Jonah's Gourd Vine (4 page)

“Yassuh.”

“And John, see to it that Ceasar and Bully and Nunkie keep the stables, pig pens and the chicken houses clean. Don't say anything to 'em, but when you find 'em dirty you let me know.”

“Yassuh.”

“And another thing, I want you to watch all of my brood
sows. As soon as a litter is born, you let me know. And you must keep up with every pig on the place. Count 'em every morning, and when you find one missing you look around and find out what's become of it. I'm missing entirely too many shoats. I'm good to my darkies but I can't let 'em eat up all my hogs. Now, I'm going to see if I can trust you.”

“Yassuh.”

“Can you read and write, John?”

“Nawsuh.”

“Never been to school?”

“Nawsuh, yassuh, Ah passed by dat one d'other day.”

“Well, John, there's nothing much to do on the place now, so you might as well go on down to the school and learn how to read and write. I don't reckon it will hurt you. Don't waste your time, now. Learn. I don't think the school runs but three months and it's got to close for cotton-picking. Don't fool around. You're almost grown. Three or four children on this place go so you go along with them. Go neat. I didn't have slouchy folks on my place in slavery time. Mister Alfred, my son, is studying abroad and he's left several suits around that will do for you. Be neat. Let's see your feet. I don't believe you can wear his shoes but I'll buy you a pair and take it out of your wages. You mind me and I'll make something out of you.”

“Yassuh, Mister Alf. Thankee. Youse real good tuh me. Mama said you wuz good.”

“She was a well-built-up girl and a splendid hoe hand. I never could see why she married that darky and let him drag her around share-cropping. Those backwoods white folks over the creek make their living by swindling the niggers.”

John didn't go to school the next day. He had truly been delighted at the prospect of attending school. It had kept him glowing all day. But that night the young people got up a game of “Hide and Seek.” It started a little late, about the time that the old heads were going to bed.

Bow-legged, pigeon-toed Minnie Turl was counting, “Ten, ten, double ten, forty-five, fifteen. All hid? All hid?”

From different directions, as the “hiders” sought cover, “No!”

“No!” from farther away.

John ran down hill towards the spring where the bushes were thick. He paused at a clump. It looked like a good place. There was a stealthy small sound behind it and he ran on. Some one ran down the path behind him. A girl's hand caught his. It was Phrony, the womanish fourteen-year-old who lived in the third cabin from Pheemy's.

“Ah'll show yuh uh good place tuh hide,” she whispered, “nobody can't find yuh.”

She dragged him off the path to the right and round and about to a clump of sumac overrun with wild grape vines.

“Right under heah,” she panted from running, “nobody can't find yuh.”

“Whar you goin' hide yuhself?” John asked as he crept into the arboreal cave.

“Iss plenty room,” Phrony whispered. “Us bofe kin hide in heah.”

She crept in also and leaned heavily upon John, giggling and giggling as the counting went on.

“Yeah.”

“All dem ten feet round mah base is caught. Ahm comin'!”

There were screams and shouts of laughter. “Dere's Gold-Dollar behind dat chanyberry tree. Ah got yuh.”

“Whoo-ee! Ahm free, Minnie, Ah beat yuh in home.”

“Less we run in whilst she gone de other way,” John whispered.

“Naw, less we lay low 'til she git tired uh huntin' us and give us free base.”

“Aw right, Phrony, but Ah loves tuh outrun 'em and beat 'em tuh de base. 'Tain't many folks kin run good ez me.”

“Ah kin run good, too.”

“Aw, 'tain't no girl chile kin run good ez me.”

“Ah betcha 'tis. Lucy Potts kin outrun uh yearlin' and rope 'im.”

“Humph! Where she at?”

“She live over in Pottstown. Her folks done bought de ole Cox place. She go to school. Dey's big niggers.”

“She uh li'l' bitty gal wid black eyes and long hair plats?”

“Yeah, dat's her. She leben years ole, but she don't look it. Ahm fourteen. Ahm big. Maybe Ah'll git married nex' year.”

“Ahm gwine race huh jes' soon ez Ah gits tuh school. Mista Alf gwine lemme go too.”

“Dat's good. Ah done been dere las' yeah. Ah got good learnin'. Reckon Ah'll git uh husban' nex'.”

Cry from up the hill, “John and Phrony, come on in. You get free base!”

They scrambled out. John first, then Phrony more slowly, and trudged up the hill. A boy was kneeling at the woods chopping-block base when they came into the crowd. The crowd began to disperse again. John started off in another direction. He looked back and saw Phrony coming behind him, but Mehaley cut in from behind a bush and reached him first.

“Come on wid me, John, lemme show yuh uh good place.” He started to say that he didn't want to hide out and talk as he had done with Phrony. He wanted to pit his strength and speed against the boy who was counting. He wanted to practise running, but he felt a flavor come out from Mehaley. He could almost sense it in his mouth and nostrils. He was cross with Phrony for following them. He let Mehaley take his hand
and they fled away up the hill and hid in the hay.

“De hair on yo' head so soft lak,” Mehaley breathed against his cheek. “Lemme smoothen it down.”

When John and Mehaley came in, Minnie Turl was counting. Everybody was hid except Phrony who sat bunched up on the door step.

“Y'all better go hide agin,” she said.

“Somebody else count and lemme hide,” Minnie wailed. “Ah been countin' most all de time.” She came and stood near John.

“G'wan hide, Minnie, Ah'll count some,” John said.

“Heh! Heh!” Phrony laughed maliciously at Minnie. Minnie looked all about her and went inside the house and to bed.

“Haley, where mah hair comb you borried from me las' Sunday? Ah wuz nice enough tuh len' it tuh yuh, but you ain't got manners 'nough tuh fetch it back.” Phrony advanced upon Mehaley and John.

“You kin git yo' ole stink hair comb any time. Ah'll be glad tuh git it outa mah house. Mama tole me not tuh comb wid it 'cause she skeered Ah'd git boogers in mah haid.”

“Youse uh lie! Ah ain't got no boogers in mah haid, and if you' mamy say so she's uh liar right long wid you! She ain't so bad ez she make out. Ah'll stand on yo' toes and tell yuh so.”

“Git back outa mah face, Phrony. Ah don't play de dozens!” Mehaley shoved. Phrony struck, and John and all the hiders, who came running in at the sound of battle, had trouble stopping the rough and tumble.

“Did y'all had words befo' yuh fell out?” Charlie asked.

“We ain't had no words,” said Mehaley.

“Whut y'all fightin' 'bout, if yuh ain't mad?”

“Aw, ole fish-mouf Phrony mad 'cause John wouldn't hide wid her and he took and hid wid me.”

“Youse uh liar, madam! He did so hide wid me.”

“He wouldn't stay, and Ah'll betcha Alabama wid uh fence 'round it he won't never hide wid yuh no mo'.”

Mehaley preened herself akimbo and rotated her hips insolently.

“Sh-sh—” Charlie cautioned, “de old heads liable tuh wake up, and dey'll haul off and take and frail everybody. Less all tip in tuh bed. Iss way after midnight anyhow.”

So John overslept next morning and by the time that he had gathered the eggs and counted the hogs it was too late for school. He didn't want to see Lucy anyway. Not the way he felt that day, but late in the afternoon as he wandered over the place, he found a tiny clearing hidden by trees.

“Dis is uh prayin' ground,” he said to himself.

“O Lawd, heah 'tis once mo' and again yo' weak and humble servant is knee-bent and body bowed—Mah heart beneath mah knees and mah knees in some lonesome valley cryin' fuh mercy whilst mercy kinst be found. O Lawd! you know mah heart, and all de ranges uh mah deceitful mind—and if you find any sin lurkin' in and about mah heart please pluck it out and cast it intuh de sea uh fuhgitfulness whar it'll never rise tuh condemn me in de judgment.”

That night John, deaf to Mehaley's blandishments, sat in the doorway and told tales. And Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones walked the earth like natural men.

Next morning, bright and soon he stood at the school-house door. The teacher was a stodgy middle-aged man who prided himself on his frowns. Every few moments he lifted his head and glared about the room. He yearned to hold his switches in his hand. He had little ambition to impart knowledge. He reigned. Later John found out he was Lucy's uncle.

“Come heah, you,” he pointed his ruler at John. “Don't you know no better'n to come in my school and sit yo'self down without sayin' a word to me?”

“Yassuh,” he approached the deal table that went by the name of desk.

“If you know better, why did you do it? I ought to put forty lashes on yo' bare back. You come to school?”

“Yassuh.”

“Don't say ‘yassuh' to me. Say ‘Yes suh.'”

The room tittered.

“What's yo' name?”

“John.”

“John whut? You got some other name besides John.”

“Mama, she name me Two-Eye John—”

They burst into loud laughter. John colored and he stole a glance at Lucy. She wasn't laughing. Her hands and lips were tense. She must be put out with him for being a fool. She wasn't laughing like the rest.

“But mama and all of 'em at home calls me John Buddy.”

“Buddy is a nickname. What's yo' papa' name?”

John scratched his head and thought a minute.

“'Deed Ah don't know, suh.”

There was another short silence.

“Where do you live?”

“On Mista Alf Pearson's place.”

“Was you born there?”

“Yes suh.”

“Well, Ah'll jus' put you down as John Pearson and you answer by that, you hear?”

“Yes suh.”

“Ever been to school before?”

“Naw suh.”

“Well, you get over there in de A B C class and don't let me ketch you talkin' in school.”

John was amazed at the number of things to be learned. He liked to watch Lucy's class recite. They put so many figures on the board and called it long division. He would certainly be well learnt when he could do that. They parsed sentences. They spelt long words.

He studied hard because he caught Lucy watching him every time he recited. He wrote on the ground in the quarters and in a week he knew his alphabet and could count to a hundred.

“Whut you learnin' in school, John—A, B, Ab's?” Charlie asked him.

“Ah already know dat, Charlie. Ah kin spell ‘baker' too.”

“Don't b'lieve it. Not dis quick, yuh can't.”

“B-a-k-bak-e-r-er baker.”

“Boy, you sho is eatin' up dat school!”

“Ain't ez smart ez some. Take Lucy Potts for instink. She's almost uh 'fessor now. Nobody can't spell her down. Dey say she kin spell eve'y word in Lippincott's Blue-back Speller.”

“Shucks! You ain't tryin' tuh buck up tuh her in book learnin', is yuh? Dey tell me she kin spell ‘compresstibility,' and when yuh git dat fur 'tain't much mo' fuhther fur yuh tuh go.”

“She sho kin spell it, 'cause Ah heered 'er do it. Some say she kin spell ‘Constan-ti-nople' too.”

“Ah b'lieve it. All dem Potts is smart. Her brother leads de choir at Macedony Baptis' Church, and she trebles right 'long wid dem grown women and kin sing all de notes—de square ones, de round ones, de triangles.”

“Ah'll be dere tuh heah her do it nex' big meetin'. Charlie, Ah loves tuh heah singin'.”

“Whyn't yuh join de choir? You oughter be able tuh sing lak git out wid all dat ches' you got.”

“B'lieve Ah will, Charlie. Ah laks big meetin'.”

It was three weeks from the time that John started to school 'til cotton-picking time. Prodded on all sides, he had learned to read a little and write a few words crudely.

He was sorry when school closed for the cotton-picking but he kept on studying. When the school re-opened for its final month he wanted to get promoted again. He found himself spelling out words on barns and wagons, almanacs, horse-medicine-bottles, wrapping-paper.

He had been to church; he hadn't enough courage to join the choir, but every meeting he was there. Lucy tossed her head and sang her treble and never missed a note.

When the cotton-picking began on his place, Alf Pearson said to John, “You better go across the Creek and let your mama know how you're getting along. If you see any good cotton pickers—anybody that can pick more than two hundred
a day—tell 'em I need some hands, and you be back by tomorrow night. I bought a brood sow over round Chehaw and I want you to go get her.”

There was great rejoicing in Amy's house when John climbed the hill from the Creek.

They didn't know him in his new clothes. They made great “'miration” over everything. Amy cried.

“Jes' tuh think, mah boy gittin' book-learnt! Ned, de rest uh dese chillun got tuh go tuh school nex' yeah. Sho is.”

“Whut fur? So dey kin lay in de peni'ten'ry? Dat's all dese book-learnt niggers do—fill up de jails and chain-gangs. Dese boys is comin' 'long all right. All dey need tuh learn is how tuh swing uh hoe and turn a furrer. Ah ain't rubbed de hair offa mah haid 'gin no college walls and Ah got good sense. Day ain't goin' tuh no school effen Ah got anythin' tuh say 'bout it. Jes' be turnin' 'em fools!”