Chapter II: Part 2

The stepfather had disappeared with the money buried at the foot of the old dead pine, but April stayed to help dig a grave and bury the poor thing he had found. The mother shrieked and wailed, but Granny grunted and shook her head. She said Old Breeze’s body floated to Blue Brook on purpose so April could find it, for April was Old Breeze’s son, and, more than that, April was li’l’ Breeze’s daddy!

III

COUSIN BIG SUE

Breeze had heard about Blue Brook Plantation all his life, but he had never heard about his mother’s Cousin Big Sue until one hot October afternoon when he was minding the cow by the spring branch and helping his mother break in the precious nubbins of corn and put them in the log barn. Sis called them to come on home in a hurry! The stepfather had gone to town hunting work. Maybe he had come home. Sis’s voice was high and shrill and scared, and Breeze knew something had happened. These hot days the mother always worked in the field until first dark because that was the coolest part of the day, and Sis, who stayed at home and sewed and patched and cooked, never called anybody until after the sun went down.

Breeze forgot that the cow was in reach of the low-ground corn and hurried across the stubby furrows as fast as his skinny legs could carry him, but he stopped short when he saw a big fat black woman with a good-natured smile on her face, standing beside Sis in the cabin’s back door. Who was she? Why had she come? Why did Sis look so grieved?

The other children were in the yard, giggling, trying to hide behind one another, but the woman’s eyes stayed on Breeze.

“I kin see de likeness!” she laughed. “Lawd, yes! Dat boy is de pure spit o’ April! De same tar-black skin. De same owl eyes. A mouth blue as blackberry stain.”

Breeze had run so fast he was out of breath and his heart beat against his ribs as he watched his mother kiss the stranger and go inside the cabin with her. Presently Sis called him to come in too.

The mother put an arm around him and drew him up close to her side. Her sleeve was wet with sweat, her body hot and steamy, but her hand was cold and shaking like a leaf. How weak and frail she looked beside the fat outsider, who held out a thick hot hand to shake Breeze’s. The gold rings on it matched the gold hoop earrings glittering in her small ears, and they felt hard as they pressed against his fingers.

In the silence that followed Breeze looked at the big woman’s sleek smooth face. It was round and tight like her fleshy body but with dimples in its cheeks like baby Sonny’s. She took a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles out of her pocket and put them on, then leaned back in her chair and laughed a queer gurgling laugh that widened her flat nostrils and stretched her full lips.

“Lawd, ain’t it funny how dat boy favors his pa! Dat’s a pity too. A boy-chile ought to favor his ma to be lucky. I hope e ain’ gwine be de devil April ever was. April was born wid a caul de same way. Lawd, e’s a case too!”

Without giving his mother time to answer she talked on; her son Lijah was like her and her girl, Joy, the image of Silas, her husband. Thank God, Joy didn’t have ways like Silas. He was good-looking enough, but God never made a more trifling creature than Silas. He ran off and left her seven years ago and she had raised those two children all by herself. Lijah was in Fluridy now. Or maybe it was Kintucky, she wasn’t certain which; but he was the worst man in the town where he lived. Everybody was scared to meddle with Lijah. She laughed and rubbed her fat hands together. Nobody would ever run over her Lijah. He took after her that way. Now Joy was different. Joy was weak and easy. But she was a nice girl. She was in town, going to college, getting educated. Joy wouldn’t rest until she got a depluma. When she got it, she’d teach school or marry some fine stylish town man. Joy was a stylish girl herself. Maybe too slim, now, but she’d thicken out. When she was Joy’s age, Silas could span her waist with his two hands. Joy would fatten up too when she reached a settled age.

Cousin Big Sue rolled out her talk without stopping to catch one breath, and all the time her small sparkleberry eyes roved from Breeze’s face to his mother’s, then back to Breeze again.

The mother sat huddled low in her chair, her forehead wrinkled, her shoulders drooped. She reached out and took baby Sonny from Sis, and with fingers that shook she unbuttoned her dirty sweaty dress to feed him. For the first time in his life Breeze noticed her poor ragged underclothes and her bony feet and legs. They looked so lean and skinny beside Cousin Big Sue’s tight-filled stockings and wide laced-up shoes.

Two bright tears fell swiftly in baby Sonny’s fuzzy wool and shone there, two clear drops. Breeze was about to cry himself for his mother’s stooped body looked so pitiful. The corners of her mouth were pinched in and the back of her dress, all darkened with sweat from the hard work she had been doing, was humped out in two places by the bones of her thin shoulder-blades. But baby Sonny bobbed his head in such a funny way as he seized the long thin breast that came flopping out. He crowed and kicked his little feet with joy just as if that ugly flesh was the finest thing in the world. Breeze forgot himself and laughed out loud.

Cousin Big Sue’s fat hands stroked each other gently, and the laugh that oozed out of her mouth squeezed her eyes almost shut.

“Dat boy Breeze is got nice teeth, enty? But Lawd, his gums sho’ is blue! April’s got ’em too. An’ April’s wife, Leah, is got ’em. Dat’s dog eat dog, enty? I wish dis boy didn’ had ’em, but I know e won’t never bite me. Will you, son?”

Breeze felt so shamefaced he shut his mouth tight and hung his head, and his mother began telling Big Sue about the terrible dry-drought. How it had worked a lot of deviltry since June. The crops had promised to make a fair yield, and she kept stirring the earth to encourage them to hold on to their leaves and blossoms, even if they couldn’t grow. But the hot sun wouldn’t let a drop of rain fall, no matter how the clouds sailed overhead full of thunder and lightning. The leaves all got limp and dry. Sis said they were hanging their heads to pray, but they stayed limp, then they parched brown and dried up and fell off. The peas-patch didn’t make enough hay to stuff a mattress. The corn planted on the hill looked like dried onions. The patch of corn in the rich low-ground, close by the spring branch, had done little better. Mid-summer found every blade with its hands shut up tight, trying to hold on to what little sap the sun left. The grass quit trying to be green and the cow had nothing to eat but the coarse bitter weeds growing alongside the spring branch. She was nearly gone dry. What little milk she gave was skimpy and rank, and turned to clabber soon as it cooled. The cream was ropy, and the curds tough. When the butter was churned it wouldn’t gather, but laid down flat like melted lard.

The hens had quit laying and spent the summer panting air in and out of wide-open mouths, with their wings away off from their bodies, trying to get cool. The old sow had quit rooting and stayed in the mud-hole wallowing, until the mud baked into squares like an alligator’s hide. She had no milk for her pigs, and those that didn’t starve turned into runts.

Winter was coming. Not a leaf of collards was growing, the few nubbins of corn left wouldn’t make bread to last until Christmas. God only knew how she’d feed the children.

When she leaned down to wipe her eyes on her skirt, baby Sonny raised up his hard little head and jerked it down on her breast with a hungry butt, and Breeze forgot again and snickered out. Not that he would ever make sport of Sonny. Never in the world. He loved every crinkly tuft of wool on the baby’s head, every tiny finger and toe. Even if he didn’t grow a bit, his lightness made him easy to hold. Breeze loved him better than all the other children put together because he was small and weak.

Big Sue broke into a bright smile. “Son, I’m sho’ glad you love to laugh. I love to laugh my own self.” Her narrow eyes sparkled through her gold-rimmed spectacles, and her wide loose lips spread across her face. “De people on Blue Brook is almost quit laughin’ since de boll-evils come. But boll-evils don’ fret me. I cooks at de Big House. An’ no matter if de buckra is at Blue Brook or up-North whe’ dey stays most o’ de time, I has all de victuals an’ money I wants. I has more’n I kin use. It’s de Gawd’s truth. You’ll sho’ have sin, if you don’ give me dat boy to raise. Po’ as you is, much mouths as you got to fill, you ought to be glad to git shet o’ one. You better listen good at all I say. I’ll train em good. I’ll fatten em up. I’ll learn em to have manners. Dis same boy might git to be foreman at Blue Brook yet. E comes from dat foreman breed. You sho’ ought not to stand in his way. No, ma’am.”

If she wanted a boy-child to raise why didn’t Cousin Big Sue choose one of the others? Maybe she didn’t like the way their shirts were unbuttoned, with their naked bodies showing down to their waists. Their ragged breeches were not only dirty but ripped open.

Breeze’s heart fluttered like a trapped bird’s. Fright had him paralyzed so he couldn’t run off and hide. His mother looked shrunken, withered. A few tears fell from her eyes as they stared out of the door.

“I bet you ain’t got decent victuals for supper right now. I got plenty, yonder home.”

Cousin Big Sue’s eyes were riveted on Breeze, as she declared he’d be far better off with her than here with his mother, and a house full of starved-out children, growing up in ignorance and rags. She’d teach him and train him and raise him to be a fine man, to know how to do all kinds of work, to make money and wear shoes and fine clothes like her Lijah.

“April”--she peeped sidewise at the mother when she spoke the name--“April’s de foreman at Blue Brook, an’ e’ll help me raise Breeze. E tol’ me so las’ night.”

The mother listened and looked at Sis. Sis slowly nodded back, yes. Breeze burst out crying. He begged them not to give him away. He didn’t want to leave home. He wanted to stay right there and be hungry and ragged. He liked to grow up in ignorance and sin.

The shed-room was open so that Big Sue saw the beds covered with old quilts worn into holes. She said Breeze would have good quilts and a feather-bed at her house. The softest lightest feather-bed in the world. It was stuffed with breast feathers plucked off the wild ducks she’d picked and cooked for the white folks at the Big House. Breeze would think he was sleeping on air. She had dry-picked the ducks so the feathers would be puffy, though scalding would have made picking easier.

She’d buy him a pair of ready-made pants from the store, and two or three shirts. She’d get shirts with tails on them like a grown man’s shirt.

After that first outcry Breeze couldn’t make a sound with his voice, for a lump rose in his throat and choked him. He’d rather stay at home and do without bread, or bed.

“Please, please----” he wailed. But his words were dumb and his crying did no good.

The day was moving. The shadow cast by the china-berry tree had stretched from the front steps to the four-o’clocks over on the other side. Big Sue said she must go. A long walk was ahead, and her feet were not frisky these days.

Breeze could scarcely take in what had happened. He was given away. When Big Sue closed her warm, wet-feeling hand over his and led him away down the path that followed the deep, wide black river, he wanted to scream out, to yell that he didn’t want to go. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even stop his feet from stepping side by side with hers, one step after another.

Something about this big fat woman kept his mouth shut. Even when the long sandy path was behind, and he could see the ferry-flat, that would take him across the river, he couldn’t speak, and the throat lump had swelled to a great big ache in his breast.

When a sudden patter of feet sounded behind him Breeze looked around expecting to see a fawn go across the road, but instead, there was Sis, with her arms outspread. She ran straight to him, fast as she could, and with a sharp little cry hugged him tight. She pressed her soft cheek, wet with tears, on his and whispered in his ear that he must go like a man, and try to be a good boy. She held him close for a minute, then without another word let him go, and ran. She was soon hidden from his eyes by the bend in the road. He strove for one more glimpse of her, but he could see nothing but trees and shadows.

They had reached the far end of the island and the dim road turned to drop down to the river where the flat waited, floating with one end tied up close to a cypress knee. Nobody was in sight. Big Sue stopped. “Whe’ is you, Uncle?” She shouted. Echoes answered and reechoed. “Come on, Uncle! Le’s go!” She waited, then grumbled. “Lawd! Uncle’s too deef.”

A few steps nearer the river showed a little old man, sitting crumpled up with his back against a tree. His head was dropped forward, his old cap awry, showing the milk-white wool on his head. Big Sue broke out laughing and went close enough to him to yell in his ear. At once he jumped awake, jerked his chin up off his breast, sat up straight. His eyes, dazed with sleep, gazed around, groping for the sound. When they found Big Sue hiding, he joined her laughter with a hearty cackle that bared his pink toothless gums set in the midst of the bristling white whiskers that stood out around his jaws and chin, fiercely denying the bright twinkle in his eyes.

“Takin’ a li’l’ nap, Uncle? I couldn’t sleep on Sandy Island, not to save life.”

Yes, he admitted, he had dropped off. No use to lie, for he’d been caught. Sleep was a tricky thing. A sly-moving thief. Always stealing time from somebody. He gave a wide-mouthed yawn, stretched his arms to try the sleeves of his long-tailed faded black coat, then strove to get his crooked legs straightened, to unbend his knock-knees, and get his stumbling feet clear of the rough footing made by the great puckered roots around the tree. When he finally reached the clear ground he appeared to see Breeze for the first time.

“Lawd, Big Sue, you had luck fo’ true! I too glad! Wha’ you’ name, son? Come shake hands wid Uncle.”

He made a polite bow when he took Breeze’s hand, his dry old face shone with a kindly smile, his frock coat opened, showing a flowered waistcoat underneath.

“A good-size boy too. E ought to could plow by next spring. Sho’! How old you is, son?” Uncle stood back on his heels, straight as a ram-rod, his eyes sparkling as he praised Breeze’s looks.

“I gwine on twelve, suh,” Breeze answered. But Big Sue put her mouth up close to the old man’s ear and bawled:

“His mammy say e’s gwine on twelve, but e looks mighty small to me. You t’ink e’s a runt?”

Uncle’s eyes watched her lips.

“No, no, Sue, dis boy ain’ no runt. You feed em up. E’ll fill out an’ grow. Bread an’ meat all two is been sca’ce on Sandy Island since de dry-drought hit em las’ summer. You keep de boy’s belly full, an’ dis time nex’ year you wouldn’ know em.”

“I wouldn’ live on such po’ land!” Big Sue bawled again. “Not me! Dis sand looks white as sugar. T’ank Gawd, us home yonder is on black land what kin hold water!”

“You like de black land, enty? No wonder, black as you is, gal!” Uncle chuckled at his joke.

“Sho’! Gi’ me black land eve’y time! You ain’t so white you’self, Uncle.”

Uncle missed her last words. He was too busy laughing and talking.

“You like you own color, enty, gal?”

Big Sue nodded and joined in heartily with his hollow clattering guffaws.

“Gi’ me de black all de time. White t’ings is too weakly!” she shouted gaily, as Uncle led the way toward the flat. Big Sue followed, holding Breeze’s hand tight. She picked her way down the short sandy hill with slow uncertain steps.

“I ain’ use to shoes an’ dey hinders my feet in dis sand,” she explained loudly, but Uncle was busy starting the flat across the river. Grunting, straining until veins showed in his forehead, he finally got the waterlogged hulk to moving by means of a rusty cable and a curious narrow board with notches cut in one side so it could clutch the cable tight.

The sun fell lower as they slowly crossed. Colors of the sky on the still water made a band of flame, of scarlet and purple down the middle of the dark stream, that spread out into the marshy forest.

The old ferryman paused in his pulling and muttered, as he gazed at the sunset; then with a bright look at Breeze, and a chuckle, he began pulling hard again. A flock of crows streaked the sky, going home; a lone fish-hawk sailed not far behind them; tiny swamp sparrows twittered and chattered.

Night was coming and the whole world knew it. The wind dropped into a quiet whispering, waiting for the tide to turn. Every tree and leaf and bough, even the water itself, was darkening. Squirrels chittered softly in their nests, a wildcat yeowled gently. Breeze’s heart, that had been thumping miserably in his breast, now beat up in his throat and the lump that had risen when he told his mother good-by swelled bigger and harder than ever. Tears that had been stinging his eyes all the way began rolling down his cheeks.

He turned his back, and easing a hand stealthily up to his face, tried to brush them away. Cousin Big Sue mustn’t see him cry. Sis said he must be a man and try to be good.

He suddenly forgot his sorrow when swarms of tiny, almost invisible insects rose from nowhere, and settled in his eyes and ears and nostrils and teeth, with a fierce singing and stinging that was maddening. He took off his ragged hat and tried to fight them away, but they ignored its waving. As fast as he killed what seemed to be handfuls, by crushing them on his face and neck and bare legs, others took their places. Sand-flies and mosquitoes were eating him up. Cousin Big Sue had to fight them too, but Uncle was not troubled at all.

“Is de sand-flies pesterin’ yunnuh?” he asked mildly.

“Great Gawd, dey sho’ is!”

“Git some sweat out you’ armpits an’ rub on you’ face. Dat’ll run ’em!”

“Do, Uncle! Fo’ Gawd’s sake! I ain’ no filthy ol’ man like you! I washes myself!”

“Wha’ dat you say, daughter?”

Big Sue broke into a laugh. “I ain’ say nuttin! Not nuttin!”

Uncle calmly worked on, unconscious of what she said. Sweat trickled over his wrinkled face, but it kept its pleasant smile. More than once Big Sue opened her mouth to speak, but closed it without a word, and her face was as doleful as if, like Breeze, she was lonely and homesick.

Breeze wondered bitterly why he hadn’t run away and hidden down in the branch where nobody would ever find him? Baby partridges, or new hatched guineas, will sneak under a leaf and stay there until they die before they’ll let a stranger find them. Why didn’t he do it? He would rather die by himself in the woods than be here on his way to live with this strange woman whose wind was broken.

The sticky mud on the bank had shown no respect for Big Sue’s wide-laced shoes. It clung to their soles and stained their shiny tops. The hem of her stiff starched white apron was streaked with dirt. Everything here was strange and unfriendly. The water and trees, the tangled vines and rank undergrowth were all dark and scary. Snakes and alligators and hog-bears and jack-o’-lanterns lived in such places. More than likely hants and plat-eyes and fever and spirits were thick all around. Suppose he’d see them now, with his second-sight! He didn’t want to see anything but his home yonder behind him, and it was too far to see even the smoke rising out of its low clay chimney. A thick green dusk had risen up from the earth, cutting off the shore on the other side of the river.

The cable slapped the water as it drew the flat across. The old man kept up his grunting and straining. He was not afraid, although he was so old that the years had dried up the flesh on his crooked bones. Breeze jumped sharply, startled and bewildered, when, without any warning, the old man’s laughter cackled out. Looking down where the old bent forefinger pointed, he caught sight of an alligator which settled slowly, noiselessly, under the water until two eyes and a nose tip made three small dark bumps above the smooth surface.

“De alligator see you, son!” the old man squeaked out gleefully, and Big Sue broke into shouts of laughter.

“Great Gawd,” she cried. “Do look how e gaze at you, Breeze. E mus’ be hongry! E don’ see how you’s po’ as a snake! You’ li’l’ bones would pure rattle inside dat big creeter’s belly.”

Stinging homesickness filled Breeze’s heart. Why had he come? Truly, this was out of his world. But there was no way to turn back. None. Shrill piercing bird-cries that rose and fell out of the sky answered something that ached in his heart.

IV

JULIA

Overhead the high thin air swished, beaten by the wings of wild ducks that flew swiftly across the sky in an even fan-shaped line. Uncle kept looking up at them. Once when he spoke to them in strange muttered words, Big Sue observed:

“Lawd, do listen at Uncle! A-talkin’ to dem ducks same as if dey was speerits!”

The trees leaned dreamily over the water which trembled as the sun turned it to dark blood. Uncle’s pulling slackened. The flat touched the firm earth at last.

With amazing nimbleness the old man hopped out and tied it fast to a tree, his crooked fingers fumbling stubbornly with the frayed rope until he was satisfied it would hold; then he followed Big Sue and Breeze up a short sandy climb where the road made a swift bend and ran underneath great trees whose thick branches lapped overhead, shutting out all but small white pieces of the sky.

A bony gray mule hitched to a two-wheeled car stood tethered to a limb. Uncle hobbled to the beast’s head: “Wake up, Julia! Open you’ eyes, gal! You too love to nod! Dat’s de biggest fault I got to find wid you! Lula was a wakeful mule! Lawd, yes!”

Big Sue was panting and climbing in over the cart’s wheel, using the hub for a step. She sat on a board laid across the body. Breeze got in and sat on the floor. Uncle crawled over the dashboard, and jerking the rope lines urged Julia to move on.

“Mind, Julia! Don’ git me vexed! I ain’ used to no triflin’ ways! Lula was pearter’n dis!” Uncle sat up very straight and his tone was terribly threatening.

Julia shook the gnats out of her ears, then snorted them out of her nose, but not until Uncle got to his feet and, raising a long dry stick high as his arm could reach, brought it down on her hip with a powerful whack did she move out of her tracks.

“Git up, Julia!” He gave her another lick, and she turned slowly about and got into the sandy road.

Big Sue heaved a weary sigh.

“Julia is de laziest mule I ever seen in my life, Uncle! Whilst you was a-buyin’ one, whyn’t you git a spry one?”

“Julia ain’ lazy. E’s just careful. Julia knows dis cart ain’ so strong.”

“I hear-say Julia kicks awful bad sometimes!”

“Who? Julia? No, ma’am! Julia’s kind as kin be!”

“E looks awful old, Uncle.”

“Julia ain’ no more’n ten.”

“How come e front knees is so bent over if e ain’ old?”

“Bent over? Julia’s got to bend e knees to walk, enty?”

“Well do, fo’ Gawd’s sake, lick em an’ make em walk a li’l’ faster. We wouldn’t git home befo’ to-morrow if you don’t. Lawd, I’m sorry Lula’s dead.”

“Me too, Big Sue. Now Lula was a mule fo’ true. Lula was de finest mule ever was on Blue Brook. Julia ain’ got no time wid em. Lula had sense like people. I miss em too bad. I ruther de boll-evils had eat up all de cotton on de plantation dan to ’a’ had Lula pizened. I told April to don’ fetch dat pizen to de place. I knowed somet’ing bad was gwine happen soon as he done it. But April is a headstrong man. Nobody can’ change him when he gits his mind made up.”

“April tries to be big doins’ like de buckra, enty?”

“No, gal, not like de buckra. April’s done passed by de buckra! April aims to do like Gawd now!”

“Shut you’ mouth, Uncle! You’s a case!” Big Sue roared with laughter.

“April better quit pizenin’ all dem bugs Gawd put in de cotton!” Uncle contended.

Big Sue pondered over this, but presently she grinned and slipped a look at Uncle.

“When Lula died, whyn’t you bought a awtymobile, Uncle? I hear-say you got plenty o’ money buried all round you’ house.”

“Who? Me? Great Gawd! I ain’ got fi’ cents buried! But if I had a t’ousand dollars I wouldn’ buy a awtymobile! Not me!”

“How come so?”

“Lawd, dey smells too bad! An’ I seen how dey treats de buckra. Dey goes sound to sleep on de road any time dey gits ready. Soon’s dey gits in deep sand whe’ de pullin’ is tight, dey squats right down an’ dozes off. You can’ lick ’em wid no stick like I licks Julia to wake ’em up. No, ma’am. You have to set an’ wait on ’em till dey nap is out. Dey kin dead easy too. I wouldn’ trust to buy one. No, Jedus. Dey breath is stink as a pole-cat too.”

“Lawd, Uncle, you is a case in dis world! A heavy case!”

Uncle’s eyes twinkled. “You ax me so much a questions, now le’ me ax you one. How come you’ wind is so short, daughter? You been puffin’ like a steamboat ever since you come up dat li’l’ small hill.”

Big Sue’s hands caught at each other anxiously. “I dunno, Uncle. My wind is short fo’ true. E’s been short since last Sunday was a week. I eat a piece o’ possum what was kinder spoilt fo’ my supper last night, an’ I ain’ been hardly able to travel all day. Spoilt victuals never did set right in my stomach, somehow. I don’ know how come so.”

As Uncle studied, his eyes snapped. “Sp’ilt possum meat wouldn’ hurt nobody. You looks to me like you’s conjured. You’ eyes looks strainin’. You must ’a’ crossed somebody dat Sunday.”

Big Sue’s fat face looked ready to cry. “I ain’ never done nobody a harm t’ing in my life, Uncle. I stays home all de time. I goes to church on Sunday, den I comes straight back home. I don’ hardly go to meetin’ on Wednesday night. I went all de way to Sandy Island to git dis boy, by I was so lonesome yonder home by myself. Who you reckon would conjure me, Uncle?”

Uncle shook his head gravely. That was hard to tell. Some people get mighty mean if you cross them.

“I don’ cross nobody, Uncle.” Big Sue was whimpering. “Not nobody! I ever was peaceable.”

“Is you an’ Leah friendly dese days? Leah is a mighty jealous ’oman, Big Sue.” Uncle’s eyes sparkled as they sought Big Sue’s, but she met them boldly.

“I ain’ got April to study ’bout, Uncle.”

A smile twitched Uncle’s dry wrinkled face. “How ’bout de new town preacher, daughter? I hear-say you an’ Leah all two is raven ’bout em. Better mind. De next t’ing you know dat same preacher’ll make you have sin.”

Big Sue laughed with relief. “No, Uncle. You’s on de wrong trail now. A preacher couldn’t make me have sin, anyhow.”

“How come so?”

“De preacher’s a Christian man, enty? An’ I is a Christian, enty? One clean sheet can’ soil another, Uncle.”

“Shut you’ fool-mouth, Big Sue. You, neither dat preacher, neither Leah, ain’ no cleaner’n nobody else. You kin have sin de same as me. Sho’ you kin!”

Uncle brought his stick down with a whack on Julia’s back.

V

BLUE BROOK

Little by little the cart creaked along, leaving the grove of live-oaks at the landing behind, then crossing the pasture where the rich land lay unplowed, unsown, but covered with lush grass and sprinkled with flowers. Some of them bloomed so close to the ruts that their heads were caught in the cart wheels and shattered.

The fields came next, ripe corn-fields, hay-fields ready to be harvested, brown cotton-fields, dripping with white locks of cotton. Whirls of yellow butterflies played along the road. Flocks of bull-bats darted about overhead in the sky, twittering joyfully as they caught gnats and mosquitoes for their supper. White cranes flew toward sunset, field larks sang out, killdees rose and sailed off crying. The whole earth was full of sound.

Beyond the field near the river a group of low houses, “the Quarters,” crouched in a grove of tall trees. Smoke from the chimneys settled in long bands of still blue haze. Breeze could smell its oak flavor. Human voices called out to one another, children shouting, laughing, playing, all of them strangers to him. It set his limbs to quivering, his heart to fluttering. He had nobody here. Nobody!

On a path that skirted the cotton field a skinny little black girl swinging on the end of a rope was being jerked along by a large red cow that stubbornly refused to follow the narrow path threading across the field. The beast had run out between the rows of cotton stalks, and with a deft tongue was licking, right and left, swallowing lock after lock of white staple. Uncle got to his feet.

“Git a stick, Emma! Lick em! April’ll kill you, an’ de cow too, if you knock out da cotton! Lawd, de field’s white! We sho’ made a crop dis year!”

The girl’s quick eyes glanced back, her small mouth gave a grin. Taking one end of the rope for a whip she fell to beating on the sides and back of the cow with such zeal that it left off its eating, and with a long mournful low, turned into the path that crossed the field and led toward the Quarters. The child tugged at the rope and strove to master the beast, whose dragging steps raised a cloud of dust that shone as it floated low through the evening’s bright afterglow.

The dusk crept out across the fields wiping out the day’s light. Fires in the cabins made every doorway shine. Long blue streams of smoke rose up from the chimneys and trailed in the sky. Tiny birds flitted and cheeped in the thickets. Sheep bleated. Shouts and snatches of song mingled with wagons rattling.

“Emma’s a funny li’l’ creeter!” Big Sue remarked. “E look like a witch to me.”

But Uncle hadn’t heard her, for he was busy jerking the rope lines, trying to hurry Julia’s slow steps. When a closed iron gate finally embarred them, Julia stopped short and Uncle gave a sigh. “T’ank Gawd, we’s home at last.”

At each side of the gate was a house: one a small church, with a steep roof and pointed windows; the other a cabin with a fire blazing high in its wide chimney.

Big Sue yelled out at the top of her voice, “Do, Uncle! Please, suh! Go all de way wid us.”

But the old man pretended not to hear her, and said to Breeze, “Son, I knowed you’ grampa good, when e wa’n’t as high as you. You’ grampa was my own sister’s chillen.”

Then he got out of the cart, went into the cabin and came out bringing a big iron key. He unlocked the gate and opened it wide enough for them to pass through.

Big Sue shouted in a coaxing tone, “Do, Uncle, let Julia take us all de way. I so scared o’ de boggy place yonder in de middle o’ de avenue. If I was to git in em Gawd knows how deep I’d sink down.”

At the thought of such a dreadful thing Uncle joined in Big Sue’s gales of laughter, chattering in between his cackles. “Great Gawd, daughter! Sho! You right! I better go long wid you! Da bog can’ fool me. I know em too good. I’ll go long an’ show you de way.”

“You ought to try an’ git em drained befo’ de buckra comes home dis winter. Dat bog likened to swallowed up a big awtymobile las’ year.”

Breeze was sure Uncle Isaac heard her, but instead of answering, the old man gave a powerful grunt and said the weather would be casting up for rain soon. The misery in his crippled knee had been jumping up and down all day long.

Big Sue told Breeze “de buckra” were white people who owned the plantation. They didn’t stay here much, but they would come from up-North as soon as frost killed out the fever here and wild ducks got thick in the rice-fields.

The wabbly cart creaked slowly on. The weird loneliness and strangeness of the twilit avenue made Breeze feel very lonely and sorrowful. The mule’s feet were heavy and made unwilling logy steps as they slowly carried Breeze farther and farther from all the paths and places he’d ever known.

Uncle Isaac jumped out of the wagon, and putting the rope lines in Big Sue’s hands, began poking and feeling with his stick in the still black water that covered the two ruts in the driveway. Julia must keep to the right of the road. The middle looked safe, but it was tricky. It didn’t show how deep and miry the mud in it was. It couldn’t fool Lula, but Julia was strange to it. With his stick and queer words he told Julia exactly where to walk until the bad boggy place that Big Sue feared was behind them. He’d walk the rest of the way. Julia would move faster if he went ahead.

The long avenue was bordered with enormous live-oak trees, whose great low branches, almost hidden by drooping gray moss, completely shut the road in, making it a long damp dimly-lighted shadow. Uncle pegged along steadily in front, his stick stepping as importantly as either crooked leg. Once in a while he turned around and spilled out broken stammering words, his cheerful grins showing his empty gums.

The avenue of those gloomy moss-hung oaks began to seem endless, for the road was soft and wet and the mule would not hurry, but at last a white fence made of slender pickets stood in front. Julia stopped short and Uncle Isaac sighed. “You an’ de li’l’ boy may as well git out now. You kin go de rest o’ de way by you’se’f.”

He suggested that they’d better go through the front yard. Nobody was at home so it wouldn’t matter. The path around the side was weedy. Snakes were walking fast now and he’d hate for Breeze to be bitten as soon as he set foot on Blue Brook.

Taking off his ragged cap, he bowed a low good night. He was glad a boy blessed with second-sight had come to live on the plantation. April was wise to get him here.

Big Sue thanked him, and, taking Breeze by the hand, led him through the gate and along the driveway that curved between box-borders around a large bed of shrubbery that Big Sue said was shaped like a heart.

If the white folks were home they couldn’t come this way, but since they weren’t she was glad for Breeze to see the Big House. It was the finest and largest one ever built on the Neck, and that was saying a lot, for in the old days, before most of the houses were burned or left to rot down, the Neck was a vast rich country.

In the fading light the great white house had an old gray look like everything else here, from Julia and the wool on Uncle Isaac’s head, to the moss swinging down from the huge age-twisted limbs of the giant oaks. Breeze counted the six white columns rising from the brick-paved porch, a step above the ground, to the corniced roof. Every door, every green window shutter was closed. No sign of smoke rose from the tall red brick chimneys. The background of shrubs and flowers was deadly still and so full of deep darkness, Breeze held his breath.

Big Sue sniffed. “Lawd, ain’t de flowers sweet? Jedus, have mercy! Dey pure cuts at my heart-strings! Watch whe’ you step, son. Seems to me like I smell a snake too.”

“No’m, dat’s a watermelon.”

“Enty? Dey smell a good deal alike, rattlesnakes an’ watermelons. It’s easy to take one fo’ de other, specially when de watermelons is kind o’ green.”

They crossed the back yard, which was clean-swept and white with sand, then passed by the kitchen where Big Sue cooked the white folks’ victuals. It was a long low whitewashed building with plenty of room inside, but Big Sue said when the duck shooting and deer hunting started that kitchen could hardly hold all the game. Not only ducks and deer, but partridges and wild turkeys and squirrels and oysters and turtles. As soon as a killing frost made the place safe from fever they’d be coming. Lots of ducks were already here. Lord, how she had to turn! Those white folks were heavy eaters.

Breeze could make himself mighty useful helping her, bringing in stove wood, running fast with the hot waffles, so they’d get to the dining-room before they got cold. Cold waffles are not fit to eat, and the kitchen was so far off it took quick moving feet to get anything into the house crisp and hot. But it’s dangerous to have a kitchen on to a house. Some of the best houses on the Neck caught fire and burned down as soon as kitchens were built up close to them.

* * * * *

A short straight clear path ran from the kitchen to the door of Big Sue’s home, a squatty cabin of whitewashed boards with the floor of its tiny front porch only one step up.

Big Sue pulled up her top skirt and her fat hand fumbled for the pocket of her petticoat, her hussy, she called it, where she carried her house key tied to a small flat piece of wood. She unlocked the padlock fastening the rusty chain that held the door tight shut, and went into the dark front room.

A few coals blinked with red eyes from out of a mound of ashes in the big fireplace. Big Sue well-nigh jarred them out when she threw a heavy knot of fat lightwood on them.

“Git down on de hearth an’ blow up de fire, Breeze. I got to git off dese shoes. My toes is pure got de cramp wid dem.”

While Breeze placed the fat knot carefully on the live coals, and blew on them with well-aimed puffs of his breath until a bright yellow flame sent smoke and sparks flying up the chimney, Big Sue groaned with trying to bend low enough to reach the strings in her shoes. She gave it up saying:

“Do unlace dese strings, son. My wind is too short fo’ me to strain a-tryin’ to bend down low.”

As his nimble fingers quickly undid the hard knots and the wide flat shoes were slipped off her fat feet, the firelight flamed past him and lit up the room. The walls were covered with newspapers, the floor was scoured almost white, and the wooden bed in the corner puffed up high with its feather mattress and many-colored quilt.

Taking her shoes off made Big Sue a different person. From being heavy and slow she became light on her feet and quick. She took a black iron spider off the hearth and put it over the clear hot blaze, then dropped slices of white bacon on it to cook. While the bacon hissed and curled up with frying, Big Sue pulled sweet potatoes out from under the pile of hot ashes in one corner. Those that a squeeze from her fingers showed soft and well done she put in a pan to be eaten, the others were put back in the ashes to cook longer. She stirred a pot full of white cornmeal mush; collard greens, cooked with chunks of bacon, half filled another. The smell of food went all through the cabin every time a pot-lid was lifted.

Big Sue gave Breeze a tin pan and a spoon, while she took another; but just as she leaned down to dip up the food she glanced toward the bed. Breeze had put his hat on it. She stopped still and glared at him.

“Great Gawd, boy! You put bad luck on my Joy’s bed. I got a good mind to lick you. Take dis pin. Go stick em in da hat. Don’ never put a hat on no bed. You ain’ had much raisin’, or you’d know better.”

Breeze took the pin and stuck it, as she said, in the hat’s crown. It must stay there until morning, then he must hang the hat on a nail in the newspapered wall.

“Lawd,” she sighed as she leaned over the pot again, “dat hat sho’ scared me. S’pose I didn’ had a pin! Come fill you’ pan now. Eat a-plenty. I want you to grow fast so you’ll git big enough to help me work. Put some pot liquor off de greens on you’ mush. Mush an’ pot liquor is good fo’ you. It’ll stick to you’ ribs. Sweet potatoes an’ fat meat’ll fatten you too. You’s too small. You’ ma says you’s gwine on twelve, but you can’ be dat old! I hope to Gawd you ain’ a runt!”

Breeze was ready to cry, and she changed her tone and told him that April had a goat for him to break and ride and drive, if he’d be a good boy and mind all she said. April would get a goat harness and a goat wagon, too. Breeze must get the goat tame before the little white boy who lived in the Big House came home. White people are so subject to fever, they can’t risk even one night on the river before killing frost. When the nights get warm, in the spring, they have to go away. White people have some mighty weak sickly ways.

Breeze had eaten too much. He was packed so full he felt tight and uneasy. He wanted to go home to his mother, but Big Sue kept talking fast to keep his mind from dwelling on his troubles. Over and over she said he was a lucky boy to be here with her at Blue Brook. While he washed his pan and spoon, she got a tin basin off the water-shelf by the door and poured it half full of hot water out of the big black kettle simmering on the hearth. She gave it to Breeze with a big new bar of turpentine soap. “Wash you’ feet good and get ready for bed, son.”

But he had no night-clothes, no day clothes either, except the few he brought tied up in a white cloth. He couldn’t sleep between her clean white sheets in those dirty breeches and that filthy shirt! No! His tears poured out when she got a great big garment out of the trunk in the corner, and putting it over his head drew the great sleeves up over his arms. As she buttoned it up at the neck, her laughing broke into such funny snorts Breeze had to stop crying to look at her. Her wind must be broken fo’ true!

He had to sleep in the big bed in the corner, Joy’s bed, to-night, to take off the bad luck his hat had put on it. To-morrow night he’d take the bed she fixed for him in the shed-room where Lijah used to sleep when he was a little boy.

When Breeze crawled into Joy’s fine bed, the soft feathers rose up gently, kindly, around his tired body, and Big Sue leaned over and gave him several light pats.

“Sleep good, son. Dream a nice dream.” She fixed the big pillow under his head, and drew up the quilts close over his shoulders. “All you dream to-night’ll come true, so don’t git on you’ back an’ dream a bad dream. Sleep on you’ side. So.”

VI

UNCLE BILL

Breeze roused from a doze when a man’s deep booming voice called from the outside, “How you feelin’ to-night, Miss Big Sue?”

And Big Sue called back heartily:

“Come in, Uncle Bill. I too glad fo’ see you! I’m lonesome as kin be.”

Cracking his eyes Breeze peeped at the tall raw-boned man who shambled in, bringing a tin bucket which he put on the shelf, saying he’d brought some sweet milk for the little boy and a few sticks of wood. Reaching up stiffly he pushed his hat farther back, then he scratched his head awkwardly, while his deep voice rolled out, “You sho’ looks fine, Miss Big Sue! I declare to Gawd, you could pass fo’ a flowers garden!”

“Do shut you’ mouth,” Big Sue returned playfully. “You talk too much sweet-mouth talk, Uncle Bill. Some day you gwine miss an bite you’ tongue in two. Better mind! You couldn’t preach no mo’.”

He declared he was not to blame. How could his mouth fail to talk sweet when he saw her? It was a wonder the bees didn’t eat her. He dropped the handful of sticks on the hearth, saying they were a few pieces of driftwood he’d brought to put on her fire for luck to-night while the old moon was in her bed.

“You must be feelin’ mighty peart to go all de way to de beach to pick up driftwood, Uncle Bill.”

“Sho’, I feel good. Like a lamb a-jumpin’. I could start now and travel till to-morrow’s sun shine, an’ I wouldn’t feel noways weary.”

“Lawd, you have luck,” Big Sue sighed. “But do lend me de loan o’ you’ pipe befo’ you fix de fire. I’m pure weak I want to smoke so bad. I’m scared to smoke my own. I believe it’s conjured. It ain’ smoked right since I lent em to Leah last Sunday a week gone, right yonder at Heaven’s Gate Church.” Her breath had been cut off shorter than ever to-day. She ate a ’possum leg last night for her supper and it was kinder spoiled from being kept too long. She hadn’t felt exactly well since. Spoiled food ever did make her sick. She didn’t know why.

“It’s because you’s such a delicate lady!” Uncle Bill declared. “You ought to learn to drink milk. Nice sweet milk. And eat honey. De angels lives on ’em. So de Book says.”

“I dunno,” Big Sue answered doubtfully. “I never could stand nothin’ ’bout a cow. Not de milk or de meat or de ways. Gi’ me a hog all de time.”

Uncle Bill got his pipe out of his side coat pocket, twisted its rough wooden stem tight into its bowl and handed it to her, his lean face brightening with a smile.

“E ain’ gwine smoke good by its new. I went to de fig trees no longer’n yestiddy an’ cut dis stem, by my old stem was wore out altogether. E’s gwine bite you’ tongue. I’m too sorry. I wanted you to talk some sweet talk to me to-night!”

“Lawd, Uncle Bill, you ought to know my tongue better’n dat. I got a strong tongue in my mouth. E’s trained. I done got em used to tastin’ all kinds o’ red pepper an’ seasonin’. E kin make friends wid any pipe stem ever was. But you go look at my li’l’ boy.”

Breeze shut his eyes tight as Uncle Bill leaned down to look at his face.

“E’s a good-size boy, but you’d be better off wid a husband, Miss Big Sue. You see dese sticks? I went all de way to de beach to git em. Dey’s driftwood, an’ I’m gwine burn ’em on you’ fire to-night, an’ make a wish whilst dey’s green.”

“Wha’ dat you gwine to wish to-night?”

“I’m gwine wish fo’ you to marry me.”

“Great Gawd, Uncle Bill!” Laughter almost choked her. “I can’ marry you! I got a livin’ husband right now! You must be forgot Silas ain’ dead!”

“Silas is been gone seven years, Miss Big Sue. Gawd don’ expect no lady to live single longer’n seven years. No, ma’am. You kin marry me if you want to.”

“I dunno,” Big Sue tittered. “Sometimes my mind do tell me to marry again. But didn’t you promise Aun’ Katy you wouldn’ marry nobody? What ’ud she say?”

Uncle Bill heaved a deep sigh. “I can’ help dat. I miss Katy so bad, I mighty nigh goes crazy yonder to my house by himself. If you would marry me Katy wouldn’t mind. Not a bit. Katy had sense like a man. Lawd, how I miss dat ’oman! I done made up my mind to marry again an’ I’m gwine wish a weddin’ dress on you whilst I burn dese same sticks on you’ fire to-night.”

He spoke solemnly, and kneeling on the hearth he laid the driftwood sticks carefully crossed on the coals. Then he blew deep breaths until a slow green flame curled up. “Fo’ Gawd’s sake, Uncle Bill! Quit you’ crazy doin’s! You might miss an’ conjure me fo’ true.” Big Sue giggled until her fat sides shook.

“Hush you’ laughin’ till I makes my wish, Miss Big Sue! You got me all eye-sighted!”

“Mind how you wish in de face o’ dat fire!”

A woman’s voice flung the drawled words into the room so unexpectedly that Big Sue jumped to her feet, calling, “Who dat?” and Uncle Bill gave such a start that his wish was knocked clean out of his head.

“Don’ git scared. I ain’ nobody but Zeda. How yunnuh do dis evenin’?”

“Lawd, Zeda, you ought not to slip up on people dat way!” Big Sue scolded, but Zeda broke into a laugh. She stood in the door where the white cloth on her head made a clear spot against the darkness, but her face and hands were one with the night.

“Don’ le’ me stop you’ wishin’, Uncle Bill. Go on. I might give you luck.” Zeda’s teeth flashed as she sauntered in with noiseless barefoot steps. She couldn’t sit down; she was on her way to Bina’s birth-night supper at the Quarters. She just came by to see the boy-child Big Sue had brought from Sandy Island.

“E’s sleep right yonder in Joy’s bed.”

“Lawd, you got a sizable boy, enty? E looks mighty long. Long as Leah’s Brudge to me. I wouldn’ gi’ way a boy big as dat. E’s done raised.”

Again Breeze shut his eyes and pretended to sleep while Zeda leaned so low over him searching his face that he could feel her breath on his cheek.

“Don’ gaze at de child so hard, Zeda. You’ll wake em up.”