Part 8

Uncle Bill invited them to come look inside the stables. “I got ’em all clean, an’ full o’ de nicest pine straw beddin’ ever was. I’m too sorry. Dey wouldn’ help you’ cold, not a bit, but come look at ’em, anyhow.”

“Whe’s de run-at cow?” Big Sue asked.

Uncle Bill laughed at her fear. The run-at cow was in the pasture--she needn’t be scared. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her.

In the long row of stables, bars of sunlight shining through the cracks were blurred with dust raised by hens, roosters and little chickens, scratching vigorously in the crisp dry straw. The cocks were saying brave things, the hens sang contentedly as they looked for the grains of corn and oats hidden under wisps of fodder and hay and straw.

“Scratch, chillen, scratch,” Uncle Bill encouraged them. “De mules will come in to dinner befo’ long, den you-all’ll have to go home.”

“Make dem go home now,” Big Sue requested. “I wan’ see how you rules dem, so I kin rule Breeze.”

He hesitated. “It ain’ quite time yet. De mules don’ come in till noon.”

“We won’ be here den,” she persisted.

“How come you sends de chickens home when de mules come?” Breeze asked.

“So dey won’t git trompled under foot, son. De hens is greedy, an’ a mule’s foot is blind. Whilst de mules is chawin’ an’ droppin’ grains, dey feet’ll step on a hen same as on pine straw.”

“Send de chickens home now,” Big Sue asked again with such a warm smile that he put down his fork full of hay and, standing in the stable door, waved his big arms and shouted:

“Shoo outa here, chickens! Git on home! Be quick as you kin! I hate to git a stick after you to-day! Dis is Sunday! Git on out an’ go home!”

The chickens became terribly excited. Some of them huddled in the straw, trying to hide, others cackled and ran. The hens with little chickens clucked briskly and hurried away, for Uncle Bill’s face was hard until every feather was out of sight.

The straw lay still. The dust whirling in the sunlight took its time and dawdled. Stable flies, with shiny wings and short fat bodies, strutted out in buzzing circles. Uncle Bill’s practised eyes spied a scarlet comb away under a trough, far back in a corner.

“Who dat hidin’?” he demanded sternly, and a shamefaced young cockerel cackled out in terror.

“Didn’ I told you to go home?” Uncle Bill asked him. “You ain’ know yet you got to mind me? I ain’ got time to be foolin’ wid such as you. No, suh! I’m too busy.”

The poor frightened creature made a few weak gaggles and tried his best to hide.

“You’ head will be chop off to-morrow. I’d do it now if it wa’n’t Sunday. Dem I can’ rule, I kills. I don’ mean to mistreat nothin’, Miss Big Sue, but I got to be strict.”

He sighed as he came out and closed the door behind him. “Dat’s a fine young rooster. I was gwine to keep him for seed. I sho’ hates to kill him.”

“I wouldn’ kill him. Not dat nice rooster. You got to scuse a chicken sometimes.”

“I done already scused em. Dat’s how come e’s so spoilt. E’s ruint. If I let him live now e’d keep me worried all de time,” Uncle Bill contended.

“Fetch em to me an’ I’ll fry em nice fo’ you!” Big Sue offered so kindly that Uncle Bill declared, “Now, dat makes me feel a lot better.”

“Show us you’ hogs.” Big Sue smiled sweetly. “I wan’ to see if you got one as fine as my Jeems.”

“I got fine ones, but deys all out in de pasture.”

“You kin call dem in, enty?” she persisted, and Uncle Bill gave in with a happy laugh.

First he went by the open door and got a few ears of corn, then on to the edge of the short slope, down by the water, where he drew a deep breath that filled his great lungs. He gave a loud mellow call: “Melia! Oh, Melia!” Before the echoes had died away, to the right and the left was a hurried swishing of water, an eager grunting, the sucking sound of quick feet lifted out of mud.

“Dey’s a-comin’!” he laughed, then he called again, “Come on, Melia! Make haste, gal!”

His old face softened as they came in sight, crowds of them. The little pigs squealed with delight as they hurried to get to him. The older ones moved more slowly, for their bodies were heavy, but all the time they grunted encouragement to their children. Uncle Bill’s big hand let a few white grains of corn trickle through his fingers and fall near his feet. Their quick eyes saw, and running forward they snapped up the bits greedily, pushing one another, crowding, sniffing at Uncle Bill’s dusty brogan shoes, hunting for more.

Uncle Bill lifted the wide sagging gate and opened it wide. “Come on een!” he said, and the gluttonous crowd trooped inside. When every one had passed he threw them whole ears on the ground. As they scrunched the grains and smacked over them, he reached down and patted one on the head, scratched another’s back with a cob, said some kind thing to another. It was plain he loved them.

“Dese is my chillen,” he said to Breeze, with a kind smile filling his soft black eyes.

“Dey is fine chillen, too,” Big Sue praised them. “Uncle Bill’s hogs is de finest in dis whole country. I was dat proud when he brought me Jeems, yonder in my pen, home. Uncle Bill raises fine hogs an’ nobody can’ cure hams, or make sausages to taste like de ones he fixes. Nobody.”

“Well, I tries my best.”

It was a wonderful sight to Breeze. The shade between the fence and the water held hogs of every shape and size. Huge and black, with soft silky hair, they lolled, resting, panting, feeding their young.

“Git up, Ellen, an’ come here,” Uncle Bill called out to one of them. “Le’ Miss Big Sue see you an’ you’ chillen good.” The words were hardly out of his mouth before a great beast roused and lazily got to her feet and walked toward him, followed by her children. Uncle Bill took an ear of corn from his pocket, shelled a few grains and tossed them over the ground, which made the pigs come faster.

“Po’ Ellen! E’s blind. I had to stick e eyes out. Lawd! I did hate to do it!”

“How come so?” Big Sue asked him.

“Ellen would catch de chickens an’ eat em. A deer couldn’ beat Ellen runnin’. A hen couldn’ git away f’om em nohow. Ellen would swallow down a mother an’ whole brood o’ biddies quicker’n I could swallow a pint o’ raw oysters. It’s de Gawd’s truth. E’d eat de mammy an’ all. I had to hinder em somehow. I didn’ wan’ to kill a fine hog like Ellen, so I hottened a wire till it was red an’ jobbed it in all two o’ e eyes. Ellen can’ see how to run chickens down, not no mo’. Po’ ol’ gal!”

“How come some pigs is different f’om de rest?” Breeze asked. “How come some is red an’ dey ma is black?”

Uncle Bill and Big Sue exchanged smiles. “May as well say, Uncle Bill. Boy-chillen has to know sich t’ings.”

The old man smiled behind his rough hand and said, “De ma’s name is Melia, son.”

Uncle Isaac drew nearer to hear, and Uncle Bill told how Melia had been the apple of his eye since the day she was born. He planned to have her raise the finest litters ever born on this plantation. But Melia was a headstrong person. She had a mind of her own.

Uncle Isaac chuckled and murmured, “Dat’s de Gawd’s truth!”

Jack, the boar heading the herd, would take a prize anywhere. He had tremendous size, yet he was so well-bred that in spite of his bulk his skin was smooth, his hair soft and fine. He had every mark of a perfect Poland-China.

Uncle Isaac agreed emphatically. “Yes, e sho’ is. Sho’! Sho’!”

But when Melia grew up she would have nothing to do with Jack. She didn’t like him. Uncle Bill tried to encourage her to do her duty, but Jack wasn’t to her taste, and that’s all there was to it. No amount of coaxing could make her change.

Last spring Uncle Bill made up his mind Melia would have to be killed. He hated to do it. The very thought cut at his heart-strings. But there was no use to keep Melia unless she had children. He’d have killed her then, but she was too large to be killed in hot weather. Her ham couldn’t be cured properly, and so she was left to be made into meat this winter.

Uncle Isaac broke out laughing. Lord, Bill was a doleful soul when he fixed on Melia’s death. Uncle Bill nodded:

“It’s de Gawd’s truth! I pure had to go off an’ pray, I was so fretted over Melia! My prayers was answered, too. Dey sho’ was!” He said soon after his sorrowful decision, he went to the pasture one morning and found a strange sight: the pasture fence had been broken down, and a low-down, ornery, red razor-back hog was inside. He was dirty and lean and ugly. His red hair was stiff and coarse and caked up with mud. He was a sneaky, no-mannered beast. But Melia liked him.

Before many moons Melia had a fine litter of pigs. Red pigs, that took their color from the father Melia chose for them, a scrubby, ugly no-account hog that came from God knows where.

“Dey’s fine pigs, dough. Dey’s out-growin’ all de rest. Melia’s a case. A heavy case.” His proud chuckle ended with a sigh. “I reckon I’m too easy on Melia. She played a bad trick on me. I know I ought not to let em do so. But I’m gittin’ old an’ soft-hearted, an’ Melia knows it. Melia’s got too much sense. God ought not to ’a’ made Melia a hog. No. Dat was a mistake. Ought I to ’a’ killed Melia, Uncle!”

“No. No,” Uncle Isaac said gently. “You couldn’ be hard, not on Melia. Melia had a right to choose her man. Ev’y ’oman ought to could do dat, enty?”

Big Sue laughed and curtsied good-by, after thanking Uncle Bill for showing Breeze the barnyard creatures, and Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac both pulled back a foot and bowed and touched their bald foreheads, where forelocks should have been.

With a happy heart Breeze followed Big Sue on the path that swung along the edge of an open field, close to tall pines whose dark plumy tops lifted high above the red ripened leaves fluttering on bushes at their feet. The dogwood was crimson; haws and wild plum thickets gay scarlet. Partridges whistled. Across a reaped field larks rose and called out plaintively to one another from the stubble. High vines of black muskadines perfumed the air. Persimmon trees bent with fruit waiting for frost to make it mellow and sweet. The sun beat down hot, but summer had given way to fall.

The road to the Quarters, strewn with fallen leaves that almost hid its ruts and holes, ran past sugar-cane patches where green blades rustled noisily over purple stalks. Sweet potatoes cracked the earth under vines shading the long rows. Pindars were blooming. Okra bushes were full of creamy red-hearted blossoms and pointed green pods. Butter-bean vines clambered over the hand-split clapboard garden fences that kept pigs and chickens out of small enclosures, where wide-leaved collards waited for frost to make them crisp, and scarlet tomatoes spotted straggly broken-down bushes.

Birds chirruped everywhere. The fields murmured in the soft wind. The Quarters, although made up of houses that tottered and leaned crank-sided, seethed with noise and life.

A large wagon, drawn by two mules, and with new planks laid across its high body for seats, rolled by, filled with church-goers. A flutter of hand-waves and a chorus of “good mawnin’s” greeted Big Sue as she stopped to let it pass.

“How come you ain’ gwine to church to-day, Big Sue?” somebody called out.

“I ain’ no Still-water Baptist, gal! I wouldn’ go to hear no Still-water preacher. No, ma’am!” she answered. “Jedus was baptized in de River Jurdan, an’ dat’s runnin’ water. Still water gits stale an’ scummy too quick. It can’ wash away sin! No! Sin needs runnin’ water.”

The Quarters’ houses, long, low, shabby buildings, had two front doors apiece. Each house sheltered two families, a huge chimney in the middle marking the division. Moss adorned the gray shingles of the sagging roofs. Steps were worn thin. Rust reddened the old hand-wrought hinges of the leaning doors and gave a creak to wry window shutters.

Maum Hannah lived in the house where she and her mother and her grandmother were born. As they approached it a miscellany of goats and chickens and pigs and dogs and half-clothed little children scampered away from the door-step. The door was ajar, but a chorus of voices called out:

“Maum Hannah ain’ home. E’s yonder down de street!”

“Come look inside de door at Maum Hannah’s nice house,” Big Sue pushed the door wider open with a stick, so Breeze could see. The huge chimney had big strong black andirons, where heavy logs of wood were slowly being charred in two by a sleepy fire. All kinds of pots sat around on the clean white sand of the hearth. One pot on a pot-hook that reached out from the chimney’s back had steam spurting from under its cover, filling the room with a savory smell. Big Sue sniffed. “Dat goat-meat stew is seasoned mighty high,” she said. “De floor was scoured wid mighty strong lye soap, too.”

The thing that took Breeze’s eye was the tiny black child that sat on the hearth warming its bare feet on the naked sooty pots. He knew it was Emma, but if he had not seen her before he could never have told if she were a girl or a boy, her small features were so sharp and her clothes so shapeless.

“Looka, Emma!” Big Sue called out with a laugh, and the child’s small head perched on one side, one round black eye narrowed and a broad grin showed her two rows of milk-white teeth.

“You’s Maum Hannah’s heart-string, enty, Emma?”

But Emma didn’t answer a word.

Big Sue said Emma’s mother was dead and she had no daddy, but she was worth a lot, for she had power to cure sickness and sorrow by the touch of her hand. That was because she had never looked on her daddy’s face. Somebody stepped over her when she was a baby; that was why she had never grown much. She’d never grow, although she sat there on the hearth roasting potatoes and eating them all day long.

All children loved to come here and sit inside Maum Hannah’s chimney on the end of a log. Big Sue used to sit there and watch Maum Hannah put ash-cake in the ashes to cook, and sweet potatoes to roast. The fire never went out in Maum Hannah’s fireplace. It’s bad luck for a fire to die in a house and this fire had never gone out altogether since it was first started by Maum Hannah’s great-grandpa, who was brought from across the sea to be a slave. The first houses ever built here were sheds to keep the fires from the rain and wind, for nobody had any matches in those days. The fires that burned in all the Quarter houses came from that same first fire that had burned for years and years. It was a lot older than anybody on the plantation. Big Sue’s fire was a piece of it. It burned hotter than match fire. Steadier too. It’s unlucky to start a new fire with a match. Breeze must learn how to bank the live coals with ashes every night, so the next morning they can be uncovered and started into a blaze. If the fire goes out, borrow a start from Maum Hannah, or one of the neighbors who have the old fire.

Maum Hannah’s cabin was very clean. Newspapers were pasted all over the walls, the dark naked rafters almost hidden by fringed papers that swung from the barrel hoops on which they were tied. A few split hickory chairs sat near the small pine table, a water-shelf beside the door held a wooden bucket and a long-handled gourd. The wide boards of the floor were scrubbed until they were almost white, and a string of eggshells by the chimney dangled in the draught. They’d been hung there to make the hens lay.

Between the two rows of dingy old houses that squatted low under the great oak trees the hot sunshine brought rank scents up out of the earth. Odors of pig-pens and cow-stalls and fowl-houses and goats, mixed with Hoyt’s German cologne and the smell of human beings.

Children were playing around almost every door-step. Plump. Bright-eyed. Boys with loose-hanging, ripped-open trousers, their black bodies showing where shirt-fronts lay wide open. Girls with short, ragged skirts flapping around slim prancing legs. Babies cried. Tethered goats bleated. Penned pigs squealed. Men, women, some in every-day clothes, others in their Sunday best, sat on the door-steps, leaned out of windows, lolled on the bare earth, where there was sunshine. Talking. Parading. Laughing. Some of them combing and wrapping hair, others putting shoe-strings in shoes, or smoking and idling.

As Big Sue passed, she bowed or curtsied, and called out hearty good mornings that fell limpid on the lazy hum of voices.

* * * * *

“Whe’s Maum Hannah?” Big Sue asked, and everybody pointed to the last house where an old woman sat in a chair in the yard in front of a doorway, near a group of black children playing in the dirt.

A large clean white cloth, folded into three corners, lay across her head and shaded her eyes from the sun. Her arms were crossed, and each narrow flat bare foot rested on a brick. Side by side they slept, almost hidden by the wide white apron that fell stiffly from her lap in starched folds, with corners that reached the ground.

“Maum Hannah don’ trust de ground. E won’t as much as let her feet sleep on it. I bet e’s been awake all night, an’ e’s makin’ up for lost time now.”

Maum Hannah’s face bore a strong resemblance to Uncle Isaac’s. It was smoother and had smaller features, but the same rich brown tone was on the black skin. The wool that edged out from under her black headkerchief was snow-white too, but her face was almost unlined, except for the wrinkles that smiles had marked around her mouth.

The little black children stared and giggled as Big Sue went tripping forward and put both her fat hands over Maum Hannah’s eyes:

“Guess who, Mauma!”

“Oh, I know you good,” Maum Hannah answered. “Dis is my Big Sue. I went to sleep a-thinkin’ ’bout you, gal. My mind must ’a’ called you till you come.”

“I declare!” Big Sue mirated. “I knowed it! I called you’ name, too, in de night. Dis is de boy-chile I fetched f’om Sandy Island. I want you to tie up his palate lock. E coughs so bad at night I can’ sleep.”

Maum Hannah gave Breeze a warm kindly smile, and her keen black eyes, deep-set underneath her bony brow, scanned him swiftly from his head to his heels. “Lawd, son, I too glad to see you. De last time we met, you wasn’ no bigger’n my hand. How come you’ palate is down? I too sorry. Did you know I had to gi’ you de first spankin’ you ever had? Lawd, I had to pop you hard to make you holler! I hope you is hard to make cry, yet.”

The little black children playing in the dirt around her forgot all about their games, so engrossed were they in Breeze, and what Maum Hannah said. They forgot their manners, too, until she prompted them.

“Yunnuh speak to you’ Cousin Big Sue. Git up! Stan’ up straight an’ pull you’ foot an’ bow nice! Dis li’l’ boy is yunnuh cousin, too. E come f’om over de river. Tell him good mawnin’. Gawd bless him!”

There was great scrambling and giggling, and many shy “good mawnin’s.” The sleek bodies were half-clad, but the whiteness of teeth, and brightness of eyes made up for lack of garments.

Maum Hannah’s own teeth were strong and sound, and set in deep blue gums which stressed their yellow tinge. The cane stem of a rank-smelling pipe showed above the top of her apron pocket.

“Lawd, you’ pipe do smell pleasant!” Big Sue sighed. “But looka my li’l’ boy. Who does e favor?”

Maum Hannah’s warm wrinkled hand gently lifted Breeze’s chin so the sun could shine full on his face. “Dis boy is de very spit o’ April. Gawd bless em, all two!”

Breeze felt that her wise old eyes took account of everything he was. No secret could be hidden from them.

“I glad you got a li’l’ boy-chile fo’ raise. I too love boy-chillen myself, even if dey does bring most of de trouble what’s een dis world. My old mammy used to say ev’y boy-chile ought to be killed soon as it’s born.”

“I ruther have boy-chillen dan gal-chillen,” Big Sue said. “But I know good and well boy-chillen does bring most o’ de misery dat’s een dis world.”

Maum Hannah nodded sorrowfully, as if she weighed Big Sue’s words, then she spoke slowly:

“I dunno how come mek so.

“Gawd mus’ be makes boy-chillen and trouble, all two, one time.

“Eby ’oman hab joy when e buth one.

“Eby gal hab joy when e love one.

“Dey ain’ see misery hide behime joy.

“Till de misery grow.

“Grow big till e choke de joy!

“Till e bust de ’oman heart open.

“Boy-chillen brings most o’ de misery dat’s een dis worl’.

“Boy-chillen!”

“Dat’s de Gawd’s truth, Maum Hannah! I know so. I was so crazy ’bout my Lijah, yonder to Fluridy, an’ e run off an’ left me when e wasn’t much higher’n dis same boy-chile.”

“How’s Lijah when you heard las’?” Maum Hannah inquired.

“Fine! Fine as kin be. E sent me a’ answer to say e’s de baddest man at de town whe’ e stay.”

“Dat’s nice. I glad to hear good news f’om Lijah. But e better not be too rash. No. When you write em back tell em I say don’ git so bad e can’ rule hisself.”

Big Sue laughed.

“I’ll sho’ do it. I’m gwine git a letter wrote to him as soon as Uncle Bill has time to come by my house an’ do em.”

Maum Hannah raised her eyes to Big Sue’s face and laughed. “Git de letter wrote to you’ boy, but don’ tarry too long wid de writin’. Gi’ Uncle Bill time to court some, too.”

Big Sue laughed too, until Maum Hannah added, “Better keep out de Big House, honey. You’ll hab sin if you don’ mind!”

“How come so, Maum Hannah?” Big Sue appeared to be surprised.