The night of July 4th was to be a “big interprise” at Aunt Susan’s. Three “good altone songsters” were coming to lend added luster to the meeting, and make the “buildin’ rock wid ole-time shoutin’ praise.” Aunt Susan was over the stove the greater part of the day, making pies; and to give the gumbo an extra flavor, Tom had gone crawfishing and brought home a basket full of crawfish, which he would give as his donation. Bell told him she would boil them and pick them, a wifely condescension which pleased Tom as much as it caused him to wonder.
The night of July 4th was to be a “big interprise” at Aunt Susan’s. Three “good altone songsters” were coming to lend added luster to the meeting, and make the “buildin’ rock wid ole-time shoutin’ praise.” Aunt Susan was over the stove the greater part of the day, making pies; and to give the gumbo an extra flavor, Tom had gone crawfishing and brought home a basket full of crawfish, which he would give as his donation. Bell told him she would boil them and pick them, a wifely condescension which pleased Tom as much as it caused him to wonder.
“Maybe her min’ done change at las’. An’ maybe she’ll go ’long wid me tonight to Sis’ Susan house,” thought Tom, as he dragged a chair out on the front gallery and sat down in the shade of the honeysuckle vines.
“Bell alright; ’cep’ for her nasty, jealous-hearted ways,” he argued to himself.
The afternoon was hot and still. A quivering, dancing heat was visible in the brilliant sunlight. Not a leaf stirred on the chinaberry trees by the front fence. A few dejected chickens hid under the castor oil bush by the step, their wings drooping, their mouths open, panting like jaded runners after a weary race.
Bell was inside, looking after the pot of crawfish boiling on the charcoal furnace. The swampy smell of the crawfish mingled with the odor of red pepper, floated through the house and over the gallery, where Tom was already in a deep slumber.
Bell came out to the front door and looked at him, then went back to the kitchen. She sat down, gazing at the pot on the furnace, a strange expression creeping over her face. For a long time she sat like one in a profound study. Her eyes contracted, and she began to gnaw her thumb nail abstractedly, a mask-like vacancy covering her face with dark inscrutability. Passing her hand across her face slowly, she got up and looked at the boiling crawfish. They were bright scarlet; they were done. Taking a colander from the wall, she put it in the dishpan on the table; then, lifting the pot from the fire, she emptied the seething mass into the colander,shaking it well until all the water was out, then put it on the window-sill to cool. Passing her hand across her mouth in a cryptic manner, she went again to the front door and looked at Tom furtively. He was sleeping soundly. She went back to the kitchen, and taking the dishpan of hot water from the table, walked out to the front gallery.
Tom was asleep. A deep, manly, snoring sleep held him fast.
“He wouldn’ know.... It’s so easy to trip,—to stumble. For de handle to slip out my han’”.... The thoughts went chasing through her mind, as she stood over him with the steam rising from the crawfish water like an ominous mist.
“Dey say linseed oil good for scaldin’.... Tom got some in a bottle yonder in de woodshed.... I know how to look aft’ him. Den hegottastay ’way from Susan”....
An unearthly yell started the quivering air.... The dishpan fell to the floor with a jangling crash. “Have mercy! Lawd, have mercy!” Tom’s reiterated cry sounded across the yard with pathetic appeal, the scalding water tinctured with red pepper torturing him viciously.
No one saw the savage deed but the frightened chickens hiding under the castor oil bush, and Bell swore that it was an accident. She was arrestedand sent to jail, but Tom maintained that she was innocent; believing Bell’s flimsy story that she had stumbled against his foot.
“Who? Tom ain’ nothin’ but a plumb fool,” commented Seelan, as she left the house after her visit of sympathy.
“Ain’ Tom know it never was Bell practice habit to th’ow trash water in de front yard?... Comin’ clean th’oo de house to de front do’ to empty a dishpan o’ scaldin’ water? Shucks! Tom des natchally childish.”
“You sho is right,” agreed Felo. “I ain’ never like Bell from de firs’ beginnin’. I ain’ trus’noooman w’at got side-b’yeards growin’ ’long-side her jaws like Bell got. Da’s abadsign.”
And so the comment continued for weeks among Tom’s friends wherever they met.
After the bandage was removed from Tom’s eyes, the doctor told him that he was hopelessly blind. His face took on a look of sudden despair, and in a pleading tone, he said:
“Please suh, doctor, don’ joke me in my mis’ry.”
No one spoke. After a few seconds, Susan took hold of his hand, her affectionate grasp, more eloquent than any spoken word, revealing to him the awful truth of the doctor’s statement.
“Sweet man, Jesus,” he exclaimed, raising his headimploringly; “please tell me w’at po’ Tom goin’ do!”
“You goin’ go home wid Susan, an’ set in yo’ chair yonder ’fo de fire,” came the soft-toned, comforting reply. “An’ Susan goin’ look aft’ you des like she did befo’.”
Then leading him by the hand, they left the doctor’s office and started up the coast towards home.
Bell was tried before a jury, but as there was no available witness to give testimony in the case, she was acquitted as innocent and ordered by the court to go back to Georgia. “Back to de wilderness, whah she b’lonks.” As Tom’s friends declared, with picturesque indignation.