Part 23

Joy helped Sherry to take him inside the cabin and lay him on a bed in the shed-room. It did look inviting. The feather mattress was puffed up high and covered with a clean white spread. April sighed deeply as he sank in its soft depths, and he closed his eyes in enjoyment.

His head was too low to see well, and he asked Joy to get him another pillow. She looked at the long empty trousers that twisted about foolishly over the white counterpane. April whispered to her that she’d have to cut them off shorter for him, or pin them back. Joy didn’t answer, but she got a quilt from another bed. When April saw what she was going to do, he protested that it was too hot to lie under a quilt. But something he saw in Joy’s eyes made him change his mind, and he let her cover him up.

Big Sue came to see if there was anything she could do for April’s comfort. She spoke kindly to Joy and told Breeze he looked well and grew fast. April hardly heard Big Sue’s offer, for his friends had crowded into the room and called to him from the open windows. They meant to be kind, still no one of them could conceal astonishment and horror that April had no feet, no legs, at all. There were gentle murmurs of:

“God bless you, son, how’s you gwine do widout legs?”

“I’m sho’ glad you lived to git home, but what’s you gwine to do?”

April’s pleasure at being home was somehow chilled. He kept saying he thought two or three times he’d never see them again and he had to pull hard to do it, but his cheerful tone had faded into gloominess.

Uncle Bill suggested that the people had better leave. April had had a long trip. He was tired. He had been very weak. He wasn’t strong enough to stand much excitement. They were all good-mannered about it. They passed out of the door with little to say, and their tones were subdued when they spoke.

When the last one had gone, April burst out crying. He held Uncle Bill’s hands and blubbered out he was nothing but a baby! He had no manhood left at all! He couldn’t even stand kindness! Everything made him cry! Everything!

Joy came back into the room and stood by the bed and looked down at him and he reached up a long arm and took her hand uncertainly and called her by name. No eyes were ever more appealing, no voice in the whole world ever plead for tenderness as April’s did then.

“Joy, you don’ mind me bein’ dis way, enty? I’m gwine git wood legs befo’ long.”

Joy stood silent, a shudder ran through her, her fingers lay limp in April’s. April groaned and let her hand go.

Then Joy tried to smile bravely and say she didn’t mind. She had fretted herself half to death about him and now she was happy because he had come. But it was too late. She couldn’t fool April. He had seen how she felt; and he drew away from her as from a stranger.

She turned and went briskly out of the room, and April turned his face to the wall. His thin breast lifted, while one deep bitter sob after another shook him. He had fought a long hard fight with Death, and now he was sorry he had won! If he had known how things would be, how Joy would feel, he would have given up, but it was the thought of Joy that made him try to live.

* * * * *

April stayed on the bed in the shed-room day after day, looking out over the rice-fields where the tides rose and fell. Breeze’s work was changed from minding Joy’s baby to staying with April, keeping the flies off him, handing him water to drink.

Few plantation sounds could reach this shed-room at the back of the cabin and when staying by April became unbearable, Breeze would go outside and walk as far as the water’s edge, or stand by the window watching cranes and kingfishers. One old bald eagle spent much of his time on a branch of an old dead tree and when a fish-hawk dived and got a fish the eagle took it from him.

* * * * *

April complained little. Once when the night was damp and the sound of the poison machine louder than usual he got very restless. He said it was hard to lie helpless. Without legs. Flat on his back. Most of the time alone. While another man took his place. But except for sighs and a few moans, that was all.

At first the people on the place came often to see him. They brought him things to eat. A chicken, a few eggs tied up in a cloth, a bottle of molasses, whatever they had that they thought he might enjoy. Occasionally some friend put a piece of money in his hand. But his persistent low-spiritedness and down-heartedness did not encourage them to come back. Soon they stopped only long enough by his window to say, “How you do to-day, April?” or “How you feelin’?” as they passed by, with troubled glances.

Uncle Bill was the exception. He came very often and he’d sit and listen as long as April wanted to talk about his weariness or his misery.

April never grew tired of telling over and over his experiences at the hospital. About the nurses and doctors, their kindness to him and interest in him. How he had fought through the long dark nights with pain. At first it was a steady fight, then after a while the pain came in showers. But he had thought out many things. He’d learned that every man has to bear his suffering alone. He realized that the doctors could not help him. Neither could his children, nor any friend. He had to go the whole way through by himself--to the very end.

When April first came home, Joy stayed with him every night, then she began going to parties and birth-night suppers once in a while, and finally, every night as soon as the supper was over and the dishes washed and put away, she’d tip quietly down the steps and go. Without a word.

April said little about it. Nothing to Joy herself. What was the use? What was he? Just half a man, that was all. He had no right to expect Joy to stay always at home with him. Breeze was always there to mind the flies or give him a drink of water, or tie a collard leaf on his aching head.

Joy shirked no household duty. She had learned to cook almost as well as her mother. He had no cause to complain of the food she gave him. It was well seasoned enough for those who had appetites to eat. Joy was young. She had to pleasure herself. He hadn’t the heart to forbid it. And nobody could say she was a gad-about. She kept the house clean, the clothes washed and patched, and she did her full share of the field work too.

April talked fairly enough to Maum Hannah and Uncle Bill and Zeda, even to Big Sue, who came to see him once in a while. But all of them could see that jealousy was disturbing him, making him fretful and suspicious.

Hour after hour he stared doggedly out of the window, moaning, sighing, wishing he could go to sleep and never wake up. His gloom filled the whole cabin. Breeze could hardly bear to stay with him, and Uncle Bill came in as often as he could spare the time.

One night Uncle Bill begged April to pray. It was the only way to find peace, to be satisfied. If he would do like Jacob, and give God no rest day or night until he had some sign his prayers were heard, his whole heart would be changed and filled with rejoicing.

April answered that he had lost faith in God’s fairness. What had he ever done to make God deal with him so? Would any decent man on the plantation treat a dog any worse than God had treated him? Or suffer a worm as much?

Uncle Bill admitted God had laid a heavy hand on April. Had smitten him hard, but if April’s suffering would make him pray, and save his soul from everlasting torment, then all suffering would be gain. Pure gain.

Joy had a Bible and Uncle Bill could read well enough to teach April to spell out a few verses. At first he learned a few of them by heart, then he strove to learn how to find the right place in the Bible and to read them there. “The Lord is my Shepherd” was the first one he located. It was the easiest of all to find and learn. Next he learned “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

Sometimes Uncle Bill read a whole chapter to him, but it was a hard task for them both, labored work for Uncle Bill to read and for April to understand.

The one April liked best was “Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

Breeze wondered who Israel was and who kept him, but he durst not ask.

One day Uncle Bill stumbled on this verse: “As a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.” The words were scarcely spoken before April put up a hand.

“Don’ read dat one, Uncle. E’s done me too bad. E ain’ treat me fair. Looks like E ought to let up on me. E done suffer me so long----”

April turned his face toward the window to hide the tears that poured out of his eyes, and there was Sherry in full view, riding the sorrel colt and holding Joy’s baby in his arms!

April’s face went a ghastly gray, his moist features shriveled. Tremors shook the muscles in his jaws, but he said nothing.

Uncle Bill stroked out the fingers of one long, blue-nailed hand, but they curled back into the palm as soon as they were released.

“You must be gittin’ a chill, April.” Uncle Bill’s eyes were full of fear. “How ’bout a mustard plaster on you’ back?”

“Nemmine, Uncle. Nemmine,” April chattered.

As the dusk fell Zeda came to inquire about April, but she found him shaking as with ague. He said he was cold through and through and his insides felt wrung and twisted. The very heart in his breast ached sorely.

Zeda said if April had a chill Joy had better give him some red-pepper tea. She’d go home and make some tea out of her own red pepper. Her pepper was strong, hot, she had gathered it at noon on a sunshiny day.

The jangle of a cow bell broke through the still night. On and on it rang, saying it was meeting night. Uncle Bill had promised to lead, and when he got up to go, Joy suggested that Breeze go along with him. Not that Breeze cared especially for the singing and praying, but anything for a change would do him good.

Maum Hannah’s house was crammed. Half the people had to stand outside, and heads crowded the windows so not a breath of air could come in or go out. The night was stifling hot and sweat trickled down Uncle Bill’s forehead as he read the Bible by the dim smelly flame of the smoky lamp. He read about a man named Jonah who sinned, and a great whale in the sea swallowed him whole! God sent the whale to get him!

Uncle Bill closed the book when the chapter was ended and talked slowly, sorrowfully, about the sin that prevailed on the plantation. The people bickered with one another instead of living in love and charity. Instead of praying for each other, they spent good money for charms to conjure one another. They danced and sang reels instead of shouting and singing spirituals and hymns. Unless they changed, no telling what would happen! God is patient. Long-suffering. He gives men every chance to get saved. But they had overlooked every warning. They had forgotten that the jaws of Hell were stretched wide that very minute, craving to swallow every soul in that room just as the whale swallowed Jonah. Jonah got out of the whale after three days, but no man ever gets out of Hell. Sinners spend eternity burning in fire and brimstone.

Why not give up sin? Why not trust in Jesus instead of putting fresh stripes on His bleeding wounds? Every sin cut Him to the quick! Not only the sins of grown men and women, but the sins of little children. Jesus was crucified over and over again by the sins of people right on Blue Brook Plantation. And yet He had died on the cross to save them from that awful place where there was nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!

The members moaned and groaned until Maum Hannah lead the spiritual, “God sent Jonah to Nineveh Land, Jonah disobeyed his Lord’s command.”

The congregation sang answers in a solemn refrain.

Verse by verse the whole story of Jonah’s awful punishment was told.

Breeze had never heard it before and he shuddered from head to foot with horror and pity for poor Jonah. God seemed as cruel and awful as the Devil. Between the two, there was small chance for any safety. Poor Jonah! Poor April! Poor Breeze!

On the way home through the night he held to Uncle Bill’s hand so tight that Uncle Bill asked what was the matter. Breeze admitted he was afraid. Afraid of the dark, of God, of the Devil, of everything, especially while it was night.

“De spirit is strivin’ in you’ heart, son. Strivin’ to convict you of sin. You start prayin’ to-night. Soon as you git home. Rassle wid God. To-morrow, you go off by you’self in de woods. Wallow on de ground an’ pray. Don’ rest, not till you done found peace, so you won’ never be ’fraid no mo’. I’ll come stay wid April to-morrow whilst you seek salvation. Start to-night, son. Pray hard as you kin. Ax Gawd to le’ you be born again. You is a human chile now, subject to sin an’ death an’ hell. When you’s born again, you’ll be Gawd’s chile. Free! Nobody can’ touch you or either harm you. Nobody!”

The cabin was dark and silent. Joy opened the door and whispered that April was asleep. Uncle Bill whispered back he’d come next day and stay with April. Breeze was going to start seeking.

“Brudge come in just now an’ said he was gwine seek too.”

“Well, I declare! Dat is de best news I heared lately! De sperit is workin’ fast to-night.”

Joy put the door-bar in place and Breeze went to bed. As soon as he crawled under the covers he tried to begin his praying for the dread of Hell racked him as bitterly as the fear of God. A round spot of moonlight fallen through a hole in the roof made an eye on the floor. A round, shining eye, that stared at him, winkless.

XX

SEEKING

It was early dawn when Joy woke him. He must get up and fetch plenty of water, and cut some wood. By that time Uncle Bill would be here to stay with April and he could go to the woods and seek.

Breeze sat up and rubbed his eyes and tried to listen, but it was all he could do to keep from sinking back deep under the covers and pulling them over his head. He didn’t want to seek, he’d a thousand times rather sleep. But April spoke:

“Git up, Breeze! You don’ hear Joy talkin’ to you!” And Breeze opened his heavy eyes and sprang to his feet. He dressed, then put his bed in order, and went at his work. By the time it was done, Uncle Bill had come, and he was set free to pray.

Cocks were crowing, birds chirping, crows cawing. Uncle Bill said they were saying their morning prayers. Breeze must listen how earnestly they did it, and learn how to pray just as hard.

Everything out-of-doors was silvery with dew, and the early sun gave the earth a mysterious radiance that dazzled Breeze’s drowsy eyes as he dragged himself slowly along. The woods looked far away. In the distance their hazy darkness blent into the sky. The path to the corn-field was shorter, and it led toward the sunshine, whose warm yellow light drew every flower face toward it.

He reached the corn-field before the morning dew was dry. The black furrows between the tall green rippling blades felt cool and damp. As a light breeze blew, the corn rustled and waved and the silks added their perfume to the fruity blossomy fragrance in the air.

Breeze sat down on the ground and looked up at the sky overhead, pondering. He couldn’t remember his sins. He hated Brudge, but that couldn’t be sinful, mean as Brudge was. Anybody who knew Brudge would hate him.

“Oh, Lawd,” he began, then halted. If he knew how to pray it would be easier. Where was Jesus? How could he make Jesus hear him? The blue sky where Heaven was looked high and far and empty.

Getting on his knees Breeze closed his eyes and repeated the words of Uncle Bill’s prayer as nearly as he could remember. Over and over he said them, until in spite of all his striving to keep awake, the stillness overcame him and he fell into a gentle doze. Something tickled his nose, then crawled across his lips. He jumped, hit at the pest, a straw. The sun’s midday light was a hard hot glare; the black shadows short. Emma stood over him, her white teeth shining in a broad grin that vexed him bitterly, a wisp of dry grass in her fingers.

“How you duh sleep! You ain’ gwine pray?” Emma giggled as she asked it.

Breeze rubbed his eyes and looked all around. He hated being caught, and Emma had no business tickling his face while he slept. Stung to the quick with shame and vexation, he snapped out angrily:

“How come you duh grin like a chessy-cat? Who you duh laugh at so frightenin’?”

His ill humor sobered her and she made haste to explain, “I ain’ laughin’ at you. I’m a-laughin’ at Brudge. Brudge is done found peace in dem woods back o’ we house. Lawd, e hollered so loud, I thought sho’ e had got in a yellow-jacket’s nest! Jedus, you ought to heared em!” Emma’s laugh rippled out and shook her slim shoulders so that the beads Joy had given her chinked merrily against the hot black skin of her little black neck. Her three-cornered face glowed with fun, her slanting eyes sparkled as they met Breeze’s, but he shrugged disdainfully. “I know dat ain’ so. Brudge didn’ start seekin’, not till dis mawnin’. E couldn’ find peace, not dat quick. You can’ fool me. Shucks!”

“I ain’ tryin’ to fool you. Gramma made me go see wha dat was ail Brudge, made em squall an’ holler so loud.” Emma’s face had got serious, her teasing eyes grave.

In spite of the too-big, ugly dress she wore and the long awkward sleeves that hung over her small hands, the child had a half-wild grace and lightness, and as she knelt down in the soft dusty furrow and one hand crept out from the folds of her dress toward Breeze, he grabbed it and held it before it could draw back.

“Breeze----” her husky little voice made his name a new thing. He could feel a smile twitch at his mouth. “Breeze--if you’d find peace, you wouldn’ be scared to git baptized?”

Breeze knelt beside her and he glowed, all on fire with courage now. “Who? Me? Lawd, I ain’ scared o’ nothin’. Not nothin’!”

Emma’s eyes widened with wonder and respect for his boasting. “You ain’ scared o’ nothin’ in de world?”

Breeze turned his head and spat far away like a grown-up man. “Not nothin’ in de world.”

Breaths of hot air drove the clouds along over their heads. A grasshopper played shrill faint music, a dove mourned softly, the corn blades rustled gently.

Breeze dropped her hand and grasped her thin shoulders, but she tore herself from his hold with a breathless laugh. Then he caught her arm, but she was stronger than he thought. The muscles in her small arm tightened under his fingers and, wriggling herself loose, Emma went flying down the corn row, calling back mockingly, daringly:

“Better go on an’ pray. A witch might git you!”

And Breeze answered boldly, his fear of God and the Devil all forgotten,

“I ain’ gwine pray. No! Wait on me, Emma! Don’ run so fast! You t’ink you kin outrun me! Good Lawd, you can’ do dat! I’ll show you so right now!”

* * * * *

At the cabin a crowd of people gathered. Breeze could hear them babbling together, then keeping silent while one voice rose high. There was no making out what it said, and Breeze went as fast as he could, eager to know what was the matter. He found Brudge telling his experience. The boy had told it over and over until his voice was hoarse and trembly, yet he kept on, excitedly, as the people, mostly women, urged him to tell them again what God had done for him. Brudge said he was away off in the woods praying. Down on his knees with his eyes wide open, looking up through the trees at the heavens, begging God to hear him, to give him some sign, to let him know his sins were forgiven, just as Uncle Bill said he must do. He had been there for an hour or two, calling on Jesus with every breath, when all of a sudden the light cut off, just like the lights in the Big House at night when the white folks go to bed. Everything was pitch black dark. There was not one sound anywhere. He thought he had died and it scared him so he raised up and hollered loud as he could; the light came back quick as a flash, with such a brightness he was mighty nigh blinded. All the trees over his head began waving their arms and shouting. All the clouds up the elements broke in half, and in the middle of them he could see people, crowds of people waving their arms and shouting. He jumped up and shouted with them! He felt light as any feather! The wind fair blew him along as he ran home to tell the people what he had seen this morning!

“Great Gawd, what a vision dat boy did have!”

“Dat’s de first time anybody on dis place ever did see right spang into Heaven!”

“Son, Gawd is sho’ blessed you to-day!”

“It makes me pure scared to hear de boy talk!”

“It sounds to me like Brudge is called to preach!”

“De Holy Sperit sho’ did knock em on de head. Listen how de boy talks!”

“Now ain’ it so? Brudge must l’arn how to read an’ write.”

“Sho’! A preacher has to read readin’ an’ writin’ too.”

“Don’ you know Leah is happy in Glory to-day!”

The mention of Leah’s name brought pitying groans.

“Po’ Leah. Gawd took em home too soon. Leah ought to be here to-day.”