Part 21

Bright tears ran out of April’s eyes, down his thin hard cheeks, and fell on the bony clasped hands that held tight to each other in his lap. Breeze could hardly bear to see those tears. Uncle Bill got up and tried to say something, but his voice broke, and he began punching the fire. For April was crying out loud. Saying he had given out! He couldn’t go on any longer!

Joy put her arms around him and held his head on her bosom, and patted his face and tried to hush him. She wiped his tears away with her homespun apron, and smoothed his eyelids softly. Her fingers were trembling, but April became quieter. She stroked his head and begged him to go back to bed and lie down and rest.

He was hard and sullen, and frowned as if she had insulted him. He’d stay right where he was. Bed and chair were the same to him now. Joy stood with her eyes on the red embers, never answering back a single time, even when anger made the words strangle in his throat. It was hard for him to bend his neck under such a galling, hellish yoke.

Until now he had never asked a favor of anybody in his whole life. He had always worked, and made others work. His women and children too. And now his feet, the feet that had carried him faithfully through all these years, the only ones he could ever have, had failed him. They made game of him. And it was more than he could bear. He bellowed out recklessly, but Joy got a pan and spoon and dipped some hot soup from a pot on the hearth and urged him to taste it. He shook his head. He didn’t want soup. He didn’t want anything to eat. He’d rather starve to death than be helpless. Joy began some pleasant talk. How fast the cotton was growing. The fields were green. Last night’s shower was the very thing spring oats needed. He leaned back in his chair, humbled, crushed with misery. Uncle Bill said he would come back a little later and bring April some medicine. Some strong medicine from the Big House medicine chest. It would help those feet.

April reached out and took his friend’s hand. He put it up to his cheek, but dropped it, for the back log burned in two and broke and a shower of sparks spun threads of fire that reached out and threatened to catch the quilt!

“I’ll stay wid em,” Joy said gently. “I’ll warm up de nice chicken an’ rice you brought an’ feed em wid a spoon.”

When Breeze got home Big Sue asked him lots of questions about April. How his feet looked? Did April seem down-hearted over them? Was Joy with him? How did she take his trouble? Breeze told her all he remembered, and she shook her head. She was sorry for April.

It was past mid-afternoon when Uncle Bill came back, and asked Big Sue to lend him a quart cup and a teaspoon. He wanted to measure some water and medicine for April’s feet. He was going to soak them in water flavored with a medicine the white folks used. She offered to lend him her new tin washtub, but Uncle Bill said Joy had plenty of tubs.

“Dey might not be new an’ clean as my own,” Big Sue insisted. “Joy ever was careless. A new tub is better anyhow.”

Uncle Bill consented, and Breeze went along to carry it. They found Joy sitting by the fire patching, and April holding a pan of food in his lap.

Joy asked them to come in and sit down and talk to April and coax him to eat his dinner. His appetite was slow. She did her best to talk cheerfully.

But April’s face was glum, and his voice lagged wearily as he said, “I don’ wan’ to eat.” With a bony hand he held out the pan, still full of food. “Take em. I got ’nough.”

Joy took it and moved away without speaking. As she walked toward the shelf she almost stumbled into a small boy, who hopped nimbly into the room, laughing and out of breath. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him, and he got sober. Soon the other children came trooping in, little and big, and all in-between size, one with Joy’s baby in his arms.

“Mind. Keep quiet,” Joy warned. “Pa don’ like no fuss.”

Then they tipped around quietly, and whispered to Breeze to come with them while they cut some wood and brought it in, and went to the spring for water. The older ones said, “How you feelin’, Pa?” That was all, for April did not turn his head or answer.

Every child glanced at his feet. April saw it. And he saw how they all looked away quickly, except one little boy who giggled out loud.

Joy shook her head vexedly, and motioned to the child to go on out, for anger crazed April. His own child had laughed at him! He sat up and blazed out, “Dat’s de way! Let a man git down an’ e’s de butt o’ his own flesh an’ blood! Dat’s de way! Chillen don’ hab respect fo’ nobody! Not dese days!”

Breeze felt afraid. He didn’t want to play. He’d rather stay close by Uncle Bill. When things got quieter again, Uncle Bill suggested kindly:

“April, son, I tell you wha’ le’s do. Lemme hotten some water an’ gi’ you’ feet a good soakin’. You would feel better when dey’s had a dose o’ dis medicine f’om de Big House.” He held up the small bottle. It had a skull and cross-bones label. The white liquid in it trembled, with a glitter.

April did not answer, and Joy filled the big black kettle on the hearth with water, and pushed it up nearer the red coals.

As soon as it sang out that the water was hot, Uncle Bill poured it quart by quart into the tub. Then he carefully measured quarts of water from a bucket on the shelf to cool it. He felt it with his hand, and Joy felt it too, so it would be neither too cold nor too hot.

“It’s ’bout right,” she said, and Uncle Bill put in the medicine. One spoonful to every quart of water. How it smelt! Joy pushed the tub closer to April, then lifted the helpless feet, one at a time, and put them into the water.

“It’s ’bout right, enty?” she asked him.

“I dunno,” April gloomed. “I can’ feel em.”

And she turned away with a sigh.

The clothes to be patched were on the floor in a pile. Joy mended the fire, then moved nearer its light to sew. Uncle Bill sat and talked pleasantly while April’s feet soaked. The crops were promising. Cotton and corn, and peas and potatoes, and rice all were up and growing. Everybody ought to be thankful with so many blessings. The fire kept up a spiteful popping, aiming bits of live coal at each of them. Some fell into the water and died; others hit Joy’s pile of clothes.

April moved restlessly. “I’m ready fo’ lay down,” he said dully. “Uncle Bill, you help Joy git me to bed.”

Joy got up, letting her lapful of things scatter over the floor. “Wait. Lemme git something soft fo’ wipe you’ feet on.” She hurried to an old trunk in the corner and got out a piece of soft worn cloth. Then she came back and knelt down by the tub.

April and Uncle Bill both jumped when she gave a sharp outcry and sat back flat on the floor. She stared. Then she leaned over with squinting eyes, as if the light hurt her eyes. She gasped like her wind-pipe was cracked, “Great Gawd, what has you done, Uncle Bill!” Her body was trembling and her eyes had a foolish roll as they lifted to April’s face. She was shivering all over. She was having a chill, or some kind of a stroke!

April told Breeze to call some of the children to come to Joy. He put out his hand to help steady her. But she sat back on her feet and put a hand to her head. Maybe she ate too much dinner. Breeze felt giddy himself, and tired and unhappy. His head swam when he moved. He wanted to go home, but he couldn’t leave Uncle Bill to bring Big Sue’s tub.

“Set down, Joy. Set down!” April scolded fretfully. “Don’ try fo’ stan’ up. You might fall. None o’ we ain’ able to ketch you if you do. You haffer take care o’ you’se’f now. I ain’ able fo’ look after you.”

He spoke quickly for his patience was short.

“You must ’a’ strained you’ eye on de sewin’. Lay flat on de floor till you feel better. I kin wait.” April moved stiffly, with a deep sigh.

But Joy’s wide-opened eyes stared at the tub. She was gone plumb fool! Plumb daffy!

“Uncle Bill----” her lips shook so they could hardly make his name. “Looka! Fo’ Gawd’s sake!” she whispered. “De medicine must ’a’ been too strong!”

Breeze could scarcely tell what she said, for she ran her words all together and she shook with a chill. Fever makes people so sometimes.

“Do talk hard, Joy. I can’ hear no whisperin’! Who you scared gwine hear you? A sperit?” April scolded.

Breeze’s eyes followed Joy’s to the tub. He stared too. He saw what made her teeth click together----

April’s toes.

They had come loose from his feet, and floated around in the tub. In the clear warm water, sharp-flavored with the strong white medicine. Breeze felt dazed. His head was queer. The room, the walls began to move around and wave up and down.

When April saw the toes he began to laugh. An ugly croaking, high-pitched laugh that chilled Breeze’s blood, and made the water swish in the tub.

The toes, all loose, free from the feet, swam around swiftly and circled and danced. One big toe slid next to a little one and stopped!

April half-rose to his feet and shouted:

“Look! My Gawd! Is you ever see sich a t’ing in you’ life? My toes is come off. Dey runs by deyse’f! Fo’ Gawd’s sake!”

His reddened eyes shone. He tried to step. Then he sat down clumsily. Heavily. He leaned forward, spellbound, whispering horrified words. Breeze shook with terror, for April’s words were as strange as the toes jumbled together. He glared at Breeze, then at Uncle Bill. “Yunnuh hurry up! Hurry up!” he yelled fiercely, getting up on his feet again. “Do somet’ing! Quick! My toes is off!”

He tottered, for the bottom of the tub was slippery footing for his broken feet, and with a crumple he fell forward on the floor.

Joy cried out sharply, and begged Breeze to go call the children. Then she ran to the open door, and stretching her body to its utmost height, tilted back her head and sent out long throat-splitting calls that cut into Breeze’s ears! She stopped to tell Uncle Bill to go fetch Maum Hannah, who had gone way down the country, catching children.

She wrung her hands and wailed. That medicine must have been too strong! Too strong! Uncle Bill said maybe that charm did it! April wore it a whole day around his neck! Did that old hoodoo doctor over the river have aught against April? That charm was too strong. Maybe Joy had buried it wrong! Maybe it ought not to have been buried at all--maybe--maybe--Leah’s death-sheet was to blame.

Breeze tried to help Joy and Uncle Bill get April to bed, then Joy slipped out of the door. She’d go try to find that charm. But if she found it, what could she do? April’s toes were off. No charm could put them on again. That was certain.

Uncle Bill was sure he measured the medicine. Over and over, he said it; a teaspoonful to the quart of water. That was all he put. It couldn’t hurt a tender baby’s feet. He had seen the white people use it, and they have weak skins. But April’s toes were off! And there was no way to put them back on. That scorched charm must be to blame, unless poisoning boll-weevils last summer poisoned his feet too. Uncle Isaac had drowned the death-sheet, and killed its spell--in spite of Zeda.

April didn’t seem to realize what had happened. He kept saying, over and over, “How’m I gonna walk widout toes?” He was too stiff in his joints to bend over far enough to look at his feet. Uncle Bill got the mirror that hung by the open window. A small square wavy looking-glass that made foolish-looking images. The old man tried to hold it so April could see the feet in the mirror, but his hands shook so that Breeze had to take it and hold it. The horror in April’s face made Breeze’s own blood freeze. April’s lips and tongue went stiff. They could scarcely say, “How’m I gonna walk widout toes.”

He asked to see the bottle of white medicine Uncle Bill used in the water. He took out the stopper and smelled it, touched it to his tongue. It was too strong! Yes! Too strong! It cut his tongue!

Two days later when the boat came Uncle Bill and Brudge took April to the town in the river’s mouth, so some white doctor might see him and cure him. But when they came home Uncle Bill said the white doctor had taken April to a hospital and cut both his legs off, at his hips! The doctor said blood clots in the veins of April’s legs had cut off the blood flow to his feet. That was why they died. The doctor called it gangrene. He said no charm could cause it, not even a death-sheet. April would get well after a month or two, and he could wear wooden legs with steel joints. They’d walk and carry him as well as his old legs had done, when he learned how to rule them and make them step. But it would take time. April would have to have patience now. Long patience.

The white doctor was kind, polite. He would write Joy exactly how April mended. She mustn’t worry. Everything would come right. April was no common weak man to give up. Never in this world. The plantation people must all pray for April to keep in good heart, and not get scared about himself. And Joy must have faith that April would get safely through this great trial.

Uncle Bill went to see the preacher April had bitten. His cheek had not rotted off at all. The white doctor had fixed it. But it looked queer, for it was drawn up tight like the mouth of a tobacco sack pulled together with draw-strings.

From that day Joy showed no sign of weakness. She shirked nothing, yielded nothing to Leah’s children who gave up being impudent to her face and did their grumbling about her behind her back.

When the stables were cleaned out and the black manure piled out in the corn-field, Joy went out at dawn with the other women, barefooted, scantily dressed, a rough crocus sack made into an apron to hold the stuff, and scattered it all day long, up and down the corn rows, leading the women as they marched abreast, singing, “Follow me--” to their chorus, “We’s a-followin’ on,” and ending, “I’ll lead you gentel-eee home!”

When the cotton was up to a thick stand and ready to be thinned, she tied her skirt up high out of the dew and took her hoe and chopped row for row with the best hoe hands, leaving the stalks one hoe’s width apart and cutting out every grass blade. She hung up eggshells to make the hens lay well, fed them sour dough to make them set, patched the garden fence and filled the rich plot of earth with seed.

She set hens and took them off with broods of biddies and dusted them with ashes to kill the lice. For one so frail-looking, Joy did wonders.

Everybody praised her but Leah’s children, who had naught against her except she had married April, and Big Sue, who kept her distance, pretending that Joy had disgraced her. But Zeda said Big Sue was jealous of Joy’s getting April.

Joy visited few of her neighbors except Maum Hannah and Zeda, and she took no part in the plantation quarrels and disagreements, or in the arguments about what had caused April’s trouble. People asked her a thousand questions, but she was a close-mouthed woman. She didn’t know anything about anything, to hear her tell it, and she listened, mute, dumb, when they came to her, wondering if the death-sheet or the scorched charm or the white folks’ medicine had ruined April? Joy agreed with them that charms were dangerous. But store-bought medicine is not to be trusted either. Leah got herself salivated by taking one lone teaspoonful of a scentless, tasteless white powder. It looked weak as flour, yet it loosened every tooth in her mouth and made them all drop out, whole. If April hadn’t been a mighty faithful man he’d have left Leah altogether right then. Where’s another man would stick? Leah was a fool to prank with things she didn’t understand. April did well ever to look at her again, for no man could be raven about a salivated woman, yet he even took her to town and bought her new teeth. No man could have done more than that. They cost more than a bale of cotton. Leah was ever contrary. Jealous. Maybe it was Leah that had tricked him now. Who could tell? She died too hard to rest easy in her grave. And she never took her eyes off of April while she lived. No doubt her spirit was after him still.

The weather was exactly right for the cotton; mornings wet with dew, noons fever hot; nights still and steamy and stifling. Except for the accursed boll-weevils the crop was most promising. The tender leaves multiplied and widened, and from morning until night they lifted their faces to get every bit of sunshine they could hold. The three-cornered squares clustered on the limbs, but not a blossom showed, for swarms of boll-weevils punctured these buds and made them drop off before a creamy petal could form. Well-nigh every fallen square held a grub. A few days more and they’d be weevils, ready to lay more eggs in new squares, and hatch more weevils. Unless something was done to stop them, the crop might as well be thrown away.

Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac were upset. What were they to do? They sent every man and woman and child on the plantation to the field to pick the squares and try to catch the weevils, but the squares fell off behind them as fast as they picked those in front, and the pesky weevil fell off the stalks on the ground, too, as soon as anybody came near them. They played dead like ’possums, and they were colored so near like the dirt, the sharpest eyes couldn’t find them.

Uncle Bill walked up and down the rows watching, and frowning darkly. At last he stopped beside Zeda, and asked her where Sherry was. He’d have to come home and poison the cotton or the whole crop was done for. Not enough money would be made on the whole place to buy a pair of rope lines. Sherry would come back if he knew how bad things were. He wouldn’t hold hard feelings against April if he could see him. God had punished April enough to wipe out every sin he had ever done in his life. Sherry must forgive him too, and come back and help fight the weevils. Zeda listened coldly. She looked at Uncle Bill, then at the others.

“Uncle Bill is talkin’ out a new side o’ his mouth to-day, enty?” She tried to laugh indifferently, but everybody knew Sherry’s going had cut her to the quick and she’d be glad enough to get him back.

“You’s right, Zeda. I is talkin’ a new talk. But de ox is in de ditch. An’ de ditch is deep. De plantation is in distress, an’ nobody can’ save em but Sherry.”

All the people stood still heeding every word, now and again making low remarks to one another.

“You’s right, Uncle. I know I don’ relish plowin’ f’om sun to sun not lessen I’m doin’ some good. De more we plow, de more de cotton grows an’ de more it puts on squares to feed de boll-evils. April pizened ’em last year. Sherry helped em den. Le’s send at Sherry to come home. Git a letter wrote to em an’ tell em if he would come home we mens’ll make em foreman. How ’bout dat?” asked Jake, Bina’s husband.

The men looked at him, searched one another’s faces, growled among themselves. The women fell into groups, the loudest talkers laying out opinions, some for, some against, Sherry’s being made foreman. True enough, they needed a foreman. No plantation as large as Blue Brook could half-way run without a man to head the hands and be their leader. Sherry was young. Wild. Head-strong. He wasn’t even married and settled.

Zeda called out impatiently:

“Talk it over good! Make up you’ minds! Sherry’s comin’ or not comin’ is one to me! E’s got a fine job, yonder up-North. E’s makin’ money hand over fist. His wages fo’ one day is more dollars dan e would see in a month here at Blue Brook.”

Her words struck home. After a few silent moments, the people began saying:

“Write em to come, Zeda!”

“Tell em we want em fo’ foreman!”

“Tell em de crop’ll be ruint widout em!”

“We sho’ do need em!”

Casting a side-glance toward Joy, alone at one side, saying nothing, yet keeping track of every glance that passed between the others, Zeda stood a little straighter, and cleared her throat that her words might be plain.

“One more t’ing; I ain’ told nobody before. Not yet. But Sherry is married to a gal yonder up-North. She might not be willin’ to come to Blue Brook.”

Joy’s body stiffened, her eyes widened, her arms fell to her sides, but the others laughed and joked over the news until their voices ran into an excited chorus.

“Write Sherry to bring dat gal on home!”

“Lawd, dat news sho’ do surprise me!”

“T’ink o’ Sherry takin’ a wife in dat strange country!”

“Lawd, dat boy done fast work! Jedus!”

“Who’s gwine help Sherry pizen de cotton if he do come?” Zeda was in earnest.

“All o’ we!”

“All de mens!”

“Sho’! Ev’ybody’ll help em!”

Zeda bowed. That settled it. She’d get Joy to write a letter to send off by the next mail.

The crowd felt such relief, they broke into gay laughter. Merry jokes were cracked. The boll-weevils were left in the field. Sherry would fix them.

The people all turned home. In groups of three or four they talked and laughed boisterously, boasting what a good crop would be made this year. The cotton plants were strong. Able. The grass well-nigh killed out. Poisoning would do the rest.

Every trace of down-heartedness was gone. Discouragement forgotten. Sherry would come back and kill all the boll-weevils. Blue Brook would roll in money next fall.