearth and urged him to taste it. He shook his head. He didn’t want soup. He didn’t want anything to eat. He’d rather starve to death than be helpless. Joy began some pleasant talk. How fast the cotton was growing. The fields were green. Last night’s shower was the very thing spring oats needed. He leaned back in his chair, humbled, crushed with misery. Uncle Bill said he would come back a little later and bring April some medicine. Some strong medicine from the Big House medicine chest. It would help those feet.
April reached out and took his friend’s hand. He put it up to his cheek, but dropped it, for the back log burned in two and broke and a shower of sparks spun threads of fire that reached out and threatened to catch the quilt!
“I’ll stay wid em,” Joy said gently. “I’ll warm up de nice chicken an’ rice you brought an’ feed em wid a spoon.”
When Breeze got home Big Sue asked him lots of questions about April. How his feet looked? Did April seem down-hearted over them? Was Joy with him? How did she take his trouble? Breeze told her all he remembered, and she shook her head. She was sorry for April.
It was past mid-afternoon when Uncle Bill came back, and asked Big Sue to lend him a quart cup and a teaspoon. He wanted to measure some water and medicine for April’s feet. He was going to soak them in water flavored with a medicine the white folks used. She offered to lend him her new tin washtub, but Uncle Bill said Joy had plenty of tubs.
“Dey might not be new an’ clean as my own,” BigSue insisted. “Joy ever was careless. A new tub is better anyhow.”
Uncle Bill consented, and Breeze went along to carry it. They found Joy sitting by the fire patching, and April holding a pan of food in his lap.
Joy asked them to come in and sit down and talk to April and coax him to eat his dinner. His appetite was slow. She did her best to talk cheerfully.
But April’s face was glum, and his voice lagged wearily as he said, “I don’ wan’ to eat.” With a bony hand he held out the pan, still full of food. “Take em. I got ’nough.”
Joy took it and moved away without speaking. As she walked toward the shelf she almost stumbled into a small boy, who hopped nimbly into the room, laughing and out of breath. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him, and he got sober. Soon the other children came trooping in, little and big, and all in-between size, one with Joy’s baby in his arms.
“Mind. Keep quiet,” Joy warned. “Pa don’ like no fuss.”
Then they tipped around quietly, and whispered to Breeze to come with them while they cut some wood and brought it in, and went to the spring for water. The older ones said, “How you feelin’, Pa?” That was all, for April did not turn his head or answer.
Every child glanced at his feet. April saw it. And he saw how they all looked away quickly, except one little boy who giggled out loud.
Joy shook her head vexedly, and motioned to the child to go on out, for anger crazed April. His own child had laughed at him! He sat up and blazed out, “Dat’s de way! Let a man git down an’ e’s de butt o’ his own flesh an’ blood! Dat’s de way! Chillen don’ hab respect fo’ nobody! Not dese days!”
Breeze felt afraid. He didn’t want to play. He’d rather stay close by Uncle Bill. When things got quieter again, Uncle Bill suggested kindly:
“April, son, I tell you wha’ le’s do. Lemme hotten some water an’ gi’ you’ feet a good soakin’. You would feel better when dey’s had a dose o’ dis medicine f’om de Big House.” He held up the small bottle. It had a skull and cross-bones label. The white liquid in it trembled, with a glitter.
April did not answer, and Joy filled the big black kettle on the hearth with water, and pushed it up nearer the red coals.
As soon as it sang out that the water was hot, Uncle Bill poured it quart by quart into the tub. Then he carefully measured quarts of water from a bucket on the shelf to cool it. He felt it with his hand, and Joy felt it too, so it would be neither too cold nor too hot.
“It’s ’bout right,” she said, and Uncle Bill put in the medicine. One spoonful to every quart of water. How it smelt! Joy pushed the tub closer to April, then lifted the helpless feet, one at a time, and put them into the water.
“It’s ’bout right, enty?” she asked him.
“I dunno,” April gloomed. “I can’ feel em.”
And she turned away with a sigh.
The clothes to be patched were on the floor in a pile. Joy mended the fire, then moved nearer its light to sew. Uncle Bill sat and talked pleasantly while April’s feet soaked. The crops were promising. Cotton and corn, and peas and potatoes, and rice all were up and growing. Everybody ought to be thankful with so many blessings. The fire kept up a spiteful popping, aiming bits of live coal at each of them. Some fell into the water and died; others hit Joy’s pile of clothes.
April moved restlessly. “I’m ready fo’ lay down,”he said dully. “Uncle Bill, you help Joy git me to bed.”
Joy got up, letting her lapful of things scatter over the floor. “Wait. Lemme git something soft fo’ wipe you’ feet on.” She hurried to an old trunk in the corner and got out a piece of soft worn cloth. Then she came back and knelt down by the tub.
April and Uncle Bill both jumped when she gave a sharp outcry and sat back flat on the floor. She stared. Then she leaned over with squinting eyes, as if the light hurt her eyes. She gasped like her wind-pipe was cracked, “Great Gawd, what has you done, Uncle Bill!” Her body was trembling and her eyes had a foolish roll as they lifted to April’s face. She was shivering all over. She was having a chill, or some kind of a stroke!
April told Breeze to call some of the children to come to Joy. He put out his hand to help steady her. But she sat back on her feet and put a hand to her head. Maybe she ate too much dinner. Breeze felt giddy himself, and tired and unhappy. His head swam when he moved. He wanted to go home, but he couldn’t leave Uncle Bill to bring Big Sue’s tub.
“Set down, Joy. Set down!” April scolded fretfully. “Don’ try fo’ stan’ up. You might fall. None o’ we ain’ able to ketch you if you do. You haffer take care o’ you’se’f now. I ain’ able fo’ look after you.”
He spoke quickly for his patience was short.
“You must ’a’ strained you’ eye on de sewin’. Lay flat on de floor till you feel better. I kin wait.” April moved stiffly, with a deep sigh.
But Joy’s wide-opened eyes stared at the tub. She was gone plumb fool! Plumb daffy!
“Uncle Bill——” her lips shook so they could hardly make his name. “Looka! Fo’ Gawd’s sake!” she whispered. “De medicine must ’a’ been too strong!”
Breeze could scarcely tell what she said, for she ran her words all together and she shook with a chill. Fever makes people so sometimes.
“Do talk hard, Joy. I can’ hear no whisperin’! Who you scared gwine hear you? A sperit?” April scolded.
Breeze’s eyes followed Joy’s to the tub. He stared too. He saw what made her teeth click together——
April’s toes.
They had come loose from his feet, and floated around in the tub. In the clear warm water, sharp-flavored with the strong white medicine. Breeze felt dazed. His head was queer. The room, the walls began to move around and wave up and down.
When April saw the toes he began to laugh. An ugly croaking, high-pitched laugh that chilled Breeze’s blood, and made the water swish in the tub.
The toes, all loose, free from the feet, swam around swiftly and circled and danced. One big toe slid next to a little one and stopped!
April half-rose to his feet and shouted:
“Look! My Gawd! Is you ever see sich a t’ing in you’ life? My toes is come off. Dey runs by deyse’f! Fo’ Gawd’s sake!”
His reddened eyes shone. He tried to step. Then he sat down clumsily. Heavily. He leaned forward, spellbound, whispering horrified words. Breeze shook with terror, for April’s words were as strange as the toes jumbled together. He glared at Breeze, then at Uncle Bill. “Yunnuh hurry up! Hurry up!” he yelled fiercely, getting up on his feet again. “Do somet’ing! Quick! My toes is off!”
He tottered, for the bottom of the tub was slippery footing for his broken feet, and with a crumple he fell forward on the floor.
Joy cried out sharply, and begged Breeze to go call the children. Then she ran to the open door, and stretching her body to its utmost height, tilted back her head and sent out long throat-splitting calls that cut into Breeze’s ears! She stopped to tell Uncle Bill to go fetch Maum Hannah, who had gone way down the country, catching children.
She wrung her hands and wailed. That medicine must have been too strong! Too strong! Uncle Bill said maybe that charm did it! April wore it a whole day around his neck! Did that old hoodoo doctor over the river have aught against April? That charm was too strong. Maybe Joy had buried it wrong! Maybe it ought not to have been buried at all—maybe—maybe—Leah’s death-sheet was to blame.
Breeze tried to help Joy and Uncle Bill get April to bed, then Joy slipped out of the door. She’d go try to find that charm. But if she found it, what could she do? April’s toes were off. No charm could put them on again. That was certain.
Uncle Bill was sure he measured the medicine. Over and over, he said it; a teaspoonful to the quart of water. That was all he put. It couldn’t hurt a tender baby’s feet. He had seen the white people use it, and they have weak skins. But April’s toes were off! And there was no way to put them back on. That scorched charm must be to blame, unless poisoning boll-weevils last summer poisoned his feet too. Uncle Isaac had drowned the death-sheet, and killed its spell—in spite of Zeda.
April didn’t seem to realize what had happened. He kept saying, over and over, “How’m I gonna walk widout toes?” He was too stiff in his joints to bend over far enough to look at his feet. Uncle Bill got the mirror that hung by the open window. A small square wavy looking-glass that made foolish-looking images. The oldman tried to hold it so April could see the feet in the mirror, but his hands shook so that Breeze had to take it and hold it. The horror in April’s face made Breeze’s own blood freeze. April’s lips and tongue went stiff. They could scarcely say, “How’m I gonna walk widout toes.”
He asked to see the bottle of white medicine Uncle Bill used in the water. He took out the stopper and smelled it, touched it to his tongue. It was too strong! Yes! Too strong! It cut his tongue!
Two days later when the boat came Uncle Bill and Brudge took April to the town in the river’s mouth, so some white doctor might see him and cure him. But when they came home Uncle Bill said the white doctor had taken April to a hospital and cut both his legs off, at his hips! The doctor said blood clots in the veins of April’s legs had cut off the blood flow to his feet. That was why they died. The doctor called it gangrene. He said no charm could cause it, not even a death-sheet. April would get well after a month or two, and he could wear wooden legs with steel joints. They’d walk and carry him as well as his old legs had done, when he learned how to rule them and make them step. But it would take time. April would have to have patience now. Long patience.
The white doctor was kind, polite. He would write Joy exactly how April mended. She mustn’t worry. Everything would come right. April was no common weak man to give up. Never in this world. The plantation people must all pray for April to keep in good heart, and not get scared about himself. And Joy must have faith that April would get safely through this great trial.
Uncle Bill went to see the preacher April had bitten. His cheek had not rotted off at all. The white doctorhad fixed it. But it looked queer, for it was drawn up tight like the mouth of a tobacco sack pulled together with draw-strings.
From that day Joy showed no sign of weakness. She shirked nothing, yielded nothing to Leah’s children who gave up being impudent to her face and did their grumbling about her behind her back.
When the stables were cleaned out and the black manure piled out in the corn-field, Joy went out at dawn with the other women, barefooted, scantily dressed, a rough crocus sack made into an apron to hold the stuff, and scattered it all day long, up and down the corn rows, leading the women as they marched abreast, singing, “Follow me—” to their chorus, “We’s a-followin’ on,” and ending, “I’ll lead you gentel-eee home!”
When the cotton was up to a thick stand and ready to be thinned, she tied her skirt up high out of the dew and took her hoe and chopped row for row with the best hoe hands, leaving the stalks one hoe’s width apart and cutting out every grass blade. She hung up eggshells to make the hens lay well, fed them sour dough to make them set, patched the garden fence and filled the rich plot of earth with seed.
She set hens and took them off with broods of biddies and dusted them with ashes to kill the lice. For one so frail-looking, Joy did wonders.
Everybody praised her but Leah’s children, who had naught against her except she had married April, and Big Sue, who kept her distance, pretending that Joy had disgraced her. But Zeda said Big Sue was jealous of Joy’s getting April.
Joy visited few of her neighbors except Maum Hannah and Zeda, and she took no part in the plantation quarrels and disagreements, or in the arguments about what had caused April’s trouble. People asked her athousand questions, but she was a close-mouthed woman. She didn’t know anything about anything, to hear her tell it, and she listened, mute, dumb, when they came to her, wondering if the death-sheet or the scorched charm or the white folks’ medicine had ruined April? Joy agreed with them that charms were dangerous. But store-bought medicine is not to be trusted either. Leah got herself salivated by taking one lone teaspoonful of a scentless, tasteless white powder. It looked weak as flour, yet it loosened every tooth in her mouth and made them all drop out, whole. If April hadn’t been a mighty faithful man he’d have left Leah altogether right then. Where’s another man would stick? Leah was a fool to prank with things she didn’t understand. April did well ever to look at her again, for no man could be raven about a salivated woman, yet he even took her to town and bought her new teeth. No man could have done more than that. They cost more than a bale of cotton. Leah was ever contrary. Jealous. Maybe it was Leah that had tricked him now. Who could tell? She died too hard to rest easy in her grave. And she never took her eyes off of April while she lived. No doubt her spirit was after him still.
The weather was exactly right for the cotton; mornings wet with dew, noons fever hot; nights still and steamy and stifling. Except for the accursed boll-weevils the crop was most promising. The tender leaves multiplied and widened, and from morning until night they lifted their faces to get every bit of sunshine they could hold. The three-cornered squares clustered on the limbs, but not a blossom showed, for swarms of boll-weevils punctured these buds and made them drop off before a creamy petal could form. Well-nigh every fallen square held a grub. A few days more and they’d be weevils, ready to lay more eggs in new squares, andhatch more weevils. Unless something was done to stop them, the crop might as well be thrown away.
Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac were upset. What were they to do? They sent every man and woman and child on the plantation to the field to pick the squares and try to catch the weevils, but the squares fell off behind them as fast as they picked those in front, and the pesky weevil fell off the stalks on the ground, too, as soon as anybody came near them. They played dead like ’possums, and they were colored so near like the dirt, the sharpest eyes couldn’t find them.
Uncle Bill walked up and down the rows watching, and frowning darkly. At last he stopped beside Zeda, and asked her where Sherry was. He’d have to come home and poison the cotton or the whole crop was done for. Not enough money would be made on the whole place to buy a pair of rope lines. Sherry would come back if he knew how bad things were. He wouldn’t hold hard feelings against April if he could see him. God had punished April enough to wipe out every sin he had ever done in his life. Sherry must forgive him too, and come back and help fight the weevils. Zeda listened coldly. She looked at Uncle Bill, then at the others.
“Uncle Bill is talkin’ out a new side o’ his mouth to-day, enty?” She tried to laugh indifferently, but everybody knew Sherry’s going had cut her to the quick and she’d be glad enough to get him back.
“You’s right, Zeda. I is talkin’ a new talk. But de ox is in de ditch. An’ de ditch is deep. De plantation is in distress, an’ nobody can’ save em but Sherry.”
All the people stood still heeding every word, now and again making low remarks to one another.
“You’s right, Uncle. I know I don’ relish plowin’ f’om sun to sun not lessen I’m doin’ some good. De more we plow, de more de cotton grows an’ de more itputs on squares to feed de boll-evils. April pizened ’em last year. Sherry helped em den. Le’s send at Sherry to come home. Git a letter wrote to em an’ tell em if he would come home we mens’ll make em foreman. How ’bout dat?” asked Jake, Bina’s husband.
The men looked at him, searched one another’s faces, growled among themselves. The women fell into groups, the loudest talkers laying out opinions, some for, some against, Sherry’s being made foreman. True enough, they needed a foreman. No plantation as large as Blue Brook could half-way run without a man to head the hands and be their leader. Sherry was young. Wild. Head-strong. He wasn’t even married and settled.
Zeda called out impatiently:
“Talk it over good! Make up you’ minds! Sherry’s comin’ or not comin’ is one to me! E’s got a fine job, yonder up-North. E’s makin’ money hand over fist. His wages fo’ one day is more dollars dan e would see in a month here at Blue Brook.”
Her words struck home. After a few silent moments, the people began saying:
“Write em to come, Zeda!”
“Tell em we want em fo’ foreman!”
“Tell em de crop’ll be ruint widout em!”
“We sho’ do need em!”
Casting a side-glance toward Joy, alone at one side, saying nothing, yet keeping track of every glance that passed between the others, Zeda stood a little straighter, and cleared her throat that her words might be plain.
“One more t’ing; I ain’ told nobody before. Not yet. But Sherry is married to a gal yonder up-North. She might not be willin’ to come to Blue Brook.”
Joy’s body stiffened, her eyes widened, her arms fell to her sides, but the others laughed and joked over the news until their voices ran into an excited chorus.
“Write Sherry to bring dat gal on home!”
“Lawd, dat news sho’ do surprise me!”
“T’ink o’ Sherry takin’ a wife in dat strange country!”
“Lawd, dat boy done fast work! Jedus!”
“Who’s gwine help Sherry pizen de cotton if he do come?” Zeda was in earnest.
“All o’ we!”
“All de mens!”
“Sho’! Ev’ybody’ll help em!”
Zeda bowed. That settled it. She’d get Joy to write a letter to send off by the next mail.
The crowd felt such relief, they broke into gay laughter. Merry jokes were cracked. The boll-weevils were left in the field. Sherry would fix them.
The people all turned home. In groups of three or four they talked and laughed boisterously, boasting what a good crop would be made this year. The cotton plants were strong. Able. The grass well-nigh killed out. Poisoning would do the rest.
Every trace of down-heartedness was gone. Discouragement forgotten. Sherry would come back and kill all the boll-weevils. Blue Brook would roll in money next fall.
Joy plodded home, stopping at times as if she didn’t see the path clearly. Once or twice she stumbled. The whole way, she stayed mute. At April’s house she stopped, but instead of going in, said to Breeze:
“I’m gwine an’ ax Ma to let you come stay wid me. I want you to mind my baby. Brudge an’ dem other chillen is so awful careless wid em. You’ll come, if Ma says so, enty?”
Breeze opened his mouth twice to answer before he got to speak out loud enough for her to hear.
“Sho’, I’ll come, Joy.”