Chapter III: "Lahd 'a' massie...."

"Wha' a mattah, Coggins?"

"Say something, no!"

"Massie, come hay, an' see de gal picknee."

" ... open yo' mout' no, what's a mattah?"

Coggins flew to the rainwater keg. Knocked the swizzle stick--relic of Sissie's pop manufactures--behind it, tilting over the empty keg.

"Get up, Beryl, get up, wha' a mattah, sick?"

"Lif' she up, pappy."

"Yo' move out o' de way, Mistah Rufus, befo'...."

"Don't, Sissie, don't lick she!"

"Gal playin' sick! Gal only playin' sick, dat what de mattah wit' she. Gal only playin' sick. Get up, yo' miss!"

"God--don't, Sissie, leave she alone."

"Go back, every dam one o' yo', all yo' gwine get in de way."

Beryl, little naked brown legs apart, was flat upon the hard, bare earth. The dog, perhaps, or the echo of some fugitive wind had blown up her little crocus bag dress. It lay like a cocoanut flap-jack on her stomach....

"Bring she inside, Coggins, wait I gwine fix de bed."

Mahogany bed ... West Indian peasants sporting a mahogany bed; canopied with a dusty grimy slice of cheesecloth....

Coggins stood up by the lamp on the wall, looking on at Sissie prying up Beryl's eyelids.

"Open yo' eyes ... open yo' eyes ... betcha the little vagabon' is playin' sick."

Indolently Coggins stirred. A fist shot up--then down. "Move, Sissie, befo' Ah hit yo'." The woman dodged.

"Always wantin' fo' hit me fo' nuttin', like I is any picknee."

" ... anybody hear this woman would think...."

"I ain't gwine stand for it, yes, I ain't gwine...."

"Shut up, yo' old hard-hearted wretch! Shut up befo' I tump yo' down!" ... Swept aside, one arm in a parrying attitude ... backing, backing toward the larder over the lamp....

Coggins peered back at the unbreathing child. A shade of compassion stole over Sissie. "Put dis to 'er nose, Coggins, and see what'll happen." Assafetida, bits of red cloth....

Last year Rufus, the sickliest of the lot, had had the measles and the parish doctor had ordered her to tie a red piece of flannel around his neck....

She stuffed the red flannel into Coggins' hand. "Try dat," she said, and stepped back.

Brow wrinkled in cogitation, Coggins--space cleared for action--denuded the child. "How it ah rise! How 'er belly a go up in de year!"

Bright wood; bright mahogany wood, expertly shellacked and laid out in the sun to dry, not unlike it. Beryl's stomach, a light brown tint, grew bit by bit shiny. It rose; round and bright, higher and higher. They had never seen one so none of them thought of wind filling balloons. Beryl's stomach resembled a wind-filling balloon.

Then--

"She too hard ears," Sissie declared, "she won't lissen to she pappy, she too hard ears."

* * * * *

Dusk came. Country folk, tired, soggy, sleepy, staggering in from "town"--depressed by the market quotations on Bantam cocks--hollowed howdy-do to Coggins, on the stone step, waiting.

Rufus and Ada strangely forgot to go down to the hydrant to bathe their feet. It had been a passion with Coggins. "Nasty feet breed disease," he had said, "you Mistah Rufus, wash yo' foots befo' yo' go to sleep. An' yo', too, Miss Ada, I'm speaking to yo', gal, yo' hear me? Tak' yo' mout' off o' go 'head, befo' Ah box it off...."

Inwardly glad of the escape, Ada and Rufus sat, not by Coggins out on the stone step, but down below the cabin, on the edge of a stone overlooking an empty pond, pitching rocks at the frogs and crickets screaming in the early dusk.

The freckled-face old buckra physician paused before the light and held up something to it....

"Marl ... marl ... dust...."

It came to Coggins in swirls. Autopsy. Noise comes in swirls. Pounding, pounding--dry Indian corn pounding. Ginger. Ginger being pounded in a mortar with a bright, new pestle. Pound, pound. And. Sawing. Butcher shop. Cow foot is sawed that way. Stew--or tough hard steak. Then the drilling--drilling--drilling to a stone cutter's ears! Ox grizzle. Drilling into ox grizzle....

"Too bad, Coggins," the doctor said, "too bad, to lose yo' dawtah...."

In a haze it came to Coggins. Inertia swept over him. He saw the old duffer climb into his buggy, tug at the reins of his sickly old nag and slowly drive down the rocky gap and disappear into the night.

Inside, Sissie, curious, held things up to the light. "Come," she said to Coggins, "and see what 'im take out a' ar. Come an' see de marl...."

And Coggins slowly answered, "Sissie--if yo' know what is good fo' yo'self, you bes' leave dem stones alone."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: I wish to thank the editor of _The New Age_ for permission to reprint _Drought_.]

_PANAMA GOLD_

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_PANAMA GOLD_