Part 2

He stood, straight and tall, and strong for his years, but the troubled look in his eyes made the old midwife wonder.

Her weight tilted the narrow boat so far to one side that some of the black river water slid over its edge and ran down cold on her feet. “Jedus hab mussy!” she groaned. “If dis boat do go down, I’ll sho’ git drowned to-night! I can’ swim, not a lick.”

“You set still, Hannah. Dis boat knows better’n to turn over to-night. I got em trained. E’s got sense like people. E knows e’s got to take me an’ you safe.”

“I’m mighty glad to hear dat, son, mighty glad.”

The boat was already gliding swiftly past the black willows on the Blue Brook’s bank and around the bend where the thick trees made shadows and long tresses of gray moss waved overhead. Soon they’d reach the river. When a dark bird flew across the stream Maum Hannah shivered and whispered, “Do, Jedus, hab mussy,” but Breeze muttered, “Dat ain’ nuttin’ but a summer duck.”

The whole world lay still, wrapped by the night, quiet, save for the swish of the water against the sides of the boat as the noiseless dips of the steady-plying paddle thrust it on.

As they neared Sandy Island the shrill cry of an owl in the distance caused the boat to falter in its forward going.

“Wha’ dat, Breeze?”

“Dat’s one o’ dem blue-dartin’ owls. Dat ain’ no sign o’ death.”

Ripples from the boat broke into glittering sparkles of light laid by the stars on the water. The river murmured. Trees along the bank were full of strange shadowy shapes. Whenever the lightest rustle of wind drifted through the black branches, low smothered sobs fell from them.

A tall sycamore with its white outstretched arms high up toward heaven, reached toward the river waving, beckoning.

The night air was cool, but Maum Hannah took up the edge of her apron and wiped off big drops of sweat that broke out cold as ice on her forehead. “Do, Jedus, hab mussy!” she prayed.

The new moon had gone to bed. Now was the time evil spirits walk and take people’s souls out of their bodies. Pines on the island made soft moans. The darkness quivered with whispers. Only the firelight shining out from the cabin on the hill made a clear red star to guide them.

The narrow boat swerved and turned in-shore. A cypress knee, hidden by the water, bumped hard against it, but didn’t stop its leap toward the bank. Old Breeze eased himself past Maum Hannah, and hopping out on the wet sand drew the boat up a little higher on the hill.

“Git up, Hannah. Le’ me hold all two o’ you’ hands. Step slow. Hist you’ foot. Don’ miss an’ trip. Now you’s on dry land.”

“T’ank Gawd! Praise Jedus’ name!”

“You got de beads, enty?”

“Sho’ I got ’em. Dem beads is all de luck I got in dis world. If dey was to git lost, I’d be ruint fo’ true. Pure ruint!”

The steep climb cut her breath and stopped her flow of talk, but Granny who had heard them coming, croaked out:

“Yunnuh better make haste. De chile is done come, but de gal won’ wake up an’ finish de job. Yunnuh come on.”

Maum Hannah lifted the long dark string of beads from around her neck and handed them to old Breeze. “Run wid ’em, son. Put ’em round de gal’s neck. Right on e naked skin. If I try to walk fast I might fall down an’ broke my leg.”

Breath scarcely came and went through the girl’s parted lips, and her teeth showed white. Were they clenched? Old Breeze pressed on the round chin to see. Thank God the mouth could open!

Maum Hannah got inside the room at last. The charm words that went with the beads would set things right. Death might as well go on home! Let the girl rest. She was tired. Things could wait while she had her nap out.

The big hickory armchair, drawn close to the fire, held a feather pillow on its cowhide seat, and lying in the nest it made was a small black human being. Granny laughed as she picked it up and put it into Maum Hannah’s hands, saying:

“A boy-chile! An’ born wid a caul on e face!”

“Great Gawd, what is dis! You hear dis news, Breeze? Dis chile was born wid a caul on e face!”

The man turned his troubled eyes away from the bed. “Wha’ you say, Hannah?”

Laughing with pleasure Maum Hannah and Granny both told him again. His grandson had been blessed with second-sight. He had been born on the small of the moon and with a caul over his face. He would have second sight. He’d always be able to see things that stay hidden from other people. Hants and spirits and plat-eyes and ghosts. Things to come and things long gone would all walk clear before him. They couldn’t hide from this child’s eyes.

“Hotten another pot o’ water, Granny. Lemme warm em good, an’ make em cry.” Maum Hannah cradled the child tenderly in her hands, then held him low so the firelight could shine in his face. With a quick laugh she caught him by one foot and holding him upside down smacked him sharply with three brisk slaps.

“Cry, suh!” she scolded. “Ketch air an’ holler! I hate to lick you so hard soon as you git here, but I got to make you fret out loud.” A poor weak bleating sounded and she handed the child to Granny.

“You fix em, whilst I finish up wid de mammy.”

* * * * *

“Wake up, gal!” she plead, shaking the girl’s limp arm. “Wake up!”

The rigid eyelids fluttered open and a faint smile played over the girl’s face. She was too weary to draw her breath. The pain had sapped all her strength, every bit.

Maum Hannah stooped and looked under the bed.

“Great Gawd,” she grunted. “Who dat put a’ ax under dis bed? No wonder de pains quit altogedder. You ought to had chunked dese irons out de door!” She did it forthwith herself.

“Now! All two is gone! Open you’ eyes, gal! Ketch a long breat. Dat’s de way. Hol’ you’ two hands togedder. So. Blow in ’em! Hard. Hard as you kin! Make a stiff win’ wid you’ mouth! Blow you’ fingers off. Dat’s de way!”

Then something else went wrong. Where was a spider’s web? Granny ought to have had one ready. Every good midwife should find one as soon as she takes a case. Maum Hannah’s eyes were too dim to see a web on the dark rafters overhead. Somebody must find one and fetch it quickly. Life can leak out fast. Spider webs can dam it up better than anything else. But, lord, they are hard to find at night! Where was Breeze?

One was found at last. Then it took careful handling to get it well covered with clean soot from the back of the chimney. Thank God for those beads. The girl would have lost heart and given up except for them and the charm words which Maum Hannah kept saying over and over. With those beads working, things had to come right. Had to. And they could not help working. Couldn’t, thank God.

* * * * *

The next morning’s sunshine showed plenty of gossamer webs spun with shining wheels. Long threads of frail silk were strung across the yard from bush to bush, traps set by the spiders for gnats and mosquitoes, strong enough to hold a fly once in a while. But it takes a house spider’s stout close-woven web to hold soot and do good. For a house spider to make its home under your roof is good luck, for sooner or later the cloth it weaves and spins will save somebody’s life.

Old Breeze got up early and cooked the breakfast, fixed himself a bit to eat and a swallow or two of sweetened water to drink and went to the field to work, but the two old women sat by the fire and nodded until the sun waxed warm and its yellow light glowed into the room through the wide-open door. Then their tired old bodies livened and their heads raised up and leaned together while whispered talk crept back and forth between them. Granny held that Breeze was a good kind man to take the girl’s trouble as he did. Many a man would have put her out-of-doors. Girls are mighty wild and careless these days. But their parents are to blame for it too. Half the children born on Sandy Island were unfathered. It wasn’t right. Yet how can you stop them? Maum Hannah sighed and shook her head. It was a pity. And yet, after all, every child comes into the world by the same old road.

A thousand husbands couldn’t make that journey one whit easier. The preachers say God made the birthing pain tough when He got vexed with Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wanted all women to know how heavy His hand can be. Yet Eve had a lawful husband, and did that help her any?

Granny blinked at the fire and studied a while, then with a sly look at the bed she whispered that this same little boy-child was got right yonder at Blue Brook during the protracted meeting last summer. Her wizened face showed she knew more than she cared to tell. Not that it was anything to her whose child it was.

She fidgeted with her tin cup and spoon and peeped at Maum Hannah out of the corner of her eye, then asked with pretended indifference:

“What’s de name o’ de gentleman what’s de foreman at Blue Brook now?”

“E’s name April.”

“Enty?” Granny affected surprise. “Is e got a fambly?” she presently ventured in spite of Maum Hannah’s shut-mouthed manner.

“Sho’, e’s got a fambly. E’s got a fine wife an’ a house full o’ chillen too.”

“Well, I declare!” Granny mirated pleasantly. “Was any o’ dem born wid a caul?”

“No, dey wasn’t. I never did hear o’ but one or two people bein’ born wid a caul. Ol’ Uncle Isaac, yonder to Blue Brook is one, and e’s de best conjure doctor I ever seen.”

“Who was de other one?” Granny inquired so mildly that Maum Hannah stole a look at her hard, dried furrowed face. There was no use to beat about the bush with Granny, so she answered:

“April, de foreman at Blue Brook, was de other one. Dese same ol’ hands o’ mine caught April when e come into dis world, just like deys caught all o’ April’s chillen.”

“You mean, April’s yard chillen, enty?” Granny looked her straight in the eyes like a hawk, but Maum Hannah met the look calmly, without any sign of annoyance.

“I dunno what you’s aimin’ at, Granny. April’s a fine man. Blue Brook never did have no better foreman. An’ his mammy, Katy, was one o’ de best women ever lived. April was she onliest child. April was born dis same month. Dat’s how come Katy named him April. April’s a lucky month an’ a lucky name, too. Wha’ you gwine name you li’l’ boy-chile, daughter?”

Granny looked toward the bed and listened for the answer.

“I dunno, ma’am,” the girl answered weakly, and Granny sweetened her coffee with a few drops more of molasses. She stirred and stirred until Maum Hannah suggested:

“April’s a fine name. Whyn’t you name em dat? When I git back to Blue Brook, I’ll tell de foreman I named a li’l’ boy-chile at him. Dat would please em too. E might would send em a present. April’s a mighty free-handed man, an’ e sho’ thinks de world o’ me too.”

Granny waited to taste the sweetened coffee until she heard what the girl said. The girl didn’t make any answer at first, but presently she said with a sorrowful sigh, she’d have to think about the baby’s name. She couldn’t decide in a hurry. Sometimes a wrong name will even kill a baby. She must go slow and choose a name that was certain to bring her baby health and luck.

She talked it over with her father and named the baby Breeze, for him. No foreman in the world was a finer man, or a kinder, stronger, wiser one. The breeze for which he was named could have been no pleasanter, no sweeter, than the breeze that blew in from the river that very morning.

The old man beamed with pleasure. He was glad to have the child named for him. But since the month was April, why not name him April Breeze? Then he’d have two good-luck names, and two would be better than one.

“We could call em li’l’ Breeze, enty?” she asked with a catch in her voice.

“Sho’, honey! Sho’! If dat’s de name you choose to call dis chile, den e’s li’l’ Breeze f’om now on. But April is a mighty nice name for a boy-chile.”

“It’s de Gawd’s truth,” Maum Hannah declared, and Granny grunted and reached for a coal to light her pipe.

Li’l’ Breeze grew and throve and his grandfather prized him above everything, everybody else. He was a boy-child, and, besides, he was born with a caul on his face. Men born so make their mark in this world. Rule their fellows. Plenty of people have no fathers, and many of them are better off. A child that has never looked on his daddy’s face can cure sickness better than any medicine. Just with a touch of the hand, too. It was a good thing for Sandy Island to have such a child.

Before Breeze was weaned people began coming to have him stroke the pain out of their knees and backs and shoulders. He could cure thrash in babies’ mouths, and even cool fevers.

His mother’s disgrace was completely forgotten, when she married a fine-looking, stylish young town man who came to Sandy Island to preach and form a Bury League. He could read both reading and writing and talk as well as the preacher who read over them out of a book.

Breeze stayed on with his grandfather, helping him farm in the summer and set nets for shad in the spring. When the white people who owned Sandy Island came from somewhere up-North in the winter and crossed over the river on a ferry-flat from Blue Brook with their dogs and horses to hunt the deer that swarm so thick on the island that they have beaten paths the same as pigs and rabbits, Breeze went along to help hold the horses and watch the dogs. People said he was Old Breeze’s heart-string, and Old Breeze’s eyeball. He was, although the mother had other boy-children now, fine ones too.

And instead of the grandfather’s getting feeble and tottering with age, he grew younger, and worked harder, so that he and Breeze might have plenty. Every extra cent saved was buried at the foot of a tall pine tree growing on the bank of the river not far from the cabin’s front door. When hard times came, they’d have no lack. The money would be there, secretly waiting to be spent.

One spring when the shad fishing was done, Old Breeze got leave from the white folks to cut down some dead pines the beetles had killed. He dragged these to the river with his two old oxen, and made them into a raft which he floated down to the town in the river’s mouth, and sold to a big saw-mill there. Breeze stayed with his mother until his grandfather came back home, pleased as could be, with presents for everybody, and a pocket full of money besides. But although he brought the mother a Bible besides many other fine things that made her smile, she shook her head and said, “Dead trees are best left alone. Trees have spirits the same as men. God made them to stand up after they die. Better let them be.”

But the grandfather was not afraid of tree spirits, and he cut and cut until no dead tree was left standing and the ground all around the big pine tree was full of hidden money. Then there was nothing to do but fish and hunt, and to hunt in the spring is against the white men’s laws. Old Breeze got restless. He gazed in the fire night after night, thinking and thinking.

One morning he got up early and skimmed all the cream and put the clabber in a jug, then he took the brace-and-bit down off the joist where it stayed and walked off to the woods alone. Every morning he did it. There was no more clabber for the pigs or the chickens, but the pine trees began dying so fast that before long enough were ready to cut for a raft to be floated down the river.

The tall pine close to the bank was the biggest tree on Sandy Island. It stretched far above the oaks before it put on even one limb. If that tree ever died, it would make a good part of a raft by itself.

One cold dark dawn, Breeze was roused by the cabin’s door creaking on its hinges as it closed behind somebody’s muffled steps. Where was Old Breeze going? Easing a window open, he peered out and saw the old man going toward the big pine with the jug and the brace-and-bit.

“Wait on me! I’m a-gwine wid you!” he called.

Old Breeze stopped and stood stiffly erect.

“Who dat call me?”

“Dis me! Breeze!”

The old man broke into a laugh. “Lawd, son, I thought sho’ a sperit was a-talkin’ to me. How come you’s ’wake so soon? Git back in de bed an’ sleep!”

But Breeze dressed in a hurry. He wanted to see what would be done with clabber and the brace-and-bit.

Outside in the half-light it was silent except for the rustle of the big tree’s needles in the wind. Breeze watched while holes were bored deep in the solid roots and the clabber all poured down them. He promised never to tell a soul. Not a soul. That was a stubborn tree. It swallowed down many a jug of buttermilk and clabber without getting sick at all, but at last the tips of its needles looked pale. The green of them faded into yellow, then brown, and its whole top withered. The old tree gave up. Poor thing.

Its heaviest limbs faced the south, away from the water. That was good. When it fell, the big butt cut, the heaviest one, would be easy to roll into the river, and the next two cuts would not have to be pushed very far. That tree would bring money with its stout, fat heart. A pocket full of money.

Sunday night came, and Old Breeze wouldn’t go to meeting, but went to bed for a long night’s sleep. He must get up a high head of strength before sunrise to cut the big tree down.

Day was just breaking through the cracks of the cabin’s log sides when Breeze heard it fall. It gave a great cry, and its crash jarred the cabin. The weight of a big tree’s falling always leaves a deep stillness behind it, but after the big pine fell the stillness stayed on. Breeze lay quiet and listened. The tree must have dropped wrong, and gone across a clump of bamboo vines. Old Breeze would have to clear them away before his ax could begin to talk.

He’d hear it soon. Lord! Nobody could make an ax speak faster or louder or truer. Nobody. This was Monday morning and he must get the clothes up for the mother to wash. Every Monday he carried them to her and helped her do the washing.

Kingfishers splashed into the river. Once an eagle cried. The day moved on, smooth and bright and yellow, as the sun walked up the sky past the tree-tops, higher and higher until noon stood overhead. But the grandfather’s ax had said nothing yet. Not yet. But wait! It would make up for lost time when it started to ring!

Sis, the stepfather’s young sister, lived with Breeze’s mother and helped her mind the children. Every Monday morning they washed the clothes out in the yard, where the washtubs always sat on a bench in a sunshiny place. The other children, Breeze’s half brothers and sisters, roasted sweet potatoes in the ashes under the big black washpot, and kept the fire going.

On that Monday morning, the fire burned blue and kept popping, and every now and then the mother cast her eyes, full of dark thoughts, at the sun. Old Breeze always came for dinner with her on Monday. Something must have happened. The big tree must have fallen wrong to keep him so long. But Sis could talk of nothing but the new dress and the ribbon he had promised to buy her with some of the money the big pine brought.

The mother lifted the lids of the little pots that sat all around the big washpot cooking the family’s dinner. With a big iron spoon she stirred and tasted, added salt and a pod of red pepper. Pepper is good to help men be strong and warm-hearted. It makes hens lay, too. She filled the bucket with victuals and told Breeze to run, fast as he could, to the big tree, so the dinner would be hot when he got there. Hopping John, peas and rice cooked together, is so much better fresh out of the pot and breathing out steam. When rice cools it gets gummy. The fish stew was made out of eels, and they get raw again as soon as the fire’s heat leaves them. Breeze must take his foot in his hand and fly.

Breeze did run, but he soon came running back, for Old Breeze wasn’t there. His ax lay almost in the water, with its handle wet, and his throwing-wedge beside it.

The two old oxen were chewing their cuds, but the ground around the tree was all dug up and broken, as if hogs had rooted it up to find worms.

Breeze had called, and called, but nobody answered! When the mother heard that, a shiver went clear through her body. Her hands shook so when she lifted them out of the washtub that all the soap-suds on them trembled.

She said she’d go and call. She knew how to send her voice far away. She could make him hear and answer. Maybe a deer or a fox or a wildcat had come and tricked him away from his work, but her words quivered in her mouth as she said them.

All the children went trailing after her; Sis went hurrying with baby Sonny in her arms; and they all stood still and listened while the mother’s throat sent long thin whoopees away up into the sky. Her breast heaved with hoisting them so far above the trees into the far-away distance. She’d wait for an answer until all the echoes had whooped back, then she’d take a deep breath and cry out again.

An old crow laughed as he passed overhead, an owl who-whooed far in the distance. The wind began moaning and crying in the tops of all the other trees around the fallen pine.