Part 13

Some of the farm-hands stopped by on their way home for the noon hour. Coming inside they stood around the fireplace, grinning, joking and smoking the cigarettes they rolled with deft fingers.

Everybody was given a pan and spoon. Zeda and Bina helped Big Sue pass around great dishpans of smoking food, and cups of water sweetened with molasses. For a time nothing was said except the exclamations that praised the dinner. Indeed it might have been a wedding feast but for the lack of cake and wine.

The wild ducks, cooked just to a turn, were served last. Their red blood was barely curdled with heat, yet their outsides were rich and brown. Lips smacked. Spoons clattered. Mouths too full dropped crumbs as they munched.

A grand dinner.

“Take you’ time, an’ chaw,” Big Sue bade the guests kindly. “You got plenty o’ time to finish de rest o’ de quilts befo’ night.”

* * * * *

As soon as the edge was taken off their appetites they fell to talking. Big Sue did not sit down to eat at all, so busy was she passing around the pans of hot food, and urging the others to fill themselves full.

As more men came by and stopped, the noise waxed louder, until the uproar of shouting and laughter and light-hearted talk seethed thick. When all were filled with Big Sue’s good cheer, they got up and went out into the yard to smoke, to catch a little fresh air, and to wash the grease off their fingers. The pans and spoons and tin cups were stacked up on the water-shelf out of the way where they’d wait to be washed until night.

The quilting was the work in hand now, and when the room was in order again, and the women rested and refreshed, Big Sue called them in to begin on the next set of quilts.

April went riding by on the sorrel colt, on his way back to the field, and Big Sue called him to come in and eat the duck and hot rice she had put aside specially for him. But he eyed her coolly, rode on and left her frowning.

Zeda laughed, and asked Big Sue if April was a boy to hop around at her heels? Didn’t she know April had work to do? Important work. The white people made him plantation foreman because they knew they could trust him to look after their interests. He not only worked himself, but he kept the other hands working too.

Leah sat silent, making short weak puffs at her pipe.

Maum Hannah’s deep sigh broke into the stillness.

“I ever did love boy-chillen, but dey causes a lot o’ sorrow. My mammy used to say ev’y boy-child ought to be killed soon as it’s born.”

“How’d de world go on if people done dat?” Bina asked.

“I dunno. Gawd kin do a lot o’ strange t’ings.”

This made them all stop and think again.

The kettle sang as steam rushed out of its spout. The flames made a sputtering sound. The benches creaked as the women bent over and rose with their needles. Bina sat up straight, then stretched.

“If all de mens was dead, you could stay in de chu’ch, enty, Zeda?” Bina slurred the words softly.

Zeda came back, “Don’ you fret ’bout me, gal. Jake ain’ no more to me dan a dead man.”

“Yunnuh stop right now! Dat’s no-manners talk. Jake’s a fine man, if e is my gran. I know, by I raise em. When his mammy died an’ left em, Jake an’ Bully and April was all three de same as twins in my house.” Maum Hannah spoke very gravely. Presently she got up and went into the shed-room. She came back smiling, with a folded quilt on her arm. “Le’s look at de old Bible quilt, chillen. It’ll do yunnuh good.”

She held up one corner and motioned to deaf and dumb Gussie to hold up the other so all the squares could be seen. There were twenty, every one a picture out of the Bible. The first one, next to Gussie’s hand, was Adam and Eve and the serpent. Adam’s shirt was blue, his pants brown, and his head a small patch of yellow. Eve had on a red headkerchief, a purple wide-skirted dress; and a tall black serpent stood straight up on the end of its tail.

The next square had two men, one standing up, the other fallen down--Cain and Abel. The red patch under Abel was his blood, spilled on the ground by Cain’s sin. Maum Hannah pointed out Noah and the Ark; Moses with the tables of stone; the three Hebrew children; David and Goliath; Joseph and Mary and the little baby Jesus; and last of all, Jesus standing alone by the cross. As Maum Hannah took them one by one, all twenty, she told each marvelous story.

The quilters listened with rapt attention. Breeze almost held his breath for fear of missing a word. Sometimes his blood ran hot with wonder, then cold with fear. Many eyes in the room glistened with tears.

The names of God and Jesus were known to Breeze, but he had never understood before that they were real people who could walk and talk. Maum Hannah told about God’s strength and power and wisdom, how He knew right then what she was doing and saying. He could see each stitch that was taken in the quilts, whether it was small and deep and honest, or shallow and careless. He wrote everything down in a great book where He kept account of good and evil. Breeze had never dreamed that such things went on around him all the time.

Yet the quilt was made out of pictures of the very things Maum Hannah told. Nobody could doubt that all she said was the truth. In the charmed silence, her words fell clear and earnest. The present was shut out. Breeze’s mind went a-roaming with her, back into the days when the world was new and God walked and talked with the children He had so lately made. As she spoke Breeze shivered over those days that were to come when everybody here would be either in Hell or Heaven. It had to be one or the other. There was no place to stop or to hide when death came and knocked at your door. She pointed to Breeze. That same little boy, there in the chimney corner, with his foot tied up, would have to account for all he did! As well as Breeze could understand, Heaven was in the blue sky straight up above the plantation. God sat there on His throne among the stars, while angels, with harps of gold in their hands, sang His praises all day long. Hell was straight down. Underneath. Deep under the earth. Satan lived there with his great fires for ever and ever a-burning on the bodies of sinners piled high up so they could never crumble.

Maum Hannah herself became so moved by the thought of the sufferings of the poor pitiful sinners in Hell, that her voice broke and tears dimmed her eyes, and she plead with them all:

“Pray! Chillen! Pray!

“Do try fo’ ’scape Hell if you kin!

“Hell is a heat!

“One awful heat!

“We fire ain’ got no time wid em!

“Pray! Chillen! Pray! For Gawd’s sake, pray!

“When de wind duh whip you

“An’ de sun-hot duh burn you

“An’ de rain duh wet you,

“All dem say, Pray! Do try fo’ ’scape Hell if you kin!”

On the way home through the dusk Breeze stopped short in his tracks more than once, for terror seized him at the bare rustle of a bird’s wing against a dry leaf. When the gray shadow of a rabbit darted across the path and the sight of a glowworm’s eye gleamed up from the ground, Big Sue stopped too. And breathing fast with anxiety, cried out:

“Do, Jedus! Lawd! Dat rabbit went leftward. A bad luck t’ing! Put dem t’ings down! Chunk two sticks behind em. Is you see anyt’ing strange, Breeze?” She sidled up close to him and whispered the question.

Breeze stared hard into the deepening twilight. The black shadows were full of dark dreadful things that pressed close to the ground, creeping slowly, terribly. The tree branches rocked, the leaves whispered sharply, the long gray moss streamed toward them.

“Le’s run, Cun Big Sue.” Breeze leaped with a quick hop ahead, but her powerful hand clutched his shoulder. “Looka here, boy! I’ll kill you to-night if you leave me. No tellin’ what kind o’ sperits is walkin’. I kin run when I’s empty-handed, but loaded down wid all dese t’ings a snail could ketch me! You git behind me on de path.”

The black smoke rising out of the chimney made a great serpent that stood on the end of its tail. For a minute Breeze was unable to speak. His heart throbbed with heavy blows, for not only did that smoke serpent lean and bend and reach threateningly, but something high and black and shapeless stood in front of Big Sue’s cabin, whose whitewashed walls behind it made it look well-nigh as tall as a pine tree. It might be the Devil! Or Death! Or God! He gave a scream and clung to Big Sue as the figure took a step toward them.

“Yunnuh is late!” April’s voice boomed out.

“Lawd!” Big Sue fairly shouted. “I was sho’ you was a plat-eye. You scared me half to death! Man! I couldn’ see no head on you no matter how hard I look. How come you went inside my house with me not home?”

April grunted. “You better be glad! I had a hard time drivin’ a bat out o’ you’ house.”

“A bat!” Big Sue shrieked with terror. “How come a bat in my house? A bat is de child of de devil.”

April declared the bat had squeaked and grinned and chattered in his face until he mighty nigh got scared himself.

“Lawd! Wha’s gwine happen now? A bat inside my house! An’ look how de fire’s smokin’!”

She hurried Breeze off to bed in the shed-room whose darkness was streaked with wavering firelight that fell through the cracks in the wall. Fear kept him awake until he put his head under the covers and shut out all sight and sound and thought.

He was roused by a knock on the front door. Big Sue made no answer, and another knock made by the knuckles of a strong hand was followed by a loud crying, “Open dis door, I tell you! I know April’s right in dere!” This was followed by the thud of a kick, but no answer came from inside. Breeze could not have spoken to save his life, for sheer terror held him crouched under the quilts and his tongue was too weak and dry to move.

Where in God’s world was Big Sue? The first of those knocks should have waked her. Sleep never did fasten her eyelids down very tight, yet with all this deafening racket, she stayed dumb. Had she gone off and left Breeze by himself? The voice calling at the door sounded like a woman’s voice at first, but now it deepened with hoarse fury and snarled and growled and threatened, calling Big Sue filthy names. Breeze knew then for certain it was some evil thing. His flesh crept loose from his bones. His blood ran cold and weak. He realized Big Sue was not at home. Maybe she was dead, in her bed! The thought was so terrible that in desperation he lifted up his head and yelled:

“Who dat?”

At once the dreadful answer came.

“Who dat say ‘who dat’?” Then a silence, for Breeze could utter no other word.

Outside the wind caught at the trees and thrashed their leaves, then came inside to rustle the papers on the cabin’s walls, and whisper weird terrible things through the cracks. The thing that had knocked on the door was walking away. Its harsh breathing was hushed into sobs and soft moans that made Breeze’s heart sink still deeper with horror.

For a minute every noise in the world lulled. Nothing stirred except the ghastly tremor that shook Breeze’s body from his covered-up head to the heels doubled up under his cold hips.

A sudden fearful battering in company with despairing howls, crashed at the door! It would soon break down! There was no time to waste putting on clothes! Hopping up into the cold darkness, Breeze eased the back door open and slipped into the night.

The horrible door-splitting blows went right on. Thank God, somebody was coming. Running, with a torch. Breeze forgot that snakes were walking, and leaped through the bushes over ground that felt unsteady to his flying feet. His heart swelled with joy and relief, for the man hurrying toward the cabin lighting his way with a fat lightwood torch was Uncle Bill. Twice Breeze opened his mouth to call out, but the only sound he could make was a whispered--“Uncle Bill--Uncle Bill!”

Following the torch’s light he could see a black woman cutting the door down with an ax. Who in God’s name would dare do such a thing? Uncle Bill walked right up to her and shook her soundly by the shoulder.

“What is you a-doin’, Leah? Is you gone plumb crazy? Gi’ me dat ax!” He jerked the ax from her hands and she began shrieking afresh, and trying to push him back. But she couldn’t budge him one inch. Holding her off, with his free hand he made a proper, polite knock, although the door was split and the dim firelight shone through its new-made cracks.

“Dis is me, Bill, Miss Big Sue,” he called out, a stern note deepening his voice.

Leah shrilled out harshly. “You better open dis door! You low-down black buzzard hussy! You wait till I gits my hands on you’ throat! You won’ fool wid my husband no mo’ in dis world!”

Fully dressed and quite calm Big Sue appeared. She answered with mild astonishment:

“Why, Leah! How come you makin’ all dis fuss? You must want to wake up de whole plantation? You ought to be shamed. I never see such a no-manners ’oman!”

“Whe’s April?” Leah howled. “Whe’s April, I tell you? Don’ you cut no crazy wid me to-night! I’ll kill you sho’ as you do!”

“Fo’ Gawd’s sake, Leah! Shut you’ mouth! I dunno nuttin’ ’bout April. You is too sickenin’! Always runnin’ round to somebody’s house a-lookin’ fo’ April!”

“Yes, I look fo’ em. You had em here too! See his hat yonder on de floor right now! You fat black devil!” Seizing Big Sue’s kerchiefed head with both hands Leah tried to choke her, but Big Sue wrenched herself loose and with a wicked laugh raised one fat leg and gave Leah a kick in the middle of her body that sent her backward with a slam against the wall.

“You’d choke me, would you? I’ll tear de meat off you’ bones!” Big Sue screamed, but Leah crumpled sidewise and fell flat on the floor, her eyes lifeless, her face stiffened.

Big Sue had roused into fury. She staggered forward and bent over and rained blows with both fists on Leah’s silent mouth, until Uncle Bill grappled her around her huge waist and dragged her to the other side of the room.

Big Sue bellowed. “You’d choke me, enty? You blue-gummed pizen-jawed snake! Gawd done right to salivate you an’ make you’ teeth drop out.”

For all the signs of life she gave, Leah may as well have been dead. She lay there on the floor, limp and dumb, even after Uncle Bill took the bucketful of water from the shelf and doused her with it. She didn’t even catch her breath. Uncertain what to do, Uncle Bill knelt over her and called her name.

“Leah! Leah! Don’t you die here on dis floor. Leah! Open you’ eyes. I know good and well you’s playin’ ’possum.”

Except for the fire’s crackling and the low chirping of one lone cricket, the stillness of death was in the room.

“Put on you’ shirt and pants, Breeze. Run tell April Leah is done faint off. E must come here quick as e kin.”

The darkness of the night was terrible as Breeze ran through it toward the Quarters. A cedar limb creaked mournfully as the wind wrung it back and forth. Its crying was like sorrowful calls for aid. Breeze tried to hurry, to make his legs run faster, but they were ready to give way and fall. His feet stumbled, his throat choked until he could scarcely breathe. His brain wheeled and rattled inside his skull. How horrible Death is!

A few stars twinkled bright away up in the sky, but the waving tree-tops made a thick black smoke that covered the yellow moon. High-tide glistened in the darkness, all but ready to turn by now. Leah’s soul would go out with it if something wasn’t done to help her.

Lord how awful her eyeballs were, rolled back so far in her head! Jesus, have mercy! The thought of them made Breeze senseless with terror. Tears gushed from his own eyes and blinded him.

April was not at home, and Breeze raced back, but already Leah was coming to. She lay on the floor, her fat face, black as tar against the whiteness of the pillow under it now, was set and furrowed. Her toothless jaws moved with mute words, as if she talked with some one the others could not see. She kept fumbling with the red charm-string tied around her neck, as her dull eyes rolled slowly from one face to the other.

Breeze longed to fling himself on the bed and cover up his head, but Big Sue sat storming and panting with fury. Leah ought to be ashamed of herself, running over the country at night trying to bring disgracement on her.

“Whyn’t you answer Leah when e knocked?” Uncle Bill asked her.

Big Sue jumped at him angrily. “How’d I know Leah wasn’ some robber come to cut my throat? Just ’cause Leah is married to de foreman an’ livin’ in a bigger house dan my own, an’ wearin’ finer clothes, dat don’ gi’ em no right to break down my door wid a’ ax! No. Leah ain’ no white ’oman even if e do buy medicine out de sto’. No wonder e got salivate. Gawd done right to make dat medicine loosen all Leah’s teeth an’ prize ’em out so e ain’ got none to be a-bitin’ people up wid. T’ank Gawd! Bought ones can’ bite. I wish all e finger-nails would drop off! E toe-nails too! Leah’s a dangerous ’oman. E ain’ safe to be loose in dis country. No. Leah’d kill you quick as look at you!”

XIV

CHURCH

Sunday morning rose with a pale clear sky, and a sun that glittered bright and hot as it mounted.

Big Sue was already up when Breeze waked. She was fussing around, cooking dinner to take to church, fixing a basket, and China dishes to hold it. Her best clothes, and Breeze’s, were laid out on chairs to be put on. They must be ready when Uncle Bill came for them in his new buggy. He had to go ahead of time, for he had charge of the communion as well as of the Bury League which would be organized when the service was over and the dinner eaten. The head man of the Bury League had come to preach and to form a Society to Bury. Big Sue baked rising bread yesterday in the Big House kitchen stove. The brown loaves, uncovered, sat in a row on the shelf, waiting to be wrapped up. They’d turn to Jesus’ own body when the preacher prayed over them, and blessed them. Blackberry wine, in the two big demijohns in the corner of the shed-room, would turn into Jesus’ blood. Breeze couldn’t make it out in his head exactly, but Big Sue said it was so. Breeze had picked the blackberries that made the wine, and he’d bought the white flour for the bread from the store. How could they turn to Jesus? But Big Sue said prayer can do anything. Anything! When a fine preacher like the Bury League leader prays. Not everybody knows how to pray right, but he did. Yes, Lord, he did!

Before taking time to swallow down a mouthful of bread for breakfast, Breeze and Big Sue put the demijohns on the front porch, ready to go to church. They packed up all the fine dinner in one box, and the communion bread in another, so when she was dressed in her Sunday clothes, she’d have nothing to do but sit still and wait and rest.

How different she looked with her body pulled in tight with a great corset full of steel bands! Like a cotton bale pressed too small. The frills of her petticoat were lace-trimmed. Over them, hiding them carefully, was her new purple sateen dress.

She sat down on the porch with a pan of breakfast in her lap and began to eat. Breeze was back in the shed-room dressing when he heard her laugh and scramble to her feet to say in her company manners voice:

“How you do dis mawnin’, Reverend?”

Breeze peeped through the open door in time to see her draw a foot adroitly behind her in a low curtsey to a strange man who answered in a familiar voice:

“Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Good-wine. How you do this morning?”

“Not so good,” she said sweetly. “Bad luck’s been a-hangin’ round de plantation lately.”

“Bad luck ought not to pester a lady who can fix frog legs like the ones you sent us last night for supper. They were elegant.”

Breeze stood still and listened. He knew that voice, sure as the world. The Bury League preacher was his own stepfather. Hurrying into his clothes he tipped across the room to the window to see better, but Big Sue’s antics held his eyes. She was down on her knees, shaking all over in the drollest way, with laughter that took her breath. Her company manners were gone. Between gasps and shouts she gurgled, “Great Gawd! You ought o’ seen dem frogs dis mawnin’. Dat fool Breeze didn’ kill em! He cut off dey hind legs an’ turned dem loose in de back yard! I liken to a broke my foot jumpin’ when I missed an’ stepped slam on one!”

“Who did you say done it?” The Reverend was disturbed. The greenish cast of his long-tailed coat and derby hat spread over his swarthy face, and he sat down so suddenly on the steps that Big Sue’s roars hushed and her company manners came back. Scrambling to her feet and casting a fierce look toward the window where Breeze stood, she sympathized:

“I’m too sorry. No wonder you’s sick! Eatin’ de legs of a livin’ frog! But dey’s dead now. I made Breeze knock ’em in de head a while ago. Breeze is a crazy boy. When I git home to-night, I’m gwine gi’ em de heaviest lickin’ ever was. I ain’ gwine leave a whole piece o’ hide on em. No, suh! I’m gwine bust his crust, sure as you’ bawn.”

“Whe’d you git dat boy? Is he you’ own?” The Reverend’s voice was weakly.

“No, Lawd. My son, Lijah, is got plenty o’ sense. Breeze is a li’l’ boy I got f’om Sandy Island to stay wid me, by I was so lonesome in de night by myself.”