Part 6

“Me too. I’m pure shakin’ like a chill! Beat, Sherry! I got to march to warm up now!”

Everybody laughed and the clatter of voices made a merry confusion.

Zeda laughed with the crowd. Then she added a handful of salt to her washpot, tasted it, smacked her lips and added several pods of red pepper.

“Yunnuh got to dance nice if you want to eat dis rice an’ hash! I ain’ mixin’ no cool Christian stew!”

Bina laughed and chimed in, “Dat’s de Gawd’s truth, Zeda! Not wid all dat pepper.”

But Big Sue sucked her teeth. “Zeda don’ know one kind o’ seasoning f’om anudder. Pepper an’ salt; dat’s all Zeda knows. E never could cook no decent rations.”

A short fat man, with a well-greased face and a good-natured smile, who stood waiting for Bina to say the word, began bawling with all his might, “De victuals is ready, peoples! Come on up, men! Treat de ladies! We’s got t’ings seasoned fit to make you miss an’ chaw you’ finger! Liver-hash an’ rice! Chitterlings an’ pig feet! Spare-ribs an’ backbone! All kind o’ hog-meat.” He trailed off into a sing-song chant, while the crowd pressed close around the pots.

Uncle Bill treated Breeze and Big Sue to heaped-up panfuls of food and tin cups of molasses-sweetened water to wash it down. “Dis is sweetened wid store-bought molasses. It ain’t fittin’ fo’ nobody to drink.” Big Sue made an ugly face and threw the sweetened water on the ground. “I wouldn’ have de face to sell sich slops to people an’ call it sweetened water. Bina ever was a triflin’ ’oman. Gittin’ money is Bina’s Gawd!”

“How ’bout a little nip o’ toddy?” a deep voice spoke out of the darkness and Big Sue turned quickly around to face it, then she laughed out with pleasure. “No, t’ank you, April. I wouldn’t fool wid dat whisky. You don’ know if it’ll kill you o’ not.”

“Come off, Big Sue,” the voice chided, “when did you get so scared o’ whisky?”

“I ain’ scared o’ good whisky,” Big Sue gurgled as he walked up near and took her hand. “Dat last one you fetched me is sho’ fine. But I sho’ don’ trust de whisky Jake makes! Lawd!” She broke into a loud laugh. “I’m pure shame’ to say it but somebody told me when Jake gits in a big hurry fo’ de whisky he don’ stop wid puttin’ lye in de mash! Dat scoundrel goes straight to de horse stable an’ gits de yeast to make em work! My stomach tries to retch if I much as t’ink on de way Jake makes whisky! Jake’s a case in dis world!”

April and Uncle Bill both laughed with her, and Jake’s voice called out cheerfully from the fire-brightened doorway, “Git you’ partners ready fo’ de square dance! Git you’ nickels ready too! Fi’ cents a set! All you chu’ch-members better git on home befo’ Sherry squeezes dat ’cordion. I’d hate to see anybody hab sin to-night! Cherry’s gwine mash out tunes dat would tickle a preacher’s toe! A deacon’s ear would git eetchy! Git you’ partners, boys! Don’ be wastin’ time!”

“How you like de boy’s looks?” Big Sue mumbled, casting a smiling look up at April.

“I ain’ had a chance to look at em, not yet,” he answered low.

Sherry squeezed a long chord out of the accordion and the crowd shouted with laughter. Uncle Isaac battered the drum, and swarms of them trooped inside the cabin, falling into step with the accordion’s frolicsome measure, but instead of Uncle Bill’s leading the way straight home, he took a stand outside the cabin by an open window to watch. The tall strange man leaned over and said to Breeze, “You’s too low to see, son. Le’ me hold you up.” And he lifted him as if he were no heavier than a feather.

The light was dim. Two glass kerosene lamps burned on the high mantel-shelf, doing their best to help the fire light up the room. Music and drum-beats and lively chatter swung into time with dance steps. The confusion flowed into clean-cut swing.

Every man had his hat on. Some were tilted back, some balanced on the side, some pulled to the front; few were right and straight. Many of the dancers wore shoes, and the loose boards on the floor rose and clattered to the regular beat of their feet.

“Did you ever seen people dance before?” April murmured in Breeze’s ear.

Breeze’s bashful “No, suh” was lost in noise, for Jake, who took up the nickels at the door, was yelling briskly, his words guiding the dancers into figures. “Hands ’round, all!” shifted the couples into a wide circle that had to crumple in spots because the room was too small. As it turned around every heel bumped the floor until the stamping tramp shook the cabin from pillars to roof. Once in a while Breeze could feel the big chest pressed against him shaking with laughter.

“Ladies to de center! Gentlemens surround dem!” Jake yelled it, and the ring split and went double ply. “Make a basket!” he howled. Feet shuffled and scraped the floor, as the men made a cord of long arms and tight clasped hands that slipped over the ladies’ heads. The swaying bodies were tied together tight. Sweat shone on every face. Eyes gleamed. Teeth flashed.

“How you like dat, son?” April asked, and Breeze answered, “I like em nice.”

“Wheel de basket!” Jake bawled, and the solid ring turned, slowly, evenly at first, then faster and faster until its wild whirling threw the dancers into knots of dizzy cavorters. Hot breath poured through the windows. The rank smell of over-heated sweaty bodies ran high. The house shook and creaked. Breeze could feel the strong throb of the heart in the man’s breast beating against him. Gradually the long black face leaned forward nearer to his.

“Right hand to you’ partner!” Jake cried, and hands trembling with excitement squeezed each other and held fast.

“Do de gran’ right an’ left!”

Jake dashed the sweat out of his eyes with a bare hand, as the dancers fell into two lines. A thread of ladies wound in and out between the gentlemen, whose feet kept up a frisky jumping and jigging and jerking, like drumsticks gone crazy and trying to hammer in the floor.

“Ain’ dey done dat nice!” Big Sue exclaimed.

“Dey done it mighty well,” the big man approved, his mouth close to Breeze’s ear.

When the ladies had gone clear ’round and come to their partners again, “Swing you’ own true love!” set every skirt to spinning in a giddy ring that twirled until “Sasshay, all! Croquette! Salute de lady on de right!” unwound them, let them fall limp.

Shrieks of laughter followed smacking kisses. Sherry’s accordion blared out. Then something went wrong. The joyful clamor died into a frightened hush as a long arm shot up. A razor flashed. A muttered curse was followed by a slap on a cheek. Everybody stood still for the length of a heart-beat. The muscles of the arms holding Breeze hardened. A long low hiss of sucked-in breath made him shiver with terror as the tall man leaned forward and said coolly:

“If yunnuh don’ quit dat doins’ it wouldn’ take me two minutes to come in dere an’ butt you’ brains out o’ you’ skull! We ain’ gwine hab no cuttin’ scrape here, not to-night, boys. Outen de lamps, Sherry. Outen de fire, too. Dis dance is done broke up!”

“No, Cun April,” Jake began pleading. “Nobody ain’ fightin’ now. Dem boys was just a-playin’. Dey ain’ gwine be rough no mo’. You wouldn’ broke up a dance not for a li’l’ prankin’, would you?”

The two fighters were held apart, one with his bullet head crouched forward, his fists clenched; the other with his razorless fingers reaching out to grab and strangle. April looked at them with a half smile.

“Put dem boys out de door, den, Jake. Dey ain’ fit to be wid ladies. Let ’em go wallow wid de hogs an’ cuss all dey please, so long as dey don’ cut wid no razor.”

But Uncle Bill spoke out, “Dey is too no-manners to wallow wid de hogs. Yes, suh. My hogs yonder to de barnyard is too nice to ’sociate wid any such mens. Cussin’ befo’ ladies! Dey makes me feel pure blush.”

Big Sue wanted to go home, but April and Uncle Bill said there’d be no more trouble, and as the accordion sang out with a low sad whine, another dance set was made up. Pairs of feet were already cutting happy capers patting flat-footed and with heel and toe.

They were going to black bottle, and that was a dance that beat the four-horse altogether. The cabin room, packed with a seething mass, rocked with the reeling and rolling inside it. The accordion’s mournful crying timed to the beat of the drum sounded faint above the confusion, but its pitiful wailing went clear through to Breeze’s very backbone.

Gusts of hot breath poured out through the window. The smoky lamps sputtered low. The yellow light grew dim. Little sharp outcries mixed with mad stormy thundering steps. Big Sue called out shrilly that she wanted to go! People get drunk if they listen to music too long. Sherry was squeezing out a mighty wicked tune. First thing they knew somebody would kick both those lamps off the mantelpiece and when the crowd started jumping out of the windows, they’d get trampled to death. She hadn’t forgotten how the last birth-night supper broke up in a terrible fight. April could hold those boys down a while, but when that music got to working in their blood, the devil himself couldn’t stop them.

She could feel that music going straight to her head, and she was a good quiet Christian woman. April laughed and put Breeze down and bowed low and said good night. Big Sue invited him to walk home with them and when he declined, saying he was tired and ready to go home to bed, she insisted, but he declared that he hadn’t the heart to get in Uncle Bill’s way. He’d see them to-morrow or some time soon.

On the way home Big Sue asked Uncle Bill why it was so sinful to dance, yet not sinful at all to march by the drum. She never could exactly understand. Uncle Bill said that crossing your feet is the sinful thing. The people in the Bible used to march. Of course it was wrong to march by reel tunes. Christians ought to march by hymns.

* * * * *

Breeze fell into a sound sleep and left Big Sue talking, but he woke up in the night with his throat tight and dry sore, and a hoarse cough that barked. Everything was dark and Big Sue’s heavy snoring was the only sound to be heard. What must he do? Suppose he choked to death! Nobody would ever know it. His mother was way off yonder on Sandy Island, and Big Sue sound asleep. He’d wake her. He couldn’t die here in this dark by himself.

Crawling out of bed and guiding his way toward the sound of the snortles that were all but strangling her, Breeze went to Big Sue’s bed in the shed-room, felt for her shoulder and coughed as loud as he could in her ear.

“Great Gawd, who dat?” she cried out. “Who dat, I say!” Big Sue was on the other side of the bed!

“Dis is me,” Breeze whispered.

“How come you’s up a-walkin’ round, boy? Git on back to bed. You’ ma didn’ told me you was a sleepwalker. Great Gawd a’mighty! I can’ stan’ a sleepwalker.”

“I ain’ ’sleep,” Breeze whispered again, but she didn’t hear him, so he gave a loud cough that all but split his throat in two.

“Who dat cough? You, Breeze?”

“Yes’m.”

“Jedus, hab mussy! I ain’ never hear such a cough. You’ palate must be fell down. Git on back in de bed. If you keep coughin’ I’ll gi’ you a spoonful o’ kerosene. If you’ palate is down Maum Hannah must tie up you’ palate lock. Go on back to bed. I sho’ am sorry you’ palate is fell, but don’ you ever walk in on me a-sleepin’, not no mo’!”

The threat of the kerosene made Breeze struggle to hold in his coughs, and whenever one tried to burst out he covered up his head, although it seemed to him somebody was laughing in the shed-room with Big Sue.

VIII

THE PREMISES

Breeze slept late next morning. When he woke Big Sue stood by his bed, looking straight into his eyes. A bar of sunlight fallen through a crack in the wooden window blind laid a dazzling band on her face.

“Looka de sun shinin’ on you, son. You is gwine be lucky. Git up now, I’m got to off a piece. But you’ breakfast is settin’ on de hearth. I bet you had a bad dream last night. Don’t tell it befo’ breakfast. Dat’ll make it come true.”

But Breeze couldn’t remember any dream at all, and, slipping out of Big Sue’s night-gown and into his own clothes, he took his pan of breakfast and went to sit on the front step in the sunshine while he ate. He swallowed down the grits and bacon grease in a hurry, keeping the sweet potato for the last. A lean spotted hound trotted up and sniffed at his feet and legs, then turned to the empty pan on the step and licked it clean. When he looked beseechingly at the potato, Breeze gave him a taste and patted his head and stroked his long silky ears and together they went to look around the premises.

Big Sue had told Breeze that Blue Brook was the finest plantation on the whole Neck, and the Big House the largest dwelling, but those chimneys, towering high as the tree-tops, and the tall closed windows and doors had a cold unfriendly look. The yard was empty except for a few chickens and a flock of geese. The old gander looked at Breeze and flapped his wings and screamed out, and Breeze turned back, frightened by his threats.

Behind Big Sue’s cabin were a tiny fowl-house and a pig-pen with a big hog lying down inside. When Breeze looked over the fence the creature grunted and struggled to get to his feet. Fat had it weighted down, yet its snout made hungry snuffles at the empty trough, and the small bright eyes watched through the cracks to see if Breeze had brought any food. The hound stopped to smell a fresh mole-hill, then walked leisurely on, and Breeze left the hog to follow him and see what the premises held.

Weeds narrowed the path. Once a lizard barely got out of his way. He must watch out for snakes. The morning was sunlit, sweet with fragrance that the sun, already high up in the glittering sky, wrung out of the shrubbery; but everything was so silent.

As Breeze went toward the still shadowy garden, with its boxwood borders and bird pool and old gray sun-dial, Big Sue, unexpectedly, came out of the side door in the Big House and behind her came April, who had held him last night. Without a word April strode off in a different direction, but Big Sue called to Breeze that she’d walk with him. Going in front she led him past flowers of every color, bushes of all leaves, telling him about them as she went. Years ago the garden had been stiff and trimmed, and the shrubbery had grown in close-cut bushes between straight box hedges. But time had changed everything. Uncle Isaac was old and deaf, and instead of staying home at night and resting so he could work at the roses and keep them from running wild and getting all tangled up with vines, he ran around to birth-night suppers and cut up like a boy. She pointed out boughs that reached across the path. Clumps of paper-white narcissus, not waiting for spring, bloomed in the wrong places. White patches of sweet alyssum crept right up to the edge of the boxwood borders, the delicate perfume making the air honey-sweet. But it was out of place, and ought to be cut away. Uncle Isaac was too trifling to be the gardener now.

Tall tangled heads of grass were in some of the beds, and a bold vine whose topmost branch was gay with orange-scarlet bells swayed from the tip of a magnolia tree. The bright bunch of blossoms nodded at Breeze with a slow persistence, sunlight filled each flower cup, and its hot scent streamed out in the soft wind. There was something queer in its steady silent bowing. A light sound hissed through the stiff magnolia leaves whenever the mild wind freshened, but the magnolia tree held every crisp, brown-lined leaf still. Unmoved. The light stir of the morning’s breeze could not move that tall dark tree, which was splashed here and there with over-ripe blossoms.

“Son, is you see de way dat trumpet vine is a-wavin’ at you? Better bow back at em!”

Breeze did bow the best he knew how, but Big Sue laughed.

“When you bow, you must pull you’ foot.” She showed him how to do it.

She reached up and broke off a half-open bud, and tearing its creamy petals apart showed Breeze how they closed over a core of gold. She showed him the sun-dial marking the time of day. A spattering of water called them to see the birds enjoying a bird bath; a flock of pigeons dropped with a slanting flight, then hurried off. A tinkling of sheep bells told that a flock browsed peacefully not far away. When a blue-jay perched overhead with a screech, Big Sue shook a fat fist at him. “Git off,” she scolded. “You don’t know to-day’s Friday. Is you forgot you is due to tote a stick o’ wood to Satan? Git on to torment, lessen you done been dere a’ready dis mornin’!” A streak of scarlet flashed where a cardinal darted across a bright path of sunlight as a hammer banged down on a nail. Old deaf Uncle Isaac was mending a broken place in the fence, and talking to himself. His deaf ears had not heard Big Sue and Breeze, and his murmured talk droned on out of his stammering lips.

“Po’ old Uncle Isaac!” Big Sue sighed. “When e can’ talk to de livin’ e talks to de dead. His eyes is so full up wid speerits right now, he don’ see we. You kin see speerits, too, son, enty? You’ ma said so.”

Before Breeze had time to deny it, all of a sudden she turned on him and gave a sharp cry. “Looka here, boy! You been a-steppin’ in my tracks! I know it! A’ awful pain is come right on de top o’ my head! You done it! You needn’ shake you’ head. I was feelin’ good when I come in dis flowers yard. Git a stick! Now broke em in two an’ cross ’em! Put em in one o’ you’ tracks! Git me shet o’ dis pain! I declare to Gawd, dat’s a provokin’ t’ing you done! I was feelin’ so good too. If you try to conjure me, I’ll kill you!”

Breeze denied it humbly. He had not meant to step in her tracks. He didn’t even know it would work her harm. When he had placed the broken sticks as she bade him, she spoke more kindly, and warned him to be careful never to step in anybody’s tracks.

Once she missed and stepped in Uncle Isaac’s tracks and it gave him a terrible tooth-ache. She had to cross twenty sticks before she got him rid of it. Poor Uncle! They’d better not go near him. He was on the side of the garden where spirits stayed. Let him talk to them.

“My head is done better now, t’ank Gawd,” she sighed, adding that she’d ask Uncle Isaac to supper to-night. He could tell so many funny stories. He could explain, exactly, why the grass is green and the sky is blue. Why the sun shines in the daytime and the moon and stars shine at night. He knew what the thunder said when it spoke. He could whistle the first tune the wind ever whistled. One time, the night was a great big black giant that ran round the sun, trying and trying to catch the day. Uncle Isaac said so and he knew more about the first men and women who ever lived than Adam and Eve ever dreamed of. He got it all at first-hand, by word of mouth, from Africa, where the world itself was born and a terrible black God made all men black. Big Sue’s narrow black eyes softened, her voice grew mild, her fat fingers toyed with a rose. She said Uncle Isaac knew a strange tale about the high-tide and the evening star, and another about why the morning clouds eclipse the moon. They were pretty tales, all about love, but Breeze was too small to hear them.

IX

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Soon after the noon bell rang on Saturday, Big Sue gave Breeze a panful of dinner, cooked on the hearth where a sleepy fire nodded and dozed over a few chunks of hard oak wood.

“Hurry an’ eat, son, I want you to go wid me to de sto’. I got a lot to buy, an’ I’m scared to come home by myself after dark. To-morrow’s Sunday. I got to buy a kerosene an’ some rations. I’m gwine to git you some clothes, too.”

As he followed Big Sue down the long avenue Breeze was careful not to step in her tracks. Outside the gate, the road ran through a gloomy forest, where tall pines and live-oaks stood among magnolias and cedars and fragrant myrtle thickets. Big Sue talked about the country as they walked on.

The old road, now dwindled to this narrow dim way, was once a fine highway. Important gentlemen and lovely ladies used to drive over it in fine carriages drawn by fiery horses. The gold and silver on the harness used to blind people’s eyes the same as summer lightning. Men who had run the whole country had gone along here many a time, right where the trees sprung tall in the old dead ruts. Thorny yupon branches reached out and scratched Breeze on the arm, trying to tear the holes in his shirt bigger than they were. Big Sue called out greetings, for numbers of black people were walking the same way. Some in groups. Some walking by twos and threes. All dressed in their Sunday best, going to the Landing.

The boat stopped on its way up and down the river twice a week, bringing supplies and mail from the town in the river’s mouth to the shabby little stores that squatted along the water’s edge. This row of dilapidated houses was strung close together, and scrawny, mule-bitten hackberry trees, some with hollows clear through their bodies, stood in front of the wide-open doors, making hitching-posts for the restless beasts that had to be tethered. Many of the mules and oxen stood free to go if they liked, but they waited, dozing, switching flies, the oxen chewing cuds.