Part 4

“Gi’ me de black all de time. White t’ings is too weakly!” she shouted gaily, as Uncle led the way toward the flat. Big Sue followed, holding Breeze’s hand tight. She picked her way down the short sandy hill with slow uncertain steps.

“I ain’ use to shoes an’ dey hinders my feet in dis sand,” she explained loudly, but Uncle was busy starting the flat across the river. Grunting, straining until veins showed in his forehead, he finally got the waterlogged hulk to moving by means of a rusty cable and a curious narrow board with notches cut in one side so it could clutch the cable tight.

The sun fell lower as they slowly crossed. Colors of the sky on the still water made a band of flame, of scarlet and purple down the middle of the dark stream, that spread out into the marshy forest.

The old ferryman paused in his pulling and muttered, as he gazed at the sunset; then with a bright look at Breeze, and a chuckle, he began pulling hard again. A flock of crows streaked the sky, going home; a lone fish-hawk sailed not far behind them; tiny swamp sparrows twittered and chattered.

Night was coming and the whole world knew it. The wind dropped into a quiet whispering, waiting for the tide to turn. Every tree and leaf and bough, even the water itself, was darkening. Squirrels chittered softly in their nests, a wildcat yeowled gently. Breeze’s heart, that had been thumping miserably in his breast, now beat up in his throat and the lump that had risen when he told his mother good-by swelled bigger and harder than ever. Tears that had been stinging his eyes all the way began rolling down his cheeks.

He turned his back, and easing a hand stealthily up to his face, tried to brush them away. Cousin Big Sue mustn’t see him cry. Sis said he must be a man and try to be good.

He suddenly forgot his sorrow when swarms of tiny, almost invisible insects rose from nowhere, and settled in his eyes and ears and nostrils and teeth, with a fierce singing and stinging that was maddening. He took off his ragged hat and tried to fight them away, but they ignored its waving. As fast as he killed what seemed to be handfuls, by crushing them on his face and neck and bare legs, others took their places. Sand-flies and mosquitoes were eating him up. Cousin Big Sue had to fight them too, but Uncle was not troubled at all.

“Is de sand-flies pesterin’ yunnuh?” he asked mildly.

“Great Gawd, dey sho’ is!”

“Git some sweat out you’ armpits an’ rub on you’ face. Dat’ll run ’em!”

“Do, Uncle! Fo’ Gawd’s sake! I ain’ no filthy ol’ man like you! I washes myself!”

“Wha’ dat you say, daughter?”

Big Sue broke into a laugh. “I ain’ say nuttin! Not nuttin!”

Uncle calmly worked on, unconscious of what she said. Sweat trickled over his wrinkled face, but it kept its pleasant smile. More than once Big Sue opened her mouth to speak, but closed it without a word, and her face was as doleful as if, like Breeze, she was lonely and homesick.

Breeze wondered bitterly why he hadn’t run away and hidden down in the branch where nobody would ever find him? Baby partridges, or new hatched guineas, will sneak under a leaf and stay there until they die before they’ll let a stranger find them. Why didn’t he do it? He would rather die by himself in the woods than be here on his way to live with this strange woman whose wind was broken.

The sticky mud on the bank had shown no respect for Big Sue’s wide-laced shoes. It clung to their soles and stained their shiny tops. The hem of her stiff starched white apron was streaked with dirt. Everything here was strange and unfriendly. The water and trees, the tangled vines and rank undergrowth were all dark and scary. Snakes and alligators and hog-bears and jack-o’-lanterns lived in such places. More than likely hants and plat-eyes and fever and spirits were thick all around. Suppose he’d see them now, with his second-sight! He didn’t want to see anything but his home yonder behind him, and it was too far to see even the smoke rising out of its low clay chimney. A thick green dusk had risen up from the earth, cutting off the shore on the other side of the river.

The cable slapped the water as it drew the flat across. The old man kept up his grunting and straining. He was not afraid, although he was so old that the years had dried up the flesh on his crooked bones. Breeze jumped sharply, startled and bewildered, when, without any warning, the old man’s laughter cackled out. Looking down where the old bent forefinger pointed, he caught sight of an alligator which settled slowly, noiselessly, under the water until two eyes and a nose tip made three small dark bumps above the smooth surface.

“De alligator see you, son!” the old man squeaked out gleefully, and Big Sue broke into shouts of laughter.

“Great Gawd,” she cried. “Do look how e gaze at you, Breeze. E mus’ be hongry! E don’ see how you’s po’ as a snake! You’ li’l’ bones would pure rattle inside dat big creeter’s belly.”

Stinging homesickness filled Breeze’s heart. Why had he come? Truly, this was out of his world. But there was no way to turn back. None. Shrill piercing bird-cries that rose and fell out of the sky answered something that ached in his heart.

IV

JULIA

Overhead the high thin air swished, beaten by the wings of wild ducks that flew swiftly across the sky in an even fan-shaped line. Uncle kept looking up at them. Once when he spoke to them in strange muttered words, Big Sue observed:

“Lawd, do listen at Uncle! A-talkin’ to dem ducks same as if dey was speerits!”

The trees leaned dreamily over the water which trembled as the sun turned it to dark blood. Uncle’s pulling slackened. The flat touched the firm earth at last.

With amazing nimbleness the old man hopped out and tied it fast to a tree, his crooked fingers fumbling stubbornly with the frayed rope until he was satisfied it would hold; then he followed Big Sue and Breeze up a short sandy climb where the road made a swift bend and ran underneath great trees whose thick branches lapped overhead, shutting out all but small white pieces of the sky.

A bony gray mule hitched to a two-wheeled car stood tethered to a limb. Uncle hobbled to the beast’s head: “Wake up, Julia! Open you’ eyes, gal! You too love to nod! Dat’s de biggest fault I got to find wid you! Lula was a wakeful mule! Lawd, yes!”

Big Sue was panting and climbing in over the cart’s wheel, using the hub for a step. She sat on a board laid across the body. Breeze got in and sat on the floor. Uncle crawled over the dashboard, and jerking the rope lines urged Julia to move on.

“Mind, Julia! Don’ git me vexed! I ain’ used to no triflin’ ways! Lula was pearter’n dis!” Uncle sat up very straight and his tone was terribly threatening.

Julia shook the gnats out of her ears, then snorted them out of her nose, but not until Uncle got to his feet and, raising a long dry stick high as his arm could reach, brought it down on her hip with a powerful whack did she move out of her tracks.

“Git up, Julia!” He gave her another lick, and she turned slowly about and got into the sandy road.

Big Sue heaved a weary sigh.

“Julia is de laziest mule I ever seen in my life, Uncle! Whilst you was a-buyin’ one, whyn’t you git a spry one?”

“Julia ain’ lazy. E’s just careful. Julia knows dis cart ain’ so strong.”

“I hear-say Julia kicks awful bad sometimes!”

“Who? Julia? No, ma’am! Julia’s kind as kin be!”

“E looks awful old, Uncle.”

“Julia ain’ no more’n ten.”

“How come e front knees is so bent over if e ain’ old?”

“Bent over? Julia’s got to bend e knees to walk, enty?”

“Well do, fo’ Gawd’s sake, lick em an’ make em walk a li’l’ faster. We wouldn’t git home befo’ to-morrow if you don’t. Lawd, I’m sorry Lula’s dead.”

“Me too, Big Sue. Now Lula was a mule fo’ true. Lula was de finest mule ever was on Blue Brook. Julia ain’ got no time wid em. Lula had sense like people. I miss em too bad. I ruther de boll-evils had eat up all de cotton on de plantation dan to ’a’ had Lula pizened. I told April to don’ fetch dat pizen to de place. I knowed somet’ing bad was gwine happen soon as he done it. But April is a headstrong man. Nobody can’ change him when he gits his mind made up.”

“April tries to be big doins’ like de buckra, enty?”

“No, gal, not like de buckra. April’s done passed by de buckra! April aims to do like Gawd now!”

“Shut you’ mouth, Uncle! You’s a case!” Big Sue roared with laughter.

“April better quit pizenin’ all dem bugs Gawd put in de cotton!” Uncle contended.

Big Sue pondered over this, but presently she grinned and slipped a look at Uncle.

“When Lula died, whyn’t you bought a awtymobile, Uncle? I hear-say you got plenty o’ money buried all round you’ house.”

“Who? Me? Great Gawd! I ain’ got fi’ cents buried! But if I had a t’ousand dollars I wouldn’ buy a awtymobile! Not me!”

“How come so?”

“Lawd, dey smells too bad! An’ I seen how dey treats de buckra. Dey goes sound to sleep on de road any time dey gits ready. Soon’s dey gits in deep sand whe’ de pullin’ is tight, dey squats right down an’ dozes off. You can’ lick ’em wid no stick like I licks Julia to wake ’em up. No, ma’am. You have to set an’ wait on ’em till dey nap is out. Dey kin dead easy too. I wouldn’ trust to buy one. No, Jedus. Dey breath is stink as a pole-cat too.”

“Lawd, Uncle, you is a case in dis world! A heavy case!”

Uncle’s eyes twinkled. “You ax me so much a questions, now le’ me ax you one. How come you’ wind is so short, daughter? You been puffin’ like a steamboat ever since you come up dat li’l’ small hill.”

Big Sue’s hands caught at each other anxiously. “I dunno, Uncle. My wind is short fo’ true. E’s been short since last Sunday was a week. I eat a piece o’ possum what was kinder spoilt fo’ my supper last night, an’ I ain’ been hardly able to travel all day. Spoilt victuals never did set right in my stomach, somehow. I don’ know how come so.”

As Uncle studied, his eyes snapped. “Sp’ilt possum meat wouldn’ hurt nobody. You looks to me like you’s conjured. You’ eyes looks strainin’. You must ’a’ crossed somebody dat Sunday.”

Big Sue’s fat face looked ready to cry. “I ain’ never done nobody a harm t’ing in my life, Uncle. I stays home all de time. I goes to church on Sunday, den I comes straight back home. I don’ hardly go to meetin’ on Wednesday night. I went all de way to Sandy Island to git dis boy, by I was so lonesome yonder home by myself. Who you reckon would conjure me, Uncle?”

Uncle shook his head gravely. That was hard to tell. Some people get mighty mean if you cross them.

“I don’ cross nobody, Uncle.” Big Sue was whimpering. “Not nobody! I ever was peaceable.”

“Is you an’ Leah friendly dese days? Leah is a mighty jealous ’oman, Big Sue.” Uncle’s eyes sparkled as they sought Big Sue’s, but she met them boldly.

“I ain’ got April to study ’bout, Uncle.”

A smile twitched Uncle’s dry wrinkled face. “How ’bout de new town preacher, daughter? I hear-say you an’ Leah all two is raven ’bout em. Better mind. De next t’ing you know dat same preacher’ll make you have sin.”

Big Sue laughed with relief. “No, Uncle. You’s on de wrong trail now. A preacher couldn’t make me have sin, anyhow.”

“How come so?”

“De preacher’s a Christian man, enty? An’ I is a Christian, enty? One clean sheet can’ soil another, Uncle.”

“Shut you’ fool-mouth, Big Sue. You, neither dat preacher, neither Leah, ain’ no cleaner’n nobody else. You kin have sin de same as me. Sho’ you kin!”

Uncle brought his stick down with a whack on Julia’s back.

V

BLUE BROOK

Little by little the cart creaked along, leaving the grove of live-oaks at the landing behind, then crossing the pasture where the rich land lay unplowed, unsown, but covered with lush grass and sprinkled with flowers. Some of them bloomed so close to the ruts that their heads were caught in the cart wheels and shattered.

The fields came next, ripe corn-fields, hay-fields ready to be harvested, brown cotton-fields, dripping with white locks of cotton. Whirls of yellow butterflies played along the road. Flocks of bull-bats darted about overhead in the sky, twittering joyfully as they caught gnats and mosquitoes for their supper. White cranes flew toward sunset, field larks sang out, killdees rose and sailed off crying. The whole earth was full of sound.

Beyond the field near the river a group of low houses, “the Quarters,” crouched in a grove of tall trees. Smoke from the chimneys settled in long bands of still blue haze. Breeze could smell its oak flavor. Human voices called out to one another, children shouting, laughing, playing, all of them strangers to him. It set his limbs to quivering, his heart to fluttering. He had nobody here. Nobody!

On a path that skirted the cotton field a skinny little black girl swinging on the end of a rope was being jerked along by a large red cow that stubbornly refused to follow the narrow path threading across the field. The beast had run out between the rows of cotton stalks, and with a deft tongue was licking, right and left, swallowing lock after lock of white staple. Uncle got to his feet.

“Git a stick, Emma! Lick em! April’ll kill you, an’ de cow too, if you knock out da cotton! Lawd, de field’s white! We sho’ made a crop dis year!”

The girl’s quick eyes glanced back, her small mouth gave a grin. Taking one end of the rope for a whip she fell to beating on the sides and back of the cow with such zeal that it left off its eating, and with a long mournful low, turned into the path that crossed the field and led toward the Quarters. The child tugged at the rope and strove to master the beast, whose dragging steps raised a cloud of dust that shone as it floated low through the evening’s bright afterglow.

The dusk crept out across the fields wiping out the day’s light. Fires in the cabins made every doorway shine. Long blue streams of smoke rose up from the chimneys and trailed in the sky. Tiny birds flitted and cheeped in the thickets. Sheep bleated. Shouts and snatches of song mingled with wagons rattling.

“Emma’s a funny li’l’ creeter!” Big Sue remarked. “E look like a witch to me.”

But Uncle hadn’t heard her, for he was busy jerking the rope lines, trying to hurry Julia’s slow steps. When a closed iron gate finally embarred them, Julia stopped short and Uncle gave a sigh. “T’ank Gawd, we’s home at last.”

At each side of the gate was a house: one a small church, with a steep roof and pointed windows; the other a cabin with a fire blazing high in its wide chimney.

Big Sue yelled out at the top of her voice, “Do, Uncle! Please, suh! Go all de way wid us.”

But the old man pretended not to hear her, and said to Breeze, “Son, I knowed you’ grampa good, when e wa’n’t as high as you. You’ grampa was my own sister’s chillen.”

Then he got out of the cart, went into the cabin and came out bringing a big iron key. He unlocked the gate and opened it wide enough for them to pass through.

Big Sue shouted in a coaxing tone, “Do, Uncle, let Julia take us all de way. I so scared o’ de boggy place yonder in de middle o’ de avenue. If I was to git in em Gawd knows how deep I’d sink down.”

At the thought of such a dreadful thing Uncle joined in Big Sue’s gales of laughter, chattering in between his cackles. “Great Gawd, daughter! Sho! You right! I better go long wid you! Da bog can’ fool me. I know em too good. I’ll go long an’ show you de way.”

“You ought to try an’ git em drained befo’ de buckra comes home dis winter. Dat bog likened to swallowed up a big awtymobile las’ year.”

Breeze was sure Uncle Isaac heard her, but instead of answering, the old man gave a powerful grunt and said the weather would be casting up for rain soon. The misery in his crippled knee had been jumping up and down all day long.

Big Sue told Breeze “de buckra” were white people who owned the plantation. They didn’t stay here much, but they would come from up-North as soon as frost killed out the fever here and wild ducks got thick in the rice-fields.

The wabbly cart creaked slowly on. The weird loneliness and strangeness of the twilit avenue made Breeze feel very lonely and sorrowful. The mule’s feet were heavy and made unwilling logy steps as they slowly carried Breeze farther and farther from all the paths and places he’d ever known.

Uncle Isaac jumped out of the wagon, and putting the rope lines in Big Sue’s hands, began poking and feeling with his stick in the still black water that covered the two ruts in the driveway. Julia must keep to the right of the road. The middle looked safe, but it was tricky. It didn’t show how deep and miry the mud in it was. It couldn’t fool Lula, but Julia was strange to it. With his stick and queer words he told Julia exactly where to walk until the bad boggy place that Big Sue feared was behind them. He’d walk the rest of the way. Julia would move faster if he went ahead.

The long avenue was bordered with enormous live-oak trees, whose great low branches, almost hidden by drooping gray moss, completely shut the road in, making it a long damp dimly-lighted shadow. Uncle pegged along steadily in front, his stick stepping as importantly as either crooked leg. Once in a while he turned around and spilled out broken stammering words, his cheerful grins showing his empty gums.

The avenue of those gloomy moss-hung oaks began to seem endless, for the road was soft and wet and the mule would not hurry, but at last a white fence made of slender pickets stood in front. Julia stopped short and Uncle Isaac sighed. “You an’ de li’l’ boy may as well git out now. You kin go de rest o’ de way by you’se’f.”

He suggested that they’d better go through the front yard. Nobody was at home so it wouldn’t matter. The path around the side was weedy. Snakes were walking fast now and he’d hate for Breeze to be bitten as soon as he set foot on Blue Brook.

Taking off his ragged cap, he bowed a low good night. He was glad a boy blessed with second-sight had come to live on the plantation. April was wise to get him here.

Big Sue thanked him, and, taking Breeze by the hand, led him through the gate and along the driveway that curved between box-borders around a large bed of shrubbery that Big Sue said was shaped like a heart.

If the white folks were home they couldn’t come this way, but since they weren’t she was glad for Breeze to see the Big House. It was the finest and largest one ever built on the Neck, and that was saying a lot, for in the old days, before most of the houses were burned or left to rot down, the Neck was a vast rich country.

In the fading light the great white house had an old gray look like everything else here, from Julia and the wool on Uncle Isaac’s head, to the moss swinging down from the huge age-twisted limbs of the giant oaks. Breeze counted the six white columns rising from the brick-paved porch, a step above the ground, to the corniced roof. Every door, every green window shutter was closed. No sign of smoke rose from the tall red brick chimneys. The background of shrubs and flowers was deadly still and so full of deep darkness, Breeze held his breath.

Big Sue sniffed. “Lawd, ain’t de flowers sweet? Jedus, have mercy! Dey pure cuts at my heart-strings! Watch whe’ you step, son. Seems to me like I smell a snake too.”

“No’m, dat’s a watermelon.”

“Enty? Dey smell a good deal alike, rattlesnakes an’ watermelons. It’s easy to take one fo’ de other, specially when de watermelons is kind o’ green.”

They crossed the back yard, which was clean-swept and white with sand, then passed by the kitchen where Big Sue cooked the white folks’ victuals. It was a long low whitewashed building with plenty of room inside, but Big Sue said when the duck shooting and deer hunting started that kitchen could hardly hold all the game. Not only ducks and deer, but partridges and wild turkeys and squirrels and oysters and turtles. As soon as a killing frost made the place safe from fever they’d be coming. Lots of ducks were already here. Lord, how she had to turn! Those white folks were heavy eaters.

Breeze could make himself mighty useful helping her, bringing in stove wood, running fast with the hot waffles, so they’d get to the dining-room before they got cold. Cold waffles are not fit to eat, and the kitchen was so far off it took quick moving feet to get anything into the house crisp and hot. But it’s dangerous to have a kitchen on to a house. Some of the best houses on the Neck caught fire and burned down as soon as kitchens were built up close to them.

* * * * *

A short straight clear path ran from the kitchen to the door of Big Sue’s home, a squatty cabin of whitewashed boards with the floor of its tiny front porch only one step up.

Big Sue pulled up her top skirt and her fat hand fumbled for the pocket of her petticoat, her hussy, she called it, where she carried her house key tied to a small flat piece of wood. She unlocked the padlock fastening the rusty chain that held the door tight shut, and went into the dark front room.

A few coals blinked with red eyes from out of a mound of ashes in the big fireplace. Big Sue well-nigh jarred them out when she threw a heavy knot of fat lightwood on them.

“Git down on de hearth an’ blow up de fire, Breeze. I got to git off dese shoes. My toes is pure got de cramp wid dem.”