Chapter VII: Part 7

Maum Hannah jerked up her head and listened. Her hands wavered apart, then reached out toward the preacher. She got to her feet and waved her arms, “You got em wrong, son! Wrong! Great Lawd, don’ say em dat way!”

Nobody paid her any attention but Uncle Bill, and he pulled her by the arm and made her sit down, “Wait, Auntie! It ain’ time to shout yet. Set down till after de sermon.” Then he joined in with the others, whose words lost in feeling, surged back and forth, throbbing, thundering, until the old church trembled and shook.

“Thou shalt bear false witness against thy neighbor!”

The preacher’s flashing eyes blazed with fire, as they gazed at the people, his shortened breath panted his words, and the congregation burst into prayer, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”

From his seat in the Amen corner Breeze could see every face. Standing out by itself, April’s bold daring countenance was lit with a cool sneering smile.

The Ten Commandments were all said, but the preacher knew others.

“Thou shalt be a father to the fatherless!”

“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” The holy spirit filled the close-packed swaying crowd.

“Thou shalt be a husband to the widow!”

The ever-rising tide of prayer rolled into a flood that swallowed every soul but April. He sat upright. Unmoved. Passionless. When the preacher’s ranting halted to give out a hymn, April got up and walked down the aisle, and on out of the door. A no-mannered brazen thing for anybody to do. Every eye gazed at him, the preacher stared, but Uncle Bill hurriedly raised the hymn.

The congregation sang it as the preacher lined it out two lines at a time. When it was finished, then he opened the Bible and took his text. “Hold fast and repent!” He read it twice and closed the Book, then shut his eyes and prayed in silence before he asked the question:

“Does all o’ you members fast?” Throughout the church a solemn silence fell, then a great cry answered:

“Sho’! Sho’! Yes, suh.”

“You can not pray rightly without fasting.”

“No, suh! It’s de Gawd’s truth.”

“The longer you fast, the better you can repent!”

“Yes, brother! You right!”

“The longer you fast, the quicker your sins will be forgiven!”

“Praise His name! Hallelujah!” Leah led the women of the choir into a low humming tune.

“Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights!”

“Yes, Gawd!” The choir’s humming swelled and spread to the women of the congregation.

“He got stronger and stronger as He fasted.”

“Yes, suh!” Bodies rocked and swayed to the mournful tune.

“He got strong as the devil!” The preacher’s eyes flashed bright behind his glasses, but Maum Hannah jumped forward at such reckless words.

“He beat the devil at his own game!” The Reverend shouted as he shook his clenched fists.

“Glory! Hallelujah!” The congregation cried loud above the women’s solemn wordless chanting.

“Yunnuh hold fast! Get strong like Jesus!” The preacher stamped on the floor.

“Yes, Gawd! Praise His name!” The women were getting to their feet and patting time.

“God’ll feed you on the bread of life!”

“Do, Master!” Maum Hannah cried out so clear, that he looked at her and caught Breeze’s eye. The holy spirit left him all of a sudden. Maybe he thought of the frog legs, maybe of old Breeze, but he stopped short and cleared his throat and fumbled with the leaves of the book. He presently said the time had come for making their offerings. They must sing an old hymn, and the people must come forward and lay their gifts on God’s holy altar, which was a small pine table in front of the pulpit. They crushed into the aisle, an array of gaudy dresses, weaving in and out among the dark men. Both aisles were choked with singing people. Waves of hot breath smote Breeze in the face. Sunday shoes squeaked. Outside in the churchyard a mule brayed long and loud. Coins rolled and clinked against one another on the table. One rolled on the floor and fell through a crack, lost, as Uncle Bill gave Breeze a brownie to carry up.

The hymn was all sung, and the preacher went behind the pulpit again. In a high voice he declared that the stay of Jesus on earth was divided into four parts: the birth, the life, the death and the resurrection. “Which was the biggest part? Which, brethren? Speak out!” he urged them, for the congregation was hushed with interest.

“De resurrection!” Uncle Bill shouted.

“De life!” somebody else chimed.

“No, son!” Maum Hannah stood up. “No! De birthin’ was. If his mammy didn’ birth em Jedus couldn’ live or either die. No, suh! De birthin’ was de biggest part.”

But the preacher wasn’t listening. He blared out his answer to his own question:

“The resurrection of Jesus took the sting out of death! Brethren! Sisters! The resurrection brought angels to the tomb! The resurrection showed Heaven in the sky!”

Breeze’s head ached as the sermon went on. His neck hurt. His feet went to sleep.

When it was at last ended, sinners were invited to come up to the mourner’s bench and kneel for prayer, the preacher plead with them not to wait and be damned, but to come up and promise God they’d seek forgiveness for their sins until He gave them some sign by which they’d know they were saved. A multitude thronged forward and fell on their knees, sobbing and calling on Jesus for mercy.

The preacher begged God to look down. To come near and bring His holy spirit to save these souls. Breeze’s heart beat hammer strokes against his breast. He wanted to be saved too. He wanted to go kneel with the rest of the sinners. The fear of Hell, and timidity, combined, shook his knees, and broke him out in a cold sweat. All his blood felt frozen, leaking through his skin as he staggered forward and knelt down, and shut his eyes, and tried his best to pray.

A rough hand gripped his shoulder, and Big Sue whispered harshly in his ear, “Is you gone plum crazy, Breeze? Git up an’ go on back an’ set down. Don’t you jerk ’way from me! You ain’ got no business seekin’! If you miss an’ find peace an’ git religion you couldn’ bat ball on Sunday wid li’l’ young Cap’n when he come! Not if you’s a Christian! Git up! You don’ know nothin’ ’bout prayin!”

Breeze got up sheepishly and went to his seat, but he thought bitterly; Big Sue didn’t care if he burned in Hell. Many a time she had told him how those wicked, hell-bent buckras spent Sundays in sin. Riding horses. Singing reels. Dancing and frolicking on God’s day. Young Cap’n played ball, baseball, under the trees, on the holy Sabbath, just as if it were the middle of the week. Big Sue said God didn’t like people to even pick a flower on Sunday. And now she wanted him to have sin right along with those brazen white people. She didn’t care how much he burned in Hell. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. When he got bigger he was going to pray, no matter what Big Sue said.

The prayer for the sinners was done, and the sinners went to their seats. The deacons passed the Lord’s Supper; small squares of bread piled up on a plate, and water glasses full of blackberry wine. Each member took a crumb and a sip, no more.

Maum Hannah’s fingers shook and fumbled over the bread and a tiny crumb fell off the plate in her lap. A bit of Jesus’ own body. Broken for the sins of men. As soon as Maum Hannah stood up, it would fall on the floor and be trampled under foot. Why not get it and eat it? Nobody’d know.

Breeze watched it. Once it seemed to move toward him, to creep nearer to his fingers. The congregation was singing. Their voices rose, some high, some low, Maum Hannah’s and Uncle Bill’s with the rest.

Nobody was looking. Why not take that crumb and taste it?

Breeze’s unsteady, frightened fingers stole sidewise, following the apron’s folds until they got in reach of the bit of bread. They closed over it and eased back to safety, then they slowly, slyly thrust it into Breeze’s mouth.

It fell on his tongue which kept still, trying to get its flavor. But it was small. Too small. It melted quickly and slipped down his throat before Breeze could stop it. A bit of Jesus’ own precious body. The preacher said it was that. Poor Jesus. Sold by His friend to bad people who killed Him, hung Him on a cross. He let them do it. He wanted to show God how sorry He was to see poor sinners going down to Hell. Hopping. Burning. Weeping. Gnashing their teeth for ever and ever. Jesus was a good man to do that. Breeze’s heart was rapt with pity. His body quivered. Tears ran down his cheeks in floods. God must have a a hard heart to let Jesus suffer so bad.

“Nee-ro my Gawd, to thee--
Nee-ro to thee----”

the congregation sang. Old Louder raised up his head and bayed, like his heart ached too. Nobody noticed him but Maum Hannah who leaned and patted his head. “Hush, Louder. Keep quiet. Pray easy, son. Easy.”

The service was finally over, the benediction said, people crowded the aisles, poured out through the wide-open doors, slowly, quietly, until the church was empty and its yard full.

An empty hogshead, got from the store, was half filled with water from the spring at the picnic grounds. Lemons were cut and squeezed and added. A great cloth bag full of sugar was poured in. A great block of ice was stripped out of its sack and washed clean of sawdust, and dumped into the barrel with the lemons and sugar and water.

Maum Hannah disapproved again, and some of the old people sided with her. She said ice wasn’t a healthy thing. But the fine stylish town preacher said she was mistaken. Once, a long time ago, people used to think ice was not healthy, but everybody knows better now. In town people never drink lemonade without ice. Never.

Uncle Bill was worried because the ice’s coldness seemed to soak up the sugar. The lemonade didn’t taste at all right. There was no more sugar to put in unless they sent all the way to the store, and this was Sunday. It would be a sin to buy sugar on Sunday.

The men on the lemonade committee were arguing about what to do, when the Reverend, who had been walking around through the crowd shaking hands with the people and patting the children’s heads, came up with Leah, who was smiling and talking and putting on many fine airs. The preacher said he was sure, Leah, Mrs. Locust, knew all about lemonade. She could tell exactly if they’d have to send for more sugar or not. Just give her a taste. She’d decide for them.

Zeda laughed out. Big Sue muttered something, but both stood aside to make room for Leah, who giggled happily, and stepped up to the barrel.

The Reverend took up the long clean hickory paddle Uncle Bill had used to mix it, and leaning over, gave it a vigorous stirring. He must have stirred too hard, for the cold air rose up out of the barrel into Leah’s nose, and before she had time even to turn her head, she gave one loud sneeze and all her white teeth flew out of her mouth right into the barrel of lemonade.

It was a bad time. Leah said she’d have to have her teeth back right now. But they were mixed up with all those hundreds of lemon skins and that big block of ice. Every man on the committee took a hand at stirring for them, but the teeth rose up and grinned, then hid deep in the bottom of the lemonade before anybody could snatch them out. The preacher said pour the whole hogshead of lemonade out on the ground! The idea! Breeze felt relieved when the committee was firm. Leah would have to wait. The lemonade would soon be low in the barrel. The people were thirsty. They’d drink it up in a hurry. Leah didn’t argue but went off one side and began sniffling and crying with her mouth hidden behind her pocket handkerchief. Big Sue chuckled out loud. Uncle Bill stepped forward with a long-handled dipper and filling it brimming full handed it to the Reverend, with a low bow, “Have de first drink, Reverend. I know you’ throat’s dry after all de preachin’ an’ prayin’ you done to-day! Gawd bless you, suh!”

The Reverend fell back a step, and shook his head and coughed behind his hand.

“If you’ll excuse me----” He stammered it, then coughed again, and walked over to where Big Sue stood with a broad smile on her face.

But April suddenly appeared.

“What’s all dis?” he asked, looking straight at the Reverend, with a glitter in his eyes.

“Your wife--ah--Mistress Locust--has--ah--met with a little accident----”

“Didn’ Uncle Bill hand you a dipper o’ lemonade?”

“Why, yes, Brother Locust.”

“How come you didn’ drink em? Don’ you be brotherin’ me, either.”

“Why--ah, I’m really not thirsty, Mr. Locust.”

“You ain’ thirsty, eh?”

“Why, ah, no.”

April’s Sunday clothes made him look even taller than usual. His hair was newly cut, and his face shaved clean, except for a small mustache. He made a fine-looking, powerful figure to Breeze’s wide-stretched eyes.

His mouth smiled as he spoke to the preacher, but his words snarled. It was plain that he was furiously angry. Breeze felt as if he’d choke with excitement. The breath was squeezed out of his body as the crowd pushed closer, and his bare feet were trod on until he felt his toes were mashed too flat ever to walk again.

The stillness was broken only by Leah’s sniveling, and April’s hurried breathing.

Uncle Bill put up a warning hand when April slowly took off his hat. “Keep you’ hat on, April. Don’t you dare to butt dis servant of Gawd! You’ll git struck dead, sho’ as you do!”

April smiled knowingly, then pulled his hat down tight on his head.

“I doubt if Gawd would knock me ’bout dat, but I don’ b’lieve I want to dirty my skull on such a jackass, not no mo’. I butt him good de last time we met. E ain’ fo’got.”

“Great Gawd! April, shut you’ mouth!”

“Did you cuss me for a jackass?” the preacher shrieked and darted furiously at April.

Women screamed out. Children wailed. Men mumbled protests. But before anybody suspected his intention April leaped forward and seized the preacher’s head with two powerful hands, held it like a vise, and bit a neat round mouthful out of the cheek next to him.

Making a horribly ugly face he spat out the morsel of flesh. Old Louder, Uncle Bill’s faithful hound, caught it and swallowed it down.

A fearful outcry arose. Men groaned. Women shrieked and yelled. Some went off into trances. The wounded preacher toppled, fell over, limp as a rag, his high white collar reddening as it swallowed the blood that streamed out of the hole in his face. Poor man. His face would rot off now. Poison would swell it up, bloat it, then peel it off.

Uncle Bill scolded Louder terribly and frailed him with a stick until the poor dog cried out pitifully. Breeze felt sick and faint enough to die. His hair stood on end. His flesh shook cold on his bones. God would strike April sure as the world.

The people rushed forward, some calling for water, some threatening April. Everybody shouted until the noise and confusion waxed loud and frightful.

Leah and Big Sue vied with each other in stormy torrents of words and weeping.

April’s fury spent itself with the bite. His strained muscles unbraced, unbuckled, he cleared his throat and spat. “Dat meat taste too sickenin’,” he grumbled. Then squaring his shoulders he walked away. Cool. Master of himself. Alone.

XV

FIELD WORK

All the cotton had been picked except scraps in the tip-top of the stalks. When these were gathered, the last chance for the women to make a little money would be over until early next spring when the stables were cleaned out and the black manure put in piles for them to scatter over the fields.

The sultry day was saturated with heat. The swollen sun shone white through a fog that brought the sky low over the cotton field. The cotton pickers swarmed thick, sweat poured off faces and hands and feet. Slowly, steadily they moved, up and down the long rows of tall rank stalks, carefully picking every wisp of staple out of the wide-open brown burrs.

Everybody was barefooted, most of the boys and men wearing only shirts and overalls, and the women had their skirts tied up almost to their knees.

Not the smallest gust of wind stirred the steamy air. Sweat blackened sleeves and shirts and dresses, yet the talk stayed bright and chatty.

Breeze had picked all morning except for one little while when he stopped to eat a piece of cold corn-pone and drink a few swallows out of his bottle of sweetened water. He wanted to pick a good weight, but the cotton was light and sparse. April was paying a whole cent a pound instead of the half a cent he paid when the cotton was green and heavy.

If Big Sue would pick faster instead of talking so much, together they ought to get a hundred pounds. Maybe even a hundred and twenty-five.

Side by side they trudged along, but too often Big Sue stopped and straightened up her bent shoulders and stretched her arms for a rest. Leaning over so long had her all but in a cramp. Yet when Breeze stopped to eat she scolded him. This was no time for lingering. Every pound picked meant a cent.

“Wha’ de news f’om Joy?” Leah called across the rows.

“Joy wa’n’t so well when I heared last.”

“Wa’n’t Joy kinder sickly all last summer?”

Big Sue admitted it grumly.

“I hear-say Joy have changed e boardin’ place since e went back to school.”

Big Sue took her time to answer. After picking several stalks clean she said Joy had changed, fo’ true. She was staying right on the campus now. Right with the teachers and the professors and all the high-up people.

Leah spat on the ground. “Lawd, Joy must be know ev’yt’ing by now, long as e’s been off at school. How much years? Five or six?”

“Joy do know a lot, but ’e ain’ been off but four years. You know it too, Leah.”

“Joy’s a stylish gal, Big Sue. Even if e is puny.” Zeda was plainly siding against Leah.

“Joy ought to look stylish, much money as I spent on em. When e went back to school dis fall, Joy’s trunk looked fine as a white lady’s trunk. Not a outin’ gown in em! Not a outin’ petticoat! Even to de shimmys, Joy had ev’yt’ing made out o’ pink and blue and yellow crêpe. Joy is a fine seamster, if I do say it myse’f. Joy’s clothes is fine as any store-bought clothes.”

“Wha’s Joy gwine do when e finish college?” Leah asked presently.

Big Sue was uncertain. Joy was working to get a depluma. When she got that she could be anything she liked. Joy was sickly last summer because she had so much learning stirring around in her head. Leah laughed--innocently. There was no need to worry, as long as a girl was sickly from things stirring in her head.

“Wha you mean by dat, Leah?” Big Sue stopped short and her narrowed eyes gazed fixedly at Leah who went on picking.

“I ain’ say nothin’ to vex you, Big Sue! You’s too touchous! Joy ain’ gold neither silver.”

“You keep Joy’s name out you’ mouth, Leah!” Big Sue snapped the words out in a stinging tone that cut through the heat.

Zeda stood still and gave a wide-mouthed yawn and a lazy laugh. “Do hush you’ wranglin’. When it’s hot like dis, I can’ stan’ to hear nobody tryin’ to start a brawl. You womens ain’ chillen! Joy’s a nice gal. Fo’ Gawd’s sake, le’ em ’lone!”

She looked up at the sun hanging low in a whitish glow, then down at the short shadows and the heat wilted leaves. Not a bird chirped. Not a locust or grasshopper spoke.

“I bet Joy’ll marry some o’ dem fine professors or either preachers,” Bina drawled.

“Joy might, fo’ true,” Big Sue bragged.

Zeda said nothing, but her eyes darted a sharp look at Big Sue, then turned toward the rice-fields where the river crept up without a murmur or a shimmer of light on its surface.

Breeze picked on and on long after his back was tired and his fingers sore from the sharp points of the stiff burrs. The crocus sheets spread out along the road at the side of the field were piled higher and higher with cotton which was heaped up, packed down, running over. The last picking yielded more than anybody expected.

Thank God, the sun was setting at last. Wagons were rattling in the distance, coming to haul the cotton to the big gin-house! This year’s crop was done.

XVI

PLOWING

Breeze was to do his first plowing, but instead of being up and dressed and ready to go to the fields when dawn first streaked the sky he lay sobbing underneath the clean bright quilts, which were all rumpled up over his bed, the big, high, soft feather-bed in the shed-room where Big Sue’s Lijah used to sleep.

He was wretched and lonely and sore from head to heels. The feather-bed hurt wherever it pressed its fat cushiony sides against his naked body, although that feather-bed was made out of the finest down of wild ducks and geese. Big Sue liked to tell how she took years to save so many, for she wanted her Lijah to have the finest feather-bed on the whole plantation. Whenever the hunters brought wild fowls to the kitchen for her to roast in the big oven there, she carefully picked the softest pinless feathers off the breasts, and put them in a bag and kept them until she finally had enough for Lijah’s bed. Lijah liked a soft bed. He was like her.

Joy was different. A feather-bed made Joy hot and unrestful, and she liked to sleep on a mattress filled with cotton tacked tight to keep it firm and hard and in place. Joy and Lijah were different altogether. But Lijah left his feather-bed soon after it was made, and went away to a far country. Big Sue was not sure whether the country was named “Fluridy” or “Kintucky.” Sometimes she called it “Kintucky-Fluridy.”

The fine softness of Lijah’s bed meant little to Breeze, for he was homesick and unhappy. He’d a lot rather go back to his mother’s cabin, on Sandy Island, and sleep on a pallet made out of a ragged quilt spread on the splintery hard floor, than to stay here with Big Sue and sleep in this nest of down feathers that had once warmed and comforted other children with bill and wings and webbed feet.

He turned and twisted and heaved with mute sobs. He felt all alone in the world. He had learned not to cry out loud. Big Sue had taught him that people with manners cry low and easy. Manly boys never cry at all. If Big Sue would only take time to beat him right away when he did wrong, he could somehow bear the pain better, but to be waked up before daylight, and stripped naked, and made to stand still under the cuts of a strap, or a switch, that’s hard.

When she waddled home at night, after the day’s work and pleasure were done, she was too weary to do anything but drop down in a chair and rest. Breeze had to undo the wide-strung-up shoes and take them off her fat feet, and fill up her pipe and light it. She’d smoke a little while and go to bed, worn-out, too tired to whip Breeze, no matter how much he needed a licking. She always waited until next morning, when she woke up fresh and strong, ready to raise Breeze and teach him manners. Her usual morning greeting was, “Git up, Breeze. Git up and strip. I want to git down to you’ rind,” his rind meaning his naked skin.

She declared that licking Breeze hurt her as much as it hurt him. She hated to have to do it, but Breeze was a poor, ignorant, no-manners boy. She had to beat him to do her duty by him.

A long, thin, black leather strap stayed up on the mantel-shelf, ready to give lickings. It had a black-snake’s hiss, and a crack as sharp as a pistol-shot. But this morning Big Sue couldn’t lay her hands on it, so she broke a switch off the plum tree growing beside the cabin’s front door. There were all kinds of switches outside. Big Sue could easily have got a smoother, better one, but she was in a hurry and the plum switch was in easy reach of her hand.

In the weak morning light she didn’t see that thorns stayed on it when she pulled off its limbs. Those thorns had sharp teeth, and Big Sue drove them deep into Breeze’s back and thighs. Now as he stroked his hurts with both hands he felt blood warm and wet on them.

Breeze’s mother had never talked to him about manners. Big Sue said she didn’t know them. At Blue Brook plantation, manners are the most important things in the world, but they stand between you and everything you want to do. Nobody ever eats the first sweet black walnuts that fall on the ground, for eating green walnuts makes lice in your head, and it is bad-mannered to be lousy.

To play with the funny hop-toadies, whose little black hands look just like a tiny baby’s thumbs and all, makes warts come on your hands, and it’s bad-mannered to have warts.

If you drink goat’s milk, although it is sweeter than cow’s milk, you’ll hate water, just like goats hate it. You won’t want to wash. And it’s bad-mannered not to like soap and water.

If your feet get cold as ice and you can’t get them warm any other way, you must not put them on the warm black pots on the hearth, because the soot on the pots will stick to your feet, and it’s bad-mannered to have sooty feet.

To put a finger in your mouth is bad-mannered. Everything is bad-mannered!

Breeze’s reflections and sobs were checked by a call from Big Sue to get up! To make haste too! He hopped up and pulled on his clothes, and taking a piece of cold bread in his hand, hurried to the barnyard. Daylight had already spread through the sky, and was creeping over the earth. The fall day smelled like spring. One old apple tree in the orchard had been fooled into blooming by the drowsy warmth. Poor silly thing!

The creek babbled low as the tide swelled it high up near the bank, and a cow, followed by her new-born calf, ventured in knee-deep, and sucked up the water noisily. As she lifted her head to look at Breeze, drops falling from her mouth were suddenly shot through with a streak of light. The sun was up! He was late! Lord, he must run! Every flower had its face turned eastward to meet the day. They knew it had come.

Cocks began a fresh crowing. Jay-birds chahn-chahned. Partridges whistled. A mocking-bird trilled. Tiny brown birds fluttered through the thickets like dead leaves come back to life. Wagon wheels rumbled on a road out of sight, the pop of a whip cracked out. Everything was astir, ready for the day’s work.

In the barnyard a lively confusion of men and beasts made a thick din that filled Breeze’s heart with excitement. To-day he would begin doing a man’s work. On Saturday he’d get his pay, like Sherry and all the other farm-hands.

He could hear the men hailing one another. The mules neighed. Trace-chains tinkled between shouts of “Whoa” and “Gee” and “Haw” and “Git up.” On the near side of the barnyard fence a long-legged funny mule colt went staggering behind old Sally, Uncle Bill’s old bay mare. When he lagged she whinnied to him to come on.

A litter of pigs huddled around a lean black sow wallowing comfortably in a filthy mud-hole. They squealed to her to lie still and let them feed, but she grunted lazily, and rolled still deeper in the mire. Near by an old dominecker hen clucked sharply to her biddies and scratched eagerly for worms in the rich black earth. She’d better mind. That old sow would eat her up, feathers and all, and swallow the biddies down like raw oysters.

The fine fall day felt like spring. Men and mules stepped briskly, glad to go to work.

For the first time since the boll-weevils came and pestered the cotton, the crop had been abundant, and now the field must be cleared of old stalks for the winter.

The summer’s dry weather had been a big help. No rain came to wash the poison off. Sherry ran the poison machine over the fields at night when the cotton was wet with dew and the thirsty weevils drank poisoned dew and died. It was a scary thing to see these great white clouds of poison dust rising and settling to kill. The people scarcely dared to look.

Now, every lock of cotton was picked, and the plows were to turn the stalks under so deep in the earth the boll-weevils would not have as much as one lone cotton leaf to eat during the winter. April was planning already to make such a big crop next year, the gins would have to run day and night when fall came, to get the cotton packed into bales by Christmas! Money would be plentiful one more time!

A score of men were plowing, most of them tall strong fellows, straight and slender as tree-trunks. Their ease and skill made Breeze almost despair, for plowing was a hard job to him. But Sherry was chaffing them, calling them scary ladies who stayed at home and slept with the women and children while he and April fought boll-weevils all night long.

He wouldn’t hold it against them if they’d work well in the daytime and plow the crop fast and keep the ground-crust broken and the grass killed. He and April could attend to the weevils next summer, all by themselves. With that big poison machine and three mules, he could poison forty acres a night. Instead of resenting what Sherry said, the men laughed good-naturedly and declared they were satisfied to leave the boll-weevils to Sherry and April. Let the devils fight the devils.

Leah’s Brudge was there, right in among the men. He plowed last year and showed he felt important. At first he scarcely noticed Breeze who struggled and strove to hold his unruly plow steady and straight like Sherry’s.

Each man had his own mule, taught to his ways. Sherry’s mule, Clara, was a beauty. Sleek and trim and spry, she understood every word Sherry spoke. Brudge had Cleveland, an old brown mule with sprung fore-knees, but with a steady gait and a nice coat of hair. Breeze had old Cæsar, a shaggy, logy beast, mouse-colored, except where bald spots marked his hide black. One blind eye was like a hard-boiled egg and the other had an uncertain peep, but Sherry said Cæsar had sense like a man. All Breeze needed to do was hold the lines and the plow handles together and walk straight behind. Cæsar would do the rest. Breeze wished he might have had a handsomer beast, but even old Cæsar made his heart thrill.

The earth had been dried out by the warm autumn sunshine and it sent up clouds of dust as the sharp steel of the plows cut it deep, and long rows of rank stalks were uprooted and turned under and carefully covered with dark smooth soil.

April stood alone, watching the men and mules walking sturdily across the field, then back. When they neared him, their talking hushed except for words spoken to the mules.

Overhead a blue sky looked down; the breath of the stirred earth, scented strong with life, rose and brimmed up, filling the air.

When the plowmen reached the far side of the field again, turning slowly they moved along, side by side, talking and laughing. Their gay racket hushed in a hurry when April’s voice floated to them from where he stood, a tall speck by the trees in the distance. Clear and sharp his words fell through the sunshine.

“Hey dere! Yunnuh quit so much talkin’ and laughin’. I want all dem cotton stalks covered up deep!”

Every man of them stepped a little slower, every plowstock was gripped with a tighter hold after the correction. Merry chatter changed to stern shouts that chided the patient mules. “Hey, mule!”, “Watch you doin’s!”, “Gee!”, “Haw!”, “Come up!” The mules pulled harder and the crunching of the earth as the plows cut deeper took the place of laughter and gay bantering words.

The day moved on, warm and drowsy, with yellow sunshine still hot enough to cast black shadows, and draw sweat out of both men and beasts. April stood watching, hour after hour, while the swarm of mules and men trudged back and forth from the water’s edge to the woods and then back again, never stopping for even a breathing spell. The sun rode high in the sky. Shadows shortened. Breeze longed for the noon hour, time to stop and eat and drink and rest.

Once or twice as Brudge passed Breeze and Cæsar, he looked at the old mule and giggled. Then he called out, “Breeze is plowin’ a spring puppy!” When he had gone a little way past he looked back and said something that made the plow-hands laugh out. But Sherry stopped Clara short in her tracks.

“You better shut you’ mouth, Brudge!” he warned. “You gits too big for your breeches sometimes. Breeze can’ lick you, but I kin an’ I will.”

Breeze couldn’t hear Brudge’s answer, but he caught up in time to hear the end of Brudge’s outburst of abuse of Sherry. The other men went on plowing, except one of the older ones, who stopped to shame Brudge for the vile words he had used.

“What de matter ail yunnuh?” April called.

Nobody answered, so he started walking leisurely toward them.

Sherry stuck his plow’s point deep in the earth, dropped his plow lines on the ground, then undid the trace-chains and hung them up on Clara’s collar.

Brudge stood looking at him, then back at April. “I ain’ botherin’ you, Sherry. You better left me ’lone,” he whined.

If Sherry heard him he gave no sign, but stepped lightly over the furrows toward Brudge, who gave an outcry and started to run. Sherry’s long arm reached out and caught him, drew him up close, held him fast, while Sherry’s words fell fast and hard as fire-heated rocks.

“I ain’ gwine butt you fo’ what you called me. No. I’m gwine crack you’ skull for dat what you call my mammy.” Sherry tilted his head back, and Brudge gave a shrill yell.

“Don’ butt me, Sherry!” The words were scarcely out when Sherry’s slender powerful body swayed lightly forward from the hips, and his forehead crashed down right on Brudge’s skull.

For a second or two after the terrible blow fell home, Brudge made no sound. Sherry turned him loose, and he staggered a few paces and fell, screaming at the top of his lungs. Sherry had killed him! His head was broken to pieces. Prone on the soft plowed ground Brudge twisted and writhed, like a fish out of water.

Sherry paid no attention to him at all, but went back to Clara, hitched the trace-chains, took up the rope lines, and clicked his tongue. “Git up, Clara!” he said quietly, and the mule stepped off.

To Breeze, April was the very greatest man on earth, but all of a sudden Sherry seemed to grow. His limbs became taller, straighter, his shoulders broader, his supple waist slenderer. His eyes were terrible when they flashed at Brudge, ashine with furious light, and his strong white teeth ground together as if they could bite Brudge’s body in two.

April was coming toward them. A little faster now. What would he say when he got there? The plow-hands stopped and waited. One shamed Brudge for his lack of manners, then turned his head away and spat on the ground with disgust.

April’s long legs strode leisurely across the soft new furrows, his stout hickory stick stepping lightly beside him. When his eyes looked at Brudge there on the ground, holding his head in both hands, rolling up his body and rocking it back and forth, then falling on the ground again, howling with pain and shame and anger, April’s lips curled up from his big yellow teeth in a scornful smile.

“What kind o’ plow-hand is you, Brudge? Is dat de way you does a man’s work?”

“Sherry butt me!--E broke my skull!--I got a bad headache!”

“Do shut you’ mouth, an’ git up off de ground! Unhitch you’ mule an’ go on home to Leah. Baby!”

Brudge got up slowly, and moaning low but steadily did what he was told. With April, he was very humble. His trembling fingers fumbled at the lines and trace-chains, but he kept up a furious sobbing all the time he worked at knots and links.

“Help him, Breeze!” April’s order cracked out like the snap of a whip.

Breeze hurried forward obediently, not that April had ever mistreated him, or even scolded him, but because he knew that April ruled everybody and everything on the plantation with a heavy hand. People, beasts, even plants and insects, had to bend to his stubborn will, or suffer.

“Hey, Sherry!” April called. “Come dis way! Left Clara whe’ e is! Git a move on you, too!”

April was rarely unjust, and sometimes he was almost gentle, but now his voice stung the air. Sherry had better not vex him further, or there’d be trouble.

Although Sherry walked without hurry, he was out of breath when he reached April. His hands shook a little as men do when a chill is about to seize them.

“How come you butt Brudge?” April asked him coldly.

“You ought to be glad I butt em. Brudge is a no-manners scoundrel.”

“If he done wrong, whyn’ you tell me?”

“I ain’ no news carrier.”

April’s eyes glittered as he shifted his hickory stick from one hand to the other.

“You ain’ Brudge’s daddy, you know?”

“No.” And Sherry smiled. “I ain’ nobody’s daddy, not yet.”

“Wha’ you mean by dat?” April’s voice rose, and in a sudden burst of anger he seized Sherry by the shoulder. “You can’ sass me, Sherry! You know it too! If you wanted to butt somebody, whyn’ you come try my head, instead o’ mashin’ up a li’l’ half-grown boy like Brudge? I got a mind to make mush out o’ you’ brains right now. You ever was a’ impudent black devil!”

Sherry’s eyes gleamed, his fists clenched, and he drew closer to April. “I didn’ had no cause to butt you, dat’s why! But I just as soon butt you as anybody else.”

April smiled. “I hate to kill you, Sherry. You’s a good plow-hand, an’ I need you.”

Sherry’s answer didn’t lag one iota, and he met April’s eyes with a steadfast look. “Come try me! Just stick you’ neck out! One time! Just one time! You t’ink you’s de onliest man got a skull on dis whole plantation. I got a bone in my head, too. Come try em! I’ll butt you’ brains out same as if you wasn’ my daddy!” Sherry’s eyes glared, his head crouched between his shoulders, he came forward with a rush. But April jerked him clear up off his feet, and his big head came down on Sherry’s forehead with a butt that brought the blood streaming from both men’s nostrils.

Sherry staggered back a step, then leaped forward, but April’s powerful outstretched arms hurled him toward the plow-hands, who caught him and held him fast, for April warned them.

“Yunnuh hold dat boy. If e comes back at me I’ll kill em. An’ we ain’ got time to be diggin’ a grave, not till de cotton’s all plowed under.”

“You mens lemme go, I tell you! I ain’ scared o’ April. Lemme go!”

“Yunnuh ain’ to fight! Great Gawd! Yunnuh’d kill one anudder. You can’ git loose, Sherry. No, suh!”

Sherry struggled fruitlessly. Then he stood still. April wiped his nose on his shirt-sleeve, picked his ragged hat up off the ground, set it straight on his head, then quietly buttoned up the neck of his shirt, for a sudden gust of wind came up cool from the rice-fields.

Casting his eyes up at the sky where a flock of small ragged clouds hung high and white, he said calmly, “Yunnuh better git back to plowin’. It’s gwine rain in a few days an’ we must git dis big field finished befo’ den.”

He tried to speak coolly. Quietly. To hold up his head triumphantly. But his shoulders had a dejected droop, as he turned his back and went toward the woods.

After a few steps, he turned around, “Sherry, you an’ me can’ live on de same place. Not no mo’. I’ll kill you sho’ as we try it. For a little I’d kill you now. You git on off. I don’ care whe’ you go, just so I don’ see you, not no mo’! Git outen de field! Right now, too.”

Breeze felt hot, then cold. The blood rose in his throat and choked him. If he could only help Sherry kill April! But he stood shaking, shivering, with lips twitching, until April asked, “What is you cryin’ about?” And Breeze stammered weakly, in a thin reedy voice, “I ain’ cryin’, suh.” The glare April gave him made him dizzy like a blow between his eyes.

“Den git at you’ work! Don’ be wastin’ good time on a mawnin’ like dis!”

Sherry held up his head and fastened his look on April, but the tears that ran down his cheeks belied his hard reckless smile. In a voice broken by hate and fury he cried out:

“You stinkin’ ugly devil---- Quit scarin’ dat li’l’ boy! You’s got a coward-heart even if you’ head is too tough fo’ Hell! I hope Gawd’ll rot all two o’ you feets off! I hope E will----” Sherry stretched out a fist and shook it helplessly, then broke into sobs.

“Hush, Sherry! You better left April alone now. You done said enough,” warned one of the men, but April strode away. If he heard Sherry’s cursing he made no sign of it. And Sherry walked across the field to Clara, who stood, still hitched to the plow, waiting for him to come back. He patted her nose. “Good ol’ Clara. I’m gwine. Breeze’ll take you to de barnyard, won’t you, Breeze?”

Breeze tried to answer a loud “Yes, Sherry!” but a dumb sob shook his words.

“Good-by, mens!”

“Good-by, Sherry!”

That was all. Sherry walked away toward the Quarters. As Breeze watched him go the sunshiny noon grew dim. The plows went on cutting down stalks, burying them, but the men were silent as death. Birds kept singing in the forest trees, but their notes had a doleful sorrowful sound. The day had paled. The rice-fields meeting the sky yonder, so far away, were hazy and sad. The wind itself wept through the trees. A flock of crows passed overhead, croaking out lonesome words to one another.

The field lay dark. Dismal. Its rich earth changed to dry barren land. The men who plowed it walked in a distressful silence.

Sherry was gone. Zeda’s Sherry. The most promising young man on the whole plantation. April’s big-doings bullying had run him off. April would pay for it. He’d poison cotton by himself next summer. He could make the men do almost anything else, but he’d never get them to poison boll-weevils. They knew better than to fight Providence. April wasn’t God. No.

From the Quarters a scream rose and swelled until its long, weird, melancholy note went into a death-cry! Zeda’s grieving! Breeze had to clench his teeth to keep from bursting out crying himself. Suppose April got mad with him some time, and butted him? What would he do? He couldn’t do anything but stand still and take it and die.

He went on plowing, side by side with the rest in the painful silence that hung on stubbornly. The soft flat-footed pattering of the men’s bare feet, the dead flat thudding of mule steps, the sullen waving of the branches in the wind, the low murmuring of the water, all fell together into a dull batch of doleful sound.

Flocks of field larks rose up and cried out plaintively as their feeding-ground was turned under. Old Louder chased them in a slow trot, sniffed at them, then at some smell in the earth. Coming up to Breeze, he rubbed against his legs and whined. Breeze gave him nothing in return, only a low word or two, and a furtive pat on the head, so he trotted off to one side, and sat on his haunches, watching the plowmen with sorrowful eyes. He missed Sherry too.

When the bell rang for noon, Breeze was near the rice-fields side. His mule stopped short and seized a mouthful of grass, as he gazed toward Sandy Island. It was far away to-day. The haze had every sign of it hidden. A broad sheet of water sparkled and glittered, as bright reflections of white clouds floated softly, silently on its shining surface. All the channels were buried. What was his mother doing now? And Sis? He swallowed a sob and turned the mule’s head toward home, and saw Big Sue waddling across the field. She didn’t follow any path, but came on straight toward him, over the soft plowed earth. Why was she coming to the field at noon? He had his breakfast long ago, and he always went home for dinner. Maybe she wanted to talk about Sherry. She stopped and said a few words to April but she came on to Breeze.

She gave Breeze a hand-wave as she got nearer, but her face was solemn, without any show of a smile. “April says you kin come straight on home, Breeze. Somebody else’ll take de mules to de lot.”

Giving his shoulder a gentle pat, she drew Breeze up to her with a little hug. She didn’t say a word, and her eyes looked wet.

April was waiting at the path, and he walked on home beside them. Tall, solid as a tree, rugged, tough-sinewed, double-jointed, yet the cruel look in his deep-sunk eyes that blazed out when they looked at Sherry, had given way to something else. They glowed bright as he turned back and looked across the rice-fields toward Sandy Island, and said gently:

“Sandy Island is way back behind de clouds to-day.” His anger with Sherry had passed.

His voice sounded unsteady, his features were haggard and ashy.

Big Sue looked at him, then at Breeze. “You break de news to Breeze, April. I ain’ got de heart.”

April shook his head. “Me neither.”

Big Sue’s small eyes blinked. “Son,” she hesitated strangely, and laid a hot fat hand gently on his shoulder, “you t’ink you got a mammy, enty?”

Of course Breeze thought so. He was so sure of it. What on earth was Big Sue aiming at?

“No, son.” She shook her head slowly. “You ain’ got none. You’ mammy went out on de tide befo’ day dis mawnin’.”

What did Big Sue mean? Breeze felt confused. Where had his mother gone on that before-day-tide? He didn’t understand what Big Sue was talking about.

Marsh-hens cackled gaily out in the rice-fields. A crane croaked. A fish-hawk circled high, then halted to poise himself for a swoop.

Taking Breeze by the hand Big Sue led him on through the greenish shade cast by the live-oaks over the road and the cabin’s yard. Her bright cold eyes peeped out sidewise at him now and then. She was trying to be kind. Once she said, “I’se gwine to be you’ mammy now, since you’ own mammy’s dead and gone.”

Breeze felt as if he was in a dream, walking in his sleep. His legs were numb and heavy.

“Hurry up, son! You must walk faster. We got to dress an’ go to de buryin’, cross de river in a boat. April’ll let Sherry take we across de river in de boat, enty, April?”

“No, not Sherry. Somebody else’ll take you. Sherry’s done gone off. To stay.”

“Wha’ dat you say, April? Sherry’s gone?”

“I run em off de place a while ago.”

“Great Gawd! What is dis! April, don’t you know Zeda’s gwine kill you? Man! I’m glad I ain’t you. You might be strong, but you ain’ strong as dat conjure Zeda’s gwine put on you.”

Louder had followed them from the field, and now sat on his hind quarters, listening, watching, snapping at a fly now and then. As a squirrel ran down the trunk of a tree and across the yard, he jumped up and ran a few paces, then came back and sat down again, as though he had done his duty.

“Come on in de house an’ dress, Breeze. I don’ believe you got it straight in you’ head yet. You’ ma is dead, son! Dead! De people is gwine put em in a grave soon as dis same sun goes down.”

Breeze looked up at each of the grown people. He felt hurt, as if his mother had abandoned him just when he wanted to see her most, to go back home to her. Sherry was gone away. She was dead. Nobody was left, but Uncle Bill. Leaning toward Big Sue he hid his face in the folds of her skirt and wept.

“Don’ cry, son,” she soothed him. “Come on an’ eat some dinner. You got to go wid me to de buryin’. Enty, April?”

She led him inside and made him sit in a chair beside April, while she fried links of sausage to eat with the bread and cups full of sweetened water. The sausage had a savory smell, and Breeze bit into it and chewed it a long time, but he could scarcely swallow it for the choking lump in his throat. His mother was dead. She was no longer yonder at Sandy Island with Sis and the other children. She had flown up into the sky, where Heaven was, and Jesus and all the angels. April washed his food down with great swallows of water. How dumb he was.

“Lawd!” Big Sue grunted as she came out of the shed-room with her Sunday dress on her arm. “Ain’ it awful to die in sin? It pure scares me half to death when I think on Breeze’s mammy a hoppin’ in Hell right now! Great Gawd! Wid fire a scorchin’ em!”

“How you know?” April thundered out.

“How I know? I know e was a’ awful sinner. You know so too. E got dis same Breeze right here at Blue Brook whilst a revival meetin’ was gwine on. You don’ call dat sin?”

April didn’t so much as crack his teeth, and she looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“You an’ her all two better had got religion dat summer.”

“You better keep you’ mouth shut, now, Big Sue. You’s a-talkin’ out o’ turn. Better help Breeze dress. E’s a settin’ yonder on de floor wid jaws hangin’ open! Boy, you’s gwine swallow a fly if you don’ mind.”

Breeze was trying to think. His mother, his dear, kind, good mother, was hopping in Hell. Burning in a fire nine times hotter than the fire on earth!

“April!” Big Sue called out, “you ought to buy Breeze a nice pair o’ shoes an’ stockin’s to wear to de buryin’.”

“Brudge is got a pair Breeze kin borrow an’ wear. I ain’ got time to go to de sto’ now.”

“Please go git ’em fo’ me.”

April got up stiffly and walked away. In a little while Brudge came bringing a pair of Leah’s shoes. He had lost one of his own, but Leah sent her slippers instead. April said they would do. They were low-cut and shiny, with high heels and a strap across the instep. Breeze made such a poor out at walking in them, Big Sue couldn’t help laughing, although she declared she was not making sport of him.

“Take ’em off, son. Tote ’em in you’ hand till we git to Sandy Island,” she suggested, and Breeze did.