Chapter V: Part 5

The regular field-hands drew rations on Saturday, one peck of corn, three pounds of cured hog-meat. The women who had no man living with them, paid rent for their cabins with one day’s work a week. April saw to it that every one paid. He was close and careful. Everybody had to come right up to the notch since he was foreman, but the house of Big Sue was rent free, since she was the cook. Breeze drew rations like a regular field-hand, and by hunting and fishing with Sherry and Uncle Bill he provided many a good potful of meat. With a line tied to the end of a long swamp cane, and a slick wriggly earthworm for bait, he caught strings of perches that made rich morsels when dipped in cornmeal and fried.

Sherry’s coon dog, Zip, had a faithful nose, and when Sherry and Breeze took him out at night they seldom came home without coons, or ’possums, enough to satisfy both Big Sue and Zeda.

They came in earlier than usual one night with nine ’possums and found April sitting by the fire with Big Sue. Breeze saw Sherry’s frown and the two men hardly spoke to each other, until April eyed the ’possums with a sneering smile and said:

“Yunnuh’s got a lot o’ ’possums to-night. I heared Jake’s calf got in a bog. E must ’a’ died.”

April poked the fire until sparks flew into the room.

“Wha’ you doin’, April? Is you crazy?” Big Sue cried sharply.

April spat contemptuously far back into the live embers. “I’d as soon eat a buzzard as one o’ dem ’possums!”

“How come?” Breeze, Big Sue, Sherry, all darted astonished looks at him.

“Dey’s full up wid carrion. A ’possum ain’ decent as a buzzard. Dey’s so coward-hearted, dey durstn’ come out in de daytime to eat. No. Dem sleek-tailed devils wait till night, den goes creepin’ to carcasses and stuffs on all what de buzzards scorns.”

“Shut you’ dirty mout’, April! I declare to Gawd, you’s a-turning my stomach! Torectly, I couldn’ eenjoy eatin’ dese possums at all!” Big Sue laid stress on every word.

“When did you git so awful delicate, Big Sue?” April asked with a grin.

“I ever did have a delicate stomach. I don’ hardly have no appetite at all lately.”

Sherry gave a loud guffaw and April frowned in sudden ill-temper. “Wha’ dat tickle you so turrible, now, Sherry?”

April’s irritation showed in the jerky shifting of his hands and feet, and Big Sue’s eyes stretched open and rolled toward Sherry, who answered sourly:

“Oh, I ain’ so awful tickled. No. I just had to laugh when I thought on how it takes a thief to catch a thief. Night-walkers meets night-walkers, enty?”

“I do’in’ un’erstan’ wha’ dat you’s a-drivin’ at.” April stroked his mustache and eyed Sherry coldly.

“Me neither,” Big Sue chimed. “Whyn’ you talk plain talk, Sherry? It’s mighty no-manners to stand up an’ laugh a horse laugh in somebody’s face.”

“Do ex-cuse me, Cun Big Sue. Ev’y now an’ den, I forget an’ speak out o’ turn. I was just talkin’ fool talk. I ain’ laughin’ at nobody. Come on, Breeze. Le’s divide de ’possums. You take four, I take five. We sho’ had good luck to-night. Good night, ev’ybody!”

Sherry flung himself out of the door and April sat silent, vexed, upset; but his anger lasted only a short time. When he spoke, his tone was pleasant enough. He ought not to have joked with Sherry. The boy was too easy to get plagued. Zeda had spoiled him all his life, instead of breaking him of his sassy ways. Such a pity to ruin a nice boy. April got to his feet and stood stiffly erect.

Big Sue’s gimlet eyes watched his face, then leaning to knock her pipe on the hearth she said sadly: “Lawd, I wish dem ’possums was somet’ing fit to eat. A wild turkey or somet’ing. If dey was a wild turkey, I could stuff dem wid oysters an’ roast dem. Jedus, wouldn’ dey taste good! Whyn’ you kill a turkey, April? Looks like nobody else can shoot one but you? Ain’ you got a blind baited?”

She smiled up at him so sweetly, April smiled back.

“Whyn’ you take Breeze an’ go in de mawin’?” she pressed. “We could eat turkey to-morrow night.” She smacked her lips.

April turned her words over in his mind, thinking, calculating. Presently he asked, “How ’bout gwine turkey huntin’ wid me in de mawnin’, boy?”

Breeze was rapt with pure joy. April’s smile made him tingle all over. Instead of being bashful and afraid, he looked straight into April’s eyes and nodded.

“Lawdy! Lawdy!” He murmured low, and his heart went pit-a-pat. He was going turkey-hunting with April, the foreman, who had scarcely ever noticed him before!

“Git on to bed, son!” Big Sue said so gently, so kindly, Breeze was at a loss to know why. He walked slowly back to the shed-room, the blood beating clear up in his cheeks, but Big Sue sat down in her chair by the fire to smoke another pipeful. “Set down, April,” she said. “De night is young, yet.”

She woke Breeze before daylight when the black sky held only a narrow moon, without any sign of sunrise. A thin gray mist hung over the earth and all was quiet except a few crickets and the occasional bark of a dog. Breeze had slept little, but he felt wide awake, breathless, as he followed April’s slow ponderous steps. April spoke seldom. He seemed to be brooding over something. Breeze pitied him. A foreman has so much to think about, so many people to rule, so much land to manage. Sherry was wrong to be impudent last night.

They turned off from the road into a path which Breeze could barely see although his eyes worked well in the dark. April led the way, and Breeze hung close at his heels for the silence in the forest was full of strange sounds and shapes.

The turkey blind was a great bush heap, with one small opening in its side, looking straight out on a narrow trench. The bottom of the trench was strewn with white shelled corn, so when April called the turkeys, and they got to eating, their heads would be down in a bee line. One shot might blow two or three heads off. Wild turkeys fly too fast for any gun to have a good second chance at them.

Breeze sat perfectly still inside the blind, while April yelped and yelped. Once a hen yelped back, but she came no nearer. Breeze’s feet went to sleep. Both his legs got cramp. His back ached. The cold morning air chilled his very bones, but he dared not move so much as one muscle. April had warned him not even to whisper. The silence made him drowsy, but when April sniffed and Breeze drew in a long breath of air, then his body’s discomfort fled! Cold fear took its place, for a rattlesnake was near.

“Le’s go, Cun April!”

“I’m gwine git dat snake first, son. You set still till I call you.”

Day was coming. Tree branches overhead talked softly to one another. Leaves brought down by the wind fell rustling. Birds chirped and twittered. Squirrels barked. Breeze’s blood drummed in his temples.

The forest around them was old and great, most of the trees gums or poplars, with an occasional pine appearing. The undergrowth crowded close together, twining and tangling with limbs and branches so dense the light could scarcely reach the ground.

April found a dogwood tree and cut a long forked stick, then he moved slowly, stealthily, in the direction of the smell. Breeze thought his heart would stop beating altogether, so great was his terror. If that snake struck April and killed him, how’d he ever get home himself? He didn’t know the way. His hands thrust deeper into his pockets and one felt his knife. Uncle’s directions for helping a snake-bitten person came to him. Cut the wound wide open and suck out the poison. Could he do it? Could he cut April’s flesh and suck his blood? He’d have to, if it came to the worst.

April thrashed about in the undergrowth with his long forked stick, calling out as he did so, “Whe’ is you, snake? Hurry up an’ rattle! I wan’ git you!”

When a clear dry rattle sang out, he laughed. “Now we’ll see who’s de best man, me or you! Breeze, git you’ pocket knife! Cut a shell open! Have it ready so if I miss an’ git bit you kin pour de powder in de bite an’ set em afire. I got a box o’ matches here in my pocket. You better take ’em. You understand, enty? Burnin’ de pizen out is better’n suckin’ it out. Fire kin fight em stronger’n you’ mouth.”

The thick-bodied, large-headed snake was coiled, ready to strike. The rattles on the end of its tail raised and shook angrily. But instead of dread, April showed a fierce pleasure in the dry ear-splitting whir. Breeze’s throat went dry, but April laughed.

“You’s too slow, you pided devil! Summer’s gone! I kin kill you easy as Breeze kills a chicken! Lawd! you is old! You’ rattles looks like a cow’s horn. Come on!”

He batted the snake’s head to one side with a deft blow, and, putting the stick’s fork over its neck, held it fast to the ground, until he could seize it below the throat in a steady powerful grip. As he lifted it up off the ground, the thick body wound wildly around his arm in a terrible struggle to wrench loose, the flat eyes glared, the wide mouth yawned. April stood firm as a tree.

“Fight, boy, fight! Stretch you’ mouth wide as you kin! Dat ain’ wide enough yet! I want to spit clean down in your belly! Show you’ fangs! Dey ain’ nuttin! I got blue gums too! You may as well stand still and pray! You’ time is out! You gwine meet you’ Gawd to-day!”

With a whoop April threw his head back, then he spat straight into the yawning mouth.

“Dat shot got you!” he cried, and spat again. “You can’ harm me, son! You is a-weakenin’! I see it! My spit is pizen as you’ own!”

“Come, Breeze! Looka dis scoundrel! Lawd, e sho’ is a whopper!”

The snake’s muzzle was covered with plates, its scaly brown body marked with yellowish square shapes; its eyes, full of hate, stared out from the front of its heart-shaped head. Breeze’s own blood had frozen in his veins, and his legs were almost too numb to carry him.

“You got blue gums, Breeze. Come spit in dis mouth so you’ll know how to do it next time!”

“Don’ make me do dat, Cun April.”

“You ain’ no gal-baby, is you?”

“No, suh.”

“Den come on. Git you’ mouth full. Now, aim straight fo’ de fork in his tongue.”

Breeze’s lips twitched so that he missed the snake completely the first time, but the next effort was a success.

“Dat’s good. You got mo’ grit dan Sherry. Sherry never would try dis. But den, Sherry ain’ got blue gums like me an’ you.”

The snake’s plunging and twisting grew less violent. The huge body writhed sluggishly. Had April really poisoned the creature by spitting into its tongue? Or had he choked it to death? Its life was going out, that was certain.

Suppose April’s fingers took cramp. What would happen then? April turned his face toward home.

“Le’s go, Breeze. It’s too late to git a turkey. I’ll take dis snake to Uncle Isaac. He axed me to git him one to make some tea for his rheumatism. Po’ ol’ man. Rheumatism’ll make a Christian out o’ em yet!”

Full daybreak shed its light everywhere. Night and stars were gone out of the sky. The sun would soon be up. But at Uncle Isaac’s cabin, the doors and windows were shut tight.

The snake couldn’t die altogether until sun-down, but April dropped it on the ground and used his forked stick to beat hard on the sides of the house.

“Hey, Uncle! Hey! Wake up!” He shouted until the old man opened the door. “I got a present fo’ you! A rattlesnake! Me an’ him had a tight time dis mawnin’! Lawd! Yes! I sho’ love to fight wid a snake!”

Uncle Isaac hopped around, exclaiming over the snake’s size. He was glad to get him. He’d fix some snake tea to-day.

As they walked home down the avenue, April talked cheerfully. He said Uncle Isaac had taken so much snake cut that snakes got weak if they crossed his path. If one came near him it got stiff as a stick, and helpless. Next time Breeze saw the old man he must look at his ankles where they’d been cut and cut for snake poison to be rubbed into them. His feet were full of scars too, but Uncle Isaac had worn shoes ever since he chopped off a big toe.

April had walked up on snakes that were stricken by getting too close to Uncle Isaac. They’d be blind and numb, unable to move a step. God gave Uncle Isaac a strong sweat too. If he had never taken snake cut, he could send any snake into a trance by wetting his hands at his armpits and waving them in the snake’s face. They’d faint right off, and stay dead a long time.

Breeze ought to learn Uncle Isaac’s magic. He’d been born with a second-sight. Learning magic would be better for him than learning books. Black magic, as well as white magic; Uncle Isaac knew both. Uncle Bill too. But Uncle Bill gave magic up for religion. A poor swap. A deacon or a preacher is not much more than a woman. Not much more!

April’s down-heartedness had completely passed. Loitering along, he chatted pleasantly. Although the sun had risen he was in no hurry.

XII

DUCK-HUNTING

Sherry promised Big Sue plenty of wild ducks for her quilting dinner if she’d persuade Uncle Bill to row him.

“Lemme go, too, Sherry. Please, Sherry,” Breeze begged.

“If you’ll kill some ducks, you could go.”

“I ain’ got no gun.”

“Plenty o’ guns is yonder in de Big House. Cun April is got de key.”

“I’ll git you a gun, Breeze,” Big Sue offered, and before the day was out Breeze went into the Big House with April, through the same side door out of which April and Big Sue came that first morning.

The side passage led into a wide front hall and a queer feeling of intrusion seized Breeze as he went past rooms where pictures of white people looked at him from the walls. Brass andirons and fenders gleamed out from big fireplaces. Unlit candles left the high ceilinged rooms in a dim uncertain light. Dark shadows hid under the heavy furniture, until April pressed a button and a chandelier hung from the ceiling became hundreds of dazzling icicles, dripping with light.

April took Breeze to a room where a rack held guns of all sizes and shapes, each one polished, well oiled, ready for work. April handed Breeze one after the other to try, making him put them up to his shoulder as if he aimed at something. When one was found to fit, April cautioned him, “When you shoot, fo’git you’ gun. Fasten you’ eyes on de t’ing you want to hit, den pull de trigger. Try em now, son! Don’ squint up you’ eyes! Keep all two wide open. Shootin’ ain’ hard work! It’s for pleasure! You can’ hit nothin’ if you frown.”

Breeze was glad to get out of the silent house with its book-lined walls and rug hidden floors. He took the gun home, but he could scarcely go to sleep for happy excitement over the prospect of going hunting.

* * * * *

Uncle Bill sat waiting in the stern of a small narrow boat, but he got to his feet when he saw Big Sue. While he held the boat steady for Breeze and Sherry to get in, he kept an eye on Big Sue as he warned her please not to touch Breeze, and he kept saying to Breeze:

“Mind, son. Don’ put you’ hand on Miss Big Sue. When a man is gwine a-huntin’, it’ll ruin his luck to let a lady touch him. Be careful!”

He wanted Breeze to sit alone in the bow of the boat, but Sherry considered and then said, no, Breeze must sit beside him on the narrow board seat in the boat’s middle. Uncle Bill shook his head and muttered in disapproval, but Sherry wouldn’t give in.

“No, Uncle Bill, Breeze wouldn’t be safe settin’ in front o’ me dis morning. My gun feels too ready to shoot. I can’ trust em. It’s so quick on de trigger it might miss and aim at his head or his back instead o’ at a duck.”

“Wha’ dat is got you so nervish, Sherry?”

“When my mind runs on some people, I wants to shoot right den!”

“Dat is sinful, son. Awful sinful! I hates to hear you talk so!”

To Breeze, the boat seemed very narrow and the seat scarcely able to hold two. He knew he couldn’t swim if he fell out, but he said nothing, and soon Uncle Bill swung them out into the middle of the deep clear stream.

Instead of being brown-black like the river, this arm of that stream was filled with the blue of the sky. But its dark depths looked bottomless and dangerous, and Breeze sat mute, with his eyes staring down in it until Sherry nudged him and made him look up. “You got to learn how to swim, son, den you won’ be scared o’ water! You get dis straight in you’ head now too; when a man starts out huntin’, e mustn’t never let no ’oman put her hand on him. If e do, his luck is gone. Uncle Bill is even scared for my right hand to touch you, for you ain’ no more’n a li’l’ gal. But I’ll risk it. My luck kin stand a lot. It don’ fail me.”

Breeze listened and answered, “Yes suh,” but he did not altogether understand, and Sherry’s eyes glanced over the water’s surface.

“Lawd! Looka de creek, how blue e is dis mornin’! Winter or summer, e stays blue. Dat is what gives de plantation de name, Blue Brook. Cun Big Sue ain’ told you dat yet?”

Behind them Uncle Bill hissed, “Sh-sh,” and Sherry leaned to whisper, “We mustn’ talk. De ducks’ll hear an’ we won’t git a shot. Is you know how to load you’ gun?”

In his excitement Breeze had forgotten, but Sherry took it and showed him again how to slip two neat yellow, brass-trimmed shells into place in the clean steel barrels, how to make the gun “safe” and “ready.” Then he took up his own gun and with quick slidings and clickings slipped half a dozen shells into its snug chamber. Breeze noticed that Sherry had purple shells and wondered what the different colors meant, but before he could ask, a sharp “sh-sh” from Uncle Bill hissed behind them again.

“Go easy,” Sherry’s big mouth buzzed back in a whisper. To Breeze he mumbled, “Git you’ gun ready, son.”

The tide must have been going with them for they flowed along without a sound. Breeze saw no ducks until suddenly dark wings flashed everywhere in front of them. The gun in Sherry’s hands fired, again and again. It was all quickly over. Echoes banged back and forth at one another, then died, and everything was still. On the water in front of them three limp bundles of feathers were floating, not caring at all where they went.

Uncle Bill’s laughter cackled out. “Sherry, you can’ be beated! Son, you’s a shot-man, fo’ true! Yes, Jedus! You don’ never miss!”

He shot the boat forward and Sherry leaned far out to pick up the lifeless bodies of the ducks he had killed. How strong he was! And as much at home in this cramped-up boat as on the ground.

“Poor creeters!” he pitied, holding the gay-colored bill of one of them between his fingers. “Ain’ e a beauty!”

“I hope you ain’ gettin’ chicken-hearted,” Uncle Bill twitted, and Sherry grinned back.

“Maybe I is, Uncle.” Sherry’s big fingers gently ruffled the feathers on the duck’s breast to show them to Breeze. They were beautiful, indeed. The trim head had a high crest of purple and green and black feathers. White lines were above and below the poor death-dulled eyes. The throat and warm breast, colored soft tan like a chinquapin, and spotted with white, were bloodstained across the fine black markings. The bill was bright pink; the feet and legs, bright orange. Sherry said they were safe to be loud-colored, for they were hidden under water most of the time.

The drake’s mates were less gay. The brown and gray and white feathers on their trim bodies were quiet as shadows on the water.

All three of them were quite dead, and Sherry tossed them back to Uncle Bill who put them far back under the seat, saying as he did so:

“We better hide ’em fo’ true. Dey’s all summer ducks. It’s five hundred dollars to kill one! Five hundred!”

“Shucks!” Sherry answered, reloading his gun. “Dem white folks way off yonder to Columbia sho’ do make some fool laws!”

“If de game warden was to slip up on you right now you’d wish you had kept ’em, dough. Where’d you git de money to pay?”

“Oh, I know I’d go straight to de gang as a martin to his gourd,” Sherry answered cheerfully. “But I trust to my luck to don’ git caught.”

All three of them laughed, and Uncle Bill thrust the boat silently on. Once Sherry pointed to a hollow high up on the body of a leaning cypress. The tree’s feathery top rose far above the mesh of interlaced vines and branches on the bank of the stream. As likely as not a summer duck made her nest in that hollow. They choose knot-holes or hollows, sometimes forty feet high, sometimes near the water. Queer fowls. Hard to fool.

As they rounded a bend on the stream a faint splash sounded in front. Sherry listened with pent breath. “Ducks, enty, Uncle?” he whispered.

“Great Gawd, Sherry! Wha’ dat ail you’ years?”

Almost at once they swung into sight of April in a boat much like their own. He had a load of sacks and packages and its back was piled high with oysters in the shell. His trousers were inside his laced-up boots and a silver watch-chain dangled from a side pocket.

Uncle Bill hailed him, “Good mawnin’, son! How come you so dressed up? I don’ like dem boots. You’s a good swimmer fo’ true, but boots kin drown a fish. A watch kin fool you too. I wouldn’t trust to no watch. Not me!”

“I rather drown dan let oyster shells cut my feets all up. Plain shoes don’ hinder ’em. But how you like dese fish?” He held up a string of long, smooth, snaky-looking creatures. They could have passed for short fat snakes.

“Great Gawd, de eels! You sho’ had luck wid you dis mawnin’.”

“Luck stay wid me!” April bragged, but Sherry laughed.

“You must be mean Bad Luck, enty? If I’d catch a’ eel, I’d call it Bad Luck!”

“How come so?”

“I can’ stand to look at a’ eel, much less eat one. Not me!”

“When did you git so pa’ticular, Sherry? You must be kissed you’ elbow an’ turned to a lady, enty?” April sneered coolly.

“No matter how long you cook a’ eel, it’ll turn raw soon’s it gits cold.”

“Who’d let a eel git cold? Not me, I know,” April returned hotly. “Eels ain’ nothin’ but he catfish. How come you love catfish so good an’ scorns eels?”

“Sho’ dey is!” Uncle Bill affirmed promptly. “Dey’s de men catfish. Sho’! Anybody’ll tell you dat.” April shoved his boat forward.

“Well, I’m glad you don’ want ’em, Sherry! It would be too bad if you did. But I tell you, when Big Sue gits dem seasoned up right in a pot dey would make you pure bite you’ fingers just to smell ’em.”

Sherry said no more, and April’s boat glided on. A bend in the stream closed its gate behind it, shutting him and his boatload of food out of sight.

Uncle Bill took a chew of tobacco. “April’s de luckiest man I ever seen,” he ventured, but Sherry said nothing at all.

Through breaks in the trees Breeze caught glimpses of drab, level, water-covered spaces. Old rice-fields. Deserted. Marsh-grown. They lacked the color and the look of life that filled the thick-tangled growth of trees and thorny-looking vines and bushes encircling them.

“Sherry,” Uncle Bill rested his paddle, “you don’ hold nothin’ against April, does you?”

Sherry’s answer was slow coming, “Not nothin’ much, suh.”

Uncle Bill began paddling again, and Sherry put down his gun and stretched, then said that since April and his boat had scared all the ducks out of this creek, they’d better go across the river into some of the creeks around Silver Island where lots of ducks raise and there’d be a chance to get some good shooting.

Sherry’s good humor was gone. He sat dumb, his forehead all knotted up in a frown. The eels or April or something had crossed him. Breeze was glad to hear him ask, “Who named Silver Island, Uncle? You reckon any money’s buried on it?”

Uncle Bill didn’t know. It was named long ago, when each bit of land here was given a name. These marshes were all fields in the old days. Rice was planted everywhere then. He pointed to old rotting pieces of wood that held the tide back until it gurgled as it strained to get over them.

“See de old flood-gates? De old trunks? Dey used to let de water in and out. Dey used to know dere business to!” He sighed. “But dey time is out. De old days is gone. De tide does like it pleases now.”

On an old piece of wood, brown with rot and soaked by the flood-tide, yet standing guard beside an opening on the bank, several small black tortoises sprawled out flat, sunning themselves. As the boat got nearer they all slid into the water for safety.

It amused Uncle Bill mightily. He chuckled and called out that they needn’t hide from him.

“You like cooters, Uncle?” Sherry asked him with a laugh.

“No, suh!” the old man said shortly, “Not to-day, anyhow. De sky’s too clear.” He cast his black beady eyes up and scanned the blue overhead. “I don’ see no sign of thunder nowhere, an’ if a cooter bites you e won’t never let go till it thunders.”

Sherry laughed. “You know, don’t you, Uncle?” Then he told how once when Uncle Bill was a boy a cooter caught his toe and held on to it for a whole day and night.

“Fo’ days, son!” Uncle Bill corrected.

“Was it four, fo’ true, Uncle?” Sherry asked doubtfully.

“Yes, suh! An e’d ’a’ been holdin’ on till now if it didn’t thunder,” Uncle Bill spoke solemnly.

“What did you do all dem four days, Uncle?” Sherry asked.

“I watched de clouds an’ prayed for de thunder to roll, son.”

When Breeze hoped one would never bite him, Uncle Bill grunted. “You right to hope so, son. I hope so too. A cooter is a contrary creeter.”

“De people used to say Uncle Isaac was crippled by a cooter. E makes like e’s plagued wid rheumatism, but I have hear tell e ain’ got no big toe on one foot. Did you know dat, Sherry?”

“How come so?” Breeze inquired.

“Well, now, I tell you, dis might not be so. But I used to hear de people say it was. Old man Isaac is a heap older’n me an’ all dis happened before I was born. But my mammy used to laugh ’bout em. Plenty o’ times when e’d come hoppin’ up to de house a-talkin’ ’bout how it must be gwine rain soon by de misery in his knee was so bad, my mammy use to say his big toe wasn’t buried straight an’ dat was what hurt Uncle Isaac. T’ings have to be buried right or dey can’ rest at all.”

“Whe’ was de cooter?” Breeze asked.

“De cooter was in de corn-field, son.”

“An’ whe’ was Uncle Isaac?”

“E was in de corn-field too, choppin’ grass.”

“Did de cooter bite his toe off?”

“No, you wait now an’ le’ me tell em my way.”

“When Uncle Isaac was young e used to run round a lot at night instead o’ being’ home ’sleep, like he had business to be. E used to catch a nap in de daytime whilst he was hoein’. Plenty o’ people can stand straight up in de field an’ lean on dey hoe an’ sleep good. I never could, but a lot o’ people can. Well, Uncle Isaac was gwine long hoein’ a spell, den dozin’ a spell. One time when e opened his eyes to look e thought e seen a cooter’s head right side his foot. E chopped down hard to cut em off. But it wasn’t no cooter head dat time. It been his own big toe! Dat’s how come e’s hoppin’ to dis day. An’ a-lyin’ ’bout em too.”

“Po’ ol’ man!” Sherry laughed along with his pitying. “I don’ blame em fo’ lyin’ ’bout dat. I’d be shame’ to tell de truth. Dey say if you tell a lie an’ stick to it, dat’s good as de truth anyhow.”

“I dunno,” Uncle Bill answered doubtfully, “I reckon sin is easier to stand dan shame.”

A blue dragon-fly flitted along close to the water.

“Does you know his business?” Sherry asked Breeze. But the fly was catching gnats and mosquitoes right then and anybody could see what its business was. Breeze laughed at Sherry’s question.

“You’s wrong,” Sherry laughed back. “You’s talkin’ ’bout his victuals, not his business. Dat’s a snake doctor. A sick snake is around here somewhere now. You watch out. We’ll see him. Den we’ll kill him and hang him up on a limb to make it rain. It’s powerful dry dis fall.”

“If you hang a dead snake on a limb, dat couldn’ make it rain?”

Sherry’s laugh was so merry that Breeze grinned at his own ignorance.

“Great Gawd, boy! You didn’t know dat! Sho’, it will! In less’n three days too. Won’t it, Uncle?”

“Sho’!” Uncle Bill answered stoutly, but he added there was no use to bother with the snake, for it was going to rain in less than three days, anyhow. “The new moon hung in a ring last night and only one star was inside it. That means it will rain after one day. If they’d find the snake and kill him he couldn’t die until the sun went down. Neither can a frog nor a cooter, nor a wasp. Lots of things can’t die if the sun shines.”

Breeze felt he was learning a lot, and he listened so attentively that Uncle Bill went on talking.

“Most people have to wait until night to die, and even when night comes, dey can’t die until de tide turns.”

“How can dey tell if dey’s sick in the bed?” Breeze asked, and Uncle Bill explained that the people themselves didn’t know. The life that stays inside them, that knows.

“It knows mighty nigh everything,” the old man declared, “and when de time comes for it to go, it goes, an’ leaves a man dead as a wedge.” This statement left Breeze wondering, but Uncle Bill went on telling how the rice-fields were full of all kinds of snakes, some of them poisonous, and some not. But the snake he feared most, more than even a rattlesnake or a moccasin, was a coach-whip.

“If a coach-whip catches you, he will wrap his body round you an’ tie you to a tree an’ whip you to death wid his tail. Lawd, boy, when a coach-whip blows dat whistle in de end of his tail, put you’ foot in you’ hand an’ run!”

“Yes, suh!” Sherry agreed, “I too ’fraid of coach-whips myself. I never did see one do it, but a coach-whip can outrun a man any day. If you get to outrunnin’ him, e will grab his tail in his mouth and roll after you like a hoop to catch you. An’ tie you to a tree an’ whip you. Enty, Uncle?”

“Sho’?” Uncle Bill was astonished at his asking. “Sho it’s so! I’ve seen a coach-whip do it plenty o’ times.”

He spat far out into the stream when he had said it, then held one oar still in the water to wheel the boat to one side, as he asked:

“Did you ever catch one of dose pretty little garter snakes an’ see him break hisself all up into little joints? Dey go back all togedder again when dey gits ready.”

Sherry never had.

“Well did you ever burn a blacksnake an’ make him show you his feet. You must be have done dat, Sherry?”

“No, suh,” Sherry answered solemnly. “I ain’ done em not yet, but I’ve seen plenty o’ people what has done em.” And after a thoughtful silence he added:

“Deys one t’ing I do know, Uncle. If a snake bites you and you don’t die, all you’ hair will drop out every time dat snake sheds its skin. Dat’s so, ’cause my own done it about ten years until Uncle Isaac told me to put a boxwood poultice on my hand ebery night las’ spring. An’ dat cured me.”

“Sho’!” Uncle Bill agreed. “Boxwood’s good for most eberyt’ing what ails you.”

“Poultices made out of boxwood will make you’ hair grow and cure tooth-ache or either rheumatism. Boxwood tea’ll cure de itch or de spring fever, too.”

“I heard so,” Sherry approved. “Boxwood roots is good for foot troubles too.”

“Yes, suh. It’s a good medicine. Sho’! De white people knowed it and dats how come dey fetched it across de water wid em. All de flowers gardens on dis whole Neck is full o’ boxwood. Some’s grows high an’ some low. Some ain’ no taller dan my finger, an’ it’s old as de Big House, too.”

“Lawd, how times is changed! Changed before yunnuh was born. Looks like all de good old days is done gone.”

“We done well enough till de boll-evils come, enty, Uncle?”

“But de boll-evils is come. Dey ruint de whole crop year befo’ last.”

“De crop was good last year after we pizened ’em.”

“But I tell you, I sho’ don’ believe in pizenin’ ’em. No, suh! Gawd sent dem here an’ we better leave dem lone. If I was you, I wouldn’t run no pizen machine. At night too, when de cotton is wet wid dew, a pizen dust’ll stick to you’ feets. When I look out o’ my door at night and see dat pizen dust a-floatin’ over de cotton-fields in dem big white cluds, an’ dat machine a-singin’ like a locust, a-creepin’ up and down de rows, th’owin’ out pizen I git too scared to look. No wonder de mens hates to take part in it. Dem pizened blossoms is done killed all de bees on de place, an’ a lot o’ de turkeys and de guineas died from eatin’ de pizened evils. Better let weeds grow in de fields, I say. We kin do widout money till we git some crop to take de place o’ cotton. Cotton’s time is out. I ’member when dey had to give up plantin’ indigo, and people said we was ruined. But cotton done just as good. Now cotton is failed, and we ought to wait till we git some kind o’ crop to take its place.” Uncle Bill heaved a mighty sigh as he said it. “April is too brazen. E would buck Gawd A’mighty. Don’t you try to be like em, Sherry. No. If April keeps on, e will land in Hell, sho’ as e was born.”

“You t’ink de place’ll ever be sold, Uncle?” Sherry asked him presently.

“No, son. Not long as de li’l’ young Cap’n is livin’! E was born wid two li’l’ teeth, and when dem two li’l’ teeth got ripe an’ fell out, my Katy took ’em an’ went to de graveyard an’ buried ’em in a clear place right longside his gran’pa.

“No matter whe’ da li’l’ boy goes or how long e stays gone from here, dis place’ll hold to him. Dem li’l’ two teeth’ll make him come back to die an’ be buried right here. You’ll see. It’s so. Just like I’m tellin’ you. It’ll be dat way. Katy was a wise-minded ’oman.”

The boat moved steadily forward all the time, for Uncle Bill’s arms didn’t slacken the oar’s paddling once.

As Breeze listened thoughtfully to all that was said, his eyes wandered unseeing over the beauty that lay thick around him, for he was trying to understand some of the things he had heard.

The rice-fields blurred by yellow sunshine were tinged with ripeness and flecked with brilliant color. Purple shadows were cast by crimson branches, scarlet berries sparkled on slender vines and adorning gray thorny branches. The bright water, gay with reflections, ran sober edges under blue cypress.

The tide of the year, more deliberate but as constant as the tide from the sea, was almost full, almost at its height. It would soon pause, mature and complete, its striving over, for a little rest; and start ebbing.

A great owl, roused by the boat’s passing, spread out wide wings and flew from the shadowy darkness of a dense moss-hung tree. Marsh-hens, that couldn’t be seen, cackled out shrill strident notes from the marsh-grown, water-covered mud flats. Solemn blue-and-white herons stood motionless at the water’s edge, gravely watching the boat. High overhead, thin lines of ducks sliced across the sky with swift slashing wings. When the boat rounded a bend where the creek met the river, Uncle Bill began a careful, precise paddling with his one long oar, and with settled, even strokes thrust the boat forward into the wide dark stream.

“For Gawd’s sake, be careful, Uncle! Don’ go too fast against dis current. I’d sho’ hate to be turned over dis morning. Dat water looks mighty cold.”

Sherry gave a shiver and laugh as he said it, but Uncle Bill’s reply was full of reproach. Why would Sherry think of such a thing as turning over? He was inviting trouble.

The boat had run silently for some little time, close to the river’s bank, when Uncle Bill broke into a sputter of words. Breeze turned to look at him. His eyes, two bright black berries in the dull black surface of his skin, were fixed on something away ahead. Breeze tried to see it too. He searched the distance ahead. But nothing showed except miles of wide river swelled out beyond its banks into the flat old rice-fields. Palmetto trees showed now and then among the willows and cypresses. Low-lying marshy islands, fringed with vine-covered scrubby bushes, were cut into patterns by narrow creeks.

Sherry was watching the distance too. “Wha’ kind is dey, Uncle?” he murmured.

“Bull-neck, son,” Uncle Bill answered promptly.

“I wish my eyes was trained to see good like your’n. I wonder why dey ain’!”

“I dunno, son. I dunno. I reckon dey ain’ had to look hard as mine,” and he chuckled with pleasure at the compliment Sherry paid him.

Uncle’s calm black face filled with a warm friendly smile. Uncle’s bright eyes, keen and cold, flitted swiftly from Sherry’s face to Breeze’s, then beyond them to the ducks he saw in the distance. Breeze began to see more in Uncle Bill’s black features than he did at first. They were more than wrinkled flesh that time had creased and withered, for not only shrewdness, but wisdom and pity shone in the clear-seeing eyes; and the old mouth, where so many teeth were missing, tightened its lips in a way that meant more than caution and prudence.

Breeze gazed at every bit of the surface ahead, starting with the water where sunshine dazzled close beside the boat and ending where the hazy sky dropped down to join the earth, but he couldn’t see any ducks.

“Looka right yonder!” Uncle Bill pointed to direct his eyes and he made out two tiny black specks side by side on the water.

“You must shoot dose two,” Sherry said. “It ain’t against de law to kill bull-necks, and maybe dey’ll stay on de water until we get in gunshot.”

“You better shoot ’em, Cun Sherry. I can’t hit ’em.” Breeze hesitated although his heart was beating fit to burst with excitement at the thought of shooting a gun.

“No, dem’s you’ ducks. You must kill ’em,” Sherry insisted. “If you do like I tell you, you can’ miss em. I don’ mind breakin’ de law, so I’ll hit de summer ducks and you kill de lawful ones.”

“I’m scared I’ll miss ’em.” Breeze’s voice quivered so shakily Sherry laughed.

“No you won’t. I’ll tell you how to do,” he said gently.

Uncle Bill headed the boat straight for the two small dots which were swimming toward it, and soon Breeze could see the gray of their feathers and the bright orange color of their bills. They seemed not to know their danger even when Uncle Bill stopped paddling and Sherry whispered to Breeze.

“Cock your gun now and hold em close up to you’ shoulder. Look straight at de duck you want to kill and pull de front trigger.”

Breeze did just as Sherry told him, but the drake he aimed at sat quite motionless on the water, as if he had not even heard the gun’s explosion.

“Fine, son!” Sherry exclaimed. “He didn’ know wha’ hit him. Now, shoot de hen duck. Hold you’ gun up close to you’ shoulder, den look straight at em an’ pull de back trigger.”

Breeze’s fingers were trembling but he shot again, and the hen duck made wild splutterings on the water.

“Po’ creeter! You hit em, but you got to shoot em again. Put us up a li’l’ closer, Uncle. Load you’ gun, Breeze.”

Breeze’s tense fingers shook as he unbreached his gun and replaced the two empty, smoking shells with heavy new ones. As the boat swung near to the wounded duck that swam round and round its dead mate, Sherry spoke to him sharply.

“Hurry up! Shoot em again!”

How could he do it? The poor wounded fowl was fluttering in agony now.

“Quit you’ triflin’, boy!” Sherry ordered sternly. “Put em out o’ dat misery.”

Breeze’s fingers tightened on the trigger and the gray-feathered body quivered into bloody shreds as the swift lead from his gun tore through it. Breeze felt wretched. Killing that duck gave him no pleasure.

Uncle Bill paddled up close to the two dead bodies and Sherry picked them up out of the water.

“Dey’s plump!” he commented as his fingers examined the breasts to see.

“We has all de ducks we can eat now, but dis boy ought to shoot one flyin’ befo’ we go home.”

“Den we’ll go on,” Uncle agreed.

They crossed the river and entered a creek much like the first one. It branched right and left, becoming narrower all the time. Uncle Bill began a stealthy creeping around the wooded bends. Sometimes ducks were there, sometimes not. Breeze shot wildly each time one rose. Sherry declared he killed two of those that fell. He may have, he didn’t know. Sherry may have just said so to encourage him.

This was a strange world to Breeze. Gray water, unfamiliar trees, long stretches of ripening marsh grass where odd-looking birds made outlandish cries as they passed.

Uncle Bill paddled steadily on with a measured stroke. Past islands lined with ranges of sand-hills where tall pines above the willows stood against the sky. Through channels choked with weeds where white cranes fed. Long streets of water, curving, dustless, houseless, settled only by light and shade and the images of trees and clouds and sun they faithfully reflected.

At a sudden “S-st” from Uncle Bill, Breeze looked at the low wooded hillside and glimpsed a doe, followed by her fawn. They had come down to the water’s edge to drink. Sheer terror held them rigid for a brief instant and then both were gone.

“Jedus, Sherry,” Uncle Bill chided. “You could ’a’ got all two if you had ’a’ tried!”

“I didn’ want dem,” Sherry answered. “We’s done killed enough for one day. My mammy says if you kill too much o’ t’ings at a time you’ll git so you smell like death. I don’ want to. I kills a while and den I stops.”

Uncle Bill laughed, and the silence was so deep that his voice echoed and reechoed.

Breeze was glad the killing was over, for he’d rather hear the two men talk than to see Sherry kill.

The boat flowed evenly, almost silently, over the water’s smooth surface. Uncle Bill kept it close to the bank to avoid the full sweep of the current in the middle of the stream.

Great dark birds, startled by its passing so close to their homes, flew up out of the water with a loud flopping of wings, but there was little talk for the rest of the way.

The water slipped swiftly past them. The small whirling circles made by Uncle Bill’s paddle widened until they reached the bank’s willowy edges where vines and bushes wound tight together, choking and strangling one another as they wrestled for a narrow foothold.

When Uncle Bill paused and cleared his throat Breeze knew he was going to ask Sherry a question.

“How come you don’ like April, here lately?”

“Who say I don’ like em?” Sherry answered.

“I say so.”

Sherry’s white grin was cold. Hard. His answer slow in coming.

“April’s legs is most too long fo’ de foreman of a big plantation like Blue Brook.”

“Wha’ you mean, son?”

“Dey kin tote him too far f’om home sometimes.”

“You mean April kin walk too far atter dark?”

“Yes, suh,” Uncle Bill sighed.

“Gawd is de one made ’em long. April ain’ had nothin’ to do wid dat. Gawd made you’ own not so short, Sherry. Don’ fo’git dat.”

Sherry said no more and Uncle Bill worked faster with his paddling.

The afternoon sun was a great red ball floating among thin smoky clouds. A light haze was creeping out from underneath the trees on the banks of the creeks. The shrill call of a cicada rose, swelled into quick breathless notes, faded away, then was taken up, answered by a mate. Yellow sunshine fell between lacy blue shadows cast by cypress trees. Dark green thickets crouched wet-footed, beside narrow winding paths of tide water.

The marshes were buried. All the sticky miry mud exposed by the morning was hidden. Through old flood-gates the rising water gurgled and bubbled into forsaken rice-fields. Grass, vines, trees, bushes rank, thorny and fetid, crowded and trampled one another, trying to gain a deeper, stronger foothold down in the broken dikes. Breeze gazed around him with long looks. As far as his eyes could see the earth was flooded. Wasted. Unsown. Abandoned.

Uncle Bill sighed. It made him sad to think how the tide had destroyed the work of years. At first it crept timidly in, hardly enough for its shallow trickling to show. But it grew bolder and stronger as it took back the rich land, acre by acre, until it owned them all. All!

The first white men who came here found the whole face of the earth covered with a thick forest growth of cypress and gum and ash, matted, tangled with powerful vines, and held by the tides that rose and fell as they do now, twice every day. Those men bought slaves, Breeze’s and Sherry’s and his own great-grandfathers and mothers, African people fresh from the Guinea Coast. The slaves diked and banked up the land so the forest growth could be removed, then they canaled and ditched and banked it into smaller well-drained tracts which were planted with rice. And rice made the plantation owners rich.

For years the lands were held by children and grandchildren of those first settlers, but nearly every old plantation home has been burned or sold or abandoned. The rich rice-fields are deserted. The old dikes and flood-gates that stood as guardians are broken and rotted. The tide rolls over all as it did before the land was ever cleared. It has taken back its own.

A whistle not far away gave a shrill ugly shriek. “Lawd, de boat is lated to-day! Wha’ time it is, Uncle Bill?”

Uncle cast a quick glance up at the sun. “A li’l’ after four, son.”

Sherry considered. “De boat ain’ but two hours lated. Pretty good, for dat old slow coach, enty?”

“Kin you tell de time, Breeze?”

“I kin tell if it ain’ cloudy, neither rainin’, in de daytime.”

Sherry said there were many other ways to tell; the tide runs true, rain or shine, morning-glories and lots of other flowers open and close by the time. Big Sue’s yard was full of four-o’clocks. They’d be wide open now. Birds change their songs with the turn of the afternoon. “Listen! You can hear a red-bird whistlin’ right now. Dis morning he went so----” Sherry pursed his lips and mimicked a bar of bird song.

“Now e says to dis----” And he whistled a few notes that the bird himself echoed. “Dat bird knows it’s past four. A red-bird knows de time every bit as good as Uncle. Grass blades moves wid de day too. Dey leans dis way an’ dat to get de light. A lot o’ t’ings is got mo’ sense dan people, enty, Uncle?”

“Sho’!” Uncle Bill declared. “If you watch t’ings close, you’ll git wise. Wise! Take Uncle Isaac; e can’ read readin’ or either writin’ but he knows more’n any school-teacher or either preacher dat ever came to Blue Brook.”

“Wha’ de name o’ de church Uncle Isaac b’longs to?”

Uncle Bill smiled gently. “Po’ Uncle! E j’ined de white folks ch’uch yonder at de gate, long time ago. Dat’s named ’Piscopalian. Den e went to town on de boat an’ seen a white folks’ chu’ch named de Presbeteerin. Uncle mixed de two togedder. E calls hese’f a ’Piscoteerin’. Po’ Uncle! If e don’ mind, e’s gwine die in sin yet. You boys mustn’ wait too long to pray. Pray soon. Git religion young. It’s a heap easier den. I waited so long I mighty nigh missed gittin’ it myse’f. But I ruther have religion dan to have all Uncle Isaac’s knowledge. E kin put a ‘hand’ on anybody long as dey’s in dis world. E kin take a ‘spell’ off anybody long as dey’s dis side o’ de grave. But dat ain’ so much after all. Dis life is short. It’s de other side o’ Jordan we got to fix for. Dem sweet fields in Eden, yonder in Canaan’s land. Dat’s de country I’m aimin’ to reach. You boys must try to reach em too.”

“Uncle, you believe any white folks is in Heaben?”

“Gawd knows, son. White folks is mighty smart people. Dey knows a lot o’ tricks we don’ know.”

XIII

THE QUILTING

Before day was clean Big Sue got up out of bed and went to the front door to look at the weather. The cool air was soft and still, trees and birds were asleep. The earth itself was resting quietly, for the sun tarried late in his bed. The stars had not yet faded from the clear open sky, but Big Sue was full of excitement. Only a few hours more and she must have everything ready at Maum Hannah’s for the quilting to commence.

Her own big room was almost large enough for a quilting, but it was better to go to Maum Hannah’s. The meeting benches could be brought in from under the house where they stayed, to make seats enough for the company, and Maum Hannah’s quilting poles stood always in the corner waiting for work to do. Plenty of pots sat on her hearth and two big ones out in the yard besides. Most of the plantation quiltings were held at Maum Hannah’s house, the same as the night prayer-meetings.

The raw rations were all ready to cook. Plenty of rice and cornmeal. White flour and coffee and sugar from the store. She’d pot-roast the ducks, and fry the fish, and make the turtle into a stew. She’d roast the potatoes in the ashes. The corn-pone would bake brown and nice in the big oven on the hearth. With some nice fat white-flour biscuit to eat last with the coffee, she would have enough to fill everybody full.