Jonah's Gourd Vine (5 page)

Stormy weather. John cut in.

“Mama, Mista Alf say if Ah could find some good cotton pickers tuh tell 'em he need hands. You know any? He payin' fifty cent uh hund'ed.”

“Dat's more'n dey payin' over heah,” Ned cut in eagerly, “Amy, whyn't you take Zeke and Zack and y'all g'wan make dat li'l' change? Ah'll take keer de li'l' chillun and pick up whut li'l' Ah kin git over heah. Cotton open dat side de Creek fust anyhow. By time y'all finish over dere hit'll jis' be gittin' in full swing over heah.”

“Reckon us could make li'l' money. Tell 'im, ‘Yeah,' John Buddy, we's comin'.”

“Zack!” Ned called, “Take dis heah jug and run over tuh de Turk place and tell Ike tuh send me uh gallon. Pay 'im nex' week some time.”

When the cotton was all picked and the last load hauled to the gin, Alf Pearson gave the hands two hogs to barbecue.

That was a night. Hogs roasting over the open pit of oak coals. Negroes from three other plantations. Some brought “likker.” Some crocus sacks of yellow yam potatoes, and bushels of peanuts to roast, and the biggest syrup-kettle at Pear
son's canemill was full of chicken perleau. Twenty hens and six water-buckets full of rice. Old Purlee Kimball was stirring it with a shovel.

Plenty of music and plenty of people to enjoy it. Three sets had been danced when Bully took the center of the hard-packed clay court upon which they were dancing. He had the whole rib of a two-hundred-pound hog in his hands and gnawed it as he talked.

“Hey, everybody! Stop de music. Don't vip another vop 'til Ah says so. Hog head, hog bosom, hog hips and every kind of hog there ever wuz is ready! Come git yourn. De chickens is cacklin' in de rice and dey say ‘Come git it whilst iss fitten 'cause t'morrer it may be frost-bitten!' De yaller yams is spilin' in de ashes. It's uh shame! Eat it all up, and den we's gointer dance, 'cause we'll have somethin' tuh dance offa.”

The hogs, the chickens, the yams disappeared. The old folks played “Ole Horse” with the parched peanuts. The musicians drank and tuned up. Bully was calling figures.

“Hey you, dere, us ain't no white folks! Put down dat fiddle! Us don't want no fiddles, neither no guitars, neither no banjoes. Less clap!”

So they danced. They called for the instrument that they had brought to America in their skins—the drum—and they played upon it. With their hands they played upon the little dance drums of Africa. The drums of kid-skin. With their feet they stomped it, and the voice of Kata-Kumba, the great drum, lifted itself within them and they heard it. The great drum that is made by priests and sits in majesty in the juju house. The drum with the man skin that is dressed with human blood, that is beaten with a human shin-bone and speaks to gods as a man and to men as a God. Then they beat upon the drum and danced. It was said, “He will serve us better if we bring him from Africa naked and thing-less.” So the buckra reasoned. They tore away his clothes that Cuffy might bring nothing away, but Cuffy seized his drum and hid it in his skin under the skull bones. The shin-bones he bore openly, for he thought, “Who shall rob me of shin-bones when they see no
drum?” So he laughed with cunning and said, “I, who am borne away to become an orphan, carry my parents with me. For Rhythm is she not my mother and Drama is her man?” So he groaned aloud in the ships and hid his drum and laughed.

“Dis is jes' lak when Ah wuz uh girl,” Amy told Pheemy and offered her body to the voice.

Furious music of the little drum whose body was still in Africa, but whose soul sung around a fire in Alabama. Flourish. Break.

Hollow-hand clapping for the bass notes. Heel and toe stomping for the little one. Ibo tune corrupted with Nango. Congo gods talking in Alabama.

“Looka dat boy uh yourn, Amy!” Zeke Turk urged. “Didn't thought he knowed how tuh dance. He's rushin' de frog tuh de frolic! And looka ‘Big 'Oman,' dat gal dancin' wid 'im. Lawd, she shakin' yonder skirt.”

Double clapping—

Too hot for words. Fiery drum clapping.

“Less burn dat old moon down to a nub! Is dat you, Pheemy?”

“Yeah Lawd. Mah head is tilted to de grave, but Ah'll show y'all Ah ain't fuhgit how. Come on out heah, Dink, and help ole Pheemy do de Parse me lah.”

“Heel and toe. Don't call no figgers.”

“Aw yeah, less call figgers. Go 'head Bully, but don't call it lak you call for white folks and dey go praipsin 'cross the floor lake dey steppin on eggs. Us kin dance. Call 'em, Bully.”

“Awright, choose yo' partners.”

“Couples tuh yo' places lak hawse tuh de traces.”

“Sixteen hands up!”

“Circle four.”

“Y'all ain't clappin' right. Git dat time.

The fire died. The moon died. The shores of Africa receded. They went to sleep and woke up next day and looked
out on dead and dying cotton stalks and ripening possum persimmons.

As the final day of school closing drew near, John found life tremendously exciting. The drama of Pearson's plantation yielded to the tenseness around the school house. He had learned to spell his way thru several pages in his reader. He could add, subtract and divide and multiply. He proved his new power to communicate his thoughts by scratching Lucy's name in the clay wherever he found a convenient spot: with a sharp stick he had even scratched it on the back of Pheemy's chimney.

He saw Lucy at school every day. He saw her in church, and she was always in his consciousness, but he had never talked with her alone. When the opportunity presented itself he couldn't find words. Handling Big 'Oman, Lacey, Semmie, Bootsie and Mehaley merely called for action, but with Lucy he needed words and words that he did not have. One day during the practice for school closing he crowded near her and said, “Wisht Ah could speak pieces lak you do.”

“You kin speak 'em better'n me,” Lucy said evenly, “you got uh good voice for speakin'.”

“But Ah can't learn no long ones lak you speaks. When do you learn 'em?”

“In de night time round home after Ah git thru wid mah lessons.”

“You ain't got many mo' days tuh be studyin' of nights. Den whut you gwine do wid yo'self?”

“Mama always kin find plenty fuh folks tuh do.”

“But Ah mean in de night time, Lucy. When youse thru wid yo' work. Don't you do nothin' but warm uh chair bottom?”

Lucy drew away quickly, “Oooh, John Buddy! You talkin' nasty.”

John in turn was in confusion. “Whuss nasty?”

“You didn't hafta say ‘bottom.'”

John shriveled up inside. He had intended to recite the rhymes to Lucy that the girls on the plantation thought so witty, but he realized that—

would drive Lucy from him in disgust. He could never tell her that. He felt hopeless about her. Soon she was recalled to the platform to recite and John's chance was gone. He kept on thinking, however, and he kept on making imaginary speeches to her. Speeches full of big words that would make her gasp and do him “reverence.” He was glad when he was selected as the soldier to sing opposite Lucy in the duet, “Oh Soldier, Will You Marry Me?” It meant something more than singing with gestures beside a girl. Maybe she would realize that he could learn things too, even if she could read the better. He meant to change all that as quickly as possible. One day he shyly overtook her on her way home.

“Dey tell me you kin run fast,” he began awkwardly.

“Dey told you right,” Lucy answered saucily, “whoever tole you. Ah kin outrun most anybody 'round heah.”

“Less we race tuh dat sweet-gum tree and see who kin beat,” John challenged.

They were off. Lucy's thin little legs pumping up and down. The starchy strings of her blue sunbonnet fluttering under her chin, and her bonnet lying back of her neck.

“Ah beat yuh!” John gloated over the foot or two that he had gained with difficulty.

“Yeah, you beat me, but look how much mo' legs you got to run wid,” Lucy retorted. “Bet if Ah had dem legs nobody couldn't never outrun me.”

“Ah didn't mean tuh beat yuh. Gee, us done come uh good ways! How much further you live from heah, Lucy?”

“Oh uh little ways cross de branch.”

“B'lieve Ah'll go see how yo' ole branch look. Maybe it got uh heap uh fish in it.”

“'Tain't got no fish in it worth talkin' 'bout. 'Tain't hardly knee deep, John, but iss uh great big ole snake down dere.”

“Whut kinda snake?”

“Uh great big ole cotton-mouf moccasin. He skeers me,
John. Everytime Ah go 'cross dat foot-log Ah think maybe Ah might fall in and den he'll bite me, or he might reah hisself up and bite me anyhow.”

“How come y'all don't take and kill 'im?”

“Who you reckon goin' down in de water tuh strain wid uh moccasin? He got uh hole back under the bank where you kin see 'im, but you can't git 'im 'thout you wuz down in de branch. He lay all 'round dere on de ground and even on de foot-log, but when he see somebody comin' he go in his hole, all ready for yuh and lay dere and dare yuh tuh bother 'im.”

“You jes' show 'im tuh me. Ah can't stand tuh be aggravated by no ole snake and then agin Ah don't want 'im slurrin'
you.”

“Sh-sh, watch out, John! He 'round heah somewhere. Can't you smell 'im? Dere he is goin' in his hole!”

John took a good look at the snake, then looked all about him for a weapon. Finding none he sat down and began to remove his shoes.

“You ain't goin' in dat branch!” Lucy gasped.

“Turn me go, Lucy. If you didn't want yo' ole snake kilt yuh oughta not showed 'im tuh me.” He exulted, but pretended not to see her concern was for him.

He looked carefully to see that no other snakes were about, then stepped cautiously down into the water. The snake went on guard, slowly, insolently. Lucy was terrified. Suddenly, he snatched the foot-log from its place and, leaning far back to give it purchase, he rammed it home upon the big snake and held it there. The snake bit at the log again and again in its agony, but finally the biting and the thrashing ceased. John fished the snake out and stretched it upon the grass.

“Ooh, John, Ahm so glad you kilt dat ole devil. He been right dere skeerin' folks since befo' Ah wuz borned.”

“He won't skeer nobody else, lessen dey skeered uh dead snakes,” John answered in the tone that boys use to girls on such occasions.

“Reckon his mate ain't gonna follow us and try tuh bite us for killin' dis one?”

“Lucy, he can't foller bofe us, lessen us go de same way.”

“Thass right, John. Ah done forgot, you live over on de Alf Pearson place.”

“Yeah, dat's right.”

“Where M'haley and Big 'Oman live.”

“Unh hunh, Ah speck dey do live dere. Ah seen uh lot uh pullet-size girl chillun 'bout de place. Nearly uh hund'ed head uh folks on dat plantation.”

A heavy silence fell. Lucy looked across the shallow stream and said,

“You ain't put de foot-log back, John.”

“Dat's right. Sho nuff Ah done fuhgot. Lemme tote you 'cross den. Ah kin place it back for de other folks.”

“Doncha lemme fall, John. Maybe 'nother ole snake down dere.”

“How Ahm gonna let uh li'l' bit lak you fall? Ah kin tote uh sack uh feed-meal and dat's twice big ez you. Lemme tote yuh. Ah 'clare Ah won't drop yuh.”

John bore Lucy across the tiny stream and set her down slowly.

“Oh you done left yo' book-sack, Lucy. Got tuh take yuh back tuh git it.”

“Naw, you hand it tuh me, John.”

“Aw, naw, you come git it.”

He carried Lucy back and she recrossed the stream the third time. As he set her down on her home side he said, “Little ez
you
is nobody wouldn't keer how fur he hafta tote you. You ain't even uh handful.”

Lucy put herself akimbo, “Ahm uh li'l' piece uh leather, but well put t'gether, Ah thankee, Mist' John.”

“Mah comperments, Miss Lucy.”

Lucy was gone up the hill in a blue whirlwind. John replaced the foot-log and cut across lots for home.

“She is full uh pepper,” John laughed to himself, “but ah laks dat. Anything 'thout no seasonin' in it ain't no good.”

At home, Lucy rushed out back of the corn crib and tiptoed
to see if her head yet touched the mark she had made three weeks before.

“Ah shucks!” She raged, “Ah ain't growed none hardly. Ah ain't never gointer get grown. Ole M'haley way head uh me!”

She hid and cried until Emmeline, her mama, called her to set the table for supper.

The night of school closing came. John in tight new shoes and with a standing collar was on hand early. Saw Lucy enter followed by the Potts clan. Frowning mama, placid papa, strapping big sister, and the six grown brothers. Boys with “rear-back” hair held down by a thick coating of soap. Boys hobbling in new shoes and tight breeches. Girls whose hair smelled of fresh hog-lard and sweet william, and white dresses with lace, with pink or blue sashes, with ruffles, with mothers searching their bosoms for pins to yank up hanging petticoats. Tearful girls who had forgotten their speeches. Little girls with be-ribboned frizzed-out hair who got spanked for wetting their starchy panties. Proud parents. Sulky parents and offspring. Whispered envy.