Chapter X: Part 10

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 old man 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 doctor had 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 a thousand 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, and hatch 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 it puts 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.”

XIX

AT APRIL’S HOUSE

The first night Breeze spent in April’s cabin was a bad one, although he slept in the same room with Joy and her baby.

Joy wrote to Sherry for Zeda that same afternoon, and when she mailed the letter she bought some sweet animal crackers from the store for supper. She had a good supper. She pressed them all to eat a-plenty, and when they were done, she bustled about briskly, washing dishes, straightening things; but she had nothing to say to a soul. What was she thinking about, to stay so silent?

She and Breeze and Leah’s children sat by the fire for a while. It burned low and dim, for the night was too hot to keep it bright. Nobody talked. Now and then one of the flies sleeping on the newspapered wall roused and buzzed. The leaves on the trees outside made a timorous noise. Brudge darted glances at Breeze and cleared his throat again and again, but everybody was polite.

One by one they went off to bed until only Joy and Breeze were left. She got up.

“Come on, Breeze. Le’s go to bed. Me an’ you an’ de baby, we stays in here.”

Breeze slept on a cot in the corner of the room and Joy in the bed where Leah’s dead body had been. Where was Leah now? Breeze gazed at the dark. He could hear things moving about in the yard. Something fumbled at the door. The latch rattled. The steps creaked. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled. Joy’s little baby cried out, but she patted it and sang softly:

“Bye, baby buntin’
Daddy’s gone to de cow-pen
To git some milk fo’ de baby.
Go to sleep.”

Breeze lay open-eyed. Restless. The cabin was stifling hot. Fear had him sweating.

* * * * *

When the long night, baked with heat, passed into a warm, dewy morning, the baby woke and Breeze took him to see the men pass with the mules and plows on their way to the corn-field, then to watch Leah’s children and Joy stick sweet-potato cuttings into the ground. Time went slowly. If one morning could be long as this, when would those cuttings ever make a crop? The baby’s weight burdened his arms. His shoulders ached. He’d go sit on the step and sing it to sleep, then he’d rest. “Bye an’ bye, when de mawnin’ comes!” Breeze sang, and the baby’s eyelids drooped. “Bye an’ bye, when we’s gathered home!” The eyelids closed down tight. “We’ll t-e-l-l de story! H-o-w we over-come,” Breeze sang it softly, the baby was ready to ease down on the bed. His tired arms could rest a while. He might take a nap himself.

The day was so quiet when he sat on the step again and leaned his head back against the door-facing that the old tree, bending its head across the yard toward the cabin, whispered every time a breath of air stirred it. A wood-pecker’s tapping made a tumult of sound. The twitterings of a pair of wrens with a nest in a knot hole under the eaves made a distinct clamor. Drowsiness glazed Breeze’s eyes, stopped up his ears. The morning flowed on by.

When the noon bell rang he jumped, awake, with the bare shadow of a gasp. Then he remembered he was living with Joy, not Big Sue, and he stretched his mouth in a lazy yawn.

The Quarters soon bustled with people coming in from the fields. The women, first, with hoes on their shoulders, then the men. Hens cackled, telling of eggs they’d just laid. Ducks quacked. Pigeons wheeled in low circles.

Joy arrived ahead of the children, her arms drooping, her steps lax and careless, her eyes noting naught around her, not even Breeze, who got up to let her pass. Then something on his head made her heed. “Wha’ dat on you’ head, Breeze! Who put em dere! Great Gawd, Breeze whe’ you been?”

Breeze put up a scared hand and felt all over his head. There was nothing so far as he could tell. “Wha’ e is, Joy? I ain’ feel nothin’.”

“Looka!” Joy lifted a white horse hair and held it in front of his eyes. “Take em an’ drown em, Breeze. Drown em quick. I bet Brudge done dis. De scoundrel! Brudge is tryin’ to scare you. Dat’s all. He can’ do you nothin’. No. Brudge don’ know how to cunjure nobody. But you go chunk dis in de Blue Brook anyhow. Tie em on a rock an’ chunk em far in as you kin. But don’ le’ Brudge know you done it.”

Breeze writhed with cold fear. That short white horse hair was a burden to his shaking fingers. He shifted it from one hand to the other, until he reached the Blue Brook’s bank. When a lizard scurried under a log to hide, its light rustling made Breeze almost drop his load. But he found a pebble, twined the hair around it, and after looking all around to be sure nobody saw, he cast it into the water.

As it fell with a light plop a giggle broke in the stillness. Breeze’s blood turned hot with fury. If Brudge had dared to follow him, watch him, laugh at him, he’d get a stick, a rock, something that could kill, and kill the scoundrel.

His eyes searched the surroundings, but nothing was at hand. Festoons of trailing moss floated from the limbs of the enormous live-oaks, making a weird canopy over his head; a cicada chanted shrilly in a clump of vine-tangled shrubbery; huge coiling, writhing roots spread around great rough trunks, then dropped out of sight, burying themselves in the earth. No weapon for him to use was anywhere in sight. He’d hunt until he found one. A narrow bit of a short blue skirt flickered from behind a tree-trunk and disappeared. Emma’s! Maybe it was she who had tricked him, not Brudge! He stopped short with a sharp indrawn breath. He’d slip up on her, catch her, hold her--maybe push her in the water!

Tipping stealthily forward, he went toward the tree, holding his breath for fear Emma might hear him and get away. He’d make her pay for teasing him, scaring him, making him believe somebody had put a conjure spell on him with that white horse hair.

When Emma peeped out to see where he was, he grabbed her by the arm so suddenly she gave a little frightened cry.

“I got you! Now I’m gwine drown you!” he growled, but instead of pulling away, trying his strength, her eyes filled, her mouth quivered.

“I was jus’ playin’ wid you, Breeze--you oughtn’ to be mad wid me--a-jerkin’ me----”

The moss waved softly overhead, the grass heads leaned sidewise in the gentle wind, two round drops of water dreaned out of Emma’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. They cut clean to Breeze’s heart, startling, paining him. The small arm inside his fingers was soft as Joy’s baby’s. He wouldn’t hurt it for the world.

“I ain’ mad. I’m a-playin’ wid you, too,” he explained.

“Enty?” Emma’s smile was so sudden, so merry, Breeze felt confused, troubled.

The Blue Brook trickled on with a soothing purl, its surface shimmering as the wind stirred it into rolling ripples. Roses and honeysuckles added fragrance to the stench of decaying leaves and wood. A deep stillness began spinning a web over them all.

“Oh--Breeze!” Joy was calling.

“Ee--oo! I’m a-comin’!” He answered, and Emma was gone.

Joy sent him to the post-office, and when he came back with a letter, she snatched it out of his hand, but it was from the hospital and said April was improving. He’d soon come home, and he sent messages to all his friends. He craved to see them.

* * * * *

Dewberries were ripe, wild plums reddening, maypop vines had the roadsides purple with bloom. The day drowsed with heat, the rice-fields smelled sweaty, the sun, half-way between noon and sunset, drew out perfume from the grass and flowers.

Breeze was in the pasture picking berries for supper when the boat-whistle made a long extra blow for the landing. He stood up and held his breath to listen, for he knew something unusual had happened. It wasn’t long before Brudge came in sight, waving his arms and shouting, “Sherry’s come! De boat fetched em just now!”

Breeze sprang up in such haste, he spilled every berry in the bucket and had to stop and pick them up.

“How do e look, Brudge?”

Brudge made a face. “E look ugly as ever to me.”

“I got a good mind to choke you,” Breeze threatened.

“Come on an’ choke! I’ll mash you’ goosle flat! Wid one hand! Ha! Ha!”

Burning with hate for Brudge and joy over Sherry’s coming, Breeze flew home by a short-cut. Joy sat on the steps, feeding her baby, but it was plain she knew Sherry had come, for her words halted so she could hardly speak, and her eyes were wide and bright.

“Sherry’s come!” Breeze panted, all out of breath. “I’m gwine to see em.” She stroked her baby’s fat little legs, then clasped both small feet together.

“Tell em--tell em---- No, don’ tell em nothin’. I’ll go tell em myself.”

She laid the baby face down across her lap and began unfastening him in the back. “Go git me some clean clothes fo’ em befo’ you go.”

She leaned quickly and kissed the back of the tiny neck where the head joined the plump body, leaving a hollow shaped just right for her mouth.

She slipped his one garment off his soft rolly body, slipped the clean one on over his head, laughing at the way his head wabbled, then suddenly cuddled him close in her arms. She held him so tight, his restless arms and legs squirmed to get loose.

Breeze hurried to Zeda’s cabin so fast he had no wind left to tell Sherry how glad he was to see him. Sherry gave him a hand-shake, then a mighty hug that squeezed Breeze into a happy laugh.

“Lawd, boy, you is growed! How’s Clara? Did e kick you yet?”

Breeze could do nothing but grin. How much bigger Sherry looked! How much finer! He was a town man now, with shoes and cravat and a white straw hat, and presents for everybody. Breeze was so happy blowing his new mouth-organ he didn’t see Joy until she asked, “You don’ know me, Sherry? Is I changed dat much?” Her words shook, her smile trembled.

“No, Joy, you ain’ so changed. No---- But I didn’ know you had a baby----”

“Sho’ I is. Look at em. Ain’ e de fines’ t’ing you ever see? E kin ’most talk, enty, Breeze?”

Breeze could hardly take his eyes off Sherry long enough to answer her, but the baby cooed and his wabbly head bobbed back and forth against Joy’s arm. His toes stretched out in the hot sunshine, and both tiny balled-up fists tried to thrust themselves into his small drippy mouth. He gnawed at them, then let them go, and a disappointed wail suddenly wrinkled up his small face and made it so funny-looking, even Sherry had to laugh.

“Wha’ e name, Joy?”

“E name Try-em-an-see, but I calls him Tramsee fo’ short.”

“Whe’ you git dat name?”

“Maum Hannah helped me to make em up. It’s a lucky one, too.” Joy turned away suddenly, and her full short gingham skirt twirled about her thin legs. They were bare and matched her small wiry body well, and her face had been greased until its black skin shone hard with glints of blue in the sun. Her ripe breasts strutted full under her tight-fitting dress. Her bare head had its wool wrapped into tight cords with white ball thread. She looked very different from the stylish town-dressed Joy who came home just before Christmas. No wonder Sherry stared at her.

All her town airs were gone. She was as countrified as Zeda. Sherry gazed at her so hard, Joy dropped her eyes. Her lips twitched and the hollows at the corners of her full mouth deepened.

“I’m sho’ glad you come home, Sherry. Whyn’ you bring you’ wife?”

The slim fingers of one hand plucked at a button on the back of the baby’s dress. Her voice, raised and strengthened, sounded clear and hard.

“E wouldn’ come South, Joy. But I thought you had mo’ sense dan to go take Leah’s husband. You’d sleep in dat house fo’ Leah to hant you? You kin rest dere?”

Joy’s eyes flickered and shifted in a side-glance toward him, then beyond him, where trees fringing the rice-fields shimmered blue like trees in a dream.

“Sho’, I kin rest dere. April’s a fine man, Sherry. E treat me white too. I wish to Gawd e didn’ got sick. De crop has been a-needin’ him bad.”

“Whe’ e is now?” Sherry’s eyes were cloudy, his voice dull.

“To de horspital.”

The china-berry tree full of purple blossoms cast a pool of hot shade at Joy’s feet. Reddish scions, sprung up around the root of the crêpe myrtle, gave out a sickly scent as Sherry’s restless feet trampled and bruised them. The yellow afternoon glare stressed a stern look in his eyes and marked a swift-beating pulse that throbbed with tiny strokes in a vein of his thick strong neck.

It was a relief to hear Joy say coolly, “April’ll be glad you’s come. De boll-evil is swarmin’ in de cotton.”

And Sherry answered, “I’m glad to git back, Joy. Yonder up-North ain’ like home.”

“Stay an’ eat supper wid us, Joy. You an’ Breeze all two,” Zeda invited cordially.

Breeze looked at Joy and waited for her answer. “You stay, Breeze,” she said. “But don’ stay late.” And she walked on home to April’s cabin.

Sherry slept a good part of each day, but at night the big poison machine hummed over the cotton-fields, puffing out clouds of white poison dust until every stalk was covered, every leaf silvery. The dry weather was a help. No rain came to wash the poison off. Plows kept the middles of the rows stirred and the fallen squares buried. After a week’s rest the poison machine ran all night again. The cotton throve. The stifling nights were perfumed with the honey of cotton blooms. Already bolls were showing, some as large as hickory nuts! April himself could have managed no better than Sherry.

Joy bustled about working hard all day, but she sang at her work and night found her unwearied. Brudge got more and more sullen and surly. He was often impudent to Joy, but she paid him no attention. One night when the supper things were washed and put away she slipped out of the door and walked off in the darkness alone. When the others had gone to bed Brudge barred all the doors so she couldn’t get in. As if she were not April’s wife and the mistress of the house. But even then she laughed and treated it as a joke.

The next day her baby lay on the bed sleeping. Brudge walked up and looked at it and called it an ugly name. Joy heard and before Brudge had time to catch his breath, she grabbed him and gave him such a beating he yelled for mercy.

After that Brudge spied on her all the time, even jumping out of bed to see if anybody came home with her at night. And Joy drove him to his work every day as if he were a lazy mule. They quarreled constantly. The cabin became a wretched place to Breeze, except those times when Joy sat on the steps in the dusk and talked to him and told him how much she thought of him and of the help he had been to her.

With her face wreathed in smiles and her eyes bright with gladness, she’d look up at the stars shining through the tree-tops and Breeze would hold his breath and listen at her voice and sigh with love of her, and forget that life was ever painful or burdensome.

One night Sherry walked home from meeting with Joy, but when they reached April’s house she didn’t ask him in. He stood by the step and rolled a cigarette, lit it and walked away. Brudge watched him with eyes full of cunning and when he was out of hearing laughed: “Sherry t’inks he’s somebody. My Gawd!”

“Sherry is somebody,” Breeze defended. “Sherry is de foreman now.”

“You wait till Pa gits home. You’ll see who de foreman is den. Me an’ Uncle Bill is gwine to town to git Pa befo’ long. I bet a lot o’ t’ings’ll change den. You’ll see it too.”

The moon glittered thin and sharp in the sky. Crickets chirruped. Katydids droned long shrill cries. A whip-poor-will called and called. Breeze was so fretted that he forgot Joy sat on the step beside him. He jumped when she spoke, although she spoke quietly: “Sherry an’ Uncle Bill is gwine to town on de boat to fetch Cun April home. You is not gwine, Brudge.”

Joy’s voice was husky, perhaps from the dew or from singing so long at meeting. Brudge made no answer, but in a little while he got up and slunk off to bed without even saying good night.

* * * * *

The people met the boat to welcome April home just as they met it when he brought Joy, a bride. All except Joy herself. She stayed to have everything ready for him at the house. She knew he’d be hungry and the soup must be kept hot, the chicken nice and tender but not too done. Unwatched rice is easy to scorch. And besides, the chicken’s raw heart had already mysteriously disappeared! Out of the pan! After she had washed it and salted it! She told Breeze this in a whisper.

* * * * *

Sherry picked April up in his arms and brought him ashore. April was not much longer than Joy’s baby, now, and tears poured down his cheeks, but he seemed not to care at all who saw them. Lord, he was so glad to get home! There was no place like Blue Brook!

The close-packed crowd listened, motionless and hushed, for April’s voice was low and broken and his words like somebody else speaking. Lord, how the man was changed! His lean body with its broad bony shoulders and long thin arms was a shocking sight. No matter what wrongs he had done, he had been punished enough. More than enough! Uneasy and curious, but filled with respect, they pressed around him. They fed their eyes on his terrible plight. April was no longer a man. Poor soul! God’s hand had fallen hard, heavy, upon him.

A grave silence held most of them, but April, so full of joy at getting home again, called out cordial greetings to every one of them by name. He was so glad to hear the crops were good, so glad Sherry was back, so glad for the dry weather.

When he paused to take breath, their sorrowful pitying words fell: “Do, Jedus!” “I too sorry fo’ em!” “My Gawd!” “I ain’ never see sich a t’ing!”

Breeze’s heart shrank smaller until it felt no larger than the heart of a mouse in his breast. Old Louder gave a long sad howl. The birds sang no more. The sun in the west hid under a dark drab cloud.

April was the only cheerful person in the whole crowd.

“How yunnuh likes Sherry fo’ de foreman?” he asked brightly.

No answer came at first, then Jake cleared his throat and spoke out:

“Sherry does de best e kin, but e ain’ got no time wid you, April. No.”

Then many other answers chimed in, “Shucks, nobody livin’ could make de foreman you was!”

“Dat’s de Gawd’s truth!” Sherry’s voice praising April as loud as any.

Uncle Isaac had Julia hitched to Uncle Bill’s buggy to take April home, and when the old mule became terrified at the boat’s whistle, April laughed at the beast’s lack of sense. Poor Julia! So old and so foolish!

Breeze had never realized how much April loved everybody. “How all o’ yunnuh do?” he asked affectionately. “How’s all home?” He had to choke back a sob as he looked into their serious faces.

Sherry put him on the buggy seat beside Uncle Isaac, who held the reins, but April couldn’t keep his balance, and Uncle Bill had to get in and hold him steady.

April excused himself by saying he was weak and nervish from lying flat down on his back so long. A bed draws a man’s strength in a hurry. Even a chair will do it.

Over and over he said how good everything looked. He breathed deep of the smell of the woods full of bay-blossoms. The splash of Julia’s feet in the shallow branch made the water come into his eyes. Everybody who walked alongside the buggy could see it.

When they got in sight of the barnyard, Julia broke into a trot. It was her supper time and she was in a hurry to eat. April laughed at her sudden willingness to go. “No, Julia. You can’ stop at de barnyard, not dis time. You got to pull me home. You don’ know I can’ walk, enty?” But his voice broke, and Uncle Bill began telling about the crop, how fine it was, how loaded with fruit. When he got stronger, April must take Julia and the buggy and ride everywhere. Sherry did very well, but he was young and needed advice about a lot of things.

Joy and Leah’s little children stood waiting out in front of the cabin to meet him. A quiet awed group. April was the only one who felt at ease.

“How you do, honey?” he said gently to Joy, who came forward first, but she looked uncertain what to do or say. “I reckon I is look strange to yunnuh. But I’m thankful to git home widout comin’ nailed up in a box.”

The children huddled together watching April as if he were a perfect stranger.

“Come speak to you Pa, chillen,” Joy bade them, and they came forward slowly, shyly. Brudge snuffled and sobbed right out loud, so moved was he, but one of the littlest boys looked at his father’s shortened body and giggled. Joy grabbed his shoulder and shook him soundly and sent him behind the house, just as she did when he laughed at April months ago.

“E don’ mean nothin’, April. E ain’ got so much sense. E’d laugh if e was a-dyin’ himself. His mammy must ’a’ marked him so.”

Joy spoke kindly, but April’s face changed. His mouth quivered; a strange weary look wrung all the life out of his eyes. His own child had made sport of him. Laughed at his shame. The last time it happened he had reared and pitched, but this time his bosom heaved and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

Joy helped Sherry to take him inside the cabin and lay him on a bed in the shed-room. It did look inviting. The feather mattress was puffed up high and covered with a clean white spread. April sighed deeply as he sank in its soft depths, and he closed his eyes in enjoyment.

His head was too low to see well, and he asked Joy to get him another pillow. She looked at the long empty trousers that twisted about foolishly over the white counterpane. April whispered to her that she’d have to cut them off shorter for him, or pin them back. Joy didn’t answer, but she got a quilt from another bed. When April saw what she was going to do, he protested that it was too hot to lie under a quilt. But something he saw in Joy’s eyes made him change his mind, and he let her cover him up.

Big Sue came to see if there was anything she could do for April’s comfort. She spoke kindly to Joy and told Breeze he looked well and grew fast. April hardly heard Big Sue’s offer, for his friends had crowded into the room and called to him from the open windows. They meant to be kind, still no one of them could conceal astonishment and horror that April had no feet, no legs, at all. There were gentle murmurs of:

“God bless you, son, how’s you gwine do widout legs?”

“I’m sho’ glad you lived to git home, but what’s you gwine to do?”

April’s pleasure at being home was somehow chilled. He kept saying he thought two or three times he’d never see them again and he had to pull hard to do it, but his cheerful tone had faded into gloominess.

Uncle Bill suggested that the people had better leave. April had had a long trip. He was tired. He had been very weak. He wasn’t strong enough to stand much excitement. They were all good-mannered about it. They passed out of the door with little to say, and their tones were subdued when they spoke.

When the last one had gone, April burst out crying. He held Uncle Bill’s hands and blubbered out he was nothing but a baby! He had no manhood left at all! He couldn’t even stand kindness! Everything made him cry! Everything!

Joy came back into the room and stood by the bed and looked down at him and he reached up a long arm and took her hand uncertainly and called her by name. No eyes were ever more appealing, no voice in the whole world ever plead for tenderness as April’s did then.

“Joy, you don’ mind me bein’ dis way, enty? I’m gwine git wood legs befo’ long.”

Joy stood silent, a shudder ran through her, her fingers lay limp in April’s. April groaned and let her hand go.

Then Joy tried to smile bravely and say she didn’t mind. She had fretted herself half to death about him and now she was happy because he had come. But it was too late. She couldn’t fool April. He had seen how she felt; and he drew away from her as from a stranger.

She turned and went briskly out of the room, and April turned his face to the wall. His thin breast lifted, while one deep bitter sob after another shook him. He had fought a long hard fight with Death, and now he was sorry he had won! If he had known how things would be, how Joy would feel, he would have given up, but it was the thought of Joy that made him try to live.

* * * * *

April stayed on the bed in the shed-room day after day, looking out over the rice-fields where the tides rose and fell. Breeze’s work was changed from minding Joy’s baby to staying with April, keeping the flies off him, handing him water to drink.

Few plantation sounds could reach this shed-room at the back of the cabin and when staying by April became unbearable, Breeze would go outside and walk as far as the water’s edge, or stand by the window watching cranes and kingfishers. One old bald eagle spent much of his time on a branch of an old dead tree and when a fish-hawk dived and got a fish the eagle took it from him.

* * * * *

April complained little. Once when the night was damp and the sound of the poison machine louder than usual he got very restless. He said it was hard to lie helpless. Without legs. Flat on his back. Most of the time alone. While another man took his place. But except for sighs and a few moans, that was all.

At first the people on the place came often to see him. They brought him things to eat. A chicken, a few eggs tied up in a cloth, a bottle of molasses, whatever they had that they thought he might enjoy. Occasionally some friend put a piece of money in his hand. But his persistent low-spiritedness and down-heartedness did not encourage them to come back. Soon they stopped only long enough by his window to say, “How you do to-day, April?” or “How you feelin’?” as they passed by, with troubled glances.

Uncle Bill was the exception. He came very often and he’d sit and listen as long as April wanted to talk about his weariness or his misery.

April never grew tired of telling over and over his experiences at the hospital. About the nurses and doctors, their kindness to him and interest in him. How he had fought through the long dark nights with pain. At first it was a steady fight, then after a while the pain came in showers. But he had thought out many things. He’d learned that every man has to bear his suffering alone. He realized that the doctors could not help him. Neither could his children, nor any friend. He had to go the whole way through by himself--to the very end.

When April first came home, Joy stayed with him every night, then she began going to parties and birth-night suppers once in a while, and finally, every night as soon as the supper was over and the dishes washed and put away, she’d tip quietly down the steps and go. Without a word.

April said little about it. Nothing to Joy herself. What was the use? What was he? Just half a man, that was all. He had no right to expect Joy to stay always at home with him. Breeze was always there to mind the flies or give him a drink of water, or tie a collard leaf on his aching head.

Joy shirked no household duty. She had learned to cook almost as well as her mother. He had no cause to complain of the food she gave him. It was well seasoned enough for those who had appetites to eat. Joy was young. She had to pleasure herself. He hadn’t the heart to forbid it. And nobody could say she was a gad-about. She kept the house clean, the clothes washed and patched, and she did her full share of the field work too.

April talked fairly enough to Maum Hannah and Uncle Bill and Zeda, even to Big Sue, who came to see him once in a while. But all of them could see that jealousy was disturbing him, making him fretful and suspicious.

Hour after hour he stared doggedly out of the window, moaning, sighing, wishing he could go to sleep and never wake up. His gloom filled the whole cabin. Breeze could hardly bear to stay with him, and Uncle Bill came in as often as he could spare the time.

One night Uncle Bill begged April to pray. It was the only way to find peace, to be satisfied. If he would do like Jacob, and give God no rest day or night until he had some sign his prayers were heard, his whole heart would be changed and filled with rejoicing.

April answered that he had lost faith in God’s fairness. What had he ever done to make God deal with him so? Would any decent man on the plantation treat a dog any worse than God had treated him? Or suffer a worm as much?

Uncle Bill admitted God had laid a heavy hand on April. Had smitten him hard, but if April’s suffering would make him pray, and save his soul from everlasting torment, then all suffering would be gain. Pure gain.

Joy had a Bible and Uncle Bill could read well enough to teach April to spell out a few verses. At first he learned a few of them by heart, then he strove to learn how to find the right place in the Bible and to read them there. “The Lord is my Shepherd” was the first one he located. It was the easiest of all to find and learn. Next he learned “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

Sometimes Uncle Bill read a whole chapter to him, but it was a hard task for them both, labored work for Uncle Bill to read and for April to understand.

The one April liked best was “Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

Breeze wondered who Israel was and who kept him, but he durst not ask.

One day Uncle Bill stumbled on this verse: “As a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.” The words were scarcely spoken before April put up a hand.

“Don’ read dat one, Uncle. E’s done me too bad. E ain’ treat me fair. Looks like E ought to let up on me. E done suffer me so long----”

April turned his face toward the window to hide the tears that poured out of his eyes, and there was Sherry in full view, riding the sorrel colt and holding Joy’s baby in his arms!

April’s face went a ghastly gray, his moist features shriveled. Tremors shook the muscles in his jaws, but he said nothing.

Uncle Bill stroked out the fingers of one long, blue-nailed hand, but they curled back into the palm as soon as they were released.

“You must be gittin’ a chill, April.” Uncle Bill’s eyes were full of fear. “How ’bout a mustard plaster on you’ back?”

“Nemmine, Uncle. Nemmine,” April chattered.

As the dusk fell Zeda came to inquire about April, but she found him shaking as with ague. He said he was cold through and through and his insides felt wrung and twisted. The very heart in his breast ached sorely.

Zeda said if April had a chill Joy had better give him some red-pepper tea. She’d go home and make some tea out of her own red pepper. Her pepper was strong, hot, she had gathered it at noon on a sunshiny day.

The jangle of a cow bell broke through the still night. On and on it rang, saying it was meeting night. Uncle Bill had promised to lead, and when he got up to go, Joy suggested that Breeze go along with him. Not that Breeze cared especially for the singing and praying, but anything for a change would do him good.

Maum Hannah’s house was crammed. Half the people had to stand outside, and heads crowded the windows so not a breath of air could come in or go out. The night was stifling hot and sweat trickled down Uncle Bill’s forehead as he read the Bible by the dim smelly flame of the smoky lamp. He read about a man named Jonah who sinned, and a great whale in the sea swallowed him whole! God sent the whale to get him!

Uncle Bill closed the book when the chapter was ended and talked slowly, sorrowfully, about the sin that prevailed on the plantation. The people bickered with one another instead of living in love and charity. Instead of praying for each other, they spent good money for charms to conjure one another. They danced and sang reels instead of shouting and singing spirituals and hymns. Unless they changed, no telling what would happen! God is patient. Long-suffering. He gives men every chance to get saved. But they had overlooked every warning. They had forgotten that the jaws of Hell were stretched wide that very minute, craving to swallow every soul in that room just as the whale swallowed Jonah. Jonah got out of the whale after three days, but no man ever gets out of Hell. Sinners spend eternity burning in fire and brimstone.

Why not give up sin? Why not trust in Jesus instead of putting fresh stripes on His bleeding wounds? Every sin cut Him to the quick! Not only the sins of grown men and women, but the sins of little children. Jesus was crucified over and over again by the sins of people right on Blue Brook Plantation. And yet He had died on the cross to save them from that awful place where there was nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!

The members moaned and groaned until Maum Hannah lead the spiritual, “God sent Jonah to Nineveh Land, Jonah disobeyed his Lord’s command.”

The congregation sang answers in a solemn refrain.

Verse by verse the whole story of Jonah’s awful punishment was told.

Breeze had never heard it before and he shuddered from head to foot with horror and pity for poor Jonah. God seemed as cruel and awful as the Devil. Between the two, there was small chance for any safety. Poor Jonah! Poor April! Poor Breeze!

On the way home through the night he held to Uncle Bill’s hand so tight that Uncle Bill asked what was the matter. Breeze admitted he was afraid. Afraid of the dark, of God, of the Devil, of everything, especially while it was night.