Chapter VIII: Part 8

Uncle Bill rowed the boat that took them to Sandy Island, and although he pulled hard with his oars, the sun was almost down when they reached the cabin up on the hill above the river.

Mules and oxen hitched to carts filled the yard, and the house was crowded with people.

Big Sue made Breeze sit down on the ground and put on Brudge’s stockings and Leah’s shoes. They made his feet stumble about miserably, but Big Sue said that made no difference, since they looked nice.

He was terribly excited, but as he walked hand in hand with Big Sue up the steep path into the yard he could hear people say:

“Lawd, Breeze is grow fo’ true. Looka e fine clothes!”

Seeing his old home made him forget to be polite.

Big Sue whispered, “When de ladies an’ gentlemens speaks to you, bow an’ pull you’ foot an’ say, ‘Good evening.’ Don’ grin at ’em like a chessy-cat! Be mannersable!”

When Sis came to the door Breeze broke away from Big Sue’s hand and ran, half falling up the steps. Sis grabbed him and held him tight. He put his arms around her and squeezed her, and they laughed and cried together. Poor Sis! Her body felt like a pack of bones! Where was the baby? Where were all the other children? Sis whispered they’d been sent off to a neighbor’s house until after the burying was over. She didn’t have time to feed them and look after everything else.

Big Sue interrupted the tight hug Breeze was giving Sis: “Come on in, boy, an’ look at you’ ma. Dey’s ready to put em in de box.”

The cabin was full of a queer smell. Breeze hated to go inside, but Big Sue held him fast by the arm and drew him toward the shed-room door. The room was dim, for the one wooden shutter was closed so that very little light could filter through. Breeze saw only a few solemn-looking black women standing around the bed. He couldn’t bear to go any farther. But Big Sue’s firm hand urged him on, its strong jerks making it useless to draw back.

“Don’t you cut no crazy capers wid me, Breeze. You got to come look at you’ ma. I want de people to see I raised you to have respect fo’ you’ parents. Open de window, Sis!”

The small room looked even smaller on account of the low ceiling, and the bed, the only piece of furniture, was pushed out from the wall leaving a narrow way all around it.

Sis undid the window latch and flung the shutter back. The sun flooded the white bed with blood-red light, and marked a long slim thing under a sheet. One of the black women turned the sheet slowly down and exposed a pinched face. A chin bound with a white cloth. Two bony black hands crossed on a sunken breast. Two feet whose black skin showed through thin white stockings. The feet were still, not hopping.

That strange stiffness could not be his mother! Breeze shut his eyes tight to keep from seeing it.

“Open you’ eyes, Breeze. Stand ’side you’ ma an’ look at em good fo’ de last time. You ain’ never gwine see em no mo’.”

“No! No! Cun Big Sue! Don’ make me look at em! Please, Cun Big Sue!”

Breeze began screaming in spite of himself. He wanted to be good. To please Big Sue. To have manners. But that thing on the bed was too fearful.

He felt himself lifted in Big Sue’s strong arms. Her hot breath puffed on him as she bore him close to the bed. The terrible scent filling the house rose in his nostrils. Screams split his throat. He couldn’t hold them in to save his life. Although his eyelids squeezed tighter shut, tears poured through them.

Big Sue’s determined fingers tugged at them, pulling them apart, until his eyes, naked, except for tears, were held over his mother’s face. Her two dead eyes peeped out from half-closed lids, her black lips cracked open over a grin of cold white teeth. He strove wildly to get away, but Big Sue held him until a soft darkness swallowed everything.

When Breeze came to himself he was flat on the ground, so near the cape jessamine bush that a cool clean blossom touched his cheek.

Where were Big Sue and Sis?

He raised up, and saw men with white gloves on their hands bringing a long new pine box through the door. They came down the steps and went toward a wagon. As they passed an old mule, the beast tried to break his tether and run. A man yelled at him, another jerked him by the bit, a third got a stick and frailed him, but Uncle Bill called out, “Don’ lick em, son. Dat mule smell death and it fret em. Pat em. Talk easy to em. Death kin scare people, much less a mule.”

Everybody was leaving the house. They had forgotten Breeze. He couldn’t stay here by himself, with nothing to keep him company but that strange smell that followed the box out of the shed-room and settled right in the cape jessamine bush. It drowned the scent of the blossoms.

Hopping to his feet he ran humbly to Big Sue, and slipped a hand in hers, “Lemme go wid you, Cun Big Sue. I ain’ gwine holler no mo’.”

Big Sue gave his hand a painful squeeze, “I’m dat provoke’ wid you, Breeze, I can’ talk. But you wait till I git you home. You’s de kickin’est nigger I ever did see. But you wait till I git you home. I bu’sted one sleeve clean out o’ my new dress a-tryin’ to hold you.”

With his heart tingling Breeze tottered on. His eyes blurred. His legs scarcely could carry him down the sandy road toward the graveyard under the tall trees.

The afterglow fell clear from the sky on an open grave with dark earth piled high on each side of it. It was outlined by flaming smoking torches held in the hands of the mourners, who marched slowly around it, singing a funeral dirge. One man, dressed in a long white robe, stood at the head of the grave, his deep voice chanting the solemn burial service. Breeze’s mother belonged to the Bury League, and all the members carried a white lily. When the leader gave the sign they held the flowers, arm high, and yelled, “Christ is Risen!” but the leader was a strange man, not his stepfather.

A hymn, or spiritual, was raised, and the whole crowd joined in with great questioning waves of sound, sometimes harmony, sometimes dissonance. Breeze’s heart ached. He wanted to cry out too, to the great Creator of Life. He felt bewildered when Sis gave a piercing shrill wail, that rose high and sharp above the somber death chant. Her cry had scarcely died away before an answer came echoing from the opposite side of the grave. Big Sue looked at Uncle Bill with a mischievous grin that shocked Breeze. How could anybody laugh here? The very woods reechoed the unearthly death-cries!

The mournful singing gradually changed into a confused din, a whirlwind of grief. Men and women shrieked and shouted. They shook and shimmied their shoulders, and jerked their arms and gyrated about in a frenzy of grief and excitement. Some of the women went wild. They beat their breasts and cried above the roaring hubbub. But all the time Sis’ shrill, piercing, falsetto wailing kept steadily calling across the grave. Her screams rose high and then melted into the life of the air.

The tall brown trunks of pine trees around them loomed up until their plumy tops touched the sky. They waved gently, mysteriously, above the confused group of people. Red sweaters and blue overalls, green and purple and yellow dresses, wide white aprons and turban-bound heads, black hands and faces, were all tinged with a rosy glow dropped over them by the sky as night began creeping out of the forest.

The strong damp odor of the woods freshened, and mosquitoes stung Breeze’s face and hands and ankles. He was unhappy. Wretched. When Big Sue said, “De mosquitoes is too bad. Dey got me in a fever! Le’s go,” he felt a relief to get away from it all.

Not even Sis paid them any attention as they turned around, facing homeward. She was too absorbed in grief, in the terrible thought of Death, that strange mystery which had just stricken Breeze’s mother.

Breeze hurried along the road, fearing snakes less than the sound of that inferno of mourning which followed behind him.

Sandy Island was quiet; the cabin on the hill empty; the dusk on the river so deep that the boat was scarcely outlined against the water; but Breeze could see the old dead pine down on the white sand. It’s head had fallen. Its whole length rested on the ground.

His brain whirled in his skull. Cold tremors ran through his body. His mother had buried all her money at the foot of that tree. So had old man Breeze. But nothing less than strong iron chains could have dragged the boy one step nearer it.

Uncle Bill helped Big Sue to her seat in the boat’s stern, where she sat solemn and stiff and ruffled like a sitting hen.

They went in silence. The water whispered in bubbles, but the wind had died out of the trees.

* * * * *

In the cabin, a big fire blazed up the chimney, and a delicious scent of food came to meet them.

“Who dat in my house?” Big Sue cried out, when April came to the door.

“You got company.”

“Who? You?”

“No. You guess again.”

“I dunno, an’ I’m too weak to walk, much less talk.”

“It’s Joy. E come on de boat dis evenin’.”

Big Sue stopped short in her tracks, dumb-struck. “Great Gawd! You don’ mean it! Whe’ is Joy?”

Instead of hurrying forward she gazed at the cabin with black dismay as if she turned some terrible thought over and over in her mind, but a warm laugh gurgled out, and a low voice called:

“What did you tell Ma for, Cun April? I been want to fool em!”

A girl in a bright red dress and with red-stockinged legs came bounding across the yard to meet them.

“How you do, Ma? I bet you is surprised to see me!” She held her mouth up to meet Big Sue’s, their kiss made a loud smack, then Uncle Bill hurried to shake her hand.

“Lawd, Joy! Just de sight o’ you would cure de sore eyes! Honey, you looks sweet enough to eat!” Breeze stared at her. Deep down in his heart he felt Uncle Bill spoke the truth. He had never seen any one like Joy before.

She leaned to pull up one red stocking tighter over a knee, but she grinned up into Uncle Bill’s face. “Do listen at Uncle Bill! A-sweet-talkin’ me right here befo’ ev’ybody!” Her eyes beamed, her low soft drawl was full of friendliness, and she turned to Breeze with a blithe greeting:

“How you do, son? I’m sho’ glad to see you here wid Ma!” A small bold hand shot out to meet his, but Breeze cast his eyes down, bashful and afraid. The hand gave his shoulder a light pat, took one of his and led him toward the house.

“You ain’ scared o’ me, is you, son? Come on in by de fire. I want to see you good.”

Breeze couldn’t say a word, but as they walked in April threw a fat pine knot on the fire to make a better light. The fire blazed up, crackling merrily, making the room hot and bright, but shyness kept Breeze’s face turned away from Joy, until with a quick laugh she wheeled him around and lifted his chin.

“How come you won’ look at me, son?” Her face was so close Breeze could feel her breath when she laughed again, but his eyes were riveted on her twinkling shoe-buckles.

“Left de boy ’lone, Joy. E don’ feel like playin’. His ma was just buried dis evenin’. Come unstring my shoes, son. I ain’ gwine let Joy plague you.”

As he knelt to unlace the shoes Joy appealed to him: “I ain’ plaguin’ you, is I, Breeze? Me an’ you is gwine be buddies, enty?” Breeze looked up and met her slanting eyes, and the smile that lit them seemed to him so lovely, so gentle, he fairly tingled all over. He had never seen anybody like Joy before. Her slight body in its scant, red satin dress was not tall, but it had the straight, swift, upward thrust of a pine sapling. Her slim black arms, bare from the elbows, and held akimbo, came out from shoulders lean as his own. Her short skirt gave a flirt and Breeze’s glance darted to the skinniness of her red-stockinged legs. But her smile had thrilled the fear out of him, and given him confidence enough to feast his eyes on her gay over-ripe little figure, from the bright buckles on her shiny black slippers to the short coarse straightened hair on her small head.

“Set down, honey. Talk to Uncle Bill an’ you’ Cun April whilst me an’ Breeze fixes supper.” Big Sue’s bare feet pattered back and forth from the hearth to the four-legged safe against the wall, mixing bread, and smoothing it on a hot griddle, slicing meat and dropping it on a hot spider, once in a while scolding Breeze for dawdling, or asking Joy a question about the town or the school. April smiled and joined pleasantly in the talk Joy led. A necklace of blue glass beads clinked against the smooth black skin of her neck, gold bracelets glittered on her slim wrists. Breeze was bewildered, rapt with the glamour of her. Her sparkling eyes strayed from one face to another until they met April’s, bold and staring. Joy’s flickered and fell and her laughter chilled. Like everybody else, she feared him, and his shining gaze, fixed on her alone, withered all the fun out of her and put something sober in its place.

Except for the fire’s crackling a hush filled the room. Big Sue suddenly straightened up from bending over the pots and, looking over her shoulder, said, “Git de plates out o’ de safe, Breeze. How come yunnuh is so quiet? Dis ain’ church!”

April laughed and shifted in his chair and his eyes turned from Joy to her mother. “De victuals smells so good, I’m gone got speechless!”

“Me too,” Joy chimed, but Uncle Bill got up to go. He had already stayed longer than he intended. He must go see if everything at the barnyard was in order.

April stood up to say good night, tall, straight-limbed, broad-shouldered, hawk-eyed.

“Stay an’ eat wid us, Cun April, you too, Uncle Bill! What’s you’ hurry?”

Uncle Bill had to go. He had left Jake to see about feeding the stock, and Jake was mighty forgetful and careless. Nobody could depend on him.

In spite of the fineness of her red satin dress, Joy took the plates from Breeze and piling two of them with the collards dripping with pot liquor, and chunks of fat meat and pieces of the newly baked corn-bread, she gave Big Sue and April each one.

“Yunnuh must eat all dis I put on you’ plates,” Joy bade them gaily, but silence had fallen over them. Both their faces wore a troubled look. April’s eyes held both darkness and light, and a kind of sadness Breeze had seen sometimes in Sis’ eyes.

“How was de buryin’?” April asked when the edge of his appetite was dulled.

“Fine! Fine! All but dat fool boy Breeze. E made me pure shame.” Big Sue’s words were smothered by food in her mouth, but Breeze felt the sharp sting of their bitter contempt. He longed to get up and go back into the dark shed-room and hide, but shame chained his feet to the floor and made his neck so limp his head drooped lower and lower.

“Wha’ dat Breeze done so bad?”

April leaned his head against the mantel-shelf, and listened without a word to Big Sue’s story. Most of the time he looked into the fire, deep in thought, forgetting to eat his supper.

When Big Sue’s tale was done, Breeze listened for April’s abuse, but instead of scolding him, April spoke kindly, gently.

“Don’ be too hard on de boy, Big Sue. Death kin scare bigger people dan Breeze. I don’ like to look on em myself. Gawd made people so. Mules too. When Dukkin put pizen in de spring last summer and killed Uncle Isaac’s old mule, Lula, I had a time gittin’ em dragged off to de woods. Sherry said he could hitch Clara to em, but Clara was so scared, e reared up and kicked an’ tried to run away. Sherry had to blindfold Clara wid a cloth over both eyes befo’ she’d go anywhere nigh old dead Lula. It’s de Gawd’s truth. An’ Clara is a mighty sensible mule.”

“Po’ li’l’ Breeze,” Joy pitied softly, and Breeze’s heart warmed, for April and Joy both took his part. Big Sue wouldn’t lick him to-night. She never did lick him when April was there.

“You-all stop talkin’ ’bout death. You scare me so I wouldn’t sleep a wink to-night! Whe’s Sherry?” Joy asked suddenly.

Big Sue looked at April instead of answering. April stirred in his chair, his big feet shuffled on the floor, his slow answer was a growl.

“Sherry’s left de plantation, Joy. I run em off.” His black brows knit into an angry line.

“Why--why--how come you done dat, Cun April?” Joy’s teeth looked white and sharp, her red satin dress shimmered in the firelight, her words were husky, half whispered.

“I had to, Joy. Sherry is a impudent rascal. I’d ’a’ killed em if e had ’a’ stayed here.”

April scratched his head and his eyes turned uneasily toward the door, but before he spoke, tears welled up in Joy’s eyes, a deep sob burst from her bosom, and she got up and ran back into the shed-room where she lay on the bed and wept, in spite of Big Sue’s reproaches.

“Why, Joy! You ought not to take on so! Why, Honey, Sherry’ll be back befo’ long.”

XVII

HOG-KILLING

Now that Joy had come home for good, Big Sue planned to fix up the cabin. April sent Brudge to help Breeze whitewash the outside with oyster-shell lime, burned and crushed right on the beach. Fresh clean newspapers were brought from the store with eggs and each wide sheet spread with white-flour paste and stuck fast to the inside walls over the old soiled worn-out papers that were cracked and broken by last year’s wind and weather. When this was done, the cabin was snug and tight. With the window blinds pulled in and the doors closed, not a bit of cold air could get in except through the cracks in the floor.

But Joy’s blood must have got thin, for she wore her long black cape constantly, and had spells of shivering in spite of its warmth.

The weather was scarcely cold enough for hog-killing, but Big Sue said Joy needed some rich food to thicken and hotten her blood. The girl took little interest in anything. She’d stand and gaze vacantly out of the window as if her soul were gone far away and her eyes tried to follow its flight.

Jeems, the shoat in the pen, must be killed. Joy’s appetite must be tempted somehow before her blood turned to pure water. She ate scarcely enough to keep a bird alive.

Somebody must have conjured her. Those long half-drowsy spells were not natural, and sometimes she sobbed in the night, hag-ridden with evil dreams. Jeems must be killed for Joy to eat.

Big Sue waked Breeze early. She gave him no chance to dawdle, for much had to be done in preparation. Joy offered to help, but Big Sue made her stay in bed and rest. Breeze washed the sleep out of his eyes, then tipped to Joy’s bedside for a word from her, but the dawn showed her eyes closed, and her quiet regular breathing told him she was sleeping. He turned his eyes away quickly to keep them from waking her.

Before the sun was up he had the big washpot in the yard, brimming full of water and a fire built under it. Uncle Bill brought a sound barrel and laid it slantwise and steady in a dug out place in the ground. He’d scald Jeems in that.

He took out his great pocket knife and opening its longest blade told Breeze to look how its sharp point was flashing! That knife was trained. It had sense like people. It was pure itching to stick in Jeems’ throat and slice his neck in two. When he had to kill a hog, he just pointed that knife blade toward the beast and gave it a push. It would fairly leap to the right spot. It never missed the big vein. His eyes twinkled with affection for his faithful tool as he ran a thick thumb lightly over its keen edge and felt its shining point.

“You hold em, Breeze, till I get de ax. De ax has to do a li’l’ work ahead o’ de knife.”

As he walked toward the wood-pile, Big Sue hurried out. “Do don’ knock Jeems, Uncle Bill!” She panted anxiously.

“I’m ’bliged to stun em, honey!”

“You’ll ruin all de brains.”

“I can’ help dat, Miss Big Sue. I couldn’ stick Jeems whilst he was in his right mind. No, ma’am.”

“Knockin’ a hog on de head makes de head cheese all bloody. Please don’ do dat! Go on an’ stick em. Don’ knock em!”

Uncle Bill stopped and scratched his head.

“I’d do mighty nigh anything to please you, Miss Big Sue, but I can’ suffer a hog any more’n I have to. I got to knock Jeems senseless, or I couldn’ kill em at all. Me an’ Jeems is been friends too long.”

“For Gawd’s sake don’ be so chicken-hearted.”

“I ain’ chicken-hearted, but I couldn’ stan’ to suffer Jeems whilst he was a-dyin’. No. Come on, Breeze. Le’s get dis killin’ over wid!”

Jeems’ black snout showed through a crack, and his short impatient grunts meant he was hungry, for Breeze had not fed him since yesterday noon. Breeze’s heart ached for his friend. How could Uncle Bill bear to knock Jeems in the head with that ax, while the poor beast’s eyes gazed up with such trustful friendliness!

“Jeems, old man! You’ time is out, son. Git ready to meet you’ Gawd!” Uncle Bill’s voice was sad.

Jeems held his fat face up, straining to see them better, for his eyes, almost closed with fat, were hampered by ears flapping over them. Poor Jeems!

Uncle Bill had his coat off, and his rolled-up shirt-sleeves showed the play of his powerful sinews under the skin. The ax rose high in the air, then leaped out and tightened, as Uncle Bill brought it down with a thud on Jeems’ forehead. The squeal in the hog’s throat changed to a strangled gurgle. The short forelegs staggered and gave way. The great heavy body fell sidewise to the ground. But Uncle Bill was already astride it with his knife’s bare blade ready.

A quick sharp stick in the neck brought a spurt of blood which a deeper thrust turned to a stream. Red, warm with life, its steam rising like smoke in the cool sunshiny air, Jeems’ blood poured out and wasted in the filth of his pen, until Big Sue’s cries brought Breeze to his senses.

“Great Gawd, Breeze! Ketch dat blood! You standin’ like a fool lettin’ em waste! I good mind to kill you! Blood puddin’ is de best o’ de hog-killin’!”

Breeze scrambled over the boards of the pen, and slipped a pan under Jeems’ unconscious head, and held it in place in spite of the kicking death-struggling legs, saving the bubbling red stream for a pudding. The smell of it made him sick, and he couldn’t meet the look of those half-closed staring eyes.

Poor Jeems! His time was out. His kicks were getting weaker. His eyelids were wilting down over his dull sightless eyes. His soul would soon be gone home to God. Breeze looked up at the sky, but Big Sue called out to give her the pan before he turned it over. It had caught enough for a small pudding.

The hog was hurried into the barrel and scalded before the life cooled out of him, and his skin scraped clean of hair. As Uncle Bill worked he told Breeze he must always be careful to see that the moon is right before he killed a hog. A wrong moon will set the hair in a hog’s skin so no knife on earth could move it. Meat killed on a waning moon will dry up to nothing, no matter how you cook it. A certain quarter of the moon will make the meat tough and strong, another will rot it, no matter how much salt you pack around it. If Breeze would learn all the moon signs he’d be spared a lot of trouble long as he lived. White people leave money to their children, but black people teach theirs signs, which is far better. Money can be taken from you, but knowledge can’t.

When Jeems was scalded and scraped and washed and cleaned, he was hung up by a hickory stick run through the white sinews in his hind legs. The carcass must cool before it was cut up, for meat, like bread, is spoiled if cut while it’s warm.

Bina had come to help Big Sue, and the two women bent over a wooden washtub, sorting out the liver and lights and chitterlings, putting the small entrails aside for sausage casings. The hog’s fine condition made Big Sue cheerful. She declared she’d make a lot more lard than she’d expected, for all of Jeems’ insides were coated with fat.

The higher the sun rose the faster they worked, even when the neighbors dropped by for a little neighborly talk and to see how the hog-killing went on.

At noon they stopped for a breathing spell and bite to eat. Hot brown corn-bread and bits of fried liver were washed down with sweetened water. The grown people smoked one pipeful apiece, then set to work again, for Jeems had cooled enough to be quartered.

The back door slipped off its hinges made a table large enough to hold him. Uncle Bill’s big knife cut off the huge head, and separated the hams and shoulders and sides from the long backbone. He trimmed them neatly, throwing the scraps of lean meat into one tub for sausage meat, and bits of firm white fat into another for to-morrow’s lard making.

He wanted to give Breeze the pig-tail to roast on the coals right then, but Big Sue said Breeze had no time to be playing with pig-tails now. If he’d work hard Uncle Bill might find the hog’s bladder for him, and to-night he and Brudge could pleasure themselves blowing it up like a balloon.

A number of the plantation dogs had gathered, and they had to be watched, specially the hounds and cur-dogs. The bird dogs were better-mannered. Big Sue wanted to scald the lot of them for the pesky way they nosed around, but Uncle Bill wouldn’t let her. God made dogs so they hankered after hog-meat. It was sinful to be short-patienced with them.

One pot simmered and stewed with liver and lights and haslets and rice liver pudding. Another pot slowly, carefully sputtered and spat as the blood, mixed with seasonings, thickened into pudding. The brains were taken out of the skull, which was put on for head cheese.

Breeze felt neither sadness nor squeamishness now. His mouth watered as his nose sniffed at all the appetizing smells.

The sun began throwing long shadows and Big Sue kept him hurrying. Every single hog hair had to be picked up and saved to plant in the potato patch next spring. Every hair would make a potato.

The waste had to be thrown in the creek. Breeze cast it in, a bucketful at a time. Horrid filthy stuff. It made him shiver, but the water swallowed it down with scarcely a splash, then flowed on smooth and clear, reflecting the bright clouds in the sky, shimmering in the last sunbeams, rising with the incoming tide to water its banks, which were yellow with marsh daisies. The willows were almost bare of leaves, and the slim naked trunks and branches bent over, looking away down into the Blue Brook’s quiet depths.

Sunset gilded the earth and cabins and trees, and streaked the white sandy yard with golden light. Uncle Bill hoped that such stillness would not bring rain soon, for the hay was in shocks in the field yet, and the corn not all broken in. He looked up at the sky as he spoke, and at once a light breeze sprang up to tell him to-morrow would be fair. He laughed with relief, and the big trees bowed gently, saying that they knew the little breeze had told the truth. Even the frost-faded grasses nodded and waved!

To stay fair the weather must turn cooler, and that would be good for Big Sue’s fresh killed meat. It would have a good chance to take the salt well. Such big hams needed careful curing.

Breeze must clean up the pen to-morrow and scatter ashes all over it, so Uncle Bill could bring Big Sue one of Melia’s red pigs to grow and fatten into a fine shoat by late spring.

Each piece of pork was rubbed well with salt and stored in Uncle Bill’s small log barn. There, they’d be safe until the morning, when they’d be rubbed again with salt mixed with sugar, and packed into a barrel to cure.

Old Louder sat on his thin haunches, patient and polite. He knew better than to beg, but his long ears failed to hide the pleading, wistful look in his eyes. Breeze tossed him a morsel of meat now and then and before one could touch the ground Louder caught and swallowed it with a deft snap of his jaws. Big Sue fairly screamed out:

“Feedin’ a dog wid my good meat, enty? I seen you. I’ll learn you better’n dat to-morrow mawnin’.”

As a rule Breeze said nothing, but the falling dusk looked so mournful, his body felt tired, his legs sore, his back and arms achy with so much work. This was the time of day he gave Jeems his supper, after the chickens and guineas were gone to bed. Now the pen was empty. Jeems was dead.

Pity for Jeems and himself made a sob heave up into his throat. Big Sue must have heard it, for her big moist salty hand closed over his mouth, “Shut up dat cryin’. You ain’ nuttin’ but a gal-baby! A-cryin’ here an’ me fretted half to death ’bout Joy! Drop you’ pants. I’s gwine lick you.”

* * * * *

Next morning, not a streak of daylight was showing through the house cracks when Breeze heard Big Sue up, stumbling around, dressing. She fumbled with the door-bar, taking it down, then went outside. She wanted to see how her meat was. Breeze turned over, but his dozing was broken up by a long terrible shriek. Without putting on even his breeches, he hopped out of bed and ran out to see what was wrong. Somebody’s house must be afire. Joy followed him, her teeth chattering, although she had a quilt wrapped around her.

Never in his whole life had Breeze heard such screams as Big Sue was making. Everybody in the Quarter came hurrying, nobody fully dressed. At first all stood dumb, panic-stricken with amazement, while Big Sue wailed out, between body-wrenching sobs, Jeems was gone! Stolen! Not a hair nor hide was left! The iron hasps holding the chain and lock in the door were pulled clear out of the door-frame. Outraged shouts broke from the crowd. Who here was mean enough to do such a thing? They eyed one another suspiciously. Even fists were clenched, for no such thing was ever heard of. If a ham or a side or a shoulder had been taken, that would have been bad enough, but a whole hog! It was too terrible to think about.

They tried to find some trace, maybe some tracks on the ground around the barn, but nothing was there plainer than Big Sue’s own flat barefooted ones.

She shrieked and beat her breast by fits and starts, weeping bitterly all in between.

Jeems was the finest hog ever butchered! She had never seen one lined thicker with fat! His meat would have lasted until next summer! And now it was gone! Stolen!

She jerked off the white cloth that bound her head and threw it down. Howling with rage she beat her head against the side of the barn until the blows of her skull had it fairly quivering. The neighbors’ efforts to console her failed. Not even Joy could make any impression on her raving. Breeze was at his wits’ end. The sunny day itself got somber. The birds chirped low and sorrowfully.

Leah was the last person to come. Fat, wabbly, she strolled up, smoking her pipe, one arm akimbo, and beneath her red headkerchief, her eyes gleamed strangely.

“Wha’ dat ail Big Sue? E’s gwine on like e got in a hornet’s nest!”

They told her the news, but instead of grieving Leah sucked her teeth. Big Sue was just trying to make fools of them. Who’d take a whole hog? How could anybody do such a thing? Just as likely as not Big Sue had the hog right yonder in her shed-room.

They all looked in that direction, then back at Big Sue, who had paused in her wailing.

“Wha’ dat you say, Leah?” She was panting with rage, and only a narrow piece of ground lay between them, but Leah gave a taunting wicked laugh. “You hear me good enough. It ain’ no use to say all dat over.”

“You low liar! You varmint!” Big Sue’s voice was heavy. Her reddened eyelids, puffed with fat and tears, squeezed as tight as her clenched fist.

“Yunnuh hear Big Sue cuss me, enty?” Leah cried.

“Hush, Leah! You come on home wid me!” April stepped up and would have led her away by the arm, but with the fury of a cyclone, she shook him off and with a savage yell rushed up to Big Sue and spat in her face.

Like a flash they closed. Arms, fists, heads, bodies, whirled, staggered, fell, rose. All efforts to pull them apart were useless. Leah was the first to waver. After an awful blow in the face her arms dropped. She stood still, then tilted back on her heels trying not to fall. As she struggled for breath her mouth stretched wide open, gasping as fish gasp out of water.

April ran up and caught her and eased her gently down on the ground. Horrible fear rose in Breeze’s heart, for the glazed look in Leah’s eyes was the same that filled Jeems’ yesterday, when death struck him.

People crowded around her. Somebody ran for a bucket of water and poured it all over her head and face.

Breeze could hardly see for the mist in his eyes, but he knew Leah was dying for one of her girls gave a long piercing death-cry.

“You is sho’ ruint now, Big Sue!” Bina said distinctly.

“You spit in my face an’ I’ll kill you de same way!”

“Hush, Ma. Fo’ Gawd’s sake, hush!” Joy plead.

“Leah’s de one stole my hog,” Big Sue bawled, “Leah’s de very one!”

“Hush, Ma! Fo’ Gawd’s sake, hush! Uncle Bill, do come make Ma go home.”

* * * * *

Next morning Big Sue was too ill to get out of bed. Joy kept cool green collard leaves tied on her forehead, and rubbed the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet with tallow, but she groaned and complained with every breath.

Joy sent Breeze with some sweetened bread for Leah’s children to eat with their dinner, but he took a long time to get there. Dread made his feet lag. He slunk along the path, scared by every moving shadow. Ready to jump out of his skin at the crackle of a twig.

He felt relieved when he saw Uncle Bill in April’s yard helping make Leah’s coffin out of clean pine boards lately sawed at the saw-mill. As the sharp plane smoothed the wood, yellow curls fell on the ground. One string exactly Leah’s length and another her breadth, showed how to fit the box to her size.

Breeze finally had to go inside the house to deliver the bread and Joy’s message that Big Sue would not be well enough to attend Leah’s burying. He gave both to Bina, who had a wilted mock-orange bough in her hand, fanning flies away from the bed where Leah lay covered over with a sheet.

“Big Sue’s right to stay sick. You tell em I say so, too,” Bina said tartly. But in a more kindly tone she asked Breeze if he wanted to see Leah. When he shook his head, Bina said Leah looked mighty nice. Just as peaceful as if she was sleep.

That day was as long as a week. The sun hung still for hours at a time. There was scarcely a breath of wind. Breeze was afraid to stay alone, and both Joy and Big Sue kept to their beds. Once he whispered, “Joy, is you sleepin’?” and she answered gently:

“No, son, I’m wake. Come lay down on de bed ’side me. I know you is lonesome. I is myself.”

Reaching her hand out to meet him, she drew his burning face down against her own soft cheek which was cold and wet with tears. He raised up and met her eyes, and the look in them was so sad, so sorrowful, it cut him clean through to the heart.

At last the sun dropped westward, setting in Leah’s grave. Curiosity made Breeze want to see what went on, but fear of death kept him in calling distance of Joy. He went up the road far enough to see the dust raised by the funeral procession, but the wailing death-cries ran him home.

Joy stood by the open window listening. When one lone cry rose high above all the rest, her full lips twitched, her sad eyes stared more gloomily and farther away, big bitter tears rolled down her cheeks.

Big Sue stayed in bed in the darkened shed-room, drinking root teas that smelled strong and rank.

At last night fell. Bedtime came. Breeze knelt down and tried to whisper his prayers. “O Lawd,” he began, but he got no further for Uncle Bill’s old hound, Louder, who had been resting and scratching fleas on the porch, suddenly lifted up his voice in a long mournful howl, and Breeze jumped into bed and covered his head.

* * * * *

Early next morning Bina came, pretending to ask about Big Sue’s health, but her eyes were round and her breathing quick with excitement. Had they heard the news? No? Everybody on the plantation was talking about it!

Somebody had put an awful conjure on April! Leah’s death-sheet had been folded and laid across the foot of April’s bed. When he woke this morning, there it was, tucked in at each side so it couldn’t slip off on the floor. Nobody knew who did it.

April wanted to throw it in the fire, but Maum Hannah stopped him. Burning a conjure bag, or a death-sheet, is the worst thing you can do. They have to be drowned. Maum Hannah sent for Uncle Isaac, and they both tried to make April drown the sheet in the Blue Brook, but he was too stubborn and hardheaded to mind them. Before they could stop him he dashed it on the red-hot coals. Uncle Isaac grabbed it out, but it was all blackened and scorched and burned.

Uncle Isaac took what was left of it and tied a rock up in it to make it sink. When he threw it in the Blue Brook the water splashed and bubbled and made a mournful groan, then turned green as grass! That sheet must have been loaded with conjure poison. Uncle Isaac stood just so and counted to ten like the old people used to do. Bina got up to show them. Holding out the fingers of her left hand she counted them over twice wuth the forefinger of her right, singing as she did it.

Dis-sem-be! Jack-walla!
Mulla-long! Mullinga!
Gulla-possum! Gullinga!
Sing-sang! Tuffee!
Killa-walla! Kawa! Ten!

“Uncle Isaac done it just so.”

Big Sue was glad. Anybody could see that. She got up and started putting on her clothes. She seemed to shed her worries. To get almost cheerful. Once in a while she sighed. “I’m sho’ sorry for April. Too sorry. E ought not to ’a’ scorched dat sheet.”

The day turned off rainy, dreary, the whole world was wet and blurred. Big Sue said rain always falls after a burying to settle the dust on the grave.

Joy’s head ached, and she went to bed. Big Sue dampened a cloth with vinegar and tied it on Joy’s forehead, then she went slushing toward the Quarters.

She had hardly got out of sight when Joy jumped up and began a hurried dressing. She put on a dark dress, and tied a white towel over her head.

Breeze cried out in astonishment. Where was she going?

“Nowhere!” answered Joy. “If Ma comes and asks where I is, you don’ know nothin’ at all. Nothin’!”

“Tell me whe’ you’s gwine, Joy.” Breeze begged.

With a sad little smile she leaned over and hugged him.

“I’s comin’ back, Breeze. I’m gwine be you’ mammy after to-day. Ma can’ lick you no more. But don’t you tell nobody. I’m gwine to see if de boat brings me a letter from Sherry.”

“Lemme go, Joy.”

“No, you stay home till Ma comes.”

He let her go, out in the rain. He couldn’t help himself. For a while he pottered about the room, for there was no use to go out into the mud and rain. Then he crawled back into bed, and went sound asleep. Once he roused, and heard the boat puffing on the river. It blew for the landing and stopped, then went pounding on into the distance.

Big Sue came in at noon, vexed about something or other. She began abusing Breeze for letting the fire die, soon as she entered the cabin.

“Whe’s Joy?”

“I dunno, ma’am.”

“How come you dunno?”

“I dunno how come.”

“You ain’ got no sense, dat’s how come! Blow up dis fire befo’ I lick you to death!”

Fear put strength into Breeze’s blowing, and the fire soon blazed up, cheerful and bright, but Big Sue was bursting with gall which she vented on Breeze.

He ran about trying to please her, his mouth dumb-stricken with misery. But her bitter abuse stung him to the very quick and overcame him completely. He burst out crying, just as the soft mud outside sucked loud at somebody’s footsteps.

Uncle Bill called in through the door, “Is anybody home?”

Big Sue’s voice shifted into a pleasanter key as she invited Uncle Bill to come in, then upbraided Breeze for crying like a baby about nothing.

Uncle Bill took Breeze’s part, and with a big red pocket handkerchief wiped Breeze’s face and eyes with gentlest care, and stroked his hands and tried to comfort him.

“Don’ cry, son. You’ eyes is like scraps o’ red flannel. Joy’ll think you’s a baby fo’ true. She wouldn’ b’lieve you kin shoot a gun an’ plow an’ ride a mule good as a man.”

Uncle Bill slipped off his wet shoes to dry them, and sat in his bare feet. “Whe’s Joy?”

“I dunno an’ Breeze wouldn’ tell me whe’ Joy went. I reckon e’s yonder to Zeda’s house a-listenin’ at Zeda’s brazen talk.”

“Zeda’s talk ain’ brazen since Sherry’s gone,” mused Uncle Bill. “No, Zeda’s down-hearted as kin be.”

His shoes and feet steamed in the heat, and he drew both back to a safe distance. Then he showed Breeze how his ankles were marked with tiny scars. “See my snake-cuts? Uncle Isaac fixed me when I wa’n’t no bigger’n you. You ought git him to fix you next spring.”

He explained how the short gashes were made near a vein, and poison from a rattlesnake and a moccasin rubbed in. This was repeated until the dose no longer caused sickness. No snake could ever harm him again. They knew it. They kept out of his way. Yet snakes had him out in the rain now, taking a bucket of milk to April’s children. Snakes had been worse than usual this fall. They were not satisfied with eating all the eggs out of the hen nests, but they sucked the cows dry too. April’s cow might as well be dry so far as giving milk for the family to drink.

“April’s got a lot o’ hogs. Hogs’ll suck cows same like a calf,” Big Sue reminded him.

Uncle Bill was sure the hogs were innocent. And besides, April’s cow came from a fine breed. She wouldn’t let a hog suck her. But snakes are tricky. While the cow was dozing, in the night, they’d slip up and wrap themselves around her leg and suck her dry as a bone and never wake her. Hogs were too awkward to get all the milk. And a fine nice cow like April’s wouldn’t stand any foolishness from a hog.

“Maybe de cow is lost her cud. Dat’ll dry up de milk,” Big Sue suggested again.

Uncle Bill dismissed that with a shake of the head. Cows did lose their cuds. One of his own cows lost hers every time the hags rode her, and that was mighty near every young moon. Giving her an old greasy dish-rag to chew on helped her get it back for a while, but she got so bad off, even that failed. Finally he had to go to Uncle Isaac and get him to take the conjure off her. She was conjured, no doubt about that.

“Who you reckon done it?” Big Sue’s ears had pricked up with the word “conjure,” but Uncle Bill wouldn’t say. It was better not to talk too much about such things. When they come, rid yourself of them the best you can, but don’t talk about them after they go. The less they get into your mind, the better off you are.

“Cows suck dey own se’f, sometimes,” Big Sue went back to the old subject. “April’s cow might be a-doin’ dat.”

Uncle Bill was certain that wasn’t so. Somebody would have seen her. Cows did it, he knew. He once owned a fine one that did it and her mother before her did it. Every daughter she had did it too. They had to wear pens around their necks, but nothing could ever break them from the ugly habit. It was born in their blood, just as some dogs are born gun-shy. It’s in the breed. People and dogs and cows are born to be what they are. They may cover it up for a long time, but it will come out sooner or later.

Big Sue nodded, agreeing, “Dat’s how come I went clean over de river to Sandy Island when I wanted a boy to raise. I knowed Breeze come f’om good seed. E’s good stock.”

“You’s right. Sho’! If you want to raise corn, plant corn seed, not cotton seed.”

“April ever was a mighty rash man, Uncle Bill.” Big Sue hinted at something dark, and Uncle Bill slipped a look at her, then turned his eyes to look out in the rain, where a mocking-bird was whistling exactly like a young turkey. Big Sue got her sewing and sat down to talk.

“April wouldn’ rest not till e pizened dem boll-evils. I couldn’ hardly sleep in de night all las’ summer fo’ dem machines a-zoonin’. Everybody was scared to look out de door whilst April an’ Sherry was gwine round de fields. De pizen dust was same as a fog. Lawd! I slept wid my head under a quilt ev’y night. April better had left dem boll-evils right whe’ Gawd put ’em. I don’ kill no kinder bugs exceptin’ spiders. Not me! Fightin’ Gawd’s business’ll git you in trouble. April’s got off light so far, but e better quit tryin’ to do all de crazy t’ings de white people says do. E sho’ better! Bad luck’s been hangin’ round ever since dat radio-machine at de Big House started hollerin’ an’ cryin’ an’ singin’ year befo’ last. People ain’ got no business tryin’ to be Gawd. Not black people anyways. Let de white people go on. Dey is gwine to hell anyhow!”

She took a fresh thread and moistening the tip of a finger in her mouth made a fat knot in its end. But before she stuck it into the cloth, she looked at Uncle Bill with bright points of light in his eyes. Her words troubled him.

“You is talkin’ mighty fast now, daughter. I been workin’ wid white people all my life an’ I ain’ got no complaint to make of dem. No. Ol’ Cap’n raise’ me to have respect fo’ everybody.”

“Whe’ you reckon Ol’ Cap’n is to-day, Uncle Bill?”

The old man pressed his lips tight together until they puckered, and shook his head.

Big Sue laughed, “You don’ want to say, enty? I don’ blame you. But between you an’ me I spec’ e is whe’ I hope e ain’t; a hoppin’ in Hell dis minute!”

“Shut you’ mouth, gal! Gawd’ll strike you dead first t’ing you know!” Uncle Bill gave her a hard look. “Ol’ Cap’n had his faults, but e was a man! Yes, Gawd! A man!”

Uncle Bill wasn’t listening. He had gone back to the past, “Lawd, I kin see Ol’ Cap’n now. High an’ straight. Slim till de day e died. His eyes could go black as soot an’ flash wid pure fire when e got vexed, but dey could shine soft as gal-chillen’s eyes too.” Uncle Bill’s own eyes brightened as he talked.

“Dat man could ride horses dat would ’a’ killed anybody else,” he boasted. “An’ Uncle Isaac, yonder, used to be a man too! E drove de carriage wid a pair o’ coal black horses. When dey’d pass you in de big road dem horses’ breath was hot as pure steam. Dey nostrils was red as any blood! De gold an’ silver on de harness would blind you’ eyes same as a flash o’ lightnin’! You’d have to stop an’ stand still an’ cover up you’ face. Dem was de days! You young people don’ know nothin’! Not nothin’!”

A merry laugh crinkled up his eyelids, and filled the hollows in his thin old cheeks. It tickled him when he thought about the case Ol’ Cap’n was. He was a case. A heavy case! Sometimes his company would get drunk and reckless with pistols. Cap’n would always caution them to be careful not to shoot any of his servants. He’d always brag that he had the best stock of niggers and dogs and horses in the state, and he didn’t want any of them hurt.

“I ’member. E was powerful big-doin’s. But when death come for him, he had to go same as anybody else. Whe’s e now, Uncle Bill?”

Uncle Bill made a wry face at Big Sue, “I dunno. An’ you dunno. But Gawd knows Ol’ Cap’n had a big heart. A good heart. E wan’ no po’ buckra, or either white trash.” A sly smile lightened his solemn face.

“Dat new preacher preaches dat de Great I-Am is a nigger! Don’ let em fool you, gal. Gawd is white. You’ll see it too when Judgment Day comes. An’ E ain’ gwine be noways hard on a fine man like Ol’ Cap’n. He knows gentlemens. Sho’! An’ if Ol’ Cap’n couldn’ exactly make Heaven, I bet Gawd is got him a comfortable place in Hell, wid plenty o’ people to wait on him. An’ dat’s all e wants, anyhow. E had plenty o’ milk an’ honey an’ gold an’ silber down here, an’ e didn’ count none o’ dem much, nohow.”

The stillness was so intense that when the clock on Big Sue’s mantel banged out an hour, Uncle Bill jumped with a start at its call back to the present. He must be going on to April’s house with the bucket of milk. Time was moving. He had a lot of work to do before the white folks came. Some of the fences needed patching. Blinds had to be fixed in the rice-fields for the duck-hunters and the old trunks had to be mended in places so the ducks could be baited. There were many things waiting for him to do them.