XVIPLOWING
Breezewas to do his first plowing, but instead of being up and dressed and ready to go to the fields when dawn first streaked the sky he lay sobbing underneath the clean bright quilts, which were all rumpled up over his bed, the big, high, soft feather-bed in the shed-room where Big Sue’s Lijah used to sleep.
He was wretched and lonely and sore from head to heels. The feather-bed hurt wherever it pressed its fat cushiony sides against his naked body, although that feather-bed was made out of the finest down of wild ducks and geese. Big Sue liked to tell how she took years to save so many, for she wanted her Lijah to have the finest feather-bed on the whole plantation. Whenever the hunters brought wild fowls to the kitchen for her to roast in the big oven there, she carefully picked the softest pinless feathers off the breasts, and put them in a bag and kept them until she finally had enough for Lijah’s bed. Lijah liked a soft bed. He was like her.
Joy was different. A feather-bed made Joy hot and unrestful, and she liked to sleep on a mattress filled with cotton tacked tight to keep it firm and hard and in place. Joy and Lijah were different altogether. But Lijah left his feather-bed soon after it was made, and went away to a far country. Big Sue was not sure whether the country was named “Fluridy” or “Kintucky.” Sometimes she called it “Kintucky-Fluridy.”
The fine softness of Lijah’s bed meant little to Breeze, for he was homesick and unhappy. He’d a lot rather go back to his mother’s cabin, on Sandy Island, and sleep on a pallet made out of a ragged quilt spread on the splintery hard floor, than to stay here with Big Sue and sleep in this nest of down feathers that had once warmed and comforted other children with bill and wings and webbed feet.
He turned and twisted and heaved with mute sobs. He felt all alone in the world. He had learned not to cry out loud. Big Sue had taught him that people with manners cry low and easy. Manly boys never cry at all. If Big Sue would only take time to beat him right away when he did wrong, he could somehow bear the pain better, but to be waked up before daylight, and stripped naked, and made to stand still under the cuts of a strap, or a switch, that’s hard.
When she waddled home at night, after the day’s work and pleasure were done, she was too weary to do anything but drop down in a chair and rest. Breeze had to undo the wide-strung-up shoes and take them off her fat feet, and fill up her pipe and light it. She’d smoke a little while and go to bed, worn-out, too tired to whip Breeze, no matter how much he needed a licking. She always waited until next morning, when she woke up fresh and strong, ready to raise Breeze and teach him manners. Her usual morning greeting was, “Git up, Breeze. Git up and strip. I want to git down to you’ rind,” his rind meaning his naked skin.
She declared that licking Breeze hurt her as much as it hurt him. She hated to have to do it, but Breeze was a poor, ignorant, no-manners boy. She had to beat him to do her duty by him.
A long, thin, black leather strap stayed up on the mantel-shelf, ready to give lickings. It had a black-snake’shiss, and a crack as sharp as a pistol-shot. But this morning Big Sue couldn’t lay her hands on it, so she broke a switch off the plum tree growing beside the cabin’s front door. There were all kinds of switches outside. Big Sue could easily have got a smoother, better one, but she was in a hurry and the plum switch was in easy reach of her hand.
In the weak morning light she didn’t see that thorns stayed on it when she pulled off its limbs. Those thorns had sharp teeth, and Big Sue drove them deep into Breeze’s back and thighs. Now as he stroked his hurts with both hands he felt blood warm and wet on them.
Breeze’s mother had never talked to him about manners. Big Sue said she didn’t know them. At Blue Brook plantation, manners are the most important things in the world, but they stand between you and everything you want to do. Nobody ever eats the first sweet black walnuts that fall on the ground, for eating green walnuts makes lice in your head, and it is bad-mannered to be lousy.
To play with the funny hop-toadies, whose little black hands look just like a tiny baby’s thumbs and all, makes warts come on your hands, and it’s bad-mannered to have warts.
If you drink goat’s milk, although it is sweeter than cow’s milk, you’ll hate water, just like goats hate it. You won’t want to wash. And it’s bad-mannered not to like soap and water.
If your feet get cold as ice and you can’t get them warm any other way, you must not put them on the warm black pots on the hearth, because the soot on the pots will stick to your feet, and it’s bad-mannered to have sooty feet.
To put a finger in your mouth is bad-mannered. Everything is bad-mannered!
Breeze’s reflections and sobs were checked by a call from Big Sue to get up! To make haste too! He hopped up and pulled on his clothes, and taking a piece of cold bread in his hand, hurried to the barnyard. Daylight had already spread through the sky, and was creeping over the earth. The fall day smelled like spring. One old apple tree in the orchard had been fooled into blooming by the drowsy warmth. Poor silly thing!
The creek babbled low as the tide swelled it high up near the bank, and a cow, followed by her new-born calf, ventured in knee-deep, and sucked up the water noisily. As she lifted her head to look at Breeze, drops falling from her mouth were suddenly shot through with a streak of light. The sun was up! He was late! Lord, he must run! Every flower had its face turned eastward to meet the day. They knew it had come.
Cocks began a fresh crowing. Jay-birds chahn-chahned. Partridges whistled. A mocking-bird trilled. Tiny brown birds fluttered through the thickets like dead leaves come back to life. Wagon wheels rumbled on a road out of sight, the pop of a whip cracked out. Everything was astir, ready for the day’s work.
In the barnyard a lively confusion of men and beasts made a thick din that filled Breeze’s heart with excitement. To-day he would begin doing a man’s work. On Saturday he’d get his pay, like Sherry and all the other farm-hands.
He could hear the men hailing one another. The mules neighed. Trace-chains tinkled between shouts of “Whoa” and “Gee” and “Haw” and “Git up.” On the near side of the barnyard fence a long-legged funny mule colt went staggering behind old Sally, Uncle Bill’s old bay mare. When he lagged she whinnied to him to come on.
A litter of pigs huddled around a lean black sow wallowing comfortably in a filthy mud-hole. They squealed to her to lie still and let them feed, but she grunted lazily, and rolled still deeper in the mire. Near by an old dominecker hen clucked sharply to her biddies and scratched eagerly for worms in the rich black earth. She’d better mind. That old sow would eat her up, feathers and all, and swallow the biddies down like raw oysters.
The fine fall day felt like spring. Men and mules stepped briskly, glad to go to work.
For the first time since the boll-weevils came and pestered the cotton, the crop had been abundant, and now the field must be cleared of old stalks for the winter.
The summer’s dry weather had been a big help. No rain came to wash the poison off. Sherry ran the poison machine over the fields at night when the cotton was wet with dew and the thirsty weevils drank poisoned dew and died. It was a scary thing to see these great white clouds of poison dust rising and settling to kill. The people scarcely dared to look.
Now, every lock of cotton was picked, and the plows were to turn the stalks under so deep in the earth the boll-weevils would not have as much as one lone cotton leaf to eat during the winter. April was planning already to make such a big crop next year, the gins would have to run day and night when fall came, to get the cotton packed into bales by Christmas! Money would be plentiful one more time!
A score of men were plowing, most of them tall strong fellows, straight and slender as tree-trunks. Their ease and skill made Breeze almost despair, for plowing was a hard job to him. But Sherry was chaffing them, calling them scary ladies who stayed at home andslept with the women and children while he and April fought boll-weevils all night long.
He wouldn’t hold it against them if they’d work well in the daytime and plow the crop fast and keep the ground-crust broken and the grass killed. He and April could attend to the weevils next summer, all by themselves. With that big poison machine and three mules, he could poison forty acres a night. Instead of resenting what Sherry said, the men laughed good-naturedly and declared they were satisfied to leave the boll-weevils to Sherry and April. Let the devils fight the devils.
Leah’s Brudge was there, right in among the men. He plowed last year and showed he felt important. At first he scarcely noticed Breeze who struggled and strove to hold his unruly plow steady and straight like Sherry’s.
Each man had his own mule, taught to his ways. Sherry’s mule, Clara, was a beauty. Sleek and trim and spry, she understood every word Sherry spoke. Brudge had Cleveland, an old brown mule with sprung fore-knees, but with a steady gait and a nice coat of hair. Breeze had old Cæsar, a shaggy, logy beast, mouse-colored, except where bald spots marked his hide black. One blind eye was like a hard-boiled egg and the other had an uncertain peep, but Sherry said Cæsar had sense like a man. All Breeze needed to do was hold the lines and the plow handles together and walk straight behind. Cæsar would do the rest. Breeze wished he might have had a handsomer beast, but even old Cæsar made his heart thrill.
The earth had been dried out by the warm autumn sunshine and it sent up clouds of dust as the sharp steel of the plows cut it deep, and long rows of rank stalks were uprooted and turned under and carefully covered with dark smooth soil.
April stood alone, watching the men and mules walking sturdily across the field, then back. When they neared him, their talking hushed except for words spoken to the mules.
Overhead a blue sky looked down; the breath of the stirred earth, scented strong with life, rose and brimmed up, filling the air.
When the plowmen reached the far side of the field again, turning slowly they moved along, side by side, talking and laughing. Their gay racket hushed in a hurry when April’s voice floated to them from where he stood, a tall speck by the trees in the distance. Clear and sharp his words fell through the sunshine.
“Hey dere! Yunnuh quit so much talkin’ and laughin’. I want all dem cotton stalks covered up deep!”
Every man of them stepped a little slower, every plowstock was gripped with a tighter hold after the correction. Merry chatter changed to stern shouts that chided the patient mules. “Hey, mule!”, “Watch you doin’s!”, “Gee!”, “Haw!”, “Come up!” The mules pulled harder and the crunching of the earth as the plows cut deeper took the place of laughter and gay bantering words.
The day moved on, warm and drowsy, with yellow sunshine still hot enough to cast black shadows, and draw sweat out of both men and beasts. April stood watching, hour after hour, while the swarm of mules and men trudged back and forth from the water’s edge to the woods and then back again, never stopping for even a breathing spell. The sun rode high in the sky. Shadows shortened. Breeze longed for the noon hour, time to stop and eat and drink and rest.
Once or twice as Brudge passed Breeze and Cæsar, he looked at the old mule and giggled. Then he calledout, “Breeze is plowin’ a spring puppy!” When he had gone a little way past he looked back and said something that made the plow-hands laugh out. But Sherry stopped Clara short in her tracks.
“You better shut you’ mouth, Brudge!” he warned. “You gits too big for your breeches sometimes. Breeze can’ lick you, but I kin an’ I will.”
Breeze couldn’t hear Brudge’s answer, but he caught up in time to hear the end of Brudge’s outburst of abuse of Sherry. The other men went on plowing, except one of the older ones, who stopped to shame Brudge for the vile words he had used.
“What de matter ail yunnuh?” April called.
Nobody answered, so he started walking leisurely toward them.
Sherry stuck his plow’s point deep in the earth, dropped his plow lines on the ground, then undid the trace-chains and hung them up on Clara’s collar.
Brudge stood looking at him, then back at April. “I ain’ botherin’ you, Sherry. You better left me ’lone,” he whined.
If Sherry heard him he gave no sign, but stepped lightly over the furrows toward Brudge, who gave an outcry and started to run. Sherry’s long arm reached out and caught him, drew him up close, held him fast, while Sherry’s words fell fast and hard as fire-heated rocks.
“I ain’ gwine butt you fo’ what you called me. No. I’m gwine crack you’ skull for dat what you call my mammy.” Sherry tilted his head back, and Brudge gave a shrill yell.
“Don’ butt me, Sherry!” The words were scarcely out when Sherry’s slender powerful body swayed lightly forward from the hips, and his forehead crashed down right on Brudge’s skull.
For a second or two after the terrible blow fell home, Brudge made no sound. Sherry turned him loose, and he staggered a few paces and fell, screaming at the top of his lungs. Sherry had killed him! His head was broken to pieces. Prone on the soft plowed ground Brudge twisted and writhed, like a fish out of water.
Sherry paid no attention to him at all, but went back to Clara, hitched the trace-chains, took up the rope lines, and clicked his tongue. “Git up, Clara!” he said quietly, and the mule stepped off.
To Breeze, April was the very greatest man on earth, but all of a sudden Sherry seemed to grow. His limbs became taller, straighter, his shoulders broader, his supple waist slenderer. His eyes were terrible when they flashed at Brudge, ashine with furious light, and his strong white teeth ground together as if they could bite Brudge’s body in two.
April was coming toward them. A little faster now. What would he say when he got there? The plow-hands stopped and waited. One shamed Brudge for his lack of manners, then turned his head away and spat on the ground with disgust.
April’s long legs strode leisurely across the soft new furrows, his stout hickory stick stepping lightly beside him. When his eyes looked at Brudge there on the ground, holding his head in both hands, rolling up his body and rocking it back and forth, then falling on the ground again, howling with pain and shame and anger, April’s lips curled up from his big yellow teeth in a scornful smile.
“What kind o’ plow-hand is you, Brudge? Is dat de way you does a man’s work?”
“Sherry butt me!—E broke my skull!—I got a bad headache!”
“Do shut you’ mouth, an’ git up off de ground! Unhitch you’ mule an’ go on home to Leah. Baby!”
Brudge got up slowly, and moaning low but steadily did what he was told. With April, he was very humble. His trembling fingers fumbled at the lines and trace-chains, but he kept up a furious sobbing all the time he worked at knots and links.
“Help him, Breeze!” April’s order cracked out like the snap of a whip.
Breeze hurried forward obediently, not that April had ever mistreated him, or even scolded him, but because he knew that April ruled everybody and everything on the plantation with a heavy hand. People, beasts, even plants and insects, had to bend to his stubborn will, or suffer.
“Hey, Sherry!” April called. “Come dis way! Left Clara whe’ e is! Git a move on you, too!”
April was rarely unjust, and sometimes he was almost gentle, but now his voice stung the air. Sherry had better not vex him further, or there’d be trouble.
Although Sherry walked without hurry, he was out of breath when he reached April. His hands shook a little as men do when a chill is about to seize them.
“How come you butt Brudge?” April asked him coldly.
“You ought to be glad I butt em. Brudge is a no-manners scoundrel.”
“If he done wrong, whyn’ you tell me?”
“I ain’ no news carrier.”
April’s eyes glittered as he shifted his hickory stick from one hand to the other.
“You ain’ Brudge’s daddy, you know?”
“No.” And Sherry smiled. “I ain’ nobody’s daddy, not yet.”
“Wha’ you mean by dat?” April’s voice rose, andin a sudden burst of anger he seized Sherry by the shoulder. “You can’ sass me, Sherry! You know it too! If you wanted to butt somebody, whyn’ you come try my head, instead o’ mashin’ up a li’l’ half-grown boy like Brudge? I got a mind to make mush out o’ you’ brains right now. You ever was a’ impudent black devil!”
Sherry’s eyes gleamed, his fists clenched, and he drew closer to April. “I didn’ had no cause to butt you, dat’s why! But I just as soon butt you as anybody else.”
April smiled. “I hate to kill you, Sherry. You’s a good plow-hand, an’ I need you.”
Sherry’s answer didn’t lag one iota, and he met April’s eyes with a steadfast look. “Come try me! Just stick you’ neck out! One time! Just one time! You t’ink you’s de onliest man got a skull on dis whole plantation. I got a bone in my head, too. Come try em! I’ll butt you’ brains out same as if you wasn’ my daddy!” Sherry’s eyes glared, his head crouched between his shoulders, he came forward with a rush. But April jerked him clear up off his feet, and his big head came down on Sherry’s forehead with a butt that brought the blood streaming from both men’s nostrils.
Sherry staggered back a step, then leaped forward, but April’s powerful outstretched arms hurled him toward the plow-hands, who caught him and held him fast, for April warned them.
“Yunnuh hold dat boy. If e comes back at me I’ll kill em. An’ we ain’ got time to be diggin’ a grave, not till de cotton’s all plowed under.”
“You mens lemme go, I tell you! I ain’ scared o’ April. Lemme go!”
“Yunnuh ain’ to fight! Great Gawd! Yunnuh’d kill one anudder. You can’ git loose, Sherry. No, suh!”
Sherry struggled fruitlessly. Then he stood still. April wiped his nose on his shirt-sleeve, picked his ragged hat up off the ground, set it straight on his head, then quietly buttoned up the neck of his shirt, for a sudden gust of wind came up cool from the rice-fields.
Casting his eyes up at the sky where a flock of small ragged clouds hung high and white, he said calmly, “Yunnuh better git back to plowin’. It’s gwine rain in a few days an’ we must git dis big field finished befo’ den.”
He tried to speak coolly. Quietly. To hold up his head triumphantly. But his shoulders had a dejected droop, as he turned his back and went toward the woods.
After a few steps, he turned around, “Sherry, you an’ me can’ live on de same place. Not no mo’. I’ll kill you sho’ as we try it. For a little I’d kill you now. You git on off. I don’ care whe’ you go, just so I don’ see you, not no mo’! Git outen de field! Right now, too.”
Breeze felt hot, then cold. The blood rose in his throat and choked him. If he could only help Sherry kill April! But he stood shaking, shivering, with lips twitching, until April asked, “What is you cryin’ about?” And Breeze stammered weakly, in a thin reedy voice, “I ain’ cryin’, suh.” The glare April gave him made him dizzy like a blow between his eyes.
“Den git at you’ work! Don’ be wastin’ good time on a mawnin’ like dis!”
Sherry held up his head and fastened his look on April, but the tears that ran down his cheeks belied his hard reckless smile. In a voice broken by hate and fury he cried out:
“You stinkin’ ugly devil—— Quit scarin’ dat li’l’ boy! You’s got a coward-heart even if you’ head is tootough fo’ Hell! I hope Gawd’ll rot all two o’ you feets off! I hope E will——” Sherry stretched out a fist and shook it helplessly, then broke into sobs.
“Hush, Sherry! You better left April alone now. You done said enough,” warned one of the men, but April strode away. If he heard Sherry’s cursing he made no sign of it. And Sherry walked across the field to Clara, who stood, still hitched to the plow, waiting for him to come back. He patted her nose. “Good ol’ Clara. I’m gwine. Breeze’ll take you to de barnyard, won’t you, Breeze?”
Breeze tried to answer a loud “Yes, Sherry!” but a dumb sob shook his words.
“Good-by, mens!”
“Good-by, Sherry!”
That was all. Sherry walked away toward the Quarters. As Breeze watched him go the sunshiny noon grew dim. The plows went on cutting down stalks, burying them, but the men were silent as death. Birds kept singing in the forest trees, but their notes had a doleful sorrowful sound. The day had paled. The rice-fields meeting the sky yonder, so far away, were hazy and sad. The wind itself wept through the trees. A flock of crows passed overhead, croaking out lonesome words to one another.
The field lay dark. Dismal. Its rich earth changed to dry barren land. The men who plowed it walked in a distressful silence.
Sherry was gone. Zeda’s Sherry. The most promising young man on the whole plantation. April’s big-doings bullying had run him off. April would pay for it. He’d poison cotton by himself next summer. He could make the men do almost anything else, but he’d never get them to poison boll-weevils. They knew better than to fight Providence. April wasn’t God. No.
From the Quarters a scream rose and swelled until its long, weird, melancholy note went into a death-cry! Zeda’s grieving! Breeze had to clench his teeth to keep from bursting out crying himself. Suppose April got mad with him some time, and butted him? What would he do? He couldn’t do anything but stand still and take it and die.
He went on plowing, side by side with the rest in the painful silence that hung on stubbornly. The soft flat-footed pattering of the men’s bare feet, the dead flat thudding of mule steps, the sullen waving of the branches in the wind, the low murmuring of the water, all fell together into a dull batch of doleful sound.
Flocks of field larks rose up and cried out plaintively as their feeding-ground was turned under. Old Louder chased them in a slow trot, sniffed at them, then at some smell in the earth. Coming up to Breeze, he rubbed against his legs and whined. Breeze gave him nothing in return, only a low word or two, and a furtive pat on the head, so he trotted off to one side, and sat on his haunches, watching the plowmen with sorrowful eyes. He missed Sherry too.
When the bell rang for noon, Breeze was near the rice-fields side. His mule stopped short and seized a mouthful of grass, as he gazed toward Sandy Island. It was far away to-day. The haze had every sign of it hidden. A broad sheet of water sparkled and glittered, as bright reflections of white clouds floated softly, silently on its shining surface. All the channels were buried. What was his mother doing now? And Sis? He swallowed a sob and turned the mule’s head toward home, and saw Big Sue waddling across the field. She didn’t follow any path, but came on straight toward him, over the soft plowed earth. Why was she coming to the field at noon? He had his breakfast long ago,and he always went home for dinner. Maybe she wanted to talk about Sherry. She stopped and said a few words to April but she came on to Breeze.
She gave Breeze a hand-wave as she got nearer, but her face was solemn, without any show of a smile. “April says you kin come straight on home, Breeze. Somebody else’ll take de mules to de lot.”
Giving his shoulder a gentle pat, she drew Breeze up to her with a little hug. She didn’t say a word, and her eyes looked wet.
April was waiting at the path, and he walked on home beside them. Tall, solid as a tree, rugged, tough-sinewed, double-jointed, yet the cruel look in his deep-sunk eyes that blazed out when they looked at Sherry, had given way to something else. They glowed bright as he turned back and looked across the rice-fields toward Sandy Island, and said gently:
“Sandy Island is way back behind de clouds to-day.” His anger with Sherry had passed.
His voice sounded unsteady, his features were haggard and ashy.
Big Sue looked at him, then at Breeze. “You break de news to Breeze, April. I ain’ got de heart.”
April shook his head. “Me neither.”
Big Sue’s small eyes blinked. “Son,” she hesitated strangely, and laid a hot fat hand gently on his shoulder, “you t’ink you got a mammy, enty?”
Of course Breeze thought so. He was so sure of it. What on earth was Big Sue aiming at?
“No, son.” She shook her head slowly. “You ain’ got none. You’ mammy went out on de tide befo’ day dis mawnin’.”
What did Big Sue mean? Breeze felt confused. Where had his mother gone on that before-day-tide? He didn’t understand what Big Sue was talking about.
Marsh-hens cackled gaily out in the rice-fields. A crane croaked. A fish-hawk circled high, then halted to poise himself for a swoop.
Taking Breeze by the hand Big Sue led him on through the greenish shade cast by the live-oaks over the road and the cabin’s yard. Her bright cold eyes peeped out sidewise at him now and then. She was trying to be kind. Once she said, “I’se gwine to be you’ mammy now, since you’ own mammy’s dead and gone.”
Breeze felt as if he was in a dream, walking in his sleep. His legs were numb and heavy.
“Hurry up, son! You must walk faster. We got to dress an’ go to de buryin’, cross de river in a boat. April’ll let Sherry take we across de river in de boat, enty, April?”
“No, not Sherry. Somebody else’ll take you. Sherry’s done gone off. To stay.”
“Wha’ dat you say, April? Sherry’s gone?”
“I run em off de place a while ago.”
“Great Gawd! What is dis! April, don’t you know Zeda’s gwine kill you? Man! I’m glad I ain’t you. You might be strong, but you ain’ strong as dat conjure Zeda’s gwine put on you.”
Louder had followed them from the field, and now sat on his hind quarters, listening, watching, snapping at a fly now and then. As a squirrel ran down the trunk of a tree and across the yard, he jumped up and ran a few paces, then came back and sat down again, as though he had done his duty.
“Come on in de house an’ dress, Breeze. I don’ believe you got it straight in you’ head yet. You’ ma is dead, son! Dead! De people is gwine put em in a grave soon as dis same sun goes down.”
Breeze looked up at each of the grown people. Hefelt hurt, as if his mother had abandoned him just when he wanted to see her most, to go back home to her. Sherry was gone away. She was dead. Nobody was left, but Uncle Bill. Leaning toward Big Sue he hid his face in the folds of her skirt and wept.
“Don’ cry, son,” she soothed him. “Come on an’ eat some dinner. You got to go wid me to de buryin’. Enty, April?”
She led him inside and made him sit in a chair beside April, while she fried links of sausage to eat with the bread and cups full of sweetened water. The sausage had a savory smell, and Breeze bit into it and chewed it a long time, but he could scarcely swallow it for the choking lump in his throat. His mother was dead. She was no longer yonder at Sandy Island with Sis and the other children. She had flown up into the sky, where Heaven was, and Jesus and all the angels. April washed his food down with great swallows of water. How dumb he was.
“Lawd!” Big Sue grunted as she came out of the shed-room with her Sunday dress on her arm. “Ain’ it awful to die in sin? It pure scares me half to death when I think on Breeze’s mammy a hoppin’ in Hell right now! Great Gawd! Wid fire a scorchin’ em!”
“How you know?” April thundered out.
“How I know? I know e was a’ awful sinner. You know so too. E got dis same Breeze right here at Blue Brook whilst a revival meetin’ was gwine on. You don’ call dat sin?”
April didn’t so much as crack his teeth, and she looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“You an’ her all two better had got religion dat summer.”
“You better keep you’ mouth shut, now, Big Sue. You’s a-talkin’ out o’ turn. Better help Breeze dress.E’s a settin’ yonder on de floor wid jaws hangin’ open! Boy, you’s gwine swallow a fly if you don’ mind.”
Breeze was trying to think. His mother, his dear, kind, good mother, was hopping in Hell. Burning in a fire nine times hotter than the fire on earth!
“April!” Big Sue called out, “you ought to buy Breeze a nice pair o’ shoes an’ stockin’s to wear to de buryin’.”
“Brudge is got a pair Breeze kin borrow an’ wear. I ain’ got time to go to de sto’ now.”
“Please go git ’em fo’ me.”
April got up stiffly and walked away. In a little while Brudge came bringing a pair of Leah’s shoes. He had lost one of his own, but Leah sent her slippers instead. April said they would do. They were low-cut and shiny, with high heels and a strap across the instep. Breeze made such a poor out at walking in them, Big Sue couldn’t help laughing, although she declared she was not making sport of him.
“Take ’em off, son. Tote ’em in you’ hand till we git to Sandy Island,” she suggested, and Breeze did.
Uncle Bill rowed the boat that took them to Sandy Island, and although he pulled hard with his oars, the sun was almost down when they reached the cabin up on the hill above the river.
Mules and oxen hitched to carts filled the yard, and the house was crowded with people.
Big Sue made Breeze sit down on the ground and put on Brudge’s stockings and Leah’s shoes. They made his feet stumble about miserably, but Big Sue said that made no difference, since they looked nice.
He was terribly excited, but as he walked hand in hand with Big Sue up the steep path into the yard he could hear people say:
“Lawd, Breeze is grow fo’ true. Looka e fine clothes!”
Seeing his old home made him forget to be polite.
Big Sue whispered, “When de ladies an’ gentlemens speaks to you, bow an’ pull you’ foot an’ say, ‘Good evening.’ Don’ grin at ’em like a chessy-cat! Be mannersable!”
When Sis came to the door Breeze broke away from Big Sue’s hand and ran, half falling up the steps. Sis grabbed him and held him tight. He put his arms around her and squeezed her, and they laughed and cried together. Poor Sis! Her body felt like a pack of bones! Where was the baby? Where were all the other children? Sis whispered they’d been sent off to a neighbor’s house until after the burying was over. She didn’t have time to feed them and look after everything else.
Big Sue interrupted the tight hug Breeze was giving Sis: “Come on in, boy, an’ look at you’ ma. Dey’s ready to put em in de box.”
The cabin was full of a queer smell. Breeze hated to go inside, but Big Sue held him fast by the arm and drew him toward the shed-room door. The room was dim, for the one wooden shutter was closed so that very little light could filter through. Breeze saw only a few solemn-looking black women standing around the bed. He couldn’t bear to go any farther. But Big Sue’s firm hand urged him on, its strong jerks making it useless to draw back.
“Don’t you cut no crazy capers wid me, Breeze. You got to come look at you’ ma. I want de people to see I raised you to have respect fo’ you’ parents. Open de window, Sis!”
The small room looked even smaller on account of the low ceiling, and the bed, the only piece of furniture, was pushed out from the wall leaving a narrow way all around it.
Sis undid the window latch and flung the shutter back. The sun flooded the white bed with blood-red light, and marked a long slim thing under a sheet. One of the black women turned the sheet slowly down and exposed a pinched face. A chin bound with a white cloth. Two bony black hands crossed on a sunken breast. Two feet whose black skin showed through thin white stockings. The feet were still, not hopping.
That strange stiffness could not be his mother! Breeze shut his eyes tight to keep from seeing it.
“Open you’ eyes, Breeze. Stand ’side you’ ma an’ look at em good fo’ de last time. You ain’ never gwine see em no mo’.”
“No! No! Cun Big Sue! Don’ make me look at em! Please, Cun Big Sue!”
Breeze began screaming in spite of himself. He wanted to be good. To please Big Sue. To have manners. But that thing on the bed was too fearful.
He felt himself lifted in Big Sue’s strong arms. Her hot breath puffed on him as she bore him close to the bed. The terrible scent filling the house rose in his nostrils. Screams split his throat. He couldn’t hold them in to save his life. Although his eyelids squeezed tighter shut, tears poured through them.
Big Sue’s determined fingers tugged at them, pulling them apart, until his eyes, naked, except for tears, were held over his mother’s face. Her two dead eyes peeped out from half-closed lids, her black lips cracked open over a grin of cold white teeth. He strove wildly to get away, but Big Sue held him until a soft darkness swallowed everything.
When Breeze came to himself he was flat on the ground, so near the cape jessamine bush that a cool clean blossom touched his cheek.
Where were Big Sue and Sis?
He raised up, and saw men with white gloves on their hands bringing a long new pine box through the door. They came down the steps and went toward a wagon. As they passed an old mule, the beast tried to break his tether and run. A man yelled at him, another jerked him by the bit, a third got a stick and frailed him, but Uncle Bill called out, “Don’ lick em, son. Dat mule smell death and it fret em. Pat em. Talk easy to em. Death kin scare people, much less a mule.”
Everybody was leaving the house. They had forgotten Breeze. He couldn’t stay here by himself, with nothing to keep him company but that strange smell that followed the box out of the shed-room and settled right in the cape jessamine bush. It drowned the scent of the blossoms.
Hopping to his feet he ran humbly to Big Sue, and slipped a hand in hers, “Lemme go wid you, Cun Big Sue. I ain’ gwine holler no mo’.”
Big Sue gave his hand a painful squeeze, “I’m dat provoke’ wid you, Breeze, I can’ talk. But you wait till I git you home. You’s de kickin’est nigger I ever did see. But you wait till I git you home. I bu’sted one sleeve clean out o’ my new dress a-tryin’ to hold you.”
With his heart tingling Breeze tottered on. His eyes blurred. His legs scarcely could carry him down the sandy road toward the graveyard under the tall trees.
The afterglow fell clear from the sky on an open grave with dark earth piled high on each side of it. It was outlined by flaming smoking torches held in the hands of the mourners, who marched slowly around it, singing a funeral dirge. One man, dressed in a long white robe, stood at the head of the grave, his deep voice chanting the solemn burial service. Breeze’s mother belonged to the Bury League, and all the members carrieda white lily. When the leader gave the sign they held the flowers, arm high, and yelled, “Christ is Risen!” but the leader was a strange man, not his stepfather.
A hymn, or spiritual, was raised, and the whole crowd joined in with great questioning waves of sound, sometimes harmony, sometimes dissonance. Breeze’s heart ached. He wanted to cry out too, to the great Creator of Life. He felt bewildered when Sis gave a piercing shrill wail, that rose high and sharp above the somber death chant. Her cry had scarcely died away before an answer came echoing from the opposite side of the grave. Big Sue looked at Uncle Bill with a mischievous grin that shocked Breeze. How could anybody laugh here? The very woods reechoed the unearthly death-cries!
The mournful singing gradually changed into a confused din, a whirlwind of grief. Men and women shrieked and shouted. They shook and shimmied their shoulders, and jerked their arms and gyrated about in a frenzy of grief and excitement. Some of the women went wild. They beat their breasts and cried above the roaring hubbub. But all the time Sis’ shrill, piercing, falsetto wailing kept steadily calling across the grave. Her screams rose high and then melted into the life of the air.
The tall brown trunks of pine trees around them loomed up until their plumy tops touched the sky. They waved gently, mysteriously, above the confused group of people. Red sweaters and blue overalls, green and purple and yellow dresses, wide white aprons and turban-bound heads, black hands and faces, were all tinged with a rosy glow dropped over them by the sky as night began creeping out of the forest.
The strong damp odor of the woods freshened, and mosquitoes stung Breeze’s face and hands and ankles.He was unhappy. Wretched. When Big Sue said, “De mosquitoes is too bad. Dey got me in a fever! Le’s go,” he felt a relief to get away from it all.
Not even Sis paid them any attention as they turned around, facing homeward. She was too absorbed in grief, in the terrible thought of Death, that strange mystery which had just stricken Breeze’s mother.
Breeze hurried along the road, fearing snakes less than the sound of that inferno of mourning which followed behind him.
Sandy Island was quiet; the cabin on the hill empty; the dusk on the river so deep that the boat was scarcely outlined against the water; but Breeze could see the old dead pine down on the white sand. It’s head had fallen. Its whole length rested on the ground.
His brain whirled in his skull. Cold tremors ran through his body. His mother had buried all her money at the foot of that tree. So had old man Breeze. But nothing less than strong iron chains could have dragged the boy one step nearer it.
Uncle Bill helped Big Sue to her seat in the boat’s stern, where she sat solemn and stiff and ruffled like a sitting hen.
They went in silence. The water whispered in bubbles, but the wind had died out of the trees.
In the cabin, a big fire blazed up the chimney, and a delicious scent of food came to meet them.
“Who dat in my house?” Big Sue cried out, when April came to the door.
“You got company.”
“Who? You?”
“No. You guess again.”
“I dunno, an’ I’m too weak to walk, much less talk.”
“It’s Joy. E come on de boat dis evenin’.”
Big Sue stopped short in her tracks, dumb-struck. “Great Gawd! You don’ mean it! Whe’ is Joy?”
Instead of hurrying forward she gazed at the cabin with black dismay as if she turned some terrible thought over and over in her mind, but a warm laugh gurgled out, and a low voice called:
“What did you tell Ma for, Cun April? I been want to fool em!”
A girl in a bright red dress and with red-stockinged legs came bounding across the yard to meet them.
“How you do, Ma? I bet you is surprised to see me!” She held her mouth up to meet Big Sue’s, their kiss made a loud smack, then Uncle Bill hurried to shake her hand.
“Lawd, Joy! Just de sight o’ you would cure de sore eyes! Honey, you looks sweet enough to eat!” Breeze stared at her. Deep down in his heart he felt Uncle Bill spoke the truth. He had never seen any one like Joy before.
She leaned to pull up one red stocking tighter over a knee, but she grinned up into Uncle Bill’s face. “Do listen at Uncle Bill! A-sweet-talkin’ me right here befo’ ev’ybody!” Her eyes beamed, her low soft drawl was full of friendliness, and she turned to Breeze with a blithe greeting:
“How you do, son? I’m sho’ glad to see you here wid Ma!” A small bold hand shot out to meet his, but Breeze cast his eyes down, bashful and afraid. The hand gave his shoulder a light pat, took one of his and led him toward the house.
“You ain’ scared o’ me, is you, son? Come on in by de fire. I want to see you good.”
Breeze couldn’t say a word, but as they walked in April threw a fat pine knot on the fire to make a better light. The fire blazed up, crackling merrily, making theroom hot and bright, but shyness kept Breeze’s face turned away from Joy, until with a quick laugh she wheeled him around and lifted his chin.
“How come you won’ look at me, son?” Her face was so close Breeze could feel her breath when she laughed again, but his eyes were riveted on her twinkling shoe-buckles.
“Left de boy ’lone, Joy. E don’ feel like playin’. His ma was just buried dis evenin’. Come unstring my shoes, son. I ain’ gwine let Joy plague you.”
As he knelt to unlace the shoes Joy appealed to him: “I ain’ plaguin’ you, is I, Breeze? Me an’ you is gwine be buddies, enty?” Breeze looked up and met her slanting eyes, and the smile that lit them seemed to him so lovely, so gentle, he fairly tingled all over. He had never seen anybody like Joy before. Her slight body in its scant, red satin dress was not tall, but it had the straight, swift, upward thrust of a pine sapling. Her slim black arms, bare from the elbows, and held akimbo, came out from shoulders lean as his own. Her short skirt gave a flirt and Breeze’s glance darted to the skinniness of her red-stockinged legs. But her smile had thrilled the fear out of him, and given him confidence enough to feast his eyes on her gay over-ripe little figure, from the bright buckles on her shiny black slippers to the short coarse straightened hair on her small head.
“Set down, honey. Talk to Uncle Bill an’ you’ Cun April whilst me an’ Breeze fixes supper.” Big Sue’s bare feet pattered back and forth from the hearth to the four-legged safe against the wall, mixing bread, and smoothing it on a hot griddle, slicing meat and dropping it on a hot spider, once in a while scolding Breeze for dawdling, or asking Joy a question about the town or the school. April smiled and joined pleasantly in the talk Joy led. A necklace of blue glass beads clinkedagainst the smooth black skin of her neck, gold bracelets glittered on her slim wrists. Breeze was bewildered, rapt with the glamour of her. Her sparkling eyes strayed from one face to another until they met April’s, bold and staring. Joy’s flickered and fell and her laughter chilled. Like everybody else, she feared him, and his shining gaze, fixed on her alone, withered all the fun out of her and put something sober in its place.
Except for the fire’s crackling a hush filled the room. Big Sue suddenly straightened up from bending over the pots and, looking over her shoulder, said, “Git de plates out o’ de safe, Breeze. How come yunnuh is so quiet? Dis ain’ church!”
April laughed and shifted in his chair and his eyes turned from Joy to her mother. “De victuals smells so good, I’m gone got speechless!”
“Me too,” Joy chimed, but Uncle Bill got up to go. He had already stayed longer than he intended. He must go see if everything at the barnyard was in order.
April stood up to say good night, tall, straight-limbed, broad-shouldered, hawk-eyed.
“Stay an’ eat wid us, Cun April, you too, Uncle Bill! What’s you’ hurry?”
Uncle Bill had to go. He had left Jake to see about feeding the stock, and Jake was mighty forgetful and careless. Nobody could depend on him.
In spite of the fineness of her red satin dress, Joy took the plates from Breeze and piling two of them with the collards dripping with pot liquor, and chunks of fat meat and pieces of the newly baked corn-bread, she gave Big Sue and April each one.
“Yunnuh must eat all dis I put on you’ plates,” Joy bade them gaily, but silence had fallen over them. Both their faces wore a troubled look. April’s eyes held bothdarkness and light, and a kind of sadness Breeze had seen sometimes in Sis’ eyes.
“How was de buryin’?” April asked when the edge of his appetite was dulled.
“Fine! Fine! All but dat fool boy Breeze. E made me pure shame.” Big Sue’s words were smothered by food in her mouth, but Breeze felt the sharp sting of their bitter contempt. He longed to get up and go back into the dark shed-room and hide, but shame chained his feet to the floor and made his neck so limp his head drooped lower and lower.
“Wha’ dat Breeze done so bad?”
April leaned his head against the mantel-shelf, and listened without a word to Big Sue’s story. Most of the time he looked into the fire, deep in thought, forgetting to eat his supper.
When Big Sue’s tale was done, Breeze listened for April’s abuse, but instead of scolding him, April spoke kindly, gently.
“Don’ be too hard on de boy, Big Sue. Death kin scare bigger people dan Breeze. I don’ like to look on em myself. Gawd made people so. Mules too. When Dukkin put pizen in de spring last summer and killed Uncle Isaac’s old mule, Lula, I had a time gittin’ em dragged off to de woods. Sherry said he could hitch Clara to em, but Clara was so scared, e reared up and kicked an’ tried to run away. Sherry had to blindfold Clara wid a cloth over both eyes befo’ she’d go anywhere nigh old dead Lula. It’s de Gawd’s truth. An’ Clara is a mighty sensible mule.”
“Po’ li’l’ Breeze,” Joy pitied softly, and Breeze’s heart warmed, for April and Joy both took his part. Big Sue wouldn’t lick him to-night. She never did lick him when April was there.
“You-all stop talkin’ ’bout death. You scare me soI wouldn’t sleep a wink to-night! Whe’s Sherry?” Joy asked suddenly.
Big Sue looked at April instead of answering. April stirred in his chair, his big feet shuffled on the floor, his slow answer was a growl.
“Sherry’s left de plantation, Joy. I run em off.” His black brows knit into an angry line.
“Why—why—how come you done dat, Cun April?” Joy’s teeth looked white and sharp, her red satin dress shimmered in the firelight, her words were husky, half whispered.
“I had to, Joy. Sherry is a impudent rascal. I’d ’a’ killed em if e had ’a’ stayed here.”
April scratched his head and his eyes turned uneasily toward the door, but before he spoke, tears welled up in Joy’s eyes, a deep sob burst from her bosom, and she got up and ran back into the shed-room where she lay on the bed and wept, in spite of Big Sue’s reproaches.
“Why, Joy! You ought not to take on so! Why, Honey, Sherry’ll be back befo’ long.”