Chapter III: Part 3

Big Sue was plainly out of temper, her tone was sour, pettish.

“I ain’ gwine wake em. I just want to see who e looks like. Leah says his mammy had em for April, but e don’ favor April to me.”

“Do, for Gawd’s sake, shut you’ mouth, Zeda! To hear Leah tell it, half de chillen on Blue Brook belongs to April, well as dem on Sandy Island. Leah don’ count nobody when e gits to talkin’ ’bout April.”

Zeda laughed. “I dunno, Big Sue. I told April to-day, if he don’ mind, he’s gwine catch up wid Uncle Isaac. De people say Uncle Isaac has fifty-two chillen livin’ right now.”

Breeze peeped up in time to see the grin that lit her face as she turned on her heel, saying she must go, and let Uncle Bill finish his wishing. But he’d wish a long time before he got a wife as good as Aunt Katy.

Uncle Bill sat up straight in his chair. “Now you talkin’ what Gawd loves, Zeda; de truth. Katy was one in a t’ousand. I miss em so bad, I can’ stan’ it no longer by myself. If Miss Big Sue would marry me, I’d treat em white. I sho’ would.”

Zeda took her pipe out of her apron pocket and leaned for a coal to light it. After one or two stout pulls she let the smoke trail slowly out between her smiling lips. “I hear-say Big Sue an’ Leah all two is a seekin’ de second blessin’ since de new Bury League preacher was here last Sunday was a week gone. Is dat so, Big Sue?”

“I know I ain’ seekin’ em. I don’ know nothin’ ’bout Leah, an’ I don’ want to know nothin’ ’bout em.” She snapped the words out fiercely; but Zeda set her arms akimbo and puffed at the pipe between her teeth, her eyes flashing bright in the firelight that flared past her to the framed pictures of faces looking down from the walls.

Big Sue sat grum, silent, until Uncle Bill heaved a great sigh and said he was mighty sorry for Leah. She’d been sick three days. Salivated. Her mouth was raw. Her teeth were loose, ready to drop out. Leah was in a bad way.

Big Sue’s fat body straightened up. She was full of interest. How did Leah get salivated?

Uncle Bill shook his head. He didn’t know what had done it. Leah hadn’t been well since this moon came in. He couldn’t say if seeking a second blessing had made her sick or if some medicine she’d bought from the store had done it. He caught her wallowing on the ground and praying and crying off in the woods by herself one day last week. Now she was salivated. Zeda looked at Uncle Bill’s sorrowful face and her own became serious.

“Dat’s what Leah gits fo’ prankin’ wid white folks’ medicine. I told em so too.”

“I bet Leah’s conjured,” Big Sue put in cheerfully.

“Who in Gawd’s world would bother to conjure Leah?” Zeda asked. “Any ’oman dat wants April bad enough kin git em. April’s weak as water over anyt’ing wid a dress on.”

“You ought to know,” Big Sue snapped out tartly.

A smile curled Zeda’s lips. “I does know. If anybody knows April, I ought to. April’s de same as a bee at blossoms. You wait. You’ll see. Leah’s a fool to fret ’bout April. I done been to see em an’ told em so. No man livin’ is worth one drop o’ water dat dreans out a ’oman’s eye. It’s de Gawd’s truth. If April buys em rations an’ clothes, Leah ought to be sati’fy, ’stead o’ frettin’ an’ cryin’.”

Zeda’s bright hoop earrings glittered, her teeth flashed, then she turned and spat in the fire. “Leah ought to be used to April’s ways by now. E ought to learn how to meet trouble better. Trouble comes to everybody. If e ain’ salivation or sin or men, e’s somet’ing.” Zeda stretched her arms, then her body to its full height. She must go. She’d promised Bina to help cook the birth-night supper.

Big Sue didn’t turn her head to say good night, but Uncle Bill got up and went to the door and bowed low as she stepped out into the still black night, which came right up to the open door.

In the silence that followed, the muffled roar of the sea rose and fell. Big Sue said Zeda had ruined many a man. She was a bold sinful woman.

“Zeda’s a fine field-hand, dough, an’ de clothes Zeda washes is white as snow,” Uncle Bill defended warmly.

“It’s a wonder some ’oman ain’ cut Zeda wide open befo’ now,” Big Sue came back sharply.

“But if anybody is sick or in trouble, nobody is better to em dan Zeda. If Zeda had been my Katy’s own sister, e couldn’ ’a’ been better to em whilst e was down sick. Gawd ain’ gwine be too hard on Zeda. You’ll see it too.”

“Shucks! Zeda kin grin at you, an’ you fo’git all dat deviltry Zeda’s done; but Gawd’s got it wrote down in a book. Zeda kin fool de breeches off o’ you, but ’e can’ fool Gawd. Zeda’s got ten head o’ livin’ chillen an’ no two is got de same daddy. You b’lieve Gawd is gwine ex-cuse Zeda? You must be crazy. Zeda’s as sho’ fo’ hell as a martin fo’ his gourd. You’ll see, too. Gawd ain’ gwine let people off light as you t’ink. No, suh. Zeda don’ like to see no other ’oman hab no man. Zeda wants ’em all. All!”

VII

A BIRTH-NIGHT SUPPER

The birth-night supper had begun, and the big drum, answering licks that somebody laid on its head, called the people to come on. Louder and louder it boomed until the air itself was humming. Now and then when a rackety thump sounded in an unlooked for place Big Sue laughed. When the measure shortened beat by beat her fat toes made pats on the floor.

“Lawd, de drum’s got de people steppin’ light to-night. Is dey marchin’ or dancin’?”

“Marchin’. Dat’s Sherry a-beatin’ de drum, now. When de dancin’ starts Uncle Isaac beats de drum an’ Sherry squeezes de accordion.”

Big Sue got up and went to the door to hear better, and her thick stumpy body rocked softly from side to side. “Po’ ol’ Uncle! Most ready fo’ de grave an’ de biggest sinner roun’ here.” But the thought of Uncle’s sin made her laugh, as she swayed this way and that. “I feel light as a feather, Uncle Bill. Ain’ Sherry got dat drum talkin’ funny talk! E don’ sound noways sinful to me. You t’ink marchin’ is a sin?”

“No. It ain’ sinful to march. How ’bout walkin’ out an’ lookin’ at ’em a while.”

Breeze sat up. “Please lemme go too, Cousin Big Sue. I ain’ sleep. I too scared to stay by myself.” The corners of the room were full of darkness, the shed-room at the back was black, and the sea’s roar unsmothered by the drum-beats.

“How come you had you’ eyes shut, so? You been playin’ possum, enty? I caught you. I don’ like dat. No. Don’ you never make like you sleep if you ain’ sleep. No. But git up an’ dress. Me an’ Uncle Bill would walk on. You dress fast an’ catch up wid us.”

When Breeze overtook them, Uncle Bill, who walked in front, called back, “How you do, stranger? I glad to see you. Come shake han’s wid me.” Then he added, “A cowardly heart makes swift-runnin’ feet, enty?”

When Breeze answered promptly, “Yes suh,” Uncle Bill chuckled.

“You’s got manners, boy! Nice manners! I’m glad to see dat.”

“Sho’ e is!” Big Sue agreed. “All dat breed is mannersable people. Dat’s how come I took so much pains to git em.”

“Dat is nice,” Uncle Bill approved. “I ever did like people to hab manners.”

“Me too! I can’ stan’ no-manners people, specially a no-manners boy-chile. I’m all de time tellin’ Leah, Brudge’ll git hung if e lives. Brudge is too no-manners. I’d skin em if e was my own.”

The noise from the birth-night supper grew thicker and stronger as they got nearer the Quarters. Every beat of the drum throbbed unbroken by the laughter and singing and loud-ringing talk. Breeze’s feet stepped with the time it marked, and so did Uncle Bill’s and Big Sue’s.

The Quarter houses were all solid darkness but one, and its doorway was choked with people pushing in and out; its front yard hidden by a great ring of marching couples, that wheeled slowly around a high-reaching fire. These were holding hands, laughing into one another’s faces, their feet plumping down with flat-footed steps that raised the dust, or cutting little extra fancy hops besides the steady tramping bidden by the drum.

Two big iron washpots sat side by side with the fire leaping high between them. Zeda stirred one with a long wooden paddle, and a short thick-set woman stirred the other. They added seasoning, stirred, tasted, added more seasoning, until a tall fellow, black as the night, and strong-looking as one of the oaks around them, broke through the ring and stepped up to the pots, and put his hand on Zeda’s shoulder. What he said was lost in the noise, but his teeth and eyes flashed in the red light as Zeda put a hand on each of his broad shoulders and quickly pushed him outside the ring again. The short woman took the steaming paddle out of the pot and shook it gaily at him, shouting to him to get a partner and march until the victuals were done and ready to sell instead of setting such a bad example for the young people.

The marchers laughed, and the drummer, a long-legged young man, dropped his sticks and yelled out, “How long befo’ supper, Ma! I’m done perished. I’m pure weak, I’m so hongry!”

Zeda stopped short in her tracks and yelled back to him, “Shut you’ mouth, Sherry! You ain’ perished, nothin’! You beat dat drum or Bina’ll put all two feets on you’ neck!”

The other woman pointed her paddle at him threateningly, shouting as she did it, “You’ ma is sho’ right, son! I wouldn’ pay you, not one cent to-night, if you don’ beat dat drum sweet as you kin! Keep de people marchin’ a while yet. I got a whole hog an’ a bushel o’ rice a-cookin’! Right in dese pots. I wouldn’ sell half if you don’ git ev’ybody good an’ hongry! Rattle dem sticks, Sherry! Rattle ’em like you was beatin’ a tune fo’ Joy to step by!”

This brought a shower of laughter and funny sayings and jokes as the crowd bantered Sherry about the way he beat the drum when Joy was here to march. But instead of answering a word, Sherry rolled the sticks softly on the drum’s head, making a low sobbing sound that held on and on, swelling, mounting until a battering roar made the air throb and hum, then he stopped off short with a sudden sharp drub.

For a second there was a dead silence, then somebody cried out, “Lawd, if you much as call Joy’s name, Sherry kin make dat drum talk some pitiful talk! Joy ought to heared em to-night!”

“I got goose bumps big as hickory nuts all over me!”

“Me too. I’m pure shakin’ like a chill! Beat, Sherry! I got to march to warm up now!”

Everybody laughed and the clatter of voices made a merry confusion.

Zeda laughed with the crowd. Then she added a handful of salt to her washpot, tasted it, smacked her lips and added several pods of red pepper.

“Yunnuh got to dance nice if you want to eat dis rice an’ hash! I ain’ mixin’ no cool Christian stew!”

Bina laughed and chimed in, “Dat’s de Gawd’s truth, Zeda! Not wid all dat pepper.”

But Big Sue sucked her teeth. “Zeda don’ know one kind o’ seasoning f’om anudder. Pepper an’ salt; dat’s all Zeda knows. E never could cook no decent rations.”

A short fat man, with a well-greased face and a good-natured smile, who stood waiting for Bina to say the word, began bawling with all his might, “De victuals is ready, peoples! Come on up, men! Treat de ladies! We’s got t’ings seasoned fit to make you miss an’ chaw you’ finger! Liver-hash an’ rice! Chitterlings an’ pig feet! Spare-ribs an’ backbone! All kind o’ hog-meat.” He trailed off into a sing-song chant, while the crowd pressed close around the pots.

Uncle Bill treated Breeze and Big Sue to heaped-up panfuls of food and tin cups of molasses-sweetened water to wash it down. “Dis is sweetened wid store-bought molasses. It ain’t fittin’ fo’ nobody to drink.” Big Sue made an ugly face and threw the sweetened water on the ground. “I wouldn’ have de face to sell sich slops to people an’ call it sweetened water. Bina ever was a triflin’ ’oman. Gittin’ money is Bina’s Gawd!”

“How ’bout a little nip o’ toddy?” a deep voice spoke out of the darkness and Big Sue turned quickly around to face it, then she laughed out with pleasure. “No, t’ank you, April. I wouldn’t fool wid dat whisky. You don’ know if it’ll kill you o’ not.”

“Come off, Big Sue,” the voice chided, “when did you get so scared o’ whisky?”

“I ain’ scared o’ good whisky,” Big Sue gurgled as he walked up near and took her hand. “Dat last one you fetched me is sho’ fine. But I sho’ don’ trust de whisky Jake makes! Lawd!” She broke into a loud laugh. “I’m pure shame’ to say it but somebody told me when Jake gits in a big hurry fo’ de whisky he don’ stop wid puttin’ lye in de mash! Dat scoundrel goes straight to de horse stable an’ gits de yeast to make em work! My stomach tries to retch if I much as t’ink on de way Jake makes whisky! Jake’s a case in dis world!”

April and Uncle Bill both laughed with her, and Jake’s voice called out cheerfully from the fire-brightened doorway, “Git you’ partners ready fo’ de square dance! Git you’ nickels ready too! Fi’ cents a set! All you chu’ch-members better git on home befo’ Sherry squeezes dat ’cordion. I’d hate to see anybody hab sin to-night! Cherry’s gwine mash out tunes dat would tickle a preacher’s toe! A deacon’s ear would git eetchy! Git you’ partners, boys! Don’ be wastin’ time!”

“How you like de boy’s looks?” Big Sue mumbled, casting a smiling look up at April.

“I ain’ had a chance to look at em, not yet,” he answered low.

Sherry squeezed a long chord out of the accordion and the crowd shouted with laughter. Uncle Isaac battered the drum, and swarms of them trooped inside the cabin, falling into step with the accordion’s frolicsome measure, but instead of Uncle Bill’s leading the way straight home, he took a stand outside the cabin by an open window to watch. The tall strange man leaned over and said to Breeze, “You’s too low to see, son. Le’ me hold you up.” And he lifted him as if he were no heavier than a feather.

The light was dim. Two glass kerosene lamps burned on the high mantel-shelf, doing their best to help the fire light up the room. Music and drum-beats and lively chatter swung into time with dance steps. The confusion flowed into clean-cut swing.

Every man had his hat on. Some were tilted back, some balanced on the side, some pulled to the front; few were right and straight. Many of the dancers wore shoes, and the loose boards on the floor rose and clattered to the regular beat of their feet.

“Did you ever seen people dance before?” April murmured in Breeze’s ear.

Breeze’s bashful “No, suh” was lost in noise, for Jake, who took up the nickels at the door, was yelling briskly, his words guiding the dancers into figures. “Hands ’round, all!” shifted the couples into a wide circle that had to crumple in spots because the room was too small. As it turned around every heel bumped the floor until the stamping tramp shook the cabin from pillars to roof. Once in a while Breeze could feel the big chest pressed against him shaking with laughter.

“Ladies to de center! Gentlemens surround dem!” Jake yelled it, and the ring split and went double ply. “Make a basket!” he howled. Feet shuffled and scraped the floor, as the men made a cord of long arms and tight clasped hands that slipped over the ladies’ heads. The swaying bodies were tied together tight. Sweat shone on every face. Eyes gleamed. Teeth flashed.

“How you like dat, son?” April asked, and Breeze answered, “I like em nice.”

“Wheel de basket!” Jake bawled, and the solid ring turned, slowly, evenly at first, then faster and faster until its wild whirling threw the dancers into knots of dizzy cavorters. Hot breath poured through the windows. The rank smell of over-heated sweaty bodies ran high. The house shook and creaked. Breeze could feel the strong throb of the heart in the man’s breast beating against him. Gradually the long black face leaned forward nearer to his.

“Right hand to you’ partner!” Jake cried, and hands trembling with excitement squeezed each other and held fast.

“Do de gran’ right an’ left!”

Jake dashed the sweat out of his eyes with a bare hand, as the dancers fell into two lines. A thread of ladies wound in and out between the gentlemen, whose feet kept up a frisky jumping and jigging and jerking, like drumsticks gone crazy and trying to hammer in the floor.

“Ain’ dey done dat nice!” Big Sue exclaimed.

“Dey done it mighty well,” the big man approved, his mouth close to Breeze’s ear.

When the ladies had gone clear ’round and come to their partners again, “Swing you’ own true love!” set every skirt to spinning in a giddy ring that twirled until “Sasshay, all! Croquette! Salute de lady on de right!” unwound them, let them fall limp.

Shrieks of laughter followed smacking kisses. Sherry’s accordion blared out. Then something went wrong. The joyful clamor died into a frightened hush as a long arm shot up. A razor flashed. A muttered curse was followed by a slap on a cheek. Everybody stood still for the length of a heart-beat. The muscles of the arms holding Breeze hardened. A long low hiss of sucked-in breath made him shiver with terror as the tall man leaned forward and said coolly:

“If yunnuh don’ quit dat doins’ it wouldn’ take me two minutes to come in dere an’ butt you’ brains out o’ you’ skull! We ain’ gwine hab no cuttin’ scrape here, not to-night, boys. Outen de lamps, Sherry. Outen de fire, too. Dis dance is done broke up!”

“No, Cun April,” Jake began pleading. “Nobody ain’ fightin’ now. Dem boys was just a-playin’. Dey ain’ gwine be rough no mo’. You wouldn’ broke up a dance not for a li’l’ prankin’, would you?”

The two fighters were held apart, one with his bullet head crouched forward, his fists clenched; the other with his razorless fingers reaching out to grab and strangle. April looked at them with a half smile.

“Put dem boys out de door, den, Jake. Dey ain’ fit to be wid ladies. Let ’em go wallow wid de hogs an’ cuss all dey please, so long as dey don’ cut wid no razor.”

But Uncle Bill spoke out, “Dey is too no-manners to wallow wid de hogs. Yes, suh. My hogs yonder to de barnyard is too nice to ’sociate wid any such mens. Cussin’ befo’ ladies! Dey makes me feel pure blush.”

Big Sue wanted to go home, but April and Uncle Bill said there’d be no more trouble, and as the accordion sang out with a low sad whine, another dance set was made up. Pairs of feet were already cutting happy capers patting flat-footed and with heel and toe.

They were going to black bottle, and that was a dance that beat the four-horse altogether. The cabin room, packed with a seething mass, rocked with the reeling and rolling inside it. The accordion’s mournful crying timed to the beat of the drum sounded faint above the confusion, but its pitiful wailing went clear through to Breeze’s very backbone.

Gusts of hot breath poured out through the window. The smoky lamps sputtered low. The yellow light grew dim. Little sharp outcries mixed with mad stormy thundering steps. Big Sue called out shrilly that she wanted to go! People get drunk if they listen to music too long. Sherry was squeezing out a mighty wicked tune. First thing they knew somebody would kick both those lamps off the mantelpiece and when the crowd started jumping out of the windows, they’d get trampled to death. She hadn’t forgotten how the last birth-night supper broke up in a terrible fight. April could hold those boys down a while, but when that music got to working in their blood, the devil himself couldn’t stop them.

She could feel that music going straight to her head, and she was a good quiet Christian woman. April laughed and put Breeze down and bowed low and said good night. Big Sue invited him to walk home with them and when he declined, saying he was tired and ready to go home to bed, she insisted, but he declared that he hadn’t the heart to get in Uncle Bill’s way. He’d see them to-morrow or some time soon.

On the way home Big Sue asked Uncle Bill why it was so sinful to dance, yet not sinful at all to march by the drum. She never could exactly understand. Uncle Bill said that crossing your feet is the sinful thing. The people in the Bible used to march. Of course it was wrong to march by reel tunes. Christians ought to march by hymns.

* * * * *

Breeze fell into a sound sleep and left Big Sue talking, but he woke up in the night with his throat tight and dry sore, and a hoarse cough that barked. Everything was dark and Big Sue’s heavy snoring was the only sound to be heard. What must he do? Suppose he choked to death! Nobody would ever know it. His mother was way off yonder on Sandy Island, and Big Sue sound asleep. He’d wake her. He couldn’t die here in this dark by himself.

Crawling out of bed and guiding his way toward the sound of the snortles that were all but strangling her, Breeze went to Big Sue’s bed in the shed-room, felt for her shoulder and coughed as loud as he could in her ear.

“Great Gawd, who dat?” she cried out. “Who dat, I say!” Big Sue was on the other side of the bed!

“Dis is me,” Breeze whispered.

“How come you’s up a-walkin’ round, boy? Git on back to bed. You’ ma didn’ told me you was a sleepwalker. Great Gawd a’mighty! I can’ stan’ a sleepwalker.”

“I ain’ ’sleep,” Breeze whispered again, but she didn’t hear him, so he gave a loud cough that all but split his throat in two.

“Who dat cough? You, Breeze?”

“Yes’m.”

“Jedus, hab mussy! I ain’ never hear such a cough. You’ palate must be fell down. Git on back in de bed. If you keep coughin’ I’ll gi’ you a spoonful o’ kerosene. If you’ palate is down Maum Hannah must tie up you’ palate lock. Go on back to bed. I sho’ am sorry you’ palate is fell, but don’ you ever walk in on me a-sleepin’, not no mo’!”

The threat of the kerosene made Breeze struggle to hold in his coughs, and whenever one tried to burst out he covered up his head, although it seemed to him somebody was laughing in the shed-room with Big Sue.

VIII

THE PREMISES

Breeze slept late next morning. When he woke Big Sue stood by his bed, looking straight into his eyes. A bar of sunlight fallen through a crack in the wooden window blind laid a dazzling band on her face.

“Looka de sun shinin’ on you, son. You is gwine be lucky. Git up now, I’m got to off a piece. But you’ breakfast is settin’ on de hearth. I bet you had a bad dream last night. Don’t tell it befo’ breakfast. Dat’ll make it come true.”

But Breeze couldn’t remember any dream at all, and, slipping out of Big Sue’s night-gown and into his own clothes, he took his pan of breakfast and went to sit on the front step in the sunshine while he ate. He swallowed down the grits and bacon grease in a hurry, keeping the sweet potato for the last. A lean spotted hound trotted up and sniffed at his feet and legs, then turned to the empty pan on the step and licked it clean. When he looked beseechingly at the potato, Breeze gave him a taste and patted his head and stroked his long silky ears and together they went to look around the premises.

Big Sue had told Breeze that Blue Brook was the finest plantation on the whole Neck, and the Big House the largest dwelling, but those chimneys, towering high as the tree-tops, and the tall closed windows and doors had a cold unfriendly look. The yard was empty except for a few chickens and a flock of geese. The old gander looked at Breeze and flapped his wings and screamed out, and Breeze turned back, frightened by his threats.

Behind Big Sue’s cabin were a tiny fowl-house and a pig-pen with a big hog lying down inside. When Breeze looked over the fence the creature grunted and struggled to get to his feet. Fat had it weighted down, yet its snout made hungry snuffles at the empty trough, and the small bright eyes watched through the cracks to see if Breeze had brought any food. The hound stopped to smell a fresh mole-hill, then walked leisurely on, and Breeze left the hog to follow him and see what the premises held.

Weeds narrowed the path. Once a lizard barely got out of his way. He must watch out for snakes. The morning was sunlit, sweet with fragrance that the sun, already high up in the glittering sky, wrung out of the shrubbery; but everything was so silent.

As Breeze went toward the still shadowy garden, with its boxwood borders and bird pool and old gray sun-dial, Big Sue, unexpectedly, came out of the side door in the Big House and behind her came April, who had held him last night. Without a word April strode off in a different direction, but Big Sue called to Breeze that she’d walk with him. Going in front she led him past flowers of every color, bushes of all leaves, telling him about them as she went. Years ago the garden had been stiff and trimmed, and the shrubbery had grown in close-cut bushes between straight box hedges. But time had changed everything. Uncle Isaac was old and deaf, and instead of staying home at night and resting so he could work at the roses and keep them from running wild and getting all tangled up with vines, he ran around to birth-night suppers and cut up like a boy. She pointed out boughs that reached across the path. Clumps of paper-white narcissus, not waiting for spring, bloomed in the wrong places. White patches of sweet alyssum crept right up to the edge of the boxwood borders, the delicate perfume making the air honey-sweet. But it was out of place, and ought to be cut away. Uncle Isaac was too trifling to be the gardener now.

Tall tangled heads of grass were in some of the beds, and a bold vine whose topmost branch was gay with orange-scarlet bells swayed from the tip of a magnolia tree. The bright bunch of blossoms nodded at Breeze with a slow persistence, sunlight filled each flower cup, and its hot scent streamed out in the soft wind. There was something queer in its steady silent bowing. A light sound hissed through the stiff magnolia leaves whenever the mild wind freshened, but the magnolia tree held every crisp, brown-lined leaf still. Unmoved. The light stir of the morning’s breeze could not move that tall dark tree, which was splashed here and there with over-ripe blossoms.

“Son, is you see de way dat trumpet vine is a-wavin’ at you? Better bow back at em!”

Breeze did bow the best he knew how, but Big Sue laughed.

“When you bow, you must pull you’ foot.” She showed him how to do it.

She reached up and broke off a half-open bud, and tearing its creamy petals apart showed Breeze how they closed over a core of gold. She showed him the sun-dial marking the time of day. A spattering of water called them to see the birds enjoying a bird bath; a flock of pigeons dropped with a slanting flight, then hurried off. A tinkling of sheep bells told that a flock browsed peacefully not far away. When a blue-jay perched overhead with a screech, Big Sue shook a fat fist at him. “Git off,” she scolded. “You don’t know to-day’s Friday. Is you forgot you is due to tote a stick o’ wood to Satan? Git on to torment, lessen you done been dere a’ready dis mornin’!” A streak of scarlet flashed where a cardinal darted across a bright path of sunlight as a hammer banged down on a nail. Old deaf Uncle Isaac was mending a broken place in the fence, and talking to himself. His deaf ears had not heard Big Sue and Breeze, and his murmured talk droned on out of his stammering lips.

“Po’ old Uncle Isaac!” Big Sue sighed. “When e can’ talk to de livin’ e talks to de dead. His eyes is so full up wid speerits right now, he don’ see we. You kin see speerits, too, son, enty? You’ ma said so.”

Before Breeze had time to deny it, all of a sudden she turned on him and gave a sharp cry. “Looka here, boy! You been a-steppin’ in my tracks! I know it! A’ awful pain is come right on de top o’ my head! You done it! You needn’ shake you’ head. I was feelin’ good when I come in dis flowers yard. Git a stick! Now broke em in two an’ cross ’em! Put em in one o’ you’ tracks! Git me shet o’ dis pain! I declare to Gawd, dat’s a provokin’ t’ing you done! I was feelin’ so good too. If you try to conjure me, I’ll kill you!”

Breeze denied it humbly. He had not meant to step in her tracks. He didn’t even know it would work her harm. When he had placed the broken sticks as she bade him, she spoke more kindly, and warned him to be careful never to step in anybody’s tracks.

Once she missed and stepped in Uncle Isaac’s tracks and it gave him a terrible tooth-ache. She had to cross twenty sticks before she got him rid of it. Poor Uncle! They’d better not go near him. He was on the side of the garden where spirits stayed. Let him talk to them.

“My head is done better now, t’ank Gawd,” she sighed, adding that she’d ask Uncle Isaac to supper to-night. He could tell so many funny stories. He could explain, exactly, why the grass is green and the sky is blue. Why the sun shines in the daytime and the moon and stars shine at night. He knew what the thunder said when it spoke. He could whistle the first tune the wind ever whistled. One time, the night was a great big black giant that ran round the sun, trying and trying to catch the day. Uncle Isaac said so and he knew more about the first men and women who ever lived than Adam and Eve ever dreamed of. He got it all at first-hand, by word of mouth, from Africa, where the world itself was born and a terrible black God made all men black. Big Sue’s narrow black eyes softened, her voice grew mild, her fat fingers toyed with a rose. She said Uncle Isaac knew a strange tale about the high-tide and the evening star, and another about why the morning clouds eclipse the moon. They were pretty tales, all about love, but Breeze was too small to hear them.

IX

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Soon after the noon bell rang on Saturday, Big Sue gave Breeze a panful of dinner, cooked on the hearth where a sleepy fire nodded and dozed over a few chunks of hard oak wood.

“Hurry an’ eat, son, I want you to go wid me to de sto’. I got a lot to buy, an’ I’m scared to come home by myself after dark. To-morrow’s Sunday. I got to buy a kerosene an’ some rations. I’m gwine to git you some clothes, too.”

As he followed Big Sue down the long avenue Breeze was careful not to step in her tracks. Outside the gate, the road ran through a gloomy forest, where tall pines and live-oaks stood among magnolias and cedars and fragrant myrtle thickets. Big Sue talked about the country as they walked on.

The old road, now dwindled to this narrow dim way, was once a fine highway. Important gentlemen and lovely ladies used to drive over it in fine carriages drawn by fiery horses. The gold and silver on the harness used to blind people’s eyes the same as summer lightning. Men who had run the whole country had gone along here many a time, right where the trees sprung tall in the old dead ruts. Thorny yupon branches reached out and scratched Breeze on the arm, trying to tear the holes in his shirt bigger than they were. Big Sue called out greetings, for numbers of black people were walking the same way. Some in groups. Some walking by twos and threes. All dressed in their Sunday best, going to the Landing.

The boat stopped on its way up and down the river twice a week, bringing supplies and mail from the town in the river’s mouth to the shabby little stores that squatted along the water’s edge. This row of dilapidated houses was strung close together, and scrawny, mule-bitten hackberry trees, some with hollows clear through their bodies, stood in front of the wide-open doors, making hitching-posts for the restless beasts that had to be tethered. Many of the mules and oxen stood free to go if they liked, but they waited, dozing, switching flies, the oxen chewing cuds.

Flashy colors of hats and ribbons, gay headkerchiefs and curiously fashioned dresses wove in and out as crowds of black girls and women tramped up and down the path that ran from one shop to another. Sunday shoes, dulled with gray dust, made a cheerful squeaking as they blotted out tracks made in the soft dirt by bare feet.

Some of the men were tall, with bold strong faces. Brawny muscles of powerful arms and legs could be seen bulging under faded patched shirts and overalls.

Droll shapes of merry laughter mixed with greeting voices. There were graceful bows and handshakes and kindly inquiries. Old men, who might have had great-grandchildren, tottered about importantly on uncertain legs, bantering the girls with words that belied the white hairs bristling from their withered ears. White wool peeped through their tattered wool hats. Rheumatism spitefully twinged their joints and put a hitch in every gay step. But lively spirits cheered their shriveled flesh and lightened clouded eyes. Laughter deepened the creases in old wrinkled faces, and swelled the tendons in ropy wilted throats.

Uncle Isaac and Uncle Bill sat, side by side, on a box outside the post-office, chewing tobacco and spitting with calm delight. After each bit of close talk, Uncle Isaac broke into sudden fits of high cracked laughter, and pounded Uncle Bill gleefully on the back. He was old and deaf, yet he took a full part in the pattern of Saturday’s joy. Breeze wished he could hear one of the stories that made him laugh so, but he knew by Uncle Bill’s bashful look that those stories should never have been told at all.

“How’s you’ rheumatism?” Uncle Bill shouted, to change the subject.

“E’s better. A lot better dan e been. I been totin’ a’ oak-gall in my pocket ’stead o’ dem buckeyes. I b’lieve de oak-gall is stronger. Seems to me like I kin git ’roun’ more better since I made de change.”

Uncle Bill looked doubtful and his head shook a little, but he spat thoughtfully, then yelled, “I made me a li’l’ pokeberry wine, an’ I tell you, suh, it’s a fine t’ing! A fine t’ing! I ain’ hardly been bothered wid any kind o’ misery since I been drinkin’ em.”

Uncle Isaac’s mild old eyes watched every word, for they had to help his deaf ears understand. “You say elderberry wine?” he queried.

“No! Pokeberry! You know pokeberry, enty? Elderberry wine wouldn’ do rheumatism no good. My Gawd, no,” Uncle Bill answered, laughing at such a mistake. “You ain’ turned to no lady, is yuh?”

“No, t’ank Gawd!” Uncle Isaac screeched. “If it wan’t fo’ my crippled knee, I wouldn’ feel no more’n forty years old. No, suh. Not a bit more’n forty. April’s gwine git a rattlesnake to make me some snake tea. Dat’s a good medicine.”

“E might be fo’ true,” Uncle Bill agreed. “I ever did hear say so. But my stomach is too weak to stand sich a strongness. Rattlesnake tea be de same as con’trated lye! Better mind how you projec’ wid em, Uncle!”

“Sho’! Sho’! I’m old enough to know medicine ain’ somet’ing fo’ play wid. I ain’ no chillen, son. I been in dis world a good while.”

The mail was not open yet, and Big Sue waited for it all to be given out so the storekeeper, who was postmaster too, could let her have what she wanted. Breeze stood close beside her, watching the black people who loitered and laughed and talked, as they crowded into the dirty crank-sided store. Each man invariably paid her a compliment, such as, “I declare to Gawd, Miss Big Sue, you look sweet,” or, “It do my eyes good to see you.” Uncle Bill said, “I’m gwine buy you a treat soon as de mail is finished.”

The men took off their hats and pulled a forelock and drew one foot back to make their bows. The women made easy graceful curtsies. Big Sue whispered to Breeze that he must pull his foot and bow too. Look at Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac. He must learn manners. But Breeze hadn’t the heart to try here where so many would see him.

Outside, near the road, Brudge, a black boy as ragged as Breeze, but apparently happy, parched peanuts in a round, black, fire-heated oven. Over and over he patiently turned the sooty cylinder with a black iron handle, all the time chattering and grinning, as from time to time he dished out paper sacks-full, not only for the children, but for grown men and women who bought them to eat right then. The smell of the peanuts was delicious, but it was almost smothered by the scent of fried fish, which came from a shack near by.

Big Sue said it was a restaurant, and Breeze was craning his neck to see inside when April took him by the hand and led him in, while Big Sue, laughing as she came, walked behind them. The afternoon light, aided by a large kerosene lamp, whose glass shade was dim with smoke, shone on the white oil-cloth that covered several small tables. Big Sue said, “Set down, Breeze,” and he dropped into a chair by a table. He ate big thick slices of store-bought baker’s bread that the boat had brought from town and squares of fried fish that Big Sue said were caught in the sea by regular fishermen.

April had a powerful look. He was very tall, his forehead high, his mouth straight and wide, his bony chin and cheek-bones set forward. He left most of his good bread broken all up but uneaten on the greasy tin plate.

“Whyn’t you eat you’ victuals, April?” Big Sue asked him.

“I ain’ so hongry, not dis evenin’,” he answered, smiling and with his glowing eyes on Breeze.

Reaching a long hand down in his pants pocket, he took out a piece of paper money and gave it to her. “Buy de boy some clothes, Big Sue. Feed em good, too. I want em to grow.”

Big Sue took it and told Breeze to go outside and watch the people until she came.

* * * * *

Some of the women and girls were fat and funny-looking, but others were slender, with well-formed bodies. All of them looked at Breeze searchingly, some slyly, but most of them with brazen eyes. Many of the older women were smoking small clay pipes, and when they laughed their teeth showed brown, stained with tobacco.

Young men strutted past them, with hats cocked on one side of their heads. Some caught the girls’ hands and held them and offered to treat them. Bottles of coca-cola and bags of candy rivaled peanuts and the small sweet-cakes, just come on the boat from town in a big wooden box that opened like a trunk. As Breeze gazed, his mouth watered at the sight of so many good things to eat.

Big Sue kept talking to April, who stood strong as an oak, his eyes riveted on her face. She looked uneasily at the door when he took her hand. As she drew it away he laughed, then spat far outside and left her.

Pulling up her skirt, Big Sue got a handkerchief out of her underneath pocket, and untying the knot in its corner, added the piece of paper money to what it already held. She gave Breeze two pennies. “Go buy you a cake, son,” she bade him. Then she halted him with, “Wait, gi’ me back dem pennies. Here’s a nickel. Git t’ree. I want one o’ dem cakes myself.”

Forgetting his fear in his eagerness for the sweet-cake, Breeze ran into the store next door. Every man and woman who had come to do serious purchasing carried a crocus sack into which the things were crammed: groceries, cloth, shoes, were all crowded in on one another. Those who bought kerosene had it in quart glass bottles tied with strings around the necks.

Breeze had never seen so many red sweaters in his life. They were in all shapes and sizes and conditions. Some quite new. Some patched and faded. Some with rolled collars. Some with frayed elbows. They were worn with blue overalls and khaki breeches, white aprons and full skirts and short skimpy dresses. Old and young wore them jauntily, as a sort of badge of Saturday’s joy.

The doorway was hidden as the happy people pressed in and out of the store. The sidewalk, thick flaked with bits of white oyster shell, became trashy with empty peanut hulls, and scraps of tissue-paper torn from candy kisses.

Everybody looked happy and light-hearted. Breeze envied them their easy friendly ways, their gaiety. As he stood apart, looking on, listening to them, he felt more homesick than ever. Even the sweet-cake, that dropped rich crumbs on the floor with every bite he took, couldn’t make him forget that he was a stranger here.

The postmaster called out Big Sue’s name, and there was a dead silence, then much laughter. “Who? Big Sue Goodwine? My Gawd! Who dat wrote she a letter?” Breeze was sent in a hurry to call her to come get it. There was much chaffing. “It’s de sheriff, Big Sue. Dat’s who.” And, “You got so much beaux you can’ member who is home an’ who’s gone off.”

When Big Sue stumbled in half out of breath, they called out to her, “Hurry up an’ read em. Le’ we hear de news!”

But Big Sue sucked her teeth and said, “I don’ tell ev’ybody my business. Not me!” She took the letter and put it deep down in her apron pocket where not a soul could even see it.

The mail was all given out at last, and the buying was done. The threads of color unraveled as the negroes left the stores and walked away down the road, some young couples hand in hand. Big Sue was among the last to start buying, for she had spent the time talking with her friends. She waited until the store was almost empty, then she chose a pair of pants and two shirts for Breeze, holding the garments up to his body to get the right size. She gave him the package to hold, saying, “Walk roun’ an’ look at de store. I want to git my letter read.”

The store was almost clear of people, but its air was still thick with the acrid smell of hot sweaty bodies. Breeze knew few of the things offered for sale, for the rickety shelves were crammed with much besides cloth and shoes. He recognized the gay paper-covered tin cans of salmon, but the little bottles of cologne labeled “Hoyt’s German” were strangers to him. He couldn’t read, so he couldn’t tell that paper covers on a big batch of china jars claimed in emphatic black words that they held a cure for the darkness of dusky skins, or that the few bottles left on a shelf that was lately full would straighten the kinks out of crinkly hair.

Heavy sacks of green coffee berries were piled high between paunchy barrels of moist brown sugar, and smaller, neater barrels of pure white flour. Bolts of scarlet flannel waited to make garments that would keep the cold from old painful knees and shoulders. Rolls of gay outing and checked homespun for dresses were out on the counter. Piles of strong brogans were only a few steps away from boxes of Sunday shoes. Kits of chewing tobacco stood near a lot of little cloth bags full of Bull Durham. Cakes with pink and white icing, and red-striped sticks of candy were under a glass case along with black and white ball thread and needles and fish-hooks.

The big kerosene lamp, tied with a wire to a rafter overhead, filled the room with a pale yellow flare of light that showed the floor, whitened with cornmeal, and spattered with stains of greasy salt that fell on it whenever fat chunks of cured hog-meat were taken out of the barrels and passed over the counter to the customers.

When at last nobody else was in the store, Big Sue reached down in her pocket and got out her letter. “Please, suh, read em fo’ me. I’m ravin’ to know who’s wrote me a letter,” she asked. The storekeeper was a kind-looking white man with blue eyes and red skin, and a mouth stained at both corners with tobacco. He wiped his hand on his trousers, then took the letter and tore it open and took out a single sheet covered with pencil writing.

“It’s from Silas Locust. He’s your own husband, isn’t he?”

“Great Gawd!” Big Sue fairly panted. She put the fat hand up to her breast and held it there for a minute before she could get breath enough to say, “Do hurry, suh. Tell me wha’ dat nigger is writin’ to me ’bout.”

The letter said Silas was in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was a preacher now, and married to a big fine-looking yellow woman, who had three nice children for him. But lately his mind kept turning back to Big Sue and Blue Brook Plantation. He wanted to see them. He was coming home, in short. Big Sue repeated the words “in short” two or three times. She seemed to have no feeling against Silas at all, or against the fine-looking yellow woman he had married.

When the storekeeper handed the letter back to her, saying, “You may as well get married, too, now that Silas has a wife,” she gave a shamefaced giggle at the idea and said she couldn’t marry, not with a living husband. The storekeeper said she needn’t laugh, she’d do it yet, and she owned that she had thought about it a little.

The last time she went on an excursion to town, a man who had a nice restaurant took her to ride in a painted hack, and said he’d buy her an organ if she’d marry him. They could run the restaurant together. (She giggled again.) But now she was glad she hadn’t done it, since Silas was a preacher, and he’d be a-coming to see her, in short. Her sides shook, and her round eyes rolled, until a serious thought came to her mind, and she inquired, soberly, “Did Silas say if he’s Runnin’ Water Baptist, or a Stale Water?” The storekeeper said Silas hadn’t mentioned either one, and Big Sue pondered over it until the white man asked her if Silas came back what she’d do with all her other beaux. Jake and Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac, too, and what about the foreman, April?

“Great Gawd! Do hush!” Big Sue shouted with clamorous laughter, as each name was mentioned. “You make me too shame. I don’ care nothin’ ’bout none o’ dem old mens! Not me! An’ April just got me to fetch dis li’l’ boy here to Blue Brook. E’s April’s own, by a ’oman on Sandy Island.”

But the storekeeper was in earnest, and he said, “If I were you, whether Silas ever comes home or not, I’d leave April alone. Leah will get you if you don’t. You’ve forgotten her gums are blue, haven’t you? She’ll bite you some day, and what will happen then? You’ll die, and those white folks will have to hunt another cook when they come to Blue Brook to shoot ducks. Better be careful. Blue gums are worse than a rattlesnake bite. Leah’s not going to stand outside that restaurant and see you eating bread and fish with her husband inside, without doing something about it. I heard her say so a while ago.”

Big Sue tossed her head. “Humph! I ain’ scared o’ Leah. Fat as e is, I could squeeze em to deat’ in one hand.” She opened and clenched her powerful fists. Years of kneading dough had given strength to her thick wrists and round fingers, for all the soft cushion of flesh that covered them.

It was late and Big Sue and Breeze took a short-cut by a path that ran through the woods, then by a smooth planted field where new oats sprouted green tips and covered the earth. They looked tender against the dark even green of the trees. The evening light was thin and misty. Shadows and colors and forms all melted into a cool pale dusk.

Big Sue warned, “Watch out for snakes, son. I can’ smell good. A fresh cold is got my nose kinder stop up. A cold ever did hinder my smellin’. I must go stand round de stables a while to-morrow. Dat’ll broke up a cold quicker’n anyt’ing else.”

X

THE BARNYARD

Early Sunday morning Uncle Isaac came to ask Big Sue for an old worn-out sieve. Uncle Bill was having a bad time. Hags rode all the horses at the barnyard every night God sent. Every morning the manes and tails were so tangled up it took Uncle Bill hours to get them greased and smoothed out again.

Red sunsets promised a killing frost and the white folks would be likely to come any time after that. Bill had the horses’ coats all rubbed down like satin, every fetlock trimmed, the bridles and saddles in good order, but the hags were deviling him to death. Big Sue said she had already given Uncle Bill a string of red pepper pods and a straw broom too, to hang up on the stable door. If they didn’t stop the hags, what good could a sieve do?

Uncle explained to her how hags are fools about counting things. They won’t go inside a door until they count the boards on the door-facing, and the nails, then they’d count all the pepper pods and the straws in the broom, and have time enough left before day to ride the horses, and plait their manes and tails. But a sieve would stop them, for by the time all the holes in the sieve were counted, those hags would be weary and ready to go home and rest.

Big Sue gave him the sieve and he invited Breeze to walk with him to the barnyard where Uncle Bill had a nice little milking goat to give him. Breeze could break it to ride and drive, and the milk would be good to make him grow.