Part 17

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.