did. Yes, Lord, he did!

Before taking time to swallow down a mouthful of bread for breakfast, Breeze and Big Sue put the demijohns on the front porch, ready to go to church. They packed up all the fine dinner in one box, and the communion bread in another, so when she was dressed in her Sunday clothes, she’d have nothing to do but sit still and wait and rest.

How different she looked with her body pulled in tight with a great corset full of steel bands! Like a cotton bale pressed too small. The frills of her petticoat were lace-trimmed. Over them, hiding them carefully, was her new purple sateen dress.

She sat down on the porch with a pan of breakfast in her lap and began to eat. Breeze was back in the shed-room dressing when he heard her laugh and scramble to her feet to say in her company manners voice:

“How you do dis mawnin’, Reverend?”

Breeze peeped through the open door in time to see her draw a foot adroitly behind her in a low curtsey to a strange man who answered in a familiar voice:

“Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Good-wine. How you do this morning?”

“Not so good,” she said sweetly. “Bad luck’s been a-hangin’ round de plantation lately.”

“Bad luck ought not to pester a lady who can fix frog legs like the ones you sent us last night for supper. They were elegant.”

Breeze stood still and listened. He knew that voice, sure as the world. The Bury League preacher was his own stepfather. Hurrying into his clothes he tipped across the room to the window to see better, but Big Sue’s antics held his eyes. She was down on her knees, shaking all over in the drollest way, with laughter that took her breath. Her company manners were gone. Between gasps and shouts she gurgled, “Great Gawd! You ought o’ seen dem frogs dis mawnin’. Dat fool Breeze didn’ kill em! He cut off dey hind legs an’ turned dem loose in de back yard! I liken to a broke my foot jumpin’ when I missed an’ stepped slam on one!”

“Who did you say done it?” The Reverend was disturbed. The greenish cast of his long-tailed coat and derby hat spread over his swarthy face, and he sat down so suddenly on the steps that Big Sue’s roars hushed and her company manners came back. Scrambling to her feet and casting a fierce look toward the window where Breeze stood, she sympathized:

“I’m too sorry. No wonder you’s sick! Eatin’ de legs of a livin’ frog! But dey’s dead now. I made Breeze knock ’em in de head a while ago. Breeze is a crazy boy. When I git home to-night, I’m gwine gi’ em de heaviest lickin’ ever was. I ain’ gwine leave a whole piece o’ hide on em. No, suh! I’m gwine bust his crust, sure as you’ bawn.”

“Whe’d you git dat boy? Is he you’ own?” The Reverend’s voice was weakly.

“No, Lawd. My son, Lijah, is got plenty o’ sense. Breeze is a li’l’ boy I got f’om Sandy Island to stay wid me, by I was so lonesome in de night by myself.”

The Reverend took a handkerchief out of the pocket in the tail of his long coat and wiped the sweat off his face, then he leaned his head on his hand. Big Sue was anxious.

“Would you like a li’l’ sweetened water, suh?”

He shook his head.

“How ’bout a li’l’ cookin’ soda? Dat might settle you.” He didn’t need a thing. He must go now. He and Miss Leah were to talk over the hymns so she could lead the choir. He was subject to spells of swimming in the head, but they didn’t last long.

His mention of Leah’s name changed Big Sue’s tone altogether. She laughed out.

“Lawdy, I bet Leah’ll strut to-day. April took em to town an’ bought em some teeth. Dey don’ fit good like you’ own, dough. Leah wouldn’ trust to chaw wid ’em, not fo’ nothin’. I don’ blame em, dough. I’d hate to broke ’em if dey was mine. Leah is sho’ tryin’ to look young dese days. E natural hair is white as cotton, but e polishes em wid soot an’ lark.”

Except for Big Sue’s displeasure about the frogs, Breeze would have told her that the Reverend was his mother’s husband who disappeared the day his grandfather cut the big pine, but the boy’s one wish was to have her forget him, and maybe she’d forget the licking she promised to lay on his hide.

When Uncle Bill drove up to the door with one of the biggest pertest mules from the barnyard hitched to a one-horse wagon, Big Sue, instead of praising the beast’s fresh-clipped mane and tail, looked doubtfully at the cloth strings tying the harness in many places.

“If de mule gits to kickin’ or either runnin’, how you gwine rule em?” she asked anxiously, but Uncle Bill laughed at her fears and helped her to the seat in front, putting the basket of dinner and the communion bread and wine back where Breeze sat on the floor.

At first the mule could not be moved out of a slow walk, but when the wagon crossed over a root in the road and the wheels made a creak and a bump, the mule jumped so that one demijohn turned over, its stopper flew out and some of the wine spilled. Big Sue scolded Breeze for letting it happen and told him to steady the jugs the rest of the way. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even bend with her corset on. It cut her wind and had her so heated she had to take off her big sailor hat and fan herself to catch air.

The wagon wheels ground slowly along in the deep sandy ruts. White clouds of dust rose above the slow-moving hoofs of mules and oxen that toiled along, pulling buggies and wagons and carts crowded with black people going to Heaven’s Gate Church. Other church-goers were walking, many of the women in their stocking feet, carrying their shoes in their hands along with their dinner baskets. Well-greased faces shone, everybody saluted everybody else, some with simple bows, others with bows beneath upraised arms.

Heaven’s Gate Church stretched its whitewashed length from the road clear back to the picnic tables made of clean new boards nailed together and fastened to wide-spreading trees whose shade made the grounds cool and darkened. The sweep of the open well was kept busy drawing water. The churchyard swarmed with people hurrying about like a nest of ants before summer rain. Women crowded behind the church, putting on shoes, fixing hair, smoothing crumpled dresses and aprons. Big Sue sucked her teeth at the sight of Leah who was strutting, sure enough. Big Sue grumbled bitterly because Leah was not only the choir leader to-day, but chairman of the lemonade committee. Leah had no judgment. The last time she fixed the lemonade, she had it sour enough to cut your very heart-strings. Leah pushed herself. She gave nobody else a chance. No wonder she got salivated.

The chain of wagons and buggies and carts that had stretched along the road crowding out people on foot, now filled the churchyard completely. Every low tree limb, every bush, held a tethered beast. Oxen chewed cuds. Mules dozed, roused to switch off gnats and stinging flies with close-clipped tails, then dozed again.

Every bench inside the long low whitewashed church was finally packed with people, waiting respectfully until the time came for the Reverend to get up in the pulpit and preach God’s word. He was very different from Reverend Salty, the kind old preacher who had lately died and left the congregation of Heaven’s Gate Church like sheep without a shepherd.

Reverend Salty was fat and easy to laugh, but this Reverend was slim and tall and solemn. He was so educated that he could read scripture right out of the Book. No word could trip his nimble tongue, but he said he had to wear glasses because he had strained his eyes searching the scriptures day and night to find out how to lead the people.

As he adjusted his glasses, carefully placing the curve of the gold frames behind his small ears, Maum Hannah, who sat next to Breeze on the front bench of the Amen corner, boomed right out with an earnest, “T’ank Gawd for life, son! T’ank Gawd! Praise be to His blessed name! I too glad I could git here to hear you read Gawd’s book dis day!”

The Reverend cleared his throat and stared sternly at her, but when his eyes slipped a glance at Breeze, they turned quickly to another direction. Big Sue in the choir on the other side of the pulpit shook her head, but Maum Hannah was wiping her joyful tears on an apron string, and she saw nothing until Uncle Bill’s old Louder trotted in and lay down near her feet, then she smiled and welcomed him with a gentle, “I glad you come to pray, Louder.”

The first scripture lesson told how Moses led the Children of Israel over Jordan on their journey toward Canaan, the promised land. The Reverend stopped, and took off his fine glasses with fingers that trembled, and it seemed to Breeze the preacher looked more at him than at Maum Hannah. Getting a white fresh-ironed pocket handkerchief out of his pants pocket, he unfolded it and made little delicate wipes at the corners of both his eyes. He polished each spectacle glass, cleared his throat and coughed until his voice was clear, then he read the second lesson. April, who had come in late, listened intently. Lord, how the man could read. He used to read at meeting on Sandy Island sometimes. He read now, about charity, which he said meant love, and as the familiar words fell clear on Maum Hannah’s ears, the beauty of them stirred her heart. Her eyes closed, her body rocked from side to side. She murmured low praise to God, then louder words of encouragement to the preacher. “Tell de people, son! Don’ hold back! You’s a stranger in a strange land, but you’s a child of Gawd! Read em, son, read em!” she crooned. “Read de word of Gawd. Let de people hear all wha’ Jedus say! We got to love ev’ybody! Sinners an’ all! Love de sinners! Hate de sin!”

Old Reverend Salty had never objected to Maum Hannah’s taking a part in the service, but this preacher was new. He didn’t understand that Maum Hannah’s heart was so moved that she had to speak out. He got more and more nervous and fretted. Every now and then he turned his head to one side and cast a disapproving frown toward her, but she was too happy to notice that anything was wrong.

When he began lining out the hymn:

“Come ye that love the Lord And let your joy be known,”

Uncle Bill leaned close and whispered in the old woman’s ear, “You mustn’ talk out loud, Auntie. Dis preacher is used to town ways.”

Leah raised the tune, and her strong voice, swelled by the congregation, made it hard to hear what Uncle Bill said. Maum Hannah gave him a puzzled questioning look, and her old lips haltingly inquired:

“Enty?”

Whole stanzas were sung before she joined in with the great volume of harmony. Did Uncle Bill say she mustn’t talk out loud because the preacher was used to town ways! Breeze nodded. That was exactly what Uncle Bill said. Maum Hannah sighed, and mumbled. She didn’t mean any disrespect. His beautiful reading had moved the spirit in her and stirred her heart so deep, her tongue could not lie dumb in her mouth. She’d try not to talk out loud again.

When the hymn was done Reverend stepped to the side of the pulpit to say he would add something new to the service. The Ten Commandments. People must understand what the laws of God are before they can keep them rightly. He would read them, one at a time, and at the end of each the congregation must pray.

“Do, Lord, help us to keep this law.”

“Does everybody understand?”

A roar of answers came back, “Yes suh, we understan’ good, suh!” but Maum Hannah shook her head and objected in clear distinct words, “No, son, dat’s how de white folks pray! Gawd ain’ used to we prayin’ dat way!”

April smiled, but Uncle Bill was worried. “Hush, Auntie! You’ll git de preacher all tangled up.”

She gave up. Her eyes fell. Her hands caught at each other and held fast. The thin-veined, blue-nailed fingers, knotted at every joint, twisted into a tight uneasy grip, then sank into a fold of her white apron. Tears ran out from under her shut eyelids.

The preacher opened the Bible, and turned the leaves over for the right place. When it lay under his eyes he began a solemn,

“‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’!”

When he raised his eyes to the congregation Uncle Bill led a ragged wave of voices into a loud, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”

The preacher smiled and nodded approval, then bent over the Book to read the next commandment. It was a long one. The people didn’t know exactly when it ended, but he started them off, and they responded with an eager rush, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”

The Reverend lost his place, his long forefinger had to help his eyes find it, but presently he began with a loud, “‘Remember the Sabbath day’!” He read on and on. The congregation listened breathlessly for the end, and when his voice fell, every soul broke into the crashing prayer, “Do Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” April frowned.

Maum Hannah’s head dropped, her chin was on her breast, her eyes were shut tight, her lips moving in whispers. Breeze could tell she was praying alone, quite apart from the preacher and the congregation which had strangely become two beings: one, a lone, black, shiny-skinned, shiny-eyed man in the pulpit, repeating God’s commandments, in the high sing-song, and clapping his hands for the people to respond; and the congregation, now knitted into a many-mouthed, many-handed, many-eyed mass, that swayed and rocked like one body from side to side, crying to God in an agonized, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” A shrill voice screamed out of the rumbling body, “Hallelujah! I feel de sperit!” A chill crept over Breeze. He felt something strange himself. He couldn’t hear his own voice in the flood of shouted praying, but he knew he was one with the rest. The preacher’s tall form swayed this way and that, his long slew-feet patted the floor. He was like a tree rocked by a strong wind.

“Honour thy father and thy mother,” he chanted. His upheld hands opened and clenched into straining fists, but the congregation was too full to wait for the rest. Their fierce, full-throated cry rang out, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”

“Thou shalt kill!” His voice swelled and thickened with hoarseness, his arms swung about.

“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”

The preacher’s tongue was twisted by his fervor, the ears of the congregation deafened by their own shouting.

“Thou shalt commit adultery!” he yelled.

“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” they yelled back.

Breeze’s blood seethed hot, his heart beat wildly, the whole church full of people boiled with commotion. Shouts of praise to God broke into the din and tumult of prayer.

“Thou shalt steal!” came like wind on a flame and the congregation’s answer sprang hot from the heart, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”

Maum Hannah jerked up her head and listened. Her hands wavered apart, then reached out toward the preacher. She got to her feet and waved her arms, “You got em wrong, son! Wrong! Great Lawd, don’ say em dat way!”

Nobody paid her any attention but Uncle Bill, and he pulled her by the arm and made her sit down, “Wait, Auntie! It ain’ time to shout yet. Set down till after de sermon.” Then he joined in with the others, whose words lost in feeling, surged back and forth, throbbing, thundering, until the old church trembled and shook.

“Thou shalt bear false witness against thy neighbor!”

The preacher’s flashing eyes blazed with fire, as they gazed at the people, his shortened breath panted his words, and the congregation burst into prayer, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”

From his seat in the Amen corner Breeze could see every face. Standing out by itself, April’s bold daring countenance was lit with a cool sneering smile.

The Ten Commandments were all said, but the preacher knew others.

“Thou shalt be a father to the fatherless!”

“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” The holy spirit filled the close-packed swaying crowd.

“Thou shalt be a husband to the widow!”

The ever-rising tide of prayer rolled into a flood that swallowed every soul but April. He sat upright. Unmoved. Passionless. When the preacher’s ranting halted to give out a hymn, April got up and walked down the aisle, and on out of the door. A no-mannered brazen thing for anybody to do. Every eye gazed at him, the preacher stared, but Uncle Bill hurriedly raised the hymn.

The congregation sang it as the preacher lined it out two lines at a time. When it was finished, then he opened the Bible and took his text. “Hold fast and repent!” He read it twice and closed the Book, then shut his eyes and prayed in silence before he asked the question:

“Does all o’ you members fast?” Throughout the church a solemn silence fell, then a great cry answered:

“Sho’! Sho’! Yes, suh.”

“You can not pray rightly without fasting.”

“No, suh! It’s de Gawd’s truth.”

“The longer you fast, the better you can repent!”

“Yes, brother! You right!”

“The longer you fast, the quicker your sins will be forgiven!”

“Praise His name! Hallelujah!” Leah led the women of the choir into a low humming tune.

“Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights!”

“Yes, Gawd!” The choir’s humming swelled and spread to the women of the congregation.

“He got stronger and stronger as He fasted.”

“Yes, suh!” Bodies rocked and swayed to the mournful tune.

“He got strong as the devil!” The preacher’s eyes flashed bright behind his glasses, but Maum Hannah jumped forward at such reckless words.

“He beat the devil at his own game!” The Reverend shouted as he shook his clenched fists.

“Glory! Hallelujah!” The congregation cried loud above the women’s solemn wordless chanting.

“Yunnuh hold fast! Get strong like Jesus!” The preacher stamped on the floor.

“Yes, Gawd! Praise His name!” The women were getting to their feet and patting time.

“God’ll feed you on the bread of life!”

“Do, Master!” Maum Hannah cried out so clear, that he looked at her and caught Breeze’s eye. The holy spirit left him all of a sudden. Maybe he thought of the frog legs, maybe of old Breeze, but he stopped short and cleared his throat and fumbled with the leaves of the book. He presently said the time had come for making their offerings. They must sing an old hymn, and the people must come forward and lay their gifts on God’s holy altar, which was a small pine table in front of the pulpit. They crushed into the aisle, an array of gaudy dresses, weaving in and out among the dark men. Both aisles were choked with singing people. Waves of hot breath smote Breeze in the face. Sunday shoes squeaked. Outside in the churchyard a mule brayed long and loud. Coins rolled and clinked against one another on the table. One rolled on the floor and fell through a crack, lost, as Uncle Bill gave Breeze a brownie to carry up.

The hymn was all sung, and the preacher went behind the pulpit again. In a high voice he declared that the stay of Jesus on earth was divided into four parts: the birth, the life, the death and the resurrection. “Which was the biggest part? Which, brethren? Speak out!” he urged them, for the congregation was hushed with interest.

“De resurrection!” Uncle Bill shouted.

“De life!” somebody else chimed.

“No, son!” Maum Hannah stood up. “No! De birthin’ was. If his mammy didn’ birth em Jedus couldn’ live or either die. No, suh! De birthin’ was de biggest part.”

But the preacher wasn’t listening. He blared out his answer to his own question:

“The resurrection of Jesus took the sting out of death! Brethren! Sisters! The resurrection brought angels to the tomb! The resurrection showed Heaven in the sky!”

Breeze’s head ached as the sermon went on. His neck hurt. His feet went to sleep.

When it was at last ended, sinners were invited to come up to the mourner’s bench and kneel for prayer, the preacher plead with them not to wait and be damned, but to come up and promise God they’d seek forgiveness for their sins until He gave them some sign by which they’d know they were saved. A multitude thronged forward and fell on their knees, sobbing and calling on Jesus for mercy.

The preacher begged God to look down. To come near and bring His holy spirit to save these souls. Breeze’s heart beat hammer strokes against his breast. He wanted to be saved too. He wanted to go kneel with the rest of the sinners. The fear of Hell, and timidity, combined, shook his knees, and broke him out in a cold sweat. All his blood felt frozen, leaking through his skin as he staggered forward and knelt down, and shut his eyes, and tried his best to pray.

A rough hand gripped his shoulder, and Big Sue whispered harshly in his ear, “Is you gone plum crazy, Breeze? Git up an’ go on back an’ set down. Don’t you jerk ’way from me! You ain’ got no business seekin’! If you miss an’ find peace an’ git religion you couldn’ bat ball on Sunday wid li’l’ young Cap’n when he come! Not if you’s a Christian! Git up! You don’ know nothin’ ’bout prayin!”

Breeze got up sheepishly and went to his seat, but he thought bitterly; Big Sue didn’t care if he burned in Hell. Many a time she had told him how those wicked, hell-bent buckras spent Sundays in sin. Riding horses. Singing reels. Dancing and frolicking on God’s day. Young Cap’n played ball, baseball, under the trees, on the holy Sabbath, just as if it were the middle of the week. Big Sue said God didn’t like people to even pick a flower on Sunday. And now she wanted him to have sin right along with those brazen white people. She didn’t care how much he burned in Hell. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. When he got bigger he was going to pray, no matter what Big Sue said.

The prayer for the sinners was done, and the sinners went to their seats. The deacons passed the Lord’s Supper; small squares of bread piled up on a plate, and water glasses full of blackberry wine. Each member took a crumb and a sip, no more.

Maum Hannah’s fingers shook and fumbled over the bread and a tiny crumb fell off the plate in her lap. A bit of Jesus’ own body. Broken for the sins of men. As soon as Maum Hannah stood up, it would fall on the floor and be trampled under foot. Why not get it and eat it? Nobody’d know.

Breeze watched it. Once it seemed to move toward him, to creep nearer to his fingers. The congregation was singing. Their voices rose, some high, some low, Maum Hannah’s and Uncle Bill’s with the rest.

Nobody was looking. Why not take that crumb and taste it?

Breeze’s unsteady, frightened fingers stole sidewise, following the apron’s folds until they got in reach of the bit of bread. They closed over it and eased back to safety, then they slowly, slyly thrust it into Breeze’s mouth.

It fell on his tongue which kept still, trying to get its flavor. But it was small. Too small. It melted quickly and slipped down his throat before Breeze could stop it. A bit of Jesus’ own precious body. The preacher said it was that. Poor Jesus. Sold by His friend to bad people who killed Him, hung Him on a cross. He let them do it. He wanted to show God how sorry He was to see poor sinners going down to Hell. Hopping. Burning. Weeping. Gnashing their teeth for ever and ever. Jesus was a good man to do that. Breeze’s heart was rapt with pity. His body quivered. Tears ran down his cheeks in floods. God must have a a hard heart to let Jesus suffer so bad.

“Nee-ro my Gawd, to thee-- Nee-ro to thee----”

the congregation sang. Old Louder raised up his head and bayed, like his heart ached too. Nobody noticed him but Maum Hannah who leaned and patted his head. “Hush, Louder. Keep quiet. Pray easy, son. Easy.”

The service was finally over, the benediction said, people crowded the aisles, poured out through the wide-open doors, slowly, quietly, until the church was empty and its yard full.

An empty hogshead, got from the store, was half filled with water from the spring at the picnic grounds. Lemons were cut and squeezed and added. A great cloth bag full of sugar was poured in. A great block of ice was stripped out of its sack and washed clean of sawdust, and dumped into the barrel with the lemons and sugar and water.

Maum Hannah disapproved again, and some of the old people sided with her. She said ice wasn’t a healthy thing. But the fine stylish town preacher said she was mistaken. Once, a long time ago, people used to think ice was not healthy, but everybody knows better now. In town people never drink lemonade without ice. Never.

Uncle Bill was worried because the ice’s coldness seemed to soak up the sugar. The lemonade didn’t taste at all right. There was no more sugar to put in unless they sent all the way to the store, and this was Sunday. It would be a sin to buy sugar on Sunday.

The men on the lemonade committee were arguing about what to do, when the Reverend, who had been walking around through the crowd shaking hands with the people and patting the children’s heads, came up with Leah, who was smiling and talking and putting on many fine airs. The preacher said he was sure, Leah, Mrs. Locust, knew all about lemonade. She could tell exactly if they’d have to send for more sugar or not. Just give her a taste. She’d decide for them.

Zeda laughed out. Big Sue muttered something, but both stood aside to make room for Leah, who giggled happily, and stepped up to the barrel.

The Reverend took up the long clean hickory paddle Uncle Bill had used to mix it, and leaning over, gave it a vigorous stirring. He must have stirred too hard, for the cold air rose up out of the barrel into Leah’s nose, and before she had time even to turn her head, she gave one loud sneeze and all her white teeth flew out of her mouth right into the barrel of lemonade.

It was a bad time. Leah said she’d have to have her teeth back right now. But they were mixed up with all those hundreds of lemon skins and that big block of ice. Every man on the committee took a hand at stirring for them, but the teeth rose up and grinned, then hid deep in the bottom of the lemonade before anybody could snatch them out. The preacher said pour the whole hogshead of lemonade out on the ground! The idea! Breeze felt relieved when the committee was firm. Leah would have to wait. The lemonade would soon be low in the barrel. The people were thirsty. They’d drink it up in a hurry. Leah didn’t argue but went off one side and began sniffling and crying with her mouth hidden behind her pocket handkerchief. Big Sue chuckled out loud. Uncle Bill stepped forward with a long-handled dipper and filling it brimming full handed it to the Reverend, with a low bow, “Have de first drink, Reverend. I know you’ throat’s dry after all de preachin’ an’ prayin’ you done to-day! Gawd bless you, suh!”

The Reverend fell back a step, and shook his head and coughed behind his hand.

“If you’ll excuse me----” He stammered it, then coughed again, and walked over to where Big Sue stood with a broad smile on her face.

But April suddenly appeared.

“What’s all dis?” he asked, looking straight at the Reverend, with a glitter in his eyes.

“Your wife--ah--Mistress Locust--has--ah--met with a little accident----”

“Didn’ Uncle Bill hand you a dipper o’ lemonade?”

“Why, yes, Brother Locust.”

“How come you didn’ drink em? Don’ you be brotherin’ me, either.”

“Why--ah, I’m really not thirsty, Mr. Locust.”

“You ain’ thirsty, eh?”

“Why, ah, no.”

April’s Sunday clothes made him look even taller than usual. His hair was newly cut, and his face shaved clean, except for a small mustache. He made a fine-looking, powerful figure to Breeze’s wide-stretched eyes.

His mouth smiled as he spoke to the preacher, but his words snarled. It was plain that he was furiously angry. Breeze felt as if he’d choke with excitement. The breath was squeezed out of his body as the crowd pushed closer, and his bare feet were trod on until he felt his toes were mashed too flat ever to walk again.

The stillness was broken only by Leah’s sniveling, and April’s hurried breathing.

Uncle Bill put up a warning hand when April slowly took off his hat. “Keep you’ hat on, April. Don’t you dare to butt dis servant of Gawd! You’ll git struck dead, sho’ as you do!”

April smiled knowingly, then pulled his hat down tight on his head.

“I doubt if Gawd would knock me ’bout dat, but I don’ b’lieve I want to dirty my skull on such a jackass, not no mo’. I butt him good de last time we met. E ain’ fo’got.”

“Great Gawd! April, shut you’ mouth!”

“Did you cuss me for a jackass?” the preacher shrieked and darted furiously at April.

Women screamed out. Children wailed. Men mumbled protests. But before anybody suspected his intention April leaped forward and seized the preacher’s head with two powerful hands, held it like a vise, and bit a neat round mouthful out of the cheek next to him.

Making a horribly ugly face he spat out the morsel of flesh. Old Louder, Uncle Bill’s faithful hound, caught it and swallowed it down.

A fearful outcry arose. Men groaned. Women shrieked and yelled. Some went off into trances. The wounded preacher toppled, fell over, limp as a rag, his high white collar reddening as it swallowed the blood that streamed out of the hole in his face. Poor man. His face would rot off now. Poison would swell it up, bloat it, then peel it off.

Uncle Bill scolded Louder terribly and frailed him with a stick until the poor dog cried out pitifully. Breeze felt sick and faint enough to die. His hair stood on end. His flesh shook cold on his bones. God would strike April sure as the world.

The people rushed forward, some calling for water, some threatening April. Everybody shouted until the noise and confusion waxed loud and frightful.

Leah and Big Sue vied with each other in stormy torrents of words and weeping.

April’s fury spent itself with the bite. His strained muscles unbraced, unbuckled, he cleared his throat and spat. “Dat meat taste too sickenin’,” he grumbled. Then squaring his shoulders he walked away. Cool. Master of himself. Alone.

XV

FIELD WORK

All the cotton had been picked except scraps in the tip-top of the stalks. When these were gathered, the last chance for the women to make a little money would be over until early next spring when the stables were cleaned out and the black manure put in piles for them to scatter over the fields.

The sultry day was saturated with heat. The swollen sun shone white through a fog that brought the sky low over the cotton field. The cotton pickers swarmed thick, sweat poured off faces and hands and feet. Slowly, steadily they moved, up and down the long rows of tall rank stalks, carefully picking every wisp of staple out of the wide-open brown burrs.

Everybody was barefooted, most of the boys and men wearing only shirts and overalls, and the women had their skirts tied up almost to their knees.

Not the smallest gust of wind stirred the steamy air. Sweat blackened sleeves and shirts and dresses, yet the talk stayed bright and chatty.

Breeze had picked all morning except for one little while when he stopped to eat a piece of cold corn-pone and drink a few swallows out of his bottle of sweetened water. He wanted to pick a good weight, but the cotton was light and sparse. April was paying a whole cent a pound instead of the half a cent he paid when the cotton was green and heavy.

If Big Sue would pick faster instead of talking so much, together they ought to get a hundred pounds. Maybe even a hundred and twenty-five.

Side by side they trudged along, but too often Big Sue stopped and straightened up her bent shoulders and stretched her arms for a rest. Leaning over so long had her all but in a cramp. Yet when Breeze stopped to eat she scolded him. This was no time for lingering. Every pound picked meant a cent.

“Wha’ de news f’om Joy?” Leah called across the rows.

“Joy wa’n’t so well when I heared last.”

“Wa’n’t Joy kinder sickly all last summer?”

Big Sue admitted it grumly.

“I hear-say Joy have changed e boardin’ place since e went back to school.”

Big Sue took her time to answer. After picking several stalks clean she said Joy had changed, fo’ true. She was staying right on the campus now. Right with the teachers and the professors and all the high-up people.

Leah spat on the ground. “Lawd, Joy must be know ev’yt’ing by now, long as e’s been off at school. How much years? Five or six?”

“Joy do know a lot, but ’e ain’ been off but four years. You know it too, Leah.”

“Joy’s a stylish gal, Big Sue. Even if e is puny.” Zeda was plainly siding against Leah.

“Joy ought to look stylish, much money as I spent on em. When e went back to school dis fall, Joy’s trunk looked fine as a white lady’s trunk. Not a outin’ gown in em! Not a outin’ petticoat! Even to de shimmys, Joy had ev’yt’ing made out o’ pink and blue and yellow crêpe. Joy is a fine seamster, if I do say it myse’f. Joy’s clothes is fine as any store-bought clothes.”

“Wha’s Joy gwine do when e finish college?” Leah asked presently.

Big Sue was uncertain. Joy was working to get a depluma. When she got that she could be anything she liked. Joy was sickly last summer because she had so much learning stirring around in her head. Leah laughed--innocently. There was no need to worry, as long as a girl was sickly from things stirring in her head.

“Wha you mean by dat, Leah?” Big Sue stopped short and her narrowed eyes gazed fixedly at Leah who went on picking.

“I ain’ say nothin’ to vex you, Big Sue! You’s too touchous! Joy ain’ gold neither silver.”

“You keep Joy’s name out you’ mouth, Leah!” Big Sue snapped the words out in a stinging tone that cut through the heat.

Zeda stood still and gave a wide-mouthed yawn and a lazy laugh. “Do hush you’ wranglin’. When it’s hot like dis, I can’ stan’ to hear nobody tryin’ to start a brawl. You womens ain’ chillen! Joy’s a nice gal. Fo’ Gawd’s sake, le’ em ’lone!”

She looked up at the sun hanging low in a whitish glow, then down at the short shadows and the heat wilted leaves. Not a bird chirped. Not a locust or grasshopper spoke.

“I bet Joy’ll marry some o’ dem fine professors or either preachers,” Bina drawled.

“Joy might, fo’ true,” Big Sue bragged.

Zeda said nothing, but her eyes darted a sharp look at Big Sue, then turned toward the rice-fields where the river crept up without a murmur or a shimmer of light on its surface.

Breeze picked on and on long after his back was tired and his fingers sore from the sharp points of the stiff burrs. The crocus sheets spread out along the road at the side of the field were piled higher and higher with cotton which was heaped up, packed down, running over. The last picking yielded more than anybody expected.

Thank God, the sun was setting at last. Wagons were rattling in the distance, coming to haul the cotton to the big gin-house! This year’s crop was done.

XVI

PLOWING

Breeze was to do his first plowing, but instead of being up and dressed and ready to go to the fields when dawn first streaked the sky he lay sobbing underneath the clean bright quilts, which were all rumpled up over his bed, the big, high, soft feather-bed in the shed-room where Big Sue’s Lijah used to sleep.

He was wretched and lonely and sore from head to heels. The feather-bed hurt wherever it pressed its fat cushiony sides against his naked body, although that feather-bed was made out of the finest down of wild ducks and geese. Big Sue liked to tell how she took years to save so many, for she wanted her Lijah to have the finest feather-bed on the whole plantation. Whenever the hunters brought wild fowls to the kitchen for her to roast in the big oven there, she carefully picked the softest pinless feathers off the breasts, and put them in a bag and kept them until she finally had enough for Lijah’s bed. Lijah liked a soft bed. He was like her.

Joy was different. A feather-bed made Joy hot and unrestful, and she liked to sleep on a mattress filled with cotton tacked tight to keep it firm and hard and in place. Joy and Lijah were different altogether. But Lijah left his feather-bed soon after it was made, and went away to a far country. Big Sue was not sure whether the country was named “Fluridy” or “Kintucky.” Sometimes she called it “Kintucky-Fluridy.”

The fine softness of Lijah’s bed meant little to Breeze, for he was homesick and unhappy. He’d a lot rather go back to his mother’s cabin, on Sandy Island, and sleep on a pallet made out of a ragged quilt spread on the splintery hard floor, than to stay here with Big Sue and sleep in this nest of down feathers that had once warmed and comforted other children with bill and wings and webbed feet.

He turned and twisted and heaved with mute sobs. He felt all alone in the world. He had learned not to cry out loud. Big Sue had taught him that people with manners cry low and easy. Manly boys never cry at all. If Big Sue would only take time to beat him right away when he did wrong, he could somehow bear the pain better, but to be waked up before daylight, and stripped naked, and made to stand still under the cuts of a strap, or a switch, that’s hard.

When she waddled home at night, after the day’s work and pleasure were done, she was too weary to do anything but drop down in a chair and rest. Breeze had to undo the wide-strung-up shoes and take them off her fat feet, and fill up her pipe and light it. She’d smoke a little while and go to bed, worn-out, too tired to whip Breeze, no matter how much he needed a licking. She always waited until next morning, when she woke up fresh and strong, ready to raise Breeze and teach him manners. Her usual morning greeting was, “Git up, Breeze. Git up and strip. I want to git down to you’ rind,” his rind meaning his naked skin.

She declared that licking Breeze hurt her as much as it hurt him. She hated to have to do it, but Breeze was a poor, ignorant, no-manners boy. She had to beat him to do her duty by him.

A long, thin, black leather strap stayed up on the mantel-shelf, ready to give lickings. It had a black-snake’s hiss, and a crack as sharp as a pistol-shot. But this morning Big Sue couldn’t lay her hands on it, so she broke a switch off the plum tree growing beside the cabin’s front door. There were all kinds of switches outside. Big Sue could easily have got a smoother, better one, but she was in a hurry and the plum switch was in easy reach of her hand.

In the weak morning light she didn’t see that thorns stayed on it when she pulled off its limbs. Those thorns had sharp teeth, and Big Sue drove them deep into Breeze’s back and thighs. Now as he stroked his hurts with both hands he felt blood warm and wet on them.

Breeze’s mother had never talked to him about manners. Big Sue said she didn’t know them. At Blue Brook plantation, manners are the most important things in the world, but they stand between you and everything you want to do. Nobody ever eats the first sweet black walnuts that fall on the ground, for eating green walnuts makes lice in your head, and it is bad-mannered to be lousy.

To play with the funny hop-toadies, whose little black hands look just like a tiny baby’s thumbs and all, makes warts come on your hands, and it’s bad-mannered to have warts.

If you drink goat’s milk, although it is sweeter than cow’s milk, you’ll hate water, just like goats hate it. You won’t want to wash. And it’s bad-mannered not to like soap and water.

If your feet get cold as ice and you can’t get them warm any other way, you must not put them on the warm black pots on the hearth, because the soot on the pots will stick to your feet, and it’s bad-mannered to have sooty feet.

To put a finger in your mouth is bad-mannered. Everything is bad-mannered!

Breeze’s reflections and sobs were checked by a call from Big Sue to get up! To make haste too! He hopped up and pulled on his clothes, and taking a piece of cold bread in his hand, hurried to the barnyard. Daylight had already spread through the sky, and was creeping over the earth. The fall day smelled like spring. One old apple tree in the orchard had been fooled into blooming by the drowsy warmth. Poor silly thing!

The creek babbled low as the tide swelled it high up near the bank, and a cow, followed by her new-born calf, ventured in knee-deep, and sucked up the water noisily. As she lifted her head to look at Breeze, drops falling from her mouth were suddenly shot through with a streak of light. The sun was up! He was late! Lord, he must run! Every flower had its face turned eastward to meet the day. They knew it had come.

Cocks began a fresh crowing. Jay-birds chahn-chahned. Partridges whistled. A mocking-bird trilled. Tiny brown birds fluttered through the thickets like dead leaves come back to life. Wagon wheels rumbled on a road out of sight, the pop of a whip cracked out. Everything was astir, ready for the day’s work.

In the barnyard a lively confusion of men and beasts made a thick din that filled Breeze’s heart with excitement. To-day he would begin doing a man’s work. On Saturday he’d get his pay, like Sherry and all the other farm-hands.

He could hear the men hailing one another. The mules neighed. Trace-chains tinkled between shouts of “Whoa” and “Gee” and “Haw” and “Git up.” On the near side of the barnyard fence a long-legged funny mule colt went staggering behind old Sally, Uncle Bill’s old bay mare. When he lagged she whinnied to him to come on.

A litter of pigs huddled around a lean black sow wallowing comfortably in a filthy mud-hole. They squealed to her to lie still and let them feed, but she grunted lazily, and rolled still deeper in the mire. Near by an old dominecker hen clucked sharply to her biddies and scratched eagerly for worms in the rich black earth. She’d better mind. That old sow would eat her up, feathers and all, and swallow the biddies down like raw oysters.

The fine fall day felt like spring. Men and mules stepped briskly, glad to go to work.

For the first time since the boll-weevils came and pestered the cotton, the crop had been abundant, and now the field must be cleared of old stalks for the winter.

The summer’s dry weather had been a big help. No rain came to wash the poison off. Sherry ran the poison machine over the fields at night when the cotton was wet with dew and the thirsty weevils drank poisoned dew and died. It was a scary thing to see these great white clouds of poison dust rising and settling to kill. The people scarcely dared to look.

Now, every lock of cotton was picked, and the plows were to turn the stalks under so deep in the earth the boll-weevils would not have as much as one lone cotton leaf to eat during the winter. April was planning already to make such a big crop next year, the gins would have to run day and night when fall came, to get the cotton packed into bales by Christmas! Money would be plentiful one more time!

A score of men were plowing, most of them tall strong fellows, straight and slender as tree-trunks. Their ease and skill made Breeze almost despair, for plowing was a hard job to him. But Sherry was chaffing them, calling them scary ladies who stayed at home and slept with the women and children while he and April fought boll-weevils all night long.

He wouldn’t hold it against them if they’d work well in the daytime and plow the crop fast and keep the ground-crust broken and the grass killed. He and April could attend to the weevils next summer, all by themselves. With that big poison machine and three mules, he could poison forty acres a night. Instead of resenting what Sherry said, the men laughed good-naturedly and declared they were satisfied to leave the boll-weevils to Sherry and April. Let the devils fight the devils.

Leah’s Brudge was there, right in among the men. He plowed last year and showed he felt important. At first he scarcely noticed Breeze who struggled and strove to hold his unruly plow steady and straight like Sherry’s.

Each man had his own mule, taught to his ways. Sherry’s mule, Clara, was a beauty. Sleek and trim and spry, she understood every word Sherry spoke. Brudge had Cleveland, an old brown mule with sprung fore-knees, but with a steady gait and a nice coat of hair. Breeze had old Cæsar, a shaggy, logy beast, mouse-colored, except where bald spots marked his hide black. One blind eye was like a hard-boiled egg and the other had an uncertain peep, but Sherry said Cæsar had sense like a man. All Breeze needed to do was hold the lines and the plow handles together and walk straight behind. Cæsar would do the rest. Breeze wished he might have had a handsomer beast, but even old Cæsar made his heart thrill.

The earth had been dried out by the warm autumn sunshine and it sent up clouds of dust as the sharp steel of the plows cut it deep, and long rows of rank stalks were uprooted and turned under and carefully covered with dark smooth soil.

April stood alone, watching the men and mules walking sturdily across the field, then back. When they neared him, their talking hushed except for words spoken to the mules.

Overhead a blue sky looked down; the breath of the stirred earth, scented strong with life, rose and brimmed up, filling the air.

When the plowmen reached the far side of the field again, turning slowly they moved along, side by side, talking and laughing. Their gay racket hushed in a hurry when April’s voice floated to them from where he stood, a tall speck by the trees in the distance. Clear and sharp his words fell through the sunshine.

“Hey dere! Yunnuh quit so much talkin’ and laughin’. I want all dem cotton stalks covered up deep!”

Every man of them stepped a little slower, every plowstock was gripped with a tighter hold after the correction. Merry chatter changed to stern shouts that chided the patient mules. “Hey, mule!”, “Watch you doin’s!”, “Gee!”, “Haw!”, “Come up!” The mules pulled harder and the crunching of the earth as the plows cut deeper took the place of laughter and gay bantering words.

The day moved on, warm and drowsy, with yellow sunshine still hot enough to cast black shadows, and draw sweat out of both men and beasts. April stood watching, hour after hour, while the swarm of mules and men trudged back and forth from the water’s edge to the woods and then back again, never stopping for even a breathing spell. The sun rode high in the sky. Shadows shortened. Breeze longed for the noon hour, time to stop and eat and drink and rest.

Once or twice as Brudge passed Breeze and Cæsar, he looked at the old mule and giggled. Then he called out, “Breeze is plowin’ a spring puppy!” When he had gone a little way past he looked back and said something that made the plow-hands laugh out. But Sherry stopped Clara short in her tracks.

“You better shut you’ mouth, Brudge!” he warned. “You gits too big for your breeches sometimes. Breeze can’ lick you, but I kin an’ I will.”

Breeze couldn’t hear Brudge’s answer, but he caught up in time to hear the end of Brudge’s outburst of abuse of Sherry. The other men went on plowing, except one of the older ones, who stopped to shame Brudge for the vile words he had used.

“What de matter ail yunnuh?” April called.

Nobody answered, so he started walking leisurely toward them.

Sherry stuck his plow’s point deep in the earth, dropped his plow lines on the ground, then undid the trace-chains and hung them up on Clara’s collar.

Brudge stood looking at him, then back at April. “I ain’ botherin’ you, Sherry. You better left me ’lone,” he whined.

If Sherry heard him he gave no sign, but stepped lightly over the furrows toward Brudge, who gave an outcry and started to run. Sherry’s long arm reached out and caught him, drew him up close, held him fast, while Sherry’s words fell fast and hard as fire-heated rocks.

“I ain’ gwine butt you fo’ what you called me. No. I’m gwine crack you’ skull for dat what you call my mammy.” Sherry tilted his head back, and Brudge gave a shrill yell.

“Don’ butt me, Sherry!” The words were scarcely out when Sherry’s slender powerful body swayed lightly forward from the hips, and his forehead crashed down right on Brudge’s skull.

For a second or two after the terrible blow fell home, Brudge made no sound. Sherry turned him loose, and he staggered a few paces and fell, screaming at the top of his lungs. Sherry had killed him! His head was broken to pieces. Prone on the soft plowed ground Brudge twisted and writhed, like a fish out of water.

Sherry paid no attention to him at all, but went back to Clara, hitched the trace-chains, took up the rope lines, and clicked his tongue. “Git up, Clara!” he said quietly, and the mule stepped off.

To Breeze, April was the very greatest man on earth, but all of a sudden Sherry seemed to grow. His limbs became taller, straighter, his shoulders broader, his supple waist slenderer. His eyes were terrible when they flashed at Brudge, ashine with furious light, and his strong white teeth ground together as if they could bite Brudge’s body in two.

April was coming toward them. A little faster now. What would he say when he got there? The plow-hands stopped and waited. One shamed Brudge for his lack of manners, then turned his head away and spat on the ground with disgust.

April’s long legs strode leisurely across the soft new furrows, his stout hickory stick stepping lightly beside him. When his eyes looked at Brudge there on the ground, holding his head in both hands, rolling up his body and rocking it back and forth, then falling on the ground again, howling with pain and shame and anger, April’s lips curled up from his big yellow teeth in a scornful smile.

“What kind o’ plow-hand is you, Brudge? Is dat de way you does a man’s work?”

“Sherry butt me!--E broke my skull!--I got a bad headache!”

“Do shut you’ mouth, an’ git up off de ground! Unhitch you’ mule an’ go on home to Leah. Baby!”

Brudge got up slowly, and moaning low but steadily did what he was told. With April, he was very humble. His trembling fingers fumbled at the lines and trace-chains, but he kept up a furious sobbing all the time he worked at knots and links.

“Help him, Breeze!” April’s order cracked out like the snap of a whip.

Breeze hurried forward obediently, not that April had ever mistreated him, or even scolded him, but because he knew that April ruled everybody and everything on the plantation with a heavy hand. People, beasts, even plants and insects, had to bend to his stubborn will, or suffer.

“Hey, Sherry!” April called. “Come dis way! Left Clara whe’ e is! Git a move on you, too!”

April was rarely unjust, and sometimes he was almost gentle, but now his voice stung the air. Sherry had better not vex him further, or there’d be trouble.

Although Sherry walked without hurry, he was out of breath when he reached April. His hands shook a little as men do when a chill is about to seize them.

“How come you butt Brudge?” April asked him coldly.

“You ought to be glad I butt em. Brudge is a no-manners scoundrel.”

“If he done wrong, whyn’ you tell me?”

“I ain’ no news carrier.”

April’s eyes glittered as he shifted his hickory stick from one hand to the other.

“You ain’ Brudge’s daddy, you know?”

“No.” And Sherry smiled. “I ain’ nobody’s daddy, not yet.”

“Wha’ you mean by dat?” April’s voice rose, and in a sudden burst of anger he seized Sherry by the shoulder. “You can’ sass me, Sherry! You know it too! If you wanted to butt somebody, whyn’ you come try my head, instead o’ mashin’ up a li’l’ half-grown boy like Brudge? I got a mind to make mush out o’ you’ brains right now. You ever was a’ impudent black devil!”

Sherry’s eyes gleamed, his fists clenched, and he drew closer to April. “I didn’ had no cause to butt you, dat’s why! But I just as soon butt you as anybody else.”

April smiled. “I hate to kill you, Sherry. You’s a good plow-hand, an’ I need you.”

Sherry’s answer didn’t lag one iota, and he met April’s eyes with a steadfast look. “Come try me! Just stick you’ neck out! One time! Just one time! You t’ink you’s de onliest man got a skull on dis whole plantation. I got a bone in my head, too. Come try em! I’ll butt you’ brains out same as if you wasn’ my daddy!” Sherry’s eyes glared, his head crouched between his shoulders, he came forward with a rush. But April jerked him clear up off his feet, and his big head came down on Sherry’s forehead with a butt that brought the blood streaming from both men’s nostrils.

Sherry staggered back a step, then leaped forward, but April’s powerful outstretched arms hurled him toward the plow-hands, who caught him and held him fast, for April warned them.

“Yunnuh hold dat boy. If e comes back at me I’ll kill em. An’ we ain’ got time to be diggin’ a grave, not till de cotton’s all plowed under.”

“You mens lemme go, I tell you! I ain’ scared o’ April. Lemme go!”

“Yunnuh ain’ to fight! Great Gawd! Yunnuh’d kill one anudder. You can’ git loose, Sherry. No, suh!”

Sherry struggled fruitlessly. Then he stood still. April wiped his nose on his shirt-sleeve, picked his ragged hat up off the ground, set it straight on his head, then quietly buttoned up the neck of his shirt, for a sudden gust of wind came up cool from the rice-fields.

Casting his eyes up at the sky where a flock of small ragged clouds hung high and white, he said calmly, “Yunnuh better git back to plowin’. It’s gwine rain in a few days an’ we must git dis big field finished befo’ den.”

He tried to speak coolly. Quietly. To hold up his head triumphantly. But his shoulders had a dejected droop, as he turned his back and went toward the woods.

After a few steps, he turned around, “Sherry, you an’ me can’ live on de same place. Not no mo’. I’ll kill you sho’ as we try it. For a little I’d kill you now. You git on off. I don’ care whe’ you go, just so I don’ see you, not no mo’! Git outen de field! Right now, too.”

Breeze felt hot, then cold. The blood rose in his throat and choked him. If he could only help Sherry kill April! But he stood shaking, shivering, with lips twitching, until April asked, “What is you cryin’ about?” And Breeze stammered weakly, in a thin reedy voice, “I ain’ cryin’, suh.” The glare April gave him made him dizzy like a blow between his eyes.

“Den git at you’ work! Don’ be wastin’ good time on a mawnin’ like dis!”

Sherry held up his head and fastened his look on April, but the tears that ran down his cheeks belied his hard reckless smile. In a voice broken by hate and fury he cried out:

“You stinkin’ ugly devil---- Quit scarin’ dat li’l’ boy! You’s got a coward-heart even if you’ head is too tough fo’ Hell! I hope Gawd’ll rot all two o’ you feets off! I hope E will----” Sherry stretched out a fist and shook it helplessly, then broke into sobs.

“Hush, Sherry! You better left April alone now. You done said enough,” warned one of the men, but April strode away. If he heard Sherry’s cursing he made no sign of it. And Sherry walked across the field to Clara, who stood, still hitched to the plow, waiting for him to come back. He patted her nose. “Good ol’ Clara. I’m gwine. Breeze’ll take you to de barnyard, won’t you, Breeze?”

Breeze tried to answer a loud “Yes, Sherry!” but a dumb sob shook his words.

“Good-by, mens!”

“Good-by, Sherry!”

That was all. Sherry walked away toward the Quarters. As Breeze watched him go the sunshiny noon grew dim. The plows went on cutting down stalks, burying them, but the men were silent as death. Birds kept singing in the forest trees, but their notes had a doleful sorrowful sound. The day had paled. The rice-fields meeting the sky yonder, so far away, were hazy and sad. The wind itself wept through the trees. A flock of crows passed overhead, croaking out lonesome words to one another.

The field lay dark. Dismal. Its rich earth changed to dry barren land. The men who plowed it walked in a distressful silence.

Sherry was gone. Zeda’s Sherry. The most promising young man on the whole plantation. April’s big-doings bullying had run him off. April would pay for it. He’d poison cotton by himself next summer. He could make the men do almost anything else, but he’d never get them to poison boll-weevils. They knew better than to fight Providence. April wasn’t God. No.

From the Quarters a scream rose and swelled until its long, weird, melancholy note went into a death-cry! Zeda’s grieving! Breeze had to clench his teeth to keep from bursting out crying himself. Suppose April got mad with him some time, and butted him? What would he do? He couldn’t do anything but stand still and take it and die.

He went on plowing, side by side with the rest in the painful silence that hung on stubbornly. The soft flat-footed pattering of the men’s bare feet, the dead flat thudding of mule steps, the sullen waving of the branches in the wind, the low murmuring of the water, all fell together into a dull batch of doleful sound.

Flocks of field larks rose up and cried out plaintively as their feeding-ground was turned under. Old Louder chased them in a slow trot, sniffed at them, then at some smell in the earth. Coming up to Breeze, he rubbed against his legs and whined. Breeze gave him nothing in return, only a low word or two, and a furtive pat on the head, so he trotted off to one side, and sat on his haunches, watching the plowmen with sorrowful eyes. He missed Sherry too.

When the bell rang for noon, Breeze was near the rice-fields side. His mule stopped short and seized a mouthful of grass, as he gazed toward Sandy Island. It was far away to-day. The haze had every sign of it hidden. A broad sheet of water sparkled and glittered, as bright reflections of white clouds floated softly, silently on its shining surface. All the channels were buried. What was his mother doing now? And Sis? He swallowed a sob and turned the mule’s head toward home, and saw Big Sue waddling across the field. She didn’t follow any path, but came on straight toward him, over the soft plowed earth. Why was she coming to the field at noon? He had his breakfast long ago, and he always went home for dinner. Maybe she wanted to talk about Sherry. She stopped and said a few words to April but she came on to Breeze.

She gave Breeze a hand-wave as she got nearer, but her face was solemn, without any show of a smile. “April says you kin come straight on home, Breeze. Somebody else’ll take de mules to de lot.”

Giving his shoulder a gentle pat, she drew Breeze up to her with a little hug. She didn’t say a word, and her eyes looked wet.

April was waiting at the path, and he walked on home beside them. Tall, solid as a tree, rugged, tough-sinewed, double-jointed, yet the cruel look in his deep-sunk eyes that blazed out when they looked at Sherry, had given way to something else. They glowed bright as he turned back and looked across the rice-fields toward Sandy Island, and said gently:

“Sandy Island is way back behind de clouds to-day.” His anger with Sherry had passed.

His voice sounded unsteady, his features were haggard and ashy.

Big Sue looked at him, then at Breeze. “You break de news to Breeze, April. I ain’ got de heart.”

April shook his head. “Me neither.”

Big Sue’s small eyes blinked. “Son,” she hesitated strangely, and laid a hot fat hand gently on his shoulder, “you t’ink you got a mammy, enty?”

Of course Breeze thought so. He was so sure of it. What on earth was Big Sue aiming at?

“No, son.” She shook her head slowly. “You ain’ got none. You’ mammy went out on de tide befo’ day dis mawnin’.”

What did Big Sue mean? Breeze felt confused. Where had his mother gone on that before-day-tide? He didn’t understand what Big Sue was talking about.

Marsh-hens cackled gaily out in the rice-fields. A crane croaked. A fish-hawk circled high, then halted to poise himself for a swoop.

Taking Breeze by the hand Big Sue led him on through the greenish shade cast by the live-oaks over the road and the cabin’s yard. Her bright cold eyes peeped out sidewise at him now and then. She was trying to be kind. Once she said, “I’se gwine to be you’ mammy now, since you’ own mammy’s dead and gone.”

Breeze felt as if he was in a dream, walking in his sleep. His legs were numb and heavy.

“Hurry up, son! You must walk faster. We got to dress an’ go to de buryin’, cross de river in a boat. April’ll let Sherry take we across de river in de boat, enty, April?”

“No, not Sherry. Somebody else’ll take you. Sherry’s done gone off. To stay.”

“Wha’ dat you say, April? Sherry’s gone?”

“I run em off de place a while ago.”

“Great Gawd! What is dis! April, don’t you know Zeda’s gwine kill you? Man! I’m glad I ain’t you. You might be strong, but you ain’ strong as dat conjure Zeda’s gwine put on you.”

Louder had followed them from the field, and now sat on his hind quarters, listening, watching, snapping at a fly now and then. As a squirrel ran down the trunk of a tree and across the yard, he jumped up and ran a few paces, then came back and sat down again, as though he had done his duty.

“Come on in de house an’ dress, Breeze. I don’ believe you got it straight in you’ head yet. You’ ma is dead, son! Dead! De people is gwine put em in a grave soon as dis same sun goes down.”

Breeze looked up at each of the grown people. He felt hurt, as if his mother had abandoned him just when he wanted to see her most, to go back home to her. Sherry was gone away. She was dead. Nobody was left, but Uncle Bill. Leaning toward Big Sue he hid his face in the folds of her skirt and wept.

“Don’ cry, son,” she soothed him. “Come on an’ eat some dinner. You got to go wid me to de buryin’. Enty, April?”

She led him inside and made him sit in a chair beside April, while she fried links of sausage to eat with the bread and cups full of sweetened water. The sausage had a savory smell, and Breeze bit into it and chewed it a long time, but he could scarcely swallow it for the choking lump in his throat. His mother was dead. She was no longer yonder at Sandy Island with Sis and the other children. She had flown up into the sky, where Heaven was, and Jesus and all the angels. April washed his food down with great swallows of water. How dumb he was.

“Lawd!” Big Sue grunted as she came out of the shed-room with her Sunday dress on her arm. “Ain’ it awful to die in sin? It pure scares me half to death when I think on Breeze’s mammy a hoppin’ in Hell right now! Great Gawd! Wid fire a scorchin’ em!”

“How you know?” April thundered out.

“How I know? I know e was a’ awful sinner. You know so too. E got dis same Breeze right here at Blue Brook whilst a revival meetin’ was gwine on. You don’ call dat sin?”

April didn’t so much as crack his teeth, and she looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“You an’ her all two better had got religion dat summer.”

“You better keep you’ mouth shut, now, Big Sue. You’s a-talkin’ out o’ turn. Better help Breeze dress. E’s a settin’ yonder on de floor wid jaws hangin’ open! Boy, you’s gwine swallow a fly if you don’ mind.”

Breeze was trying to think. His mother, his dear, kind, good mother, was hopping in Hell. Burning in a fire nine times hotter than the fire on earth!

“April!” Big Sue called out, “you ought to buy Breeze a nice pair o’ shoes an’ stockin’s to wear to de buryin’.”

“Brudge is got a pair Breeze kin borrow an’ wear. I ain’ got time to go to de sto’ now.”

“Please go git ’em fo’ me.”

April got up stiffly and walked away. In a little while Brudge came bringing a pair of Leah’s shoes. He had lost one of his own, but Leah sent her slippers instead. April said they would do. They were low-cut and shiny, with high heels and a strap across the instep. Breeze made such a poor out at walking in them, Big Sue couldn’t help laughing, although she declared she was not making sport of him.

“Take ’em off, son. Tote ’em in you’ hand till we git to Sandy Island,” she suggested, and Breeze did.

Uncle Bill rowed the boat that took them to Sandy Island, and although he pulled hard with his oars, the sun was almost down when they reached the cabin up on the hill above the river.

Mules and oxen hitched to carts filled the yard, and the house was crowded with people.

Big Sue made Breeze sit down on the ground and put on Brudge’s stockings and Leah’s shoes. They made his feet stumble about miserably, but Big Sue said that made no difference, since they looked nice.

He was terribly excited, but as he walked hand in hand with Big Sue up the steep path into the yard he could hear people say:

“Lawd, Breeze is grow fo’ true. Looka e fine clothes!”

Seeing his old home made him forget to be polite.

Big Sue whispered, “When de ladies an’ gentlemens speaks to you, bow an’ pull you’ foot an’ say, ‘Good evening.’ Don’ grin at ’em like a chessy-cat! Be mannersable!”

When Sis came to the door Breeze broke away from Big Sue’s hand and ran, half falling up the steps. Sis grabbed him and held him tight. He put his arms around her and squeezed her, and they laughed and cried together. Poor Sis! Her body felt like a pack of bones! Where was the baby? Where were all the other children? Sis whispered they’d been sent off to a neighbor’s house until after the burying was over. She didn’t have time to feed them and look after everything else.

Big Sue interrupted the tight hug Breeze was giving Sis: “Come on in, boy, an’ look at you’ ma. Dey’s ready to put em in de box.”

The cabin was full of a queer smell. Breeze hated to go inside, but Big Sue held him fast by the arm and drew him toward the shed-room door. The room was dim, for the one wooden shutter was closed so that very little light could filter through. Breeze saw only a few solemn-looking black women standing around the bed. He couldn’t bear to go any farther. But Big Sue’s firm hand urged him on, its strong jerks making it useless to draw back.

“Don’t you cut no crazy capers wid me, Breeze. You got to come look at you’ ma. I want de people to see I raised you to have respect fo’ you’ parents. Open de window, Sis!”

The small room looked even smaller on account of the low ceiling, and the bed, the only piece of furniture, was pushed out from the wall leaving a narrow way all around it.

Sis undid the window latch and flung the shutter back. The sun flooded the white bed with blood-red light, and marked a long slim thing under a sheet. One of the black women turned the sheet slowly down and exposed a pinched face. A chin bound with a white cloth. Two bony black hands crossed on a sunken breast. Two feet whose black skin showed through thin white stockings. The feet were still, not hopping.

That strange stiffness could not be his mother! Breeze shut his eyes tight to keep from seeing it.

“Open you’ eyes, Breeze. Stand ’side you’ ma an’ look at em good fo’ de last time. You ain’ never gwine see em no mo’.”

“No! No! Cun Big Sue! Don’ make me look at em! Please, Cun Big Sue!”

Breeze began screaming in spite of himself. He wanted to be good. To please Big Sue. To have manners. But that thing on the bed was too fearful.

He felt himself lifted in Big Sue’s strong arms. Her hot breath puffed on him as she bore him close to the bed. The terrible scent filling the house rose in his nostrils. Screams split his throat. He couldn’t hold them in to save his life. Although his eyelids squeezed tighter shut, tears poured through them.

Big Sue’s determined fingers tugged at them, pulling them apart, until his eyes, naked, except for tears, were held over his mother’s face. Her two dead eyes peeped out from half-closed lids, her black lips cracked open over a grin of cold white teeth. He strove wildly to get away, but Big Sue held him until a soft darkness swallowed everything.

When Breeze came to himself he was flat on the ground, so near the cape jessamine bush that a cool clean blossom touched his cheek.

Where were Big Sue and Sis?

He raised up, and saw men with white gloves on their hands bringing a long new pine box through the door. They came down the steps and went toward a wagon. As they passed an old mule, the beast tried to break his tether and run. A man yelled at him, another jerked him by the bit, a third got a stick and frailed him, but Uncle Bill called out, “Don’ lick em, son. Dat mule smell death and it fret em. Pat em. Talk easy to em. Death kin scare people, much less a mule.”

Everybody was leaving the house. They had forgotten Breeze. He couldn’t stay here by himself, with nothing to keep him company but that strange smell that followed the box out of the shed-room and settled right in the cape jessamine bush. It drowned the scent of the blossoms.

Hopping to his feet he ran humbly to Big Sue, and slipped a hand in hers, “Lemme go wid you, Cun Big Sue. I ain’ gwine holler no mo’.”

Big Sue gave his hand a painful squeeze, “I’m dat provoke’ wid you, Breeze, I can’ talk. But you wait till I git you home. You’s de kickin’est nigger I ever did see. But you wait till I git you home. I bu’sted one sleeve clean out o’ my new dress a-tryin’ to hold you.”

With his heart tingling Breeze tottered on. His eyes blurred. His legs scarcely could carry him down the sandy road toward the graveyard under the tall trees.

The afterglow fell clear from the sky on an open grave with dark earth piled high on each side of it. It was outlined by flaming smoking torches held in the hands of the mourners, who marched slowly around it, singing a funeral dirge. One man, dressed in a long white robe, stood at the head of the grave, his deep voice chanting the solemn burial service. Breeze’s mother belonged to the Bury League, and all the members carried a white lily. When the leader gave the sign they held the flowers, arm high, and yelled, “Christ is Risen!” but the leader was a strange man, not his stepfather.

A hymn, or spiritual, was raised, and the whole crowd joined in with great questioning waves of sound, sometimes harmony, sometimes dissonance. Breeze’s heart ached. He wanted to cry out too, to the great Creator of Life. He felt bewildered when Sis gave a piercing shrill wail, that rose high and sharp above the somber death chant. Her cry had scarcely died away before an answer came echoing from the opposite side of the grave. Big Sue looked at Uncle Bill with a mischievous grin that shocked Breeze. How could anybody laugh here? The very woods reechoed the unearthly death-cries!

The mournful singing gradually changed into a confused din, a whirlwind of grief. Men and women shrieked and shouted. They shook and shimmied their shoulders, and jerked their arms and gyrated about in a frenzy of grief and excitement. Some of the women went wild. They beat their breasts and cried above the roaring hubbub. But all the time Sis’ shrill, piercing, falsetto wailing kept steadily calling across the grave. Her screams rose high and then melted into the life of the air.

The tall brown trunks of pine trees around them loomed up until their plumy tops touched the sky. They waved gently, mysteriously, above the confused group of people. Red sweaters and blue overalls, green and purple and yellow dresses, wide white aprons and turban-bound heads, black hands and faces, were all tinged with a rosy glow dropped over them by the sky as night began creeping out of the forest.

The strong damp odor of the woods freshened, and mosquitoes stung Breeze’s face and hands and ankles. He was unhappy. Wretched. When Big Sue said, “De mosquitoes is too bad. Dey got me in a fever! Le’s go,” he felt a relief to get away from it all.

Not even Sis paid them any attention as they turned around, facing homeward. She was too absorbed in grief, in the terrible thought of Death, that strange mystery which had just stricken Breeze’s mother.

Breeze hurried along the road, fearing snakes less than the sound of that inferno of mourning which followed behind him.

Sandy Island was quiet; the cabin on the hill empty; the dusk on the river so deep that the boat was scarcely outlined against the water; but Breeze could see the old dead pine down on the white sand. It’s head had fallen. Its whole length rested on the ground.

His brain whirled in his skull. Cold tremors ran through his body. His mother had buried all her money at the foot of that tree. So had old man Breeze. But nothing less than strong iron chains could have dragged the boy one step nearer it.

Uncle Bill helped Big Sue to her seat in the boat’s stern, where she sat solemn and stiff and ruffled like a sitting hen.

They went in silence. The water whispered in bubbles, but the wind had died out of the trees.

* * * * *

In the cabin, a big fire blazed up the chimney, and a delicious scent of food came to meet them.

“Who dat in my house?” Big Sue cried out, when April came to the door.

“You got company.”

“Who? You?”

“No. You guess again.”

“I dunno, an’ I’m too weak to walk, much less talk.”

“It’s Joy. E come on de boat dis evenin’.”

Big Sue stopped short in her tracks, dumb-struck. “Great Gawd! You don’ mean it! Whe’ is Joy?”

Instead of hurrying forward she gazed at the cabin with black dismay as if she turned some terrible thought over and over in her mind, but a warm laugh gurgled out, and a low voice called:

“What did you tell Ma for, Cun April? I been want to fool em!”

A girl in a bright red dress and with red-stockinged legs came bounding across the yard to meet them.

“How you do, Ma? I bet you is surprised to see me!” She held her mouth up to meet Big Sue’s, their kiss made a loud smack, then Uncle Bill hurried to shake her hand.

“Lawd, Joy! Just de sight o’ you would cure de sore eyes! Honey, you looks sweet enough to eat!” Breeze stared at her. Deep down in his heart he felt Uncle Bill spoke the truth. He had never seen any one like Joy before.

She leaned to pull up one red stocking tighter over a knee, but she grinned up into Uncle Bill’s face. “Do listen at Uncle Bill! A-sweet-talkin’ me right here befo’ ev’ybody!” Her eyes beamed, her low soft drawl was full of friendliness, and she turned to Breeze with a blithe greeting:

“How you do, son? I’m sho’ glad to see you here wid Ma!” A small bold hand shot out to meet his, but Breeze cast his eyes down, bashful and afraid. The hand gave his shoulder a light pat, took one of his and led him toward the house.

“You ain’ scared o’ me, is you, son? Come on in by de fire. I want to see you good.”

Breeze couldn’t say a word, but as they walked in April threw a fat pine knot on the fire to make a better light. The fire blazed up, crackling merrily, making the room hot and bright, but shyness kept Breeze’s face turned away from Joy, until with a quick laugh she wheeled him around and lifted his chin.

“How come you won’ look at me, son?” Her face was so close Breeze could feel her breath when she laughed again, but his eyes were riveted on her twinkling shoe-buckles.

“Left de boy ’lone, Joy. E don’ feel like playin’. His ma was just buried dis evenin’. Come unstring my shoes, son. I ain’ gwine let Joy plague you.”

As he knelt to unlace the shoes Joy appealed to him: “I ain’ plaguin’ you, is I, Breeze? Me an’ you is gwine be buddies, enty?” Breeze looked up and met her slanting eyes, and the smile that lit them seemed to him so lovely, so gentle, he fairly tingled all over. He had never seen anybody like Joy before. Her slight body in its scant, red satin dress was not tall, but it had the straight, swift, upward thrust of a pine sapling. Her slim black arms, bare from the elbows, and held akimbo, came out from shoulders lean as his own. Her short skirt gave a flirt and Breeze’s glance darted to the skinniness of her red-stockinged legs. But her smile had thrilled the fear out of him, and given him confidence enough to feast his eyes on her gay over-ripe little figure, from the bright buckles on her shiny black slippers to the short coarse straightened hair on her small head.

“Set down, honey. Talk to Uncle Bill an’ you’ Cun April whilst me an’ Breeze fixes supper.” Big Sue’s bare feet pattered back and forth from the hearth to the four-legged safe against the wall, mixing bread, and smoothing it on a hot griddle, slicing meat and dropping it on a hot spider, once in a while scolding Breeze for dawdling, or asking Joy a question about the town or the school. April smiled and joined pleasantly in the talk Joy led. A necklace of blue glass beads clinked against the smooth black skin of her neck, gold bracelets glittered on her slim wrists. Breeze was bewildered, rapt with the glamour of her. Her sparkling eyes strayed from one face to another until they met April’s, bold and staring. Joy’s flickered and fell and her laughter chilled. Like everybody else, she feared him, and his shining gaze, fixed on her alone, withered all the fun out of her and put something sober in its place.

Except for the fire’s crackling a hush filled the room. Big Sue suddenly straightened up from bending over the pots and, looking over her shoulder, said, “Git de plates out o’ de safe, Breeze. How come yunnuh is so quiet? Dis ain’ church!”

April laughed and shifted in his chair and his eyes turned from Joy to her mother. “De victuals smells so good, I’m gone got speechless!”

“Me too,” Joy chimed, but Uncle Bill got up to go. He had already stayed longer than he intended. He must go see if everything at the barnyard was in order.

April stood up to say good night, tall, straight-limbed, broad-shouldered, hawk-eyed.

“Stay an’ eat wid us, Cun April, you too, Uncle Bill! What’s you’ hurry?”

Uncle Bill had to go. He had left Jake to see about feeding the stock, and Jake was mighty forgetful and careless. Nobody could depend on him.

In spite of the fineness of her red satin dress, Joy took the plates from Breeze and piling two of them with the collards dripping with pot liquor, and chunks of fat meat and pieces of the newly baked corn-bread, she gave Big Sue and April each one.

“Yunnuh must eat all dis I put on you’ plates,” Joy bade them gaily, but silence had fallen over them. Both their faces wore a troubled look. April’s eyes held both darkness and light, and a kind of sadness Breeze had seen sometimes in Sis’ eyes.

“How was de buryin’?” April asked when the edge of his appetite was dulled.

“Fine! Fine! All but dat fool boy Breeze. E made me pure shame.” Big Sue’s words were smothered by food in her mouth, but Breeze felt the sharp sting of their bitter contempt. He longed to get up and go back into the dark shed-room and hide, but shame chained his feet to the floor and made his neck so limp his head drooped lower and lower.

“Wha’ dat Breeze done so bad?”

April leaned his head against the mantel-shelf, and listened without a word to Big Sue’s story. Most of the time he looked into the fire, deep in thought, forgetting to eat his supper.

When Big Sue’s tale was done, Breeze listened for April’s abuse, but instead of scolding him, April spoke kindly, gently.

“Don’ be too hard on de boy, Big Sue. Death kin scare bigger people dan Breeze. I don’ like to look on em myself. Gawd made people so. Mules too. When Dukkin put pizen in de spring last summer and killed Uncle Isaac’s old mule, Lula, I had a time gittin’ em dragged off to de woods. Sherry said he could hitch Clara to em, but Clara was so scared, e reared up and kicked an’ tried to run away. Sherry had to blindfold Clara wid a cloth over both eyes befo’ she’d go anywhere nigh old dead Lula. It’s de Gawd’s truth. An’ Clara is a mighty sensible mule.”

“Po’ li’l’ Breeze,” Joy pitied softly, and Breeze’s heart warmed, for April and Joy both took his part. Big Sue wouldn’t lick him to-night. She never did lick him when April was there.

“You-all stop talkin’ ’bout death. You scare me so I wouldn’t sleep a wink to-night! Whe’s Sherry?” Joy asked suddenly.

Big Sue looked at April instead of answering. April stirred in his chair, his big feet shuffled on the floor, his slow answer was a growl.

“Sherry’s left de plantation, Joy. I run em off.” His black brows knit into an angry line.

“Why--why--how come you done dat, Cun April?” Joy’s teeth looked white and sharp, her red satin dress shimmered in the firelight, her words were husky, half whispered.

“I had to, Joy. Sherry is a impudent rascal. I’d ’a’ killed em if e had ’a’ stayed here.”

April scratched his head and his eyes turned uneasily toward the door, but before he spoke, tears welled up in Joy’s eyes, a deep sob burst from her bosom, and she got up and ran back into the shed-room where she lay on the bed and wept, in spite of Big Sue’s reproaches.

“Why, Joy! You ought not to take on so! Why, Honey, Sherry’ll be back befo’ long.”

XVII

HOG-KILLING

Now that Joy had come home for good, Big Sue planned to fix up the cabin. April sent Brudge to help Breeze whitewash the outside with oyster-shell lime, burned and crushed right on the beach. Fresh clean newspapers were brought from the store with eggs and each wide sheet spread with white-flour paste and stuck fast to the inside walls over the old soiled worn-out papers that were cracked and broken by last year’s wind and weather. When this was done, the cabin was snug and tight. With the window blinds pulled in and the doors closed, not a bit of cold air could get in except through the cracks in the floor.

But Joy’s blood must have got thin, for she wore her long black cape constantly, and had spells of shivering in spite of its warmth.

The weather was scarcely cold enough for hog-killing, but Big Sue said Joy needed some rich food to thicken and hotten her blood. The girl took little interest in anything. She’d stand and gaze vacantly out of the window as if her soul were gone far away and her eyes tried to follow its flight.

Jeems, the shoat in the pen, must be killed. Joy’s appetite must be tempted somehow before her blood turned to pure water. She ate scarcely enough to keep a bird alive.

Somebody must have conjured her. Those long half-drowsy spells were not natural, and sometimes she sobbed in the night, hag-ridden with evil dreams. Jeems must be killed for Joy to eat.

Big Sue waked Breeze early. She gave him no chance to dawdle, for much had to be done in preparation. Joy offered to help, but Big Sue made her stay in bed and rest. Breeze washed the sleep out of his eyes, then tipped to Joy’s bedside for a word from her, but the dawn showed her eyes closed, and her quiet regular breathing told him she was sleeping. He turned his eyes away quickly to keep them from waking her.

Before the sun was up he had the big washpot in the yard, brimming full of water and a fire built under it. Uncle Bill brought a sound barrel and laid it slantwise and steady in a dug out place in the ground. He’d scald Jeems in that.

He took out his great pocket knife and opening its longest blade told Breeze to look how its sharp point was flashing! That knife was trained. It had sense like people. It was pure itching to stick in Jeems’ throat and slice his neck in two. When he had to kill a hog, he just pointed that knife blade toward the beast and gave it a push. It would fairly leap to the right spot. It never missed the big vein. His eyes twinkled with affection for his faithful tool as he ran a thick thumb lightly over its keen edge and felt its shining point.

“You hold em, Breeze, till I get de ax. De ax has to do a li’l’ work ahead o’ de knife.”

As he walked toward the wood-pile, Big Sue hurried out. “Do don’ knock Jeems, Uncle Bill!” She panted anxiously.

“I’m ’bliged to stun em, honey!”

“You’ll ruin all de brains.”

“I can’ help dat, Miss Big Sue. I couldn’ stick Jeems whilst he was in his right mind. No, ma’am.”

“Knockin’ a hog on de head makes de head cheese all bloody. Please don’ do dat! Go on an’ stick em. Don’ knock em!”

Uncle Bill stopped and scratched his head.

“I’d do mighty nigh anything to please you, Miss Big Sue, but I can’ suffer a hog any more’n I have to. I got to knock Jeems senseless, or I couldn’ kill em at all. Me an’ Jeems is been friends too long.”

“For Gawd’s sake don’ be so chicken-hearted.”

“I ain’ chicken-hearted, but I couldn’ stan’ to suffer Jeems whilst he was a-dyin’. No. Come on, Breeze. Le’s get dis killin’ over wid!”

Jeems’ black snout showed through a crack, and his short impatient grunts meant he was hungry, for Breeze had not fed him since yesterday noon. Breeze’s heart ached for his friend. How could Uncle Bill bear to knock Jeems in the head with that ax, while the poor beast’s eyes gazed up with such trustful friendliness!

“Jeems, old man! You’ time is out, son. Git ready to meet you’ Gawd!” Uncle Bill’s voice was sad.

Jeems held his fat face up, straining to see them better, for his eyes, almost closed with fat, were hampered by ears flapping over them. Poor Jeems!

Uncle Bill had his coat off, and his rolled-up shirt-sleeves showed the play of his powerful sinews under the skin. The ax rose high in the air, then leaped out and tightened, as Uncle Bill brought it down with a thud on Jeems’ forehead. The squeal in the hog’s throat changed to a strangled gurgle. The short forelegs staggered and gave way. The great heavy body fell sidewise to the ground. But Uncle Bill was already astride it with his knife’s bare blade ready.

A quick sharp stick in the neck brought a spurt of blood which a deeper thrust turned to a stream. Red, warm with life, its steam rising like smoke in the cool sunshiny air, Jeems’ blood poured out and wasted in the filth of his pen, until Big Sue’s cries brought Breeze to his senses.

“Great Gawd, Breeze! Ketch dat blood! You standin’ like a fool lettin’ em waste! I good mind to kill you! Blood puddin’ is de best o’ de hog-killin’!”

Breeze scrambled over the boards of the pen, and slipped a pan under Jeems’ unconscious head, and held it in place in spite of the kicking death-struggling legs, saving the bubbling red stream for a pudding. The smell of it made him sick, and he couldn’t meet the look of those half-closed staring eyes.

Poor Jeems! His time was out. His kicks were getting weaker. His eyelids were wilting down over his dull sightless eyes. His soul would soon be gone home to God. Breeze looked up at the sky, but Big Sue called out to give her the pan before he turned it over. It had caught enough for a small pudding.

The hog was hurried into the barrel and scalded before the life cooled out of him, and his skin scraped clean of hair. As Uncle Bill worked he told Breeze he must always be careful to see that the moon is right before he killed a hog. A wrong moon will set the hair in a hog’s skin so no knife on earth could move it. Meat killed on a waning moon will dry up to nothing, no matter how you cook it. A certain quarter of the moon will make the meat tough and strong, another will rot it, no matter how much salt you pack around it. If Breeze would learn all the moon signs he’d be spared a lot of trouble long as he lived. White people leave money to their children, but black people teach theirs signs, which is far better. Money can be taken from you, but knowledge can’t.

When Jeems was scalded and scraped and washed and cleaned, he was hung up by a hickory stick run through the white sinews in his hind legs. The carcass must cool before it was cut up, for meat, like bread, is spoiled if cut while it’s warm.

Bina had come to help Big Sue, and the two women bent over a wooden washtub, sorting out the liver and lights and chitterlings, putting the small entrails aside for sausage casings. The hog’s fine condition made Big Sue cheerful. She declared she’d make a lot more lard than she’d expected, for all of Jeems’ insides were coated with fat.

The higher the sun rose the faster they worked, even when the neighbors dropped by for a little neighborly talk and to see how the hog-killing went on.

At noon they stopped for a breathing spell and bite to eat. Hot brown corn-bread and bits of fried liver were washed down with sweetened water. The grown people smoked one pipeful apiece, then set to work again, for Jeems had cooled enough to be quartered.

The back door slipped off its hinges made a table large enough to hold him. Uncle Bill’s big knife cut off the huge head, and separated the hams and shoulders and sides from the long backbone. He trimmed them neatly, throwing the scraps of lean meat into one tub for sausage meat, and bits of firm white fat into another for to-morrow’s lard making.

He wanted to give Breeze the pig-tail to roast on the coals right then, but Big Sue said Breeze had no time to be playing with pig-tails now. If he’d work hard Uncle Bill might find the hog’s bladder for him, and to-night he and Brudge could pleasure themselves blowing it up like a balloon.

A number of the plantation dogs had gathered, and they had to be watched, specially the hounds and cur-dogs. The bird dogs were better-mannered. Big Sue wanted to scald the lot of them for the pesky way they nosed around, but Uncle Bill wouldn’t let her. God made dogs so they hankered after hog-meat. It was sinful to be short-patienced with them.

One pot simmered and stewed with liver and lights and haslets and rice liver pudding. Another pot slowly, carefully sputtered and spat as the blood, mixed with seasonings, thickened into pudding. The brains were taken out of the skull, which was put on for head cheese.

Breeze felt neither sadness nor squeamishness now. His mouth watered as his nose sniffed at all the appetizing smells.

The sun began throwing long shadows and Big Sue kept him hurrying. Every single hog hair had to be picked up and saved to plant in the potato patch next spring. Every hair would make a potato.

The waste had to be thrown in the creek. Breeze cast it in, a bucketful at a time. Horrid filthy stuff. It made him shiver, but the water swallowed it down with scarcely a splash, then flowed on smooth and clear, reflecting the bright clouds in the sky, shimmering in the last sunbeams, rising with the incoming tide to water its banks, which were yellow with marsh daisies. The willows were almost bare of leaves, and the slim naked trunks and branches bent over, looking away down into the Blue Brook’s quiet depths.

Sunset gilded the earth and cabins and trees, and streaked the white sandy yard with golden light. Uncle Bill hoped that such stillness would not bring rain soon, for the hay was in shocks in the field yet, and the corn not all broken in. He looked up at the sky as he spoke, and at once a light breeze sprang up to tell him to-morrow would be fair. He laughed with relief, and the big trees bowed gently, saying that they knew the little breeze had told the truth. Even the frost-faded grasses nodded and waved!

To stay fair the weather must turn cooler, and that would be good for Big Sue’s fresh killed meat. It would have a good chance to take the salt well. Such big hams needed careful curing.

Breeze must clean up the pen to-morrow and scatter ashes all over it, so Uncle Bill could bring Big Sue one of Melia’s red pigs to grow and fatten into a fine shoat by late spring.

Each piece of pork was rubbed well with salt and stored in Uncle Bill’s small log barn. There, they’d be safe until the morning, when they’d be rubbed again with salt mixed with sugar, and packed into a barrel to cure.

Old Louder sat on his thin haunches, patient and polite. He knew better than to beg, but his long ears failed to hide the pleading, wistful look in his eyes. Breeze tossed him a morsel of meat now and then and before one could touch the ground Louder caught and swallowed it with a deft snap of his jaws. Big Sue fairly screamed out:

“Feedin’ a dog wid my good meat, enty? I seen you. I’ll learn you better’n dat to-morrow mawnin’.”

As a rule Breeze said nothing, but the falling dusk looked so mournful, his body felt tired, his legs sore, his back and arms achy with so much work. This was the time of day he gave Jeems his supper, after the chickens and guineas were gone to bed. Now the pen was empty. Jeems was dead.

Pity for Jeems and himself made a sob heave up into his throat. Big Sue must have heard it, for her big moist salty hand closed over his mouth, “Shut up dat cryin’. You ain’ nuttin’ but a gal-baby! A-cryin’ here an’ me fretted half to death ’bout Joy! Drop you’ pants. I’s gwine lick you.”

* * * * *

Next morning, not a streak of daylight was showing through the house cracks when Breeze heard Big Sue up, stumbling around, dressing. She fumbled with the door-bar, taking it down, then went outside. She wanted to see how her meat was. Breeze turned over, but his dozing was broken up by a long terrible shriek. Without putting on even his breeches, he hopped out of bed and ran out to see what was wrong. Somebody’s house must be afire. Joy followed him, her teeth chattering, although she had a quilt wrapped around her.

Never in his whole life had Breeze heard such screams as Big Sue was making. Everybody in the Quarter came hurrying, nobody fully dressed. At first all stood dumb, panic-stricken with amazement, while Big Sue wailed out, between body-wrenching sobs, Jeems was gone! Stolen! Not a hair nor hide was left! The iron hasps holding the chain and lock in the door were pulled clear out of the door-frame. Outraged shouts broke from the crowd. Who here was mean enough to do such a thing? They eyed one another suspiciously. Even fists were clenched, for no such thing was ever heard of. If a ham or a side or a shoulder had been taken, that would have been bad enough, but a whole hog! It was too terrible to think about.

They tried to find some trace, maybe some tracks on the ground around the barn, but nothing was there plainer than Big Sue’s own flat barefooted ones.

She shrieked and beat her breast by fits and starts, weeping bitterly all in between.

Jeems was the finest hog ever butchered! She had never seen one lined thicker with fat! His meat would have lasted until next summer! And now it was gone! Stolen!

She jerked off the white cloth that bound her head and threw it down. Howling with rage she beat her head against the side of the barn until the blows of her skull had it fairly quivering. The neighbors’ efforts to console her failed. Not even Joy could make any impression on her raving. Breeze was at his wits’ end. The sunny day itself got somber. The birds chirped low and sorrowfully.

Leah was the last person to come. Fat, wabbly, she strolled up, smoking her pipe, one arm akimbo, and beneath her red headkerchief, her eyes gleamed strangely.

“Wha’ dat ail Big Sue? E’s gwine on like e got in a hornet’s nest!”

They told her the news, but instead of grieving Leah sucked her teeth. Big Sue was just trying to make fools of them. Who’d take a whole hog? How could anybody do such a thing? Just as likely as not Big Sue had the hog right yonder in her shed-room.

They all looked in that direction, then back at Big Sue, who had paused in her wailing.

“Wha’ dat you say, Leah?” She was panting with rage, and only a narrow piece of ground lay between them, but Leah gave a taunting wicked laugh. “You hear me good enough. It ain’ no use to say all dat over.”

“You low liar! You varmint!” Big Sue’s voice was heavy. Her reddened eyelids, puffed with fat and tears, squeezed as tight as her clenched fist.

“Yunnuh hear Big Sue cuss me, enty?” Leah cried.

“Hush, Leah! You come on home wid me!” April stepped up and would have led her away by the arm, but with the fury of a cyclone, she shook him off and with a savage yell rushed up to Big Sue and spat in her face.

Like a flash they closed. Arms, fists, heads, bodies, whirled, staggered, fell, rose. All efforts to pull them apart were useless. Leah was the first to waver. After an awful blow in the face her arms dropped. She stood still, then tilted back on her heels trying not to fall. As she struggled for breath her mouth stretched wide open, gasping as fish gasp out of water.

April ran up and caught her and eased her gently down on the ground. Horrible fear rose in Breeze’s heart, for the glazed look in Leah’s eyes was the same that filled Jeems’ yesterday, when death struck him.

People crowded around her. Somebody ran for a bucket of water and poured it all over her head and face.

Breeze could hardly see for the mist in his eyes, but he knew Leah was dying for one of her girls gave a long piercing death-cry.

“You is sho’ ruint now, Big Sue!” Bina said distinctly.

“You spit in my face an’ I’ll kill you de same way!”

“Hush, Ma. Fo’ Gawd’s sake, hush!” Joy plead.

“Leah’s de one stole my hog,” Big Sue bawled, “Leah’s de very one!”

“Hush, Ma! Fo’ Gawd’s sake, hush! Uncle Bill, do come make Ma go home.”

* * * * *

Next morning Big Sue was too ill to get out of bed. Joy kept cool green collard leaves tied on her forehead, and rubbed the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet with tallow, but she groaned and complained with every breath.

Joy sent Breeze with some sweetened bread for Leah’s children to eat with their dinner, but he took a long time to get there. Dread made his feet lag. He slunk along the path, scared by every moving shadow. Ready to jump out of his skin at the crackle of a twig.

He felt relieved when he saw Uncle Bill in April’s yard helping make Leah’s coffin out of clean pine boards lately sawed at the saw-mill. As the sharp plane smoothed the wood, yellow curls fell on the ground. One string exactly Leah’s length and another her breadth, showed how to fit the box to her size.

Breeze finally had to go inside the house to deliver the bread and Joy’s message that Big Sue would not be well enough to attend Leah’s burying. He gave both to Bina, who had a wilted mock-orange bough in her hand, fanning flies away from the bed where Leah lay covered over with a sheet.

“Big Sue’s right to stay sick. You tell em I say so, too,” Bina said tartly. But in a more kindly tone she asked Breeze if he wanted to see Leah. When he shook his head, Bina said Leah looked mighty nice. Just as peaceful as if she was sleep.

That day was as long as a week. The sun hung still for hours at a time. There was scarcely a breath of wind. Breeze was afraid to stay alone, and both Joy and Big Sue kept to their beds. Once he whispered, “Joy, is you sleepin’?” and she answered gently:

“No, son, I’m wake. Come lay down on de bed ’side me. I know you is lonesome. I is myself.”

Reaching her hand out to meet him, she drew his burning face down against her own soft cheek which was cold and wet with tears. He raised up and met her eyes, and the look in them was so sad, so sorrowful, it cut him clean through to the heart.

At last the sun dropped westward, setting in Leah’s grave. Curiosity made Breeze want to see what went on, but fear of death kept him in calling distance of Joy. He went up the road far enough to see the dust raised by the funeral procession, but the wailing death-cries ran him home.

Joy stood by the open window listening. When one lone cry rose high above all the rest, her full lips twitched, her sad eyes stared more gloomily and farther away, big bitter tears rolled down her cheeks.

Big Sue stayed in bed in the darkened shed-room, drinking root teas that smelled strong and rank.

At last night fell. Bedtime came. Breeze knelt down and tried to whisper his prayers. “O Lawd,” he began, but he got no further for Uncle Bill’s old hound, Louder, who had been resting and scratching fleas on the porch, suddenly lifted up his voice in a long mournful howl, and Breeze jumped into bed and covered his head.

* * * * *

Early next morning Bina came, pretending to ask about Big Sue’s health, but her eyes were round and her breathing quick with excitement. Had they heard the news? No? Everybody on the plantation was talking about it!

Somebody had put an awful conjure on April! Leah’s death-sheet had been folded and laid across the foot of April’s bed. When he woke this morning, there it was, tucked in at each side so it couldn’t slip off on the floor. Nobody knew who did it.

April wanted to throw it in the fire, but Maum Hannah stopped him. Burning a conjure bag, or a death-sheet, is the worst thing you can do. They have to be drowned. Maum Hannah sent for Uncle Isaac, and they both tried to make April drown the sheet in the Blue Brook, but he was too stubborn and hardheaded to mind them. Before they could stop him he dashed it on the red-hot coals. Uncle Isaac grabbed it out, but it was all blackened and scorched and burned.

Uncle Isaac took what was left of it and tied a rock up in it to make it sink. When he threw it in the Blue Brook the water splashed and bubbled and made a mournful groan, then turned green as grass! That sheet must have been loaded with conjure poison. Uncle Isaac stood just so and counted to ten like the old people used to do. Bina got up to show them. Holding out the fingers of her left hand she counted them over twice wuth the forefinger of her right, singing as she did it.

Dis-sem-be! Jack-walla! Mulla-long! Mullinga! Gulla-possum! Gullinga! Sing-sang! Tuffee! Killa-walla! Kawa! Ten!

“Uncle Isaac done it just so.”

Big Sue was glad. Anybody could see that. She got up and started putting on her clothes. She seemed to shed her worries. To get almost cheerful. Once in a while she sighed. “I’m sho’ sorry for April. Too sorry. E ought not to ’a’ scorched dat sheet.”

The day turned off rainy, dreary, the whole world was wet and blurred. Big Sue said rain always falls after a burying to settle the dust on the grave.

Joy’s head ached, and she went to bed. Big Sue dampened a cloth with vinegar and tied it on Joy’s forehead, then she went slushing toward the Quarters.

She had hardly got out of sight when Joy jumped up and began a hurried dressing. She put on a dark dress, and tied a white towel over her head.

Breeze cried out in astonishment. Where was she going?

“Nowhere!” answered Joy. “If Ma comes and asks where I is, you don’ know nothin’ at all. Nothin’!”

“Tell me whe’ you’s gwine, Joy.” Breeze begged.

With a sad little smile she leaned over and hugged him.

“I’s comin’ back, Breeze. I’m gwine be you’ mammy after to-day. Ma can’ lick you no more. But don’t you tell nobody. I’m gwine to see if de boat brings me a letter from Sherry.”

“Lemme go, Joy.”

“No, you stay home till Ma comes.”

He let her go, out in the rain. He couldn’t help himself. For a while he pottered about the room, for there was no use to go out into the mud and rain. Then he crawled back into bed, and went sound asleep. Once he roused, and heard the boat puffing on the river. It blew for the landing and stopped, then went pounding on into the distance.

Big Sue came in at noon, vexed about something or other. She began abusing Breeze for letting the fire die, soon as she entered the cabin.

“Whe’s Joy?”

“I dunno, ma’am.”

“How come you dunno?”

“I dunno how come.”

“You ain’ got no sense, dat’s how come! Blow up dis fire befo’ I lick you to death!”

Fear put strength into Breeze’s blowing, and the fire soon blazed up, cheerful and bright, but Big Sue was bursting with gall which she vented on Breeze.

He ran about trying to please her, his mouth dumb-stricken with misery. But her bitter abuse stung him to the very quick and overcame him completely. He burst out crying, just as the soft mud outside sucked loud at somebody’s footsteps.

Uncle Bill called in through the door, “Is anybody home?”

Big Sue’s voice shifted into a pleasanter key as she invited Uncle Bill to come in, then upbraided Breeze for crying like a baby about nothing.

Uncle Bill took Breeze’s part, and with a big red pocket handkerchief wiped Breeze’s face and eyes with gentlest care, and stroked his hands and tried to comfort him.

“Don’ cry, son. You’ eyes is like scraps o’ red flannel. Joy’ll think you’s a baby fo’ true. She wouldn’ b’lieve you kin shoot a gun an’ plow an’ ride a mule good as a man.”

Uncle Bill slipped off his wet shoes to dry them, and sat in his bare feet. “Whe’s Joy?”

“I dunno an’ Breeze wouldn’ tell me whe’ Joy went. I reckon e’s yonder to Zeda’s house a-listenin’ at Zeda’s brazen talk.”

“Zeda’s talk ain’ brazen since Sherry’s gone,” mused Uncle Bill. “No, Zeda’s down-hearted as kin be.”

His shoes and feet steamed in the heat, and he drew both back to a safe distance. Then he showed Breeze how his ankles were marked with tiny scars. “See my snake-cuts? Uncle Isaac fixed me when I wa’n’t no bigger’n you. You ought git him to fix you next spring.”

He explained how the short gashes were made near a vein, and poison from a rattlesnake and a moccasin rubbed in. This was repeated until the dose no longer caused sickness. No snake could ever harm him again. They knew it. They kept out of his way. Yet snakes had him out in the rain now, taking a bucket of milk to April’s children. Snakes had been worse than usual this fall. They were not satisfied with eating all the eggs out of the hen nests, but they sucked the cows dry too. April’s cow might as well be dry so far as giving milk for the family to drink.

“April’s got a lot o’ hogs. Hogs’ll suck cows same like a calf,” Big Sue reminded him.

Uncle Bill was sure the hogs were innocent. And besides, April’s cow came from a fine breed. She wouldn’t let a hog suck her. But snakes are tricky. While the cow was dozing, in the night, they’d slip up and wrap themselves around her leg and suck her dry as a bone and never wake her. Hogs were too awkward to get all the milk. And a fine nice cow like April’s wouldn’t stand any foolishness from a hog.

“Maybe de cow is lost her cud. Dat’ll dry up de milk,” Big Sue suggested again.

Uncle Bill dismissed that with a shake of the head. Cows did lose their cuds. One of his own cows lost hers every time the hags rode her, and that was mighty near every young moon. Giving her an old greasy dish-rag to chew on helped her get it back for a while, but she got so bad off, even that failed. Finally he had to go to Uncle Isaac and get him to take the conjure off her. She was conjured, no doubt about that.

“Who you reckon done it?” Big Sue’s ears had pricked up with the word “conjure,” but Uncle Bill wouldn’t say. It was better not to talk too much about such things. When they come, rid yourself of them the best you can, but don’t talk about them after they go. The less they get into your mind, the better off you are.

“Cows suck dey own se’f, sometimes,” Big Sue went back to the old subject. “April’s cow might be a-doin’ dat.”

Uncle Bill was certain that wasn’t so. Somebody would have seen her. Cows did it, he knew. He once owned a fine one that did it and her mother before her did it. Every daughter she had did it too. They had to wear pens around their necks, but nothing could ever break them from the ugly habit. It was born in their blood, just as some dogs are born gun-shy. It’s in the breed. People and dogs and cows are born to be what they are. They may cover it up for a long time, but it will come out sooner or later.

Big Sue nodded, agreeing, “Dat’s how come I went clean over de river to Sandy Island when I wanted a boy to raise. I knowed Breeze come f’om good seed. E’s good stock.”

“You’s right. Sho’! If you want to raise corn, plant corn seed, not cotton seed.”

“April ever was a mighty rash man, Uncle Bill.” Big Sue hinted at something dark, and Uncle Bill slipped a look at her, then turned his eyes to look out in the rain, where a mocking-bird was whistling exactly like a young turkey. Big Sue got her sewing and sat down to talk.

“April wouldn’ rest not till e pizened dem boll-evils. I couldn’ hardly sleep in de night all las’ summer fo’ dem machines a-zoonin’. Everybody was scared to look out de door whilst April an’ Sherry was gwine round de fields. De pizen dust was same as a fog. Lawd! I slept wid my head under a quilt ev’y night. April better had left dem boll-evils right whe’ Gawd put ’em. I don’ kill no kinder bugs exceptin’ spiders. Not me! Fightin’ Gawd’s business’ll git you in trouble. April’s got off light so far, but e better quit tryin’ to do all de crazy t’ings de white people says do. E sho’ better! Bad luck’s been hangin’ round ever since dat radio-machine at de Big House started hollerin’ an’ cryin’ an’ singin’ year befo’ last. People ain’ got no business tryin’ to be Gawd. Not black people anyways. Let de white people go on. Dey is gwine to hell anyhow!”

She took a fresh thread and moistening the tip of a finger in her mouth made a fat knot in its end. But before she stuck it into the cloth, she looked at Uncle Bill with bright points of light in his eyes. Her words troubled him.

“You is talkin’ mighty fast now, daughter. I been workin’ wid white people all my life an’ I ain’ got no complaint to make of dem. No. Ol’ Cap’n raise’ me to have respect fo’ everybody.”

“Whe’ you reckon Ol’ Cap’n is to-day, Uncle Bill?”

The old man pressed his lips tight together until they puckered, and shook his head.

Big Sue laughed, “You don’ want to say, enty? I don’ blame you. But between you an’ me I spec’ e is whe’ I hope e ain’t; a hoppin’ in Hell dis minute!”

“Shut you’ mouth, gal! Gawd’ll strike you dead first t’ing you know!” Uncle Bill gave her a hard look. “Ol’ Cap’n had his faults, but e was a man! Yes, Gawd! A man!”

Uncle Bill wasn’t listening. He had gone back to the past, “Lawd, I kin see Ol’ Cap’n now. High an’ straight. Slim till de day e died. His eyes could go black as soot an’ flash wid pure fire when e got vexed, but dey could shine soft as gal-chillen’s eyes too.” Uncle Bill’s own eyes brightened as he talked.

“Dat man could ride horses dat would ’a’ killed anybody else,” he boasted. “An’ Uncle Isaac, yonder, used to be a man too! E drove de carriage wid a pair o’ coal black horses. When dey’d pass you in de big road dem horses’ breath was hot as pure steam. Dey nostrils was red as any blood! De gold an’ silver on de harness would blind you’ eyes same as a flash o’ lightnin’! You’d have to stop an’ stand still an’ cover up you’ face. Dem was de days! You young people don’ know nothin’! Not nothin’!”

A merry laugh crinkled up his eyelids, and filled the hollows in his thin old cheeks. It tickled him when he thought about the case Ol’ Cap’n was. He was a case. A heavy case! Sometimes his company would get drunk and reckless with pistols. Cap’n would always caution them to be careful not to shoot any of his servants. He’d always brag that he had the best stock of niggers and dogs and horses in the state, and he didn’t want any of them hurt.

“I ’member. E was powerful big-doin’s. But when death come for him, he had to go same as anybody else. Whe’s e now, Uncle Bill?”

Uncle Bill made a wry face at Big Sue, “I dunno. An’ you dunno. But Gawd knows Ol’ Cap’n had a big heart. A good heart. E wan’ no po’ buckra, or either white trash.” A sly smile lightened his solemn face.

“Dat new preacher preaches dat de Great I-Am is a nigger! Don’ let em fool you, gal. Gawd is white. You’ll see it too when Judgment Day comes. An’ E ain’ gwine be noways hard on a fine man like Ol’ Cap’n. He knows gentlemens. Sho’! An’ if Ol’ Cap’n couldn’ exactly make Heaven, I bet Gawd is got him a comfortable place in Hell, wid plenty o’ people to wait on him. An’ dat’s all e wants, anyhow. E had plenty o’ milk an’ honey an’ gold an’ silber down here, an’ e didn’ count none o’ dem much, nohow.”

The stillness was so intense that when the clock on Big Sue’s mantel banged out an hour, Uncle Bill jumped with a start at its call back to the present. He must be going on to April’s house with the bucket of milk. Time was moving. He had a lot of work to do before the white folks came. Some of the fences needed patching. Blinds had to be fixed in the rice-fields for the duck-hunters and the old trunks had to be mended in places so the ducks could be baited. There were many things waiting for him to do them.

“Did you hear f’om de buckra lately?” Big Sue’s little eyes got smaller as she asked it.

“Not so lately,” Uncle Bill admitted, “but I don’ fret. No news is good news wid dem. I sho’ will be glad to see li’l’ young Cap’n, dough. It’s hard to believe dat one li’l’ boy is de onliest seed de ol’ Cap’n is got left in dis world. E’s de last o’ de name. De last o’ de race. It make me sad to think on dat!”

“Dat same boy is a chip off de ol’ block! Lawd, e’s a case!”

Uncle Bill started up. “You sound like you got somet’ing against de boy? Dat ain’ right. No. When e mammy died, all o’ we promised we’d help raise dat baby to know right f’om wrong. You promised de same way like I promised.”

Big Sue did not answer and Uncle Bill went on, “Ol’ Cap’n, neither young Miss, wouldn’ rest still in dey graves if we didn’ do right by dat li’l’ boy. I too sorry his stepma keeps em yonder up-North most all de time. It ain’ good. It’s a wonder Ol’ Cap’n don’ rise out de grave an’ haunt em.”

Uncle Bill took up his bucket of milk. He must go. Big Sue asked him to tarry longer. Dinner was well-nigh done. He refused politely.

He got as far as the door, when he stopped still, “Miss Big Sue, I gwine tell you something. Ol’ Cap’n was a lily of de valley. E was a bright an’ mawnin’ star. When Death took him, it took de Jedus of dis plantation. Blue Brook ain’ never been de same since den. No.”

A soft drizzle of rain sifted through the trees, the wind moaned drearily.

Big Sue shook her head. “Gawd made Heaven fo’ de humble, Uncle Bill. Hell’s de place where de proudful goes. When a man, white or black, gits to trustin’ to his own strength, ’stead o’ Gawd’s, e is done for, sho’ as you’ born.”

After Leah’s death April seemed lonelier than ever. He passed Big Sue’s house almost every day, but he never looked in nor spoke. He didn’t even turn his head, but walked by, stern, unseeing. Big Sue always stopped what she was doing to go to the door and watch him. She’d nod her head and wink and shrug. Everywhere on the plantation, the talk was thick with prophecies that April would walk himself to death. Day and night he walked, never sitting down anywhere. A bad way for a man to do. That death-sheet had his feet conjured. They’d never rest again in this world, or in the other, unless April made a change in his ways.

Joy took to walking too. Not like April, day and night; but in the evenings, just after sunset, she’d wrap her long cape close around her and go away down the path. Big Sue paid little attention to Joy for her own troubles filled her mind. Occasionally she sent Breeze to see where Joy went, then got in a rage when Breeze reported invariably he couldn’t find her.

Sometimes Joy walked fast, sometimes slow. Nearly always toward sunset. Sometimes when she sat down on a tree root to rest, she’d talk to herself. At last Breeze felt sure she was trailing April, for when she glimpsed him through the trees she’d stop still, with her eyes fastened on him.

Breeze wondered if Joy was going crazy. Had somebody cast a spell on her too! As the days dragged on toward Christmas, she grew more and more silent. She spent much of the time in bed, but whenever the boat-whistle screeched out it had reached the landing, she either got up and went for the mail herself or sent Breeze to ask if any letter had come for her.

She took less and less notice of people and things, but stood by the open window for long stretches, looking out at the trees or the rice-fields beyond them.

Once when she started out alone in the dusk, Breeze offered to go with her. She smiled kindly and told him to come on, but Breeze felt hurt by her steady silence for it told him plainly that she cared no more for his company than for the wind, although his one thought was to please her.

The first time they met April, face to face, he would have passed without speaking but Joy stopped him. “Cun April----”

April turned his haggard face toward her and looked down with eyes that were deep sunken and reproachful instead of bold. “Is you called me, Joy?”

She stood dumb, motionless, a second, then spoke softly, distressfully.

“Cun April, I want to tell you, Ma ain’ been well, not since Cun Leah died. Ma frets all de time. Day an’ night. I can’ sleep fo’ de way she moans an’ goes on. All night long. It’s so pitiful. Please, suh, come talk to her sometimes. Ma never meant to do such a harm dat day. I wish you wouldn’ hold such hard feelin’s.”

April had aged a great deal. His shoulders stooped. His feet inclined to drag. His voice was low and husky. But he answered Joy kindly.

“I don’ hold nothin’ against you’ ma, Joy. Leah was in de wrong too. Leah had no business to throw Big Sue’s whole hog in de Blue Brook. No. Leah done wrong, I know dat.”

Joy stared at him. What he said made her speechless with astonishment at first, but she controlled herself enough to say.

“Stop by an’ see me an’ Ma, sometimes. Please, Cun April. We gits so awful lonesome after dark.”

April promised he would. Promised in words that were very gentle. Then he stalked on, a tall lonely shadow, moving under the trees.

April came to see Big Sue that very night, dropping by so unexpectedly that the sight of him made her dumb for a while. She tried to be natural, to hide her agitation, but her breath caught fast in her throat every time she opened her mouth to talk, and her words were uncertain and stammering.

But April paid little heed to her. He seemed scarcely to know she was there, for his eyes spent much of the time looking at Joy. Breeze thought he saw them flash once or twice, but it may have been the firelight in them.

April declared he had eaten supper and cared for nothing either to eat or drink, but Joy fixed him a cup of water, sweetened with wild honey, flavored with bruised mint leaves, from the mint-bed by the back door. When he tasted it he smiled, and the dull fire in the chimney blazed up, and everything seemed brighter, more joyful than in many a long day.

When April got up to go Joy followed him to the door. She made him shake hands with her and promise to come back very soon.

After that when Joy walked out in the dusk she always let Breeze know she’d rather go by herself. Not that she ever hurt his feelings, but she made some sort of flimsy excuse to be rid of him. He hadn’t shut up the coop where the hen and youngest biddies slept, or he hadn’t cut up enough fat kindling wood, or couldn’t he go fetch a fresh bucket of water from the spring?

Then Breeze discovered that April walked with Joy. He had forgotten Big Sue altogether.

Once Breeze saw them walking shoulder to shoulder, arm touching arm. They talked so softly their words were drowned by the rustle of the leaves under their feet. When April stopped and bent his face so close to Joy’s that she drew back a little, Breeze’s heart almost quit beating. He let them go on unwatched, hidden by the deepening twilight.

When Joy came home Big Sue grumbled as she handed her a panful of supper and a spoon.

“How come you so love to walk out in de night? It ain’ good. You’ll ketch a fever or somet’ing worse. You ain’ been home to eat supper wid me since last Sat’day night was a week.”

But Joy sat mute, looking into the fire, with eyes that gleamed back at the flames.

After that, Joy was always gentle, but except for her evening walk she went nowhere, not even for the mail. For days at a time she scarcely uttered a word. Lying on the bed, or sitting by the fire, she did nothing but think, all the time. When visitors came she said she wasn’t well, and went to lie down in the shed-room. Even Big Sue’s constant scolding got few words out of the girl.

Late one afternoon Big Sue went to see Maum Hannah, whose crippled knee was being troublesome. In the cabin a bright fire blazed merrily, and Breeze and Joy shelled parched pindars to make some molasses candy before time to cook supper. Breeze ran to Zeda’s house to borrow a pinch of cooking soda to make the candy foam up light. When he came back he found April talking to Joy in a strangled husky voice. Both were standing up by the fire, the shelled nuts were scattered on the floor; the smell of the molasses boiling over and burning, made a bitter stench in the room.

“Wha’ you say, Joy?” April asked it very low.

Joy stood dumb, motionless, then she lifted her eyes to his face. “Is you want me fo’ true, Cun April?”

His eyes were on her, so bold, so full of admiration, that she shrank back in confusion, although her white teeth were flashing with excitement.

April leaned closer and whispered, and her beaming eyes darted up sidewise to see by his face if he meant all he was saying. She reflected in silence, with a downcast look. But when she answered him softly, she looked straight up again into his eyes.

His breath came quick. His eyes glinted fiercely. Joy drew back, but she was nodding yes all the time. April caught her and squeezed her to him and kissed her. She started struggling to free herself, but Big Sue’s steps sounded outside and April hurried away out of the door. Joy’s eyes followed him until the darkness had swallowed him, and only the tramp of his feet could reach her ears. She pulled a chair up to the fire and sat down, with her eyes fixed on the flames. She sat there a long time. Once she smiled to herself, then she frowned, but her eyes stayed glittering like a high spring tide under a full noon sun.

“Joy,” Big Sue called her name sternly, “I b’lieve you’s conjured. I know April is. Dat death-sheet is had him walkin’ his feet off ever since Leah was buried. You’s a fool to let dat man talk wid you. I wish to Gawd e’d stay way f’om my house.”

* * * * *

When the boat blew for the landing early next morning on its way to town, Breeze and Big Sue had gone in Uncle Isaac’s cart to the lime mill near the seashore to get lime enough to whitewash the front of her house fresh for Christmas. Every cabin on the whole plantation was being scoured and scrubbed and dressed up with papers. Big Sue wanted hers to be the finest of all. Breeze had wrung next year’s supply of straw brooms out of the old unplanted fields and had swept the yard clean with a new dogwood brush-broom.

Joy had helped some, but in a half-hearted way. She wouldn’t even ride out with them to get the lime. Her excuse was that Julia looked wild. Breeze knew she didn’t mean it, for no mule ever moved more sluggishly. Breeze had to get a stick and frail Julia to make her trot at all.

Noon had passed when they got back home with their load.

Big Sue called Joy to see what nice white fresh-burned lime it was. Like flour. Not a lump in it. But Joy was not at home and Big Sue grumbled.

“Gone to Zeda’s again. Joy keeps hankerin’ to hear news from Sherry. E may as well quit dat. Sherry’s gone! Fo’ good! E ain’ got Joy to study ’bout! Not no mo’! No!”

When the sun went down, a great red ball, floods of brilliant light gushed up around it, foretelling a cold night and a windy day to-morrow. Water birds flew over the rice-fields, crying out in dread. The trees were full of sighs. The open window blinds creaked dismally. A puff of smoke came down the chimney. Winter was coming.

Dusk fell and the night closed in dark. Joy’s supper waited on the hearth. Where could she be so late?

Breeze went to ask Zeda, but she wasn’t at home. Maum Hannah’s house was dark, so he stopped at Bina’s to ask if any one there had seen Joy lately.

Bina looked at him with searching eyes, “You is tryin’ to be smart, enty? A-actin’ fool to ketch sense!” She sucked her teeth scornfully, but Breeze didn’t understand what she meant.

“Don’ stan’ up an’ lie to me, boy! You know Joy an’ April went off on de boat dis mawnin’.”

Breeze could scarcely believe his ears heard Bina right.

Joy and April gone? Together? Where had they gone?

Why hadn’t Joy told somebody?

He flew to tell Big Sue.

Instead of meeting the news with an outburst of grief, Big Sue chuckled, “Who’d ’a’ thought my Joy could catch April! An’ Leah not yet cold in her grave! Lawd! April’s old enough to be Joy’s daddy! Well, all I got to say is dis! April was born fo’ luck. E ever did git de best o’ ev’yt’ing on dis plantation.”

* * * * *

The boat was due to return three days hence. When the time came the whole plantation was at the landing to meet it.

As the old battered hulk hove in sight, around the bend, a hush fell on the crowd, and every eye was fixed on the lower deck where April and Joy stood, side by side, smiling happily. April took off his hat and waved it. Joy fluttered a handkerchief to greet them.

They were both dressed fit to kill. Joy, gay as a peacock, in a dress striped with yellow bands, and a hat with green ribbons and red flowers. April looked youthful in a brand-new suit that showed off his broad shoulders and slim waist well. He held Joy’s hand and led her carefully over the unsteady gangplank, and she fell into Big Sue’s arms while April looked on smiling and rubbing his hands awkwardly.

The crowd crushed around them, wishing them happiness, hoping they’d live like Isaac and Rebecca, wishing them joy and a gal and a boy. Breeze pressed forward too until he could touch Joy’s hand, and she bent down and gave him a smacking kiss, then a hug.

“Looka li’l’ Breeze, Cun April,” she said, and April reached out and shook his hand, and Joy added; “I done told you I was gwine be you’ mammy, Breeze, and Cun April’s you’ daddy, now.”

The people crammed too close around them. Breeze could scarcely breathe. He got out quickly as he could, and went to the store steps to wait with old Louder, who sat wagging his tail, and making short whines of pleasure. Breeze and Big Sue, and most of the neighbors, went with them to April’s cabin, where a huge fire was built, and the whole room made light as day.

Big Sue and Bina bustled around cooking supper, and April’s children and Breeze all helped. Sweetened bread and fried bacon and coffee with plenty of cream and sugar, were passed around. The cabin was filled with the fragrance of the food. But Joy couldn’t eat. Big Sue pressed her to take something, but she said she couldn’t swallow a bite to save her life.

April had eyes only for Joy. He leaned over and whispered softly, “Is anyt’ing ail you, honey?”

But she shook her head. She was only weary, too weary to eat.

Some of the young folks suggested a dance, but April said they must come back another night; Joy was weary. The boat trip was long, and the chill of the river wind had her trembling yet.

When everybody had something to eat and drink, they said good night, and tramped out into the night, Breeze and Big Sue last of all.

The dark roads and paths swarmed with merry people, the air rang with songs and laughter.

“April sho’ is a fool over Joy!” Big Sue grunted as they turned into the path toward home. “A pure fool. A ol’ fool is de worst fool too.”

Joy and April took supper with Big Sue Christmas Eve, and they helped fill Breeze’s stocking. He knew, for soon after supper he was sent to bed. They were in a hurry to get to Maum Hannah’s house where an all-night meeting was to be held.

Breeze wanted to go too. He wanted to stay up for all the singing and shouting, and see the cows kneel down and pray at midnight, and the sun rise shouting in the east in the morning. But Big Sue said he was too sleepy-headed for her to fool with him, and if he didn’t go to bed like a good boy old Santy Claw would leave his stocking empty.

They all said good night and went out of the door and Breeze thought they had gone for good. He was about to hop up and look at his stocking when Joy ran back in, and, falling on the bed where he was, burst out crying.

What on earth! Big Sue and April hurried in, and did all they could to quiet her. Was she sick? Had somebody hurt her feelings? April petted her and called her tender names, but she cried on even when her tears were spent and broken sobs shook her of their own free will.

Big Sue called April into the other room and whispered to him. He came back and asked Joy if she wouldn’t rather stay quietly with Breeze and rest? He’d stay too if she liked, or go to meeting with Big Sue. Whatever she wanted was the thing he wanted too. She got up and wiped her eyes. She’d go home and go to bed. He could do whatever he liked. Her words sounded cold, almost bitter.

But soon the next morning she came to show Big Sue the Christmas presents April had given her. A watch to wear on her wrist, and a diamond ring! The two must have cost twenty-five dollars, if not more.

The winter days passed slowly, many of them dull, gray, with an overcast sky, where low clouds sailed and cast their murky color over the ground. The first March day came in bright and warm, with a wind that roared over the land, whipping the trees, snapping off their rotten limbs, lifting old shingles off of roofs, sweeping yards and woods clean, thrashing fields until clouds of dust and sand rose and floated in the sky. But everybody rejoiced that winter was over and gone. And besides, a windy March is lucky. Every pint of March dust brings a peck of September corn, and a pound of October cotton. Let it blow!

Such a high wind could never last. A March that comes in like a lion will go out as quiet as a new-born lamb. Let it blow! But watch the fires! One little spark can easily be fanned into a flame.

New leaves quivered and glittered on the restless boughs. Old leaves, dead for months on the ground, hopped out from their resting-places and skipped and flew, making brown leaf whirlwinds that spun around dizzily, then settled in new sheltered places.

The wind lulled a little at sunset, and the night fell black and cloudless. A multitude of stars crowded the sky, foretelling rain close at hand. The rain was waiting for the blustery gale to hold still so the clouds could gather and agree. In the night the wind rose and beat against the cabin’s sides. It shook the walls, and whistled and whined through the cracks. The front door banged wide open, as the nail that held the bar frame was jerked out by its force. Finally Big Sue made Breeze get up and get a hatchet and a long nail out of the tool-box Santy Claw had given him, and she held the door while he nailed it up.

Big Sue was frightened. She kept talking to Breeze, trying to keep him awake with her, but he was too sleepy-headed to listen. When he woke at dawn a flood of rain was pouring down, and thunder roared louder than the rain or wind.

As a fearful crash shook the earth. Big Sue opened the back door and peeped out and quavered, “Git up, Breeze! Lightnin’ is struck dat big pine yonder, close to April’s house! It’s afire! Dat bolt shooken de whole earth. I bet April’ll find it. Lawd! E’s been diggin’ at de roots o’ struck trees to git a bolt a long time! An’ now one mighty nigh hit him!”

“What’s a bolt, Cun Big Sue?”

The wind howled as she answered, “Why, son, a thunderbolt is a’ iron rod. If you finds one, you’ll have de power to rule life an’ death!”

The cabin was closed tight, yet so fierce was the lightning it blazed through cracks right into the room. Blood-red streaks of light took turns with others that were blue. Breeze shut his eyes and put the pillow over his head. He finally dozed off, and slept until the morning had come, clear of rain and wind, and filled with the warm breath of the earth.

He was alone. Big Sue had gone to see April’s struck pine, so he dressed and ran to see it too.

A crowd of people were around the burning tree, and others were coming. All were talking excitedly. God must have His eye on April to aim a thunderbolt so close to his house. He had a narrow escape. His house might catch fire yet, for pieces of burning limbs were falling, and water could not put out fire started with lightning. Nothing could, but new milk from a cow with her first calf. Where would April get enough of that to do any good?

April was brazenly unafraid. He laughed at the notion of getting a heifer’s milk. He said he’d make water outen this fire, or any other fire, that bothered his cabin. They’d see.

April sat in front of the fire on his hearth, and when Big Sue fixed his breakfast in a pan and handed it to him, he called to the neighbors, standing outside, “Yunnuh come an’ eat some breakfast wid me. We’s got a-plenty fo’ ev’ybody.” At first all of them answered, “No, thank you,” but when April insisted, a half-dozen or more went in and took a piece of bread, or a mouthful of sweetened water.

“How’s Joy?” Bina asked Big Sue politely.

“Joy’s awful nervish since dat tree got struck. I made em stay in bed dis mawnin’.”

“Joy ain’ been well in a good while,” Bina commented.

Big Sue’s eyes snapped. “Joy ever was a delicate child, Bina. You know dat good as me.”

The thick high trees, lapping their branches overhead, sheltered the cabins from a sun that burned down, fierce and bright, drawing a strong steamy stench up from the heated mud flats left naked by the outgone tide.

The fields were all too wet for plowing, and the blacksmith shop was the center for the day’s work. Plowshares needed to be filed and sharpened. Plow-stocks mended. Mules’ feet trimmed. Manes and tails clipped short. A few of the older, thinner beasts had got lousy. The hair must be cut off them and their hides wet with tea made out of china-berry leaves.

The men laughed and talked and chewed tobacco and smoked, as they worked leisurely at their different tasks. A difference of opinion rose as to the best place to twitch a mule to make him stand still for his hair to be cut off. A twine-string could be twisted around an ear, or tied to the upper lip. Uncle Bill preferred the lip. He said mules have pockets inside their ears and a string twisted tight enough to hold the beast quiet, will tear that pocket in two. April objected to the twitch on the lip, for it often caused a painful swelling.

The question was still unsettled when Brudge came running hard as he could, crying out that Joy had been taken with a death-sickness. She was lying on the bed in a trance. She couldn’t speak a word. Brudge almost popped out his eyeballs showing how her eyes were rolled away back in her head. Her hands and feet were cold as clabber. Big Sue said April must hurry or Joy would be gone before he got there!

April did not wait to hear the end of Brudge’s talk, but flew home ahead of them all with Breeze close at his heels. Lamentations and outcries met them as they got nearer. Big Sue’s above all the rest. Joy was dying. Nothing but a death-sickness could strike a young woman down so hard.

Breeze was almost petrified with terror, but he dragged himself on to the cabin, which was already filled with the neighbors. Joy lay on the bed covered over with a quilt, up to her very neck. Her eyes were shut. Her head moved from side to side. Her lips whispered things nobody could hear at all.

Big Sue sat near the bed in a low chair, her fat body rocking. Big tears rolled down her cheeks as she chanted over and over.

“Do, Jedus! Don’ let Joy dead!

“Oh, my Gawd! Help my chile! Help em!

“Oh, Lawd! Oh, my Gawd!

“Don’ let Joy dead dis mawnin’!”

April broke through the crowd surrounding the bed, and taking one of Joy’s hands from under the cover felt her pulse, then leaned over to hear what she was saying. “No. No, honey,” he crooned, “you wouldn’ dead an’ leave me. No. No. I couldn’ do widout you nohow. I wouldn’ ’a’ left you last night in dat storm, but I was ’fraid de stables would blow down an’ kill all de mules an’ horses. De storm is gone. De lightnin’ didn’ hurt nobody. Death is gone away off now. E can’ take you. No!”

Breeze pricked up his ears. Was death about to take Joy?

As her life fluttered uncertainly, Big Sue’s wailing and misery were less hard to bear than April’s fierce resolute manner.

Joy had to get well. No matter what ailed her. If she was conjured, Uncle Isaac had to take off the spell. If the storm had scared her until her heart-string was strained, she must keep still and rest until it went back into place. Nobody must come in the room to worry her with talking. Send for Maum Hannah. No matter if she was at the end of the earth instead of the end of the “Neck,” go fetch her! Hurry! Don’t tarry and waste any more time! Fetch Maum Hannah! Joy had a death-sickness!

Uncle Bill hitched up the fastest horse in the barnyard to the lightest cart, and went flying down the road for Maum Hannah, who had gone to a sick woman some miles away. When he got back, several hours later, the horse was lathered with sweat, and all but broken winded, but Joy was still alive.

The room was chock-full, the door choked with people, both windows were dark with heads. Big Sue’s mourning that had fallen into a low mumbling prayer to Jesus now changed and livened to:

“Do, Maum Hannah! Help my Joy!

“Do, Maum Hannah! Don’ let Joy dead!

“Do, Maum Hannah!”

Maum Hannah hurried up the steps as fast as her crippled knee would let her. She was all out of breath, but instead of pitying Big Sue, she stopped still and eyed her with an impatient grunt. “Do shut you’ mouth, Big Sue! You ought to be shame’ to cut all dis crazy! You can’ fool dese people. No! Everybody knows wha’ ails Joy, ’ceptin’ April. An’ e ought to take you out an’ duck you good in de creek fo’ makin’ such a fool out o’ him! Dat fine horse is most dead! Bill made em run so fas’, de wind likened to ’a’ cut my breath off. You people go home. Gi’ Joy a chance to turn dat chile loose. Joy done well to hold em dis long but e can’ hold em no longer. Yunnuh go on! Go on, Breeze! Yunnuh clear de room!”

Big Sue stopped grieving and stared, but Maum Hannah’s talk stung April to the quick. He stepped up to her angrily, but she stopped taking off her cloak long enough to pat his arm, “Don’ be vexed wid me, son. I’m tellin’ yunnuh what Gawd loves, de truth! Joy’s done well to hold dat chile dis long. You married in de Christmas, enty? Well, Joy can’ hold em six more months. I know dat. Dat gal’s got to turn em loose, no matter if it do hurt you’ feelin’s!”

Joy trembled like a leaf in a storm. Her dazed eyes turned from Maum Hannah to April, who was silent, except for one word. “Bitch,” he snarled, and his eyes blazed like lightning flashes, as he turned and left the room.

Breeze left too, but he scarcely knew where he was, or where he was going. April had cursed Joy and she a-dying!

He dragged himself home and fell across Joy’s own bed, for Big Sue was not there to stop him. He wept until his tears failed him. He tried his best to pray, “O Gawd, don’ let Joy die--” but he went fast asleep. He slept heavily until a harsh hoarse voice waked him. He came instantly to his senses, and tried to stammer out some excuse, but Big Sue’s grim swollen face made his words falter, and the slap her hand laid on his jaw brought shining stars in front of his eyes.

“Git up and go borrow a piece o’ fire f’om somebody! Hurry, too, befo’ I kill you!”

He ran to April’s house, but stopped at the step for a tiny baby was crying inside. He ran all the way to Zeda’s and borrowed a piece of fire, then flew home. As he made up the fire for Big Sue, she walked around the room unsteadily, mumbling between her teeth. If April mistreated her Joy now, she herself would put a “hand” on him; one so strong that it would wither his hands! And his feet! She couldn’t keep still or stop talking. Her tongue lashed April and Joy too, and each word was a poison sting. Who was he to blame Joy? He had children scattered from one end of this “Neck” to the other. Now he cursed Joy as if she were lowest of the low. It was a shame! A heavy shame! Joy must leave him at once!

The wind had risen and whistled through the trees, tossing the branches, making them moan. Big Sue talked on and on. Breeze was glad when she went back to April’s cabin, although she left him without a bite to eat. He’d go somewhere and get supper. Maybe Uncle Bill was at home. He’d go see.

To his surprise April was there too, sitting by the fire, miserably dejected, while Uncle Bill talked to him, trying to cheer him.

Breeze had hardly got inside when Zeda arrived and, brushing past Uncle Bill, walked up to April and put a hand on his shoulder. “Look at me, April. I got somet’ing to say to you.” Bitter spite hurried her words.

But April, instead of looking up as she bade him, leaned forward and spat in the fire.

“Wha’ ails you, now, Zeda?” he asked curtly.

“I kin easy say what ails me; dat new-born child yonder ’side Joy is my gran’! But e’s you’ gran’, too! Joy had dat chile for Sherry, an’ you ain’ gwine put no dis-grace-ment on em. No. If nobody else can’ hinder you, I kin. I already got you’ feet so dey can’ rest. Wid Leah’s death-sheet.”

April heard her, and although he didn’t answer, his jaw set his teeth hard enough to bite a ten-penny nail in two. Zeda smiled.

“You may as well give in, April,” she persisted. “Sherry’s you own, an’ who is Breeze, but you’ own? Ev’body knows dat. It’s a wonder somebody ain’ cut you’ throat long time ago. If you wa’n’t so lucky you’d ’a’ been in hell wid some o’ dem women you sent dere.”

“How come you meddlin’ in my business so raven?” April suddenly flashed out.

“Dat li’l’ chile is my business. Joy had em fo’ Sherry, a li’l’ boy-chile, too. You go on home an’ tell Joy to hurry up an’ git well. ’Tain’ no use to hold hard feelin’s ’gainst em. No! Joy’s had you a gran’son.”

When he did not stir, she blazed out: “You’ neck is stiff, enty! So’s my own! An’ I hope a misery’ll gnaw you’ heart in two. I hope you’ll die of thirst an’ hunger. I hope ev’y lawful yard-chile you had by Leah’ll perish. I hope you’ feet’ll rot----”

“You shut you’ mouth, Zeda. If you cuss me again I’ll choke you’ tongue down you’ throat.” April got up and fled from her bitter words.

XVIII

JOY AND APRIL

For days after Joy’s child was born, Big Sue kept to her cabin. Joy had disgraced her, made her ashamed to show her face in company. She’d never forgive Joy as long as she lived. Never. Joy saw Leah drop dead in her face, yet she went straight on and married Leah’s husband. A shame! Joy would sup sorrow yet. She might bewitch April and make a plumb fool out of him, but she’d pay for bringing disgrace on her mother who had worked her knuckles to the bone to keep Joy in school!

If Joy had behaved herself, she might have married anybody instead of a man old as her daddy, and conjured to boot. That death-sheet had put a spell on April. Sure as preaching. He’d never be the same man again. He’d have run Joy out of his house if he had been in his right mind.

She talked so fast and loud one morning she didn’t see Uncle Bill until he was at the door-step. “How come you tiptoes around so easy dis mornin’!” she asked tartly.

“Gawd knows how I’m a-walkin’, I’m so fretted.”

“Wha’ dat ail you now?”

“Joy sent me to tell you.”

“How come Joy don’ fetch e own answer?”

“Joy’s too troub-led.”

Big Sue shot a look at him and sucked her teeth. “Joy’s mighty late gittin’ troub-led,” and a hard, wicked smile touched her mouth.

“Joy’s troub-led about April. April ain’ well, Miss Big Sue.”

Big Sue sniffed and said April was due to have something wrong with him, wicked as he had lived, hard as he had been with everybody that crossed him. What kind of sickness did April have?

“Somet’ing ails his feets.”

“Dat ain’ surprisin’. April slept wid a death-sheet on ’em a whole night.”

“Uncle Isaac took dat spell off em.”

“Well, who put dis spell on em, den?”

Uncle Bill sat down on the step. He was so troubled in his mind, it was difficult for him to say what ailed April. At first it favored chilblains; then ground-itch, for April went out barefooted in the dew every morning God sent, and any little scratch that lets dew get inside your skin may give you ground-itch. But none of the chilblain or ground-itch cures helped him at all. His appetite was clean gone. He had eaten nothing but spoon-victuals for a week. He was thin as a fence rail.

Big Sue made an ugly mouth. What did she care? Why hadn’t April married a settled woman who could cook decent rations instead of a scatter-brained girl like Joy who didn’t know the name of one pot from another? He needn’t be sending word here about victuals. Let April eat what Joy fixed for him. Love would season up lumpy hominy and make doughy bread taste good.

Uncle Bill sat frowning, chewing his tobacco wearily, studying. Joy had said she hated to worry Big Sue. She was sorry for all that had happened. Joy was a good girl. She had slipped up once, and made a bad mistake, but any young inexperienced girl is likely to miss and do that. April did right to excuse her.

Big Sue sneered. Joy had worked one sharp trick. Leah herself couldn’t have fooled April any slicker. Joy ever was tricky, though. Just like Silas for the world. Likely as not, Joy had April conjured right now.

Uncle Bill pursed up his lips so tight, they looked as if they’d never open and speak again, and his eyes were full of worry.

“Whyn’ you go see Uncle Isaac? E might could help April?” Big Sue asked presently.

“I done seen em. When de bear-grass poultices and de violet-leaves tea failed, I went an’ got Uncle Isaac. Joy sent me. I don’ like charms. I don’ trust ’em. I know a Christian man ain’ got no business foolin’ wid ’em. But Joy was so fretted, I done it to please her. I kept a-studyin’ over it; one mind said do it; another mind said, no, I better ask all de Christian people to hold a prayer-meetin’ an’ ask Gawd to help April; I listened at dem two minds arguin’ one whole night befo’ I give in to Joy. An’ now I wish to Gawd I didn’ heed em.”

“How come so? April wouldn’ wear em, I bet you!” Big Sue was listening with interest now, anxious to know what happened, but Uncle Bill took his time.

April did everything Joy said. Wilful and unruly as he was with every one else, he tried to please Joy. And yet when Joy brought that charm to him and began coaxing him to let her tie it around his neck, he balked. Joy had to outtalk him.

For a whole day and night April wore it, a little cloth bag, tied with a white horse hair; but because it didn’t cure his feet right away, he jerked it off and threw it in the fire. Such a pity. Even strong charms take time to start working. April ever was a short-patienced man. He made trouble for himself by hastiness. A man can be hot-blooded and pettish with people but not with charms or magic.

Joy snatched the bag out of the flames, but it was scorched and a hole burned in one side. A speck of the mixture inside it spilled out on the coals and smoked such a strong smoke, April sneezed three times!

Right then, the gristles in April’s feet got hard. Hard as a rock! God only knew if they’d ever go back to their rightful softness.

Uncle Isaac made Joy take the bag off to the woods and bury it at the foot of a locust tree, but April got worse and worse. His feet were numb and hard and dry. Joy wanted to send for a white doctor. They might get one to come on the boat from town, and with the crop so promising they’d have money to pay him next fall. But April wouldn’t have it. He said Maum Hannah knew more than any white doctor.

Big Sue kept shaking her head and grunting shamelessly until Uncle Bill got up painfully to go. Something in his sad face must have moved her, for all of a sudden she scrambled to her feet, letting her scraps fall on the floor. “I made some nice little sweetened breads dis mawnin’. Take some to April. I sho’ am sorry ’bout his feets. You tell em so. I’m gwine broil em a fat pullet, too.”

“Ev’y man has to manage his own dueness, but how ’bout gwine along wid me, to see April, Miss Big Sue? You done chastise Joy long enough. De gal’s in trouble.”

“I can’ go, not so well, right now, Uncle Bill, but Breeze kin go if e’ll thread me two or three needles first.” She started to say more, but she changed her mind and kept silent, her eyes cast down on her sewing. When she did speak it was to say Joy had been mighty shut-mouthed about April. Joy had funny ways.

Breeze and Uncle Bill found April with a quilt around him, sitting alone by the fire, looking at his feet. Looking and looking. His heavy black brows overshadowed his sad eyes as they lifted and hovered over Breeze, then Uncle Bill. But as soon as he shook hands and said “thank you” for the food, they fell, and settled on his feet, which were bare and on the hearth very close to the fire.

The weather had turned off cool in the night, but there was no reason for April to keep his feet so close to the fire. Uncle Bill told him he’d scorch them, but April shook his head and said they felt no heat at all. Not a bit. They had gone to sleep or something. They felt like blocks of wood. And he moved them stiffly, as if they were.

He complained that he had no appetite. He was tired too. Sitting still was the hardest work he had ever done in his life. If he could read, or if he had somebody to talk to, if he had something pleasant to think about, it would help pass the time. But he couldn’t read, and he didn’t want anybody to stay at home out of the field. Cotton needs fast hoeing during these warm wet days. He wished he could stop off thinking. Stop short off. He’d like to go to sleep and never wake up any more. He’d go crazy if he had to stay still and look at his feet much longer. What in God’s name ailed them! Nobody seemed to know!

Uncle Bill tried to tell him the plantation news, but April’s eyes stayed on his feet. Uncle Bill offered to teach him to read if he wanted to learn. Now would be a good time for April to learn how to write. He ought to learn to write his name if no more. Every man ought to know how to write his name. But April said he never had much faith in books and reading. Black people were better off without it. It takes their mind off their work. It makes them think about things they can’t have. They’re better off without knowing how. Uncle Bill didn’t argue.

All of a sudden a coal popped out of the hearth with a sharp explosion. It fell right between April’s feet, as if it could see and did it on purpose. It lay there, red, bright, like a dare. April opened his tired eyes wide, and leaned forward and looked at it, for instead of dying out it burned freer. April carefully raised one long black bony foot and placed its heel on the coal. He waited a moment; then he lifted it up and stared at Uncle Bill. His scared eyes told what had happened. Breeze knew too.

April had felt no heat. His foot was dead. It couldn’t feel fire! April grabbed the fire shovel, and scraped up a batch of live coals from under the fire and dropped them on the hearth. He’d see if fire had stopped being hot. Uncle Bill didn’t raise a finger to stop him when he lifted his other foot and pressed its heel down on the coals and mashed hard on them.

The bitter smell of his burned flesh stung the air. April’s eyes glared, and he laughed a harsh discordant laugh. But a sob quickly caught him by the throat and choked him. He leaned over and picked up a live coal in his fingers, then dropped it quickly, for his fingers were alive. They could feel. The coal burned them. But his feet were dead. They couldn’t feel even fire!

“Oh, Gawd!” he moaned, and his long fingers knotted and clenched, his strong tobacco-yellowed teeth ground together.

Joy came in from the field to feed her little baby. Nobody heard her bare footsteps, until she spoke to Uncle Bill and Breeze. She went up to April and put a hand on his arm, and asked how his feet were. She leaned over and looked at them, but he drew them underneath his chair. He didn’t want her to see. He reached for the quilt on the floor beside him and covered them over.

“My feets is all right,” he told her gruffly.

But Joy sniffed the air once or twice, she searched the fire with her eyes, then she swept the hearth clean of the coals. She patted April’s shoulder, and said gentle things to him. He must have patience. She’d make some fresh violet-leaves tea and soak his feet. She was sure that would help them.

Bright tears ran out of April’s eyes, down his thin hard cheeks, and fell on the bony clasped hands that held tight to each other in his lap. Breeze could hardly bear to see those tears. Uncle Bill got up and tried to say something, but his voice broke, and he began punching the fire. For April was crying out loud. Saying he had given out! He couldn’t go on any longer!

Joy put her arms around him and held his head on her bosom, and patted his face and tried to hush him. She wiped his tears away with her homespun apron, and smoothed his eyelids softly. Her fingers were trembling, but April became quieter. She stroked his head and begged him to go back to bed and lie down and rest.

He was hard and sullen, and frowned as if she had insulted him. He’d stay right where he was. Bed and chair were the same to him now. Joy stood with her eyes on the red embers, never answering back a single time, even when anger made the words strangle in his throat. It was hard for him to bend his neck under such a galling, hellish yoke.

Until now he had never asked a favor of anybody in his whole life. He had always worked, and made others work. His women and children too. And now his feet, the feet that had carried him faithfully through all these years, the only ones he could ever have, had failed him. They made game of him. And it was more than he could bear. He bellowed out recklessly, but Joy got a pan and spoon and dipped some hot soup from a pot on the hearth and urged him to taste it. He shook his head. He didn’t want soup. He didn’t want anything to eat. He’d rather starve to death than be helpless. Joy began some pleasant talk. How fast the cotton was growing. The fields were green. Last night’s shower was the very thing spring oats needed. He leaned back in his chair, humbled, crushed with misery. Uncle Bill said he would come back a little later and bring April some medicine. Some strong medicine from the Big House medicine chest. It would help those feet.

April reached out and took his friend’s hand. He put it up to his cheek, but dropped it, for the back log burned in two and broke and a shower of sparks spun threads of fire that reached out and threatened to catch the quilt!

“I’ll stay wid em,” Joy said gently. “I’ll warm up de nice chicken an’ rice you brought an’ feed em wid a spoon.”

When Breeze got home Big Sue asked him lots of questions about April. How his feet looked? Did April seem down-hearted over them? Was Joy with him? How did she take his trouble? Breeze told her all he remembered, and she shook her head. She was sorry for April.

It was past mid-afternoon when Uncle Bill came back, and asked Big Sue to lend him a quart cup and a teaspoon. He wanted to measure some water and medicine for April’s feet. He was going to soak them in water flavored with a medicine the white folks used. She offered to lend him her new tin washtub, but Uncle Bill said Joy had plenty of tubs.

“Dey might not be new an’ clean as my own,” Big Sue insisted. “Joy ever was careless. A new tub is better anyhow.”

Uncle Bill consented, and Breeze went along to carry it. They found Joy sitting by the fire patching, and April holding a pan of food in his lap.

Joy asked them to come in and sit down and talk to April and coax him to eat his dinner. His appetite was slow. She did her best to talk cheerfully.

But April’s face was glum, and his voice lagged wearily as he said, “I don’ wan’ to eat.” With a bony hand he held out the pan, still full of food. “Take em. I got ’nough.”

Joy took it and moved away without speaking. As she walked toward the shelf she almost stumbled into a small boy, who hopped nimbly into the room, laughing and out of breath. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him, and he got sober. Soon the other children came trooping in, little and big, and all in-between size, one with Joy’s baby in his arms.

“Mind. Keep quiet,” Joy warned. “Pa don’ like no fuss.”

Then they tipped around quietly, and whispered to Breeze to come with them while they cut some wood and brought it in, and went to the spring for water. The older ones said, “How you feelin’, Pa?” That was all, for April did not turn his head or answer.

Every child glanced at his feet. April saw it. And he saw how they all looked away quickly, except one little boy who giggled out loud.

Joy shook her head vexedly, and motioned to the child to go on out, for anger crazed April. His own child had laughed at him! He sat up and blazed out, “Dat’s de way! Let a man git down an’ e’s de butt o’ his own flesh an’ blood! Dat’s de way! Chillen don’ hab respect fo’ nobody! Not dese days!”

Breeze felt afraid. He didn’t want to play. He’d rather stay close by Uncle Bill. When things got quieter again, Uncle Bill suggested kindly:

“April, son, I tell you wha’ le’s do. Lemme hotten some water an’ gi’ you’ feet a good soakin’. You would feel better when dey’s had a dose o’ dis medicine f’om de Big House.” He held up the small bottle. It had a skull and cross-bones label. The white liquid in it trembled, with a glitter.

April did not answer, and Joy filled the big black kettle on the hearth with water, and pushed it up nearer the red coals.

As soon as it sang out that the water was hot, Uncle Bill poured it quart by quart into the tub. Then he carefully measured quarts of water from a bucket on the shelf to cool it. He felt it with his hand, and Joy felt it too, so it would be neither too cold nor too hot.

“It’s ’bout right,” she said, and Uncle Bill put in the medicine. One spoonful to every quart of water. How it smelt! Joy pushed the tub closer to April, then lifted the helpless feet, one at a time, and put them into the water.

“It’s ’bout right, enty?” she asked him.

“I dunno,” April gloomed. “I can’ feel em.”

And she turned away with a sigh.

The clothes to be patched were on the floor in a pile. Joy mended the fire, then moved nearer its light to sew. Uncle Bill sat and talked pleasantly while April’s feet soaked. The crops were promising. Cotton and corn, and peas and potatoes, and rice all were up and growing. Everybody ought to be thankful with so many blessings. The fire kept up a spiteful popping, aiming bits of live coal at each of them. Some fell into the water and died; others hit Joy’s pile of clothes.

April moved restlessly. “I’m ready fo’ lay down,” he said dully. “Uncle Bill, you help Joy git me to bed.”

Joy got up, letting her lapful of things scatter over the floor. “Wait. Lemme git something soft fo’ wipe you’ feet on.” She hurried to an old trunk in the corner and got out a piece of soft worn cloth. Then she came back and knelt down by the tub.

April and Uncle Bill both jumped when she gave a sharp outcry and sat back flat on the floor. She stared. Then she leaned over with squinting eyes, as if the light hurt her eyes. She gasped like her wind-pipe was cracked, “Great Gawd, what has you done, Uncle Bill!” Her body was trembling and her eyes had a foolish roll as they lifted to April’s face. She was shivering all over. She was having a chill, or some kind of a stroke!

April told Breeze to call some of the children to come to Joy. He put out his hand to help steady her. But she sat back on her feet and put a hand to her head. Maybe she ate too much dinner. Breeze felt giddy himself, and tired and unhappy. His head swam when he moved. He wanted to go home, but he couldn’t leave Uncle Bill to bring Big Sue’s tub.

“Set down, Joy. Set down!” April scolded fretfully. “Don’ try fo’ stan’ up. You might fall. None o’ we ain’ able to ketch you if you do. You haffer take care o’ you’se’f now. I ain’ able fo’ look after you.”

He spoke quickly for his patience was short.

“You must ’a’ strained you’ eye on de sewin’. Lay flat on de floor till you feel better. I kin wait.” April moved stiffly, with a deep sigh.

But Joy’s wide-opened eyes stared at the tub. She was gone plumb fool! Plumb daffy!

“Uncle Bill----” her lips shook so they could hardly make his name. “Looka! Fo’ Gawd’s sake!” she whispered. “De medicine must ’a’ been too strong!”

Breeze could scarcely tell what she said, for she ran her words all together and she shook with a chill. Fever makes people so sometimes.

“Do talk hard, Joy. I can’ hear no whisperin’! Who you scared gwine hear you? A sperit?” April scolded.

Breeze’s eyes followed Joy’s to the tub. He stared too. He saw what made her teeth click together----

April’s toes.

They had come loose from his feet, and floated around in the tub. In the clear warm water, sharp-flavored with the strong white medicine. Breeze felt dazed. His head was queer. The room, the walls began to move around and wave up and down.

When April saw the toes he began to laugh. An ugly croaking, high-pitched laugh that chilled Breeze’s blood, and made the water swish in the tub.

The toes, all loose, free from the feet, swam around swiftly and circled and danced. One big toe slid next to a little one and stopped!

April half-rose to his feet and shouted:

“Look! My Gawd! Is you ever see sich a t’ing in you’ life? My toes is come off. Dey runs by deyse’f! Fo’ Gawd’s sake!”

His reddened eyes shone. He tried to step. Then he sat down clumsily. Heavily. He leaned forward, spellbound, whispering horrified words. Breeze shook with terror, for April’s words were as strange as the toes jumbled together. He glared at Breeze, then at Uncle Bill. “Yunnuh hurry up! Hurry up!” he yelled fiercely, getting up on his feet again. “Do somet’ing! Quick! My toes is off!”

He tottered, for the bottom of the tub was slippery footing for his broken feet, and with a crumple he fell forward on the floor.

Joy cried out sharply, and begged Breeze to go call the children. Then she ran to the open door, and stretching her body to its utmost height, tilted back her head and sent out long throat-splitting calls that cut into Breeze’s ears! She stopped to tell Uncle Bill to go fetch Maum Hannah, who had gone way down the country, catching children.

She wrung her hands and wailed. That medicine must have been too strong! Too strong! Uncle Bill said maybe that charm did it! April wore it a whole day around his neck! Did that old hoodoo doctor over the river have aught against April? That charm was too strong. Maybe Joy had buried it wrong! Maybe it ought not to have been buried at all--maybe--maybe--Leah’s death-sheet was to blame.

Breeze tried to help Joy and Uncle Bill get April to bed, then Joy slipped out of the door. She’d go try to find that charm. But if she found it, what could she do? April’s toes were off. No charm could put them on again. That was certain.

Uncle Bill was sure he measured the medicine. Over and over, he said it; a teaspoonful to the quart of water. That was all he put. It couldn’t hurt a tender baby’s feet. He had seen the white people use it, and they have weak skins. But April’s toes were off! And there was no way to put them back on. That scorched charm must be to blame, unless poisoning boll-weevils last summer poisoned his feet too. Uncle Isaac had drowned the death-sheet, and killed its spell--in spite of Zeda.

April didn’t seem to realize what had happened. He kept saying, over and over, “How’m I gonna walk widout toes?” He was too stiff in his joints to bend over far enough to look at his feet. Uncle Bill got the mirror that hung by the open window. A small square wavy looking-glass that made foolish-looking images. The old man tried to hold it so April could see the feet in the mirror, but his hands shook so that Breeze had to take it and hold it. The horror in April’s face made Breeze’s own blood freeze. April’s lips and tongue went stiff. They could scarcely say, “How’m I gonna walk widout toes.”

He asked to see the bottle of white medicine Uncle Bill used in the water. He took out the stopper and smelled it, touched it to his tongue. It was too strong! Yes! Too strong! It cut his tongue!

Two days later when the boat came Uncle Bill and Brudge took April to the town in the river’s mouth, so some white doctor might see him and cure him. But when they came home Uncle Bill said the white doctor had taken April to a hospital and cut both his legs off, at his hips! The doctor said blood clots in the veins of April’s legs had cut off the blood flow to his feet. That was why they died. The doctor called it gangrene. He said no charm could cause it, not even a death-sheet. April would get well after a month or two, and he could wear wooden legs with steel joints. They’d walk and carry him as well as his old legs had done, when he learned how to rule them and make them step. But it would take time. April would have to have patience now. Long patience.

The white doctor was kind, polite. He would write Joy exactly how April mended. She mustn’t worry. Everything would come right. April was no common weak man to give up. Never in this world. The plantation people must all pray for April to keep in good heart, and not get scared about himself. And Joy must have faith that April would get safely through this great trial.

Uncle Bill went to see the preacher April had bitten. His cheek had not rotted off at all. The white doctor had fixed it. But it looked queer, for it was drawn up tight like the mouth of a tobacco sack pulled together with draw-strings.

From that day Joy showed no sign of weakness. She shirked nothing, yielded nothing to Leah’s children who gave up being impudent to her face and did their grumbling about her behind her back.

When the stables were cleaned out and the black manure piled out in the corn-field, Joy went out at dawn with the other women, barefooted, scantily dressed, a rough crocus sack made into an apron to hold the stuff, and scattered it all day long, up and down the corn rows, leading the women as they marched abreast, singing, “Follow me--” to their chorus, “We’s a-followin’ on,” and ending, “I’ll lead you gentel-eee home!”

When the cotton was up to a thick stand and ready to be thinned, she tied her skirt up high out of the dew and took her hoe and chopped row for row with the best hoe hands, leaving the stalks one hoe’s width apart and cutting out every grass blade. She hung up eggshells to make the hens lay well, fed them sour dough to make them set, patched the garden fence and filled the rich plot of earth with seed.

She set hens and took them off with broods of biddies and dusted them with ashes to kill the lice. For one so frail-looking, Joy did wonders.

Everybody praised her but Leah’s children, who had naught against her except she had married April, and Big Sue, who kept her distance, pretending that Joy had disgraced her. But Zeda said Big Sue was jealous of Joy’s getting April.

Joy visited few of her neighbors except Maum Hannah and Zeda, and she took no part in the plantation quarrels and disagreements, or in the arguments about what had caused April’s trouble. People asked her a thousand questions, but she was a close-mouthed woman. She didn’t know anything about anything, to hear her tell it, and she listened, mute, dumb, when they came to her, wondering if the death-sheet or the scorched charm or the white folks’ medicine had ruined April? Joy agreed with them that charms were dangerous. But store-bought medicine is not to be trusted either. Leah got herself salivated by taking one lone teaspoonful of a scentless, tasteless white powder. It looked weak as flour, yet it loosened every tooth in her mouth and made them all drop out, whole. If April hadn’t been a mighty faithful man he’d have left Leah altogether right then. Where’s another man would stick? Leah was a fool to prank with things she didn’t understand. April did well ever to look at her again, for no man could be raven about a salivated woman, yet he even took her to town and bought her new teeth. No man could have done more than that. They cost more than a bale of cotton. Leah was ever contrary. Jealous. Maybe it was Leah that had tricked him now. Who could tell? She died too hard to rest easy in her grave. And she never took her eyes off of April while she lived. No doubt her spirit was after him still.

The weather was exactly right for the cotton; mornings wet with dew, noons fever hot; nights still and steamy and stifling. Except for the accursed boll-weevils the crop was most promising. The tender leaves multiplied and widened, and from morning until night they lifted their faces to get every bit of sunshine they could hold. The three-cornered squares clustered on the limbs, but not a blossom showed, for swarms of boll-weevils punctured these buds and made them drop off before a creamy petal could form. Well-nigh every fallen square held a grub. A few days more and they’d be weevils, ready to lay more eggs in new squares, and hatch more weevils. Unless something was done to stop them, the crop might as well be thrown away.

Uncle Bill and Uncle Isaac were upset. What were they to do? They sent every man and woman and child on the plantation to the field to pick the squares and try to catch the weevils, but the squares fell off behind them as fast as they picked those in front, and the pesky weevil fell off the stalks on the ground, too, as soon as anybody came near them. They played dead like ’possums, and they were colored so near like the dirt, the sharpest eyes couldn’t find them.

Uncle Bill walked up and down the rows watching, and frowning darkly. At last he stopped beside Zeda, and asked her where Sherry was. He’d have to come home and poison the cotton or the whole crop was done for. Not enough money would be made on the whole place to buy a pair of rope lines. Sherry would come back if he knew how bad things were. He wouldn’t hold hard feelings against April if he could see him. God had punished April enough to wipe out every sin he had ever done in his life. Sherry must forgive him too, and come back and help fight the weevils. Zeda listened coldly. She looked at Uncle Bill, then at the others.

“Uncle Bill is talkin’ out a new side o’ his mouth to-day, enty?” She tried to laugh indifferently, but everybody knew Sherry’s going had cut her to the quick and she’d be glad enough to get him back.

“You’s right, Zeda. I is talkin’ a new talk. But de ox is in de ditch. An’ de ditch is deep. De plantation is in distress, an’ nobody can’ save em but Sherry.”

All the people stood still heeding every word, now and again making low remarks to one another.

“You’s right, Uncle. I know I don’ relish plowin’ f’om sun to sun not lessen I’m doin’ some good. De more we plow, de more de cotton grows an’ de more it puts on squares to feed de boll-evils. April pizened ’em last year. Sherry helped em den. Le’s send at Sherry to come home. Git a letter wrote to em an’ tell em if he would come home we mens’ll make em foreman. How ’bout dat?” asked Jake, Bina’s husband.

The men looked at him, searched one another’s faces, growled among themselves. The women fell into groups, the loudest talkers laying out opinions, some for, some against, Sherry’s being made foreman. True enough, they needed a foreman. No plantation as large as Blue Brook could half-way run without a man to head the hands and be their leader. Sherry was young. Wild. Head-strong. He wasn’t even married and settled.

Zeda called out impatiently:

“Talk it over good! Make up you’ minds! Sherry’s comin’ or not comin’ is one to me! E’s got a fine job, yonder up-North. E’s makin’ money hand over fist. His wages fo’ one day is more dollars dan e would see in a month here at Blue Brook.”

Her words struck home. After a few silent moments, the people began saying:

“Write em to come, Zeda!”

“Tell em we want em fo’ foreman!”

“Tell em de crop’ll be ruint widout em!”

“We sho’ do need em!”

Casting a side-glance toward Joy, alone at one side, saying nothing, yet keeping track of every glance that passed between the others, Zeda stood a little straighter, and cleared her throat that her words might be plain.

“One more t’ing; I ain’ told nobody before. Not yet. But Sherry is married to a gal yonder up-North. She might not be willin’ to come to Blue Brook.”

Joy’s body stiffened, her eyes widened, her arms fell to her sides, but the others laughed and joked over the news until their voices ran into an excited chorus.

“Write Sherry to bring dat gal on home!”

“Lawd, dat news sho’ do surprise me!”

“T’ink o’ Sherry takin’ a wife in dat strange country!”

“Lawd, dat boy done fast work! Jedus!”

“Who’s gwine help Sherry pizen de cotton if he do come?” Zeda was in earnest.

“All o’ we!”

“All de mens!”

“Sho’! Ev’ybody’ll help em!”

Zeda bowed. That settled it. She’d get Joy to write a letter to send off by the next mail.

The crowd felt such relief, they broke into gay laughter. Merry jokes were cracked. The boll-weevils were left in the field. Sherry would fix them.

The people all turned home. In groups of three or four they talked and laughed boisterously, boasting what a good crop would be made this year. The cotton plants were strong. Able. The grass well-nigh killed out. Poisoning would do the rest.

Every trace of down-heartedness was gone. Discouragement forgotten. Sherry would come back and kill all the boll-weevils. Blue Brook would roll in money next fall.

Joy plodded home, stopping at times as if she didn’t see the path clearly. Once or twice she stumbled. The whole way, she stayed mute. At April’s house she stopped, but instead of going in, said to Breeze:

“I’m gwine an’ ax Ma to let you come stay wid me. I want you to mind my baby. Brudge an’ dem other chillen is so awful careless wid em. You’ll come, if Ma says so, enty?”

Breeze opened his mouth twice to answer before he got to speak out loud enough for her to hear.

“Sho’, I’ll come, Joy.”

XIX

AT APRIL’S HOUSE

The first night Breeze spent in April’s cabin was a bad one, although he slept in the same room with Joy and her baby.

Joy wrote to Sherry for Zeda that same afternoon, and when she mailed the letter she bought some sweet animal crackers from the store for supper. She had a good supper. She pressed them all to eat a-plenty, and when they were done, she bustled about briskly, washing dishes, straightening things; but she had nothing to say to a soul. What was she thinking about, to stay so silent?

She and Breeze and Leah’s children sat by the fire for a while. It burned low and dim, for the night was too hot to keep it bright. Nobody talked. Now and then one of the flies sleeping on the newspapered wall roused and buzzed. The leaves on the trees outside made a timorous noise. Brudge darted glances at Breeze and cleared his throat again and again, but everybody was polite.

One by one they went off to bed until only Joy and Breeze were left. She got up.

“Come on, Breeze. Le’s go to bed. Me an’ you an’ de baby, we stays in here.”

Breeze slept on a cot in the corner of the room and Joy in the bed where Leah’s dead body had been. Where was Leah now? Breeze gazed at the dark. He could hear things moving about in the yard. Something fumbled at the door. The latch rattled. The steps creaked. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled. Joy’s little baby cried out, but she patted it and sang softly:

“Bye, baby buntin’ Daddy’s gone to de cow-pen To git some milk fo’ de baby. Go to sleep.”

Breeze lay open-eyed. Restless. The cabin was stifling hot. Fear had him sweating.

* * * * *

When the long night, baked with heat, passed into a warm, dewy morning, the baby woke and Breeze took him to see the men pass with the mules and plows on their way to the corn-field, then to watch Leah’s children and Joy stick sweet-potato cuttings into the ground. Time went slowly. If one morning could be long as this, when would those cuttings ever make a crop? The baby’s weight burdened his arms. His shoulders ached. He’d go sit on the step and sing it to sleep, then he’d rest. “Bye an’ bye, when de mawnin’ comes!” Breeze sang, and the baby’s eyelids drooped. “Bye an’ bye, when we’s gathered home!” The eyelids closed down tight. “We’ll t-e-l-l de story! H-o-w we over-come,” Breeze sang it softly, the baby was ready to ease down on the bed. His tired arms could rest a while. He might take a nap himself.

The day was so quiet when he sat on the step again and leaned his head back against the door-facing that the old tree, bending its head across the yard toward the cabin, whispered every time a breath of air stirred it. A wood-pecker’s tapping made a tumult of sound. The twitterings of a pair of wrens with a nest in a knot hole under the eaves made a distinct clamor. Drowsiness glazed Breeze’s eyes, stopped up his ears. The morning flowed on by.

When the noon bell rang he jumped, awake, with the bare shadow of a gasp. Then he remembered he was living with Joy, not Big Sue, and he stretched his mouth in a lazy yawn.

The Quarters soon bustled with people coming in from the fields. The women, first, with hoes on their shoulders, then the men. Hens cackled, telling of eggs they’d just laid. Ducks quacked. Pigeons wheeled in low circles.

Joy arrived ahead of the children, her arms drooping, her steps lax and careless, her eyes noting naught around her, not even Breeze, who got up to let her pass. Then something on his head made her heed. “Wha’ dat on you’ head, Breeze! Who put em dere! Great Gawd, Breeze whe’ you been?”

Breeze put up a scared hand and felt all over his head. There was nothing so far as he could tell. “Wha’ e is, Joy? I ain’ feel nothin’.”

“Looka!” Joy lifted a white horse hair and held it in front of his eyes. “Take em an’ drown em, Breeze. Drown em quick. I bet Brudge done dis. De scoundrel! Brudge is tryin’ to scare you. Dat’s all. He can’ do you nothin’. No. Brudge don’ know how to cunjure nobody. But you go chunk dis in de Blue Brook anyhow. Tie em on a rock an’ chunk em far in as you kin. But don’ le’ Brudge know you done it.”

Breeze writhed with cold fear. That short white horse hair was a burden to his shaking fingers. He shifted it from one hand to the other, until he reached the Blue Brook’s bank. When a lizard scurried under a log to hide, its light rustling made Breeze almost drop his load. But he found a pebble, twined the hair around it, and after looking all around to be sure nobody saw, he cast it into the water.

As it fell with a light plop a giggle broke in the stillness. Breeze’s blood turned hot with fury. If Brudge had dared to follow him, watch him, laugh at him, he’d get a stick, a rock, something that could kill, and kill the scoundrel.

His eyes searched the surroundings, but nothing was at hand. Festoons of trailing moss floated from the limbs of the enormous live-oaks, making a weird canopy over his head; a cicada chanted shrilly in a clump of vine-tangled shrubbery; huge coiling, writhing roots spread around great rough trunks, then dropped out of sight, burying themselves in the earth. No weapon for him to use was anywhere in sight. He’d hunt until he found one. A narrow bit of a short blue skirt flickered from behind a tree-trunk and disappeared. Emma’s! Maybe it was she who had tricked him, not Brudge! He stopped short with a sharp indrawn breath. He’d slip up on her, catch her, hold her--maybe push her in the water!

Tipping stealthily forward, he went toward the tree, holding his breath for fear Emma might hear him and get away. He’d make her pay for teasing him, scaring him, making him believe somebody had put a conjure spell on him with that white horse hair.

When Emma peeped out to see where he was, he grabbed her by the arm so suddenly she gave a little frightened cry.

“I got you! Now I’m gwine drown you!” he growled, but instead of pulling away, trying his strength, her eyes filled, her mouth quivered.

“I was jus’ playin’ wid you, Breeze--you oughtn’ to be mad wid me--a-jerkin’ me----”

The moss waved softly overhead, the grass heads leaned sidewise in the gentle wind, two round drops of water dreaned out of Emma’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. They cut clean to Breeze’s heart, startling, paining him. The small arm inside his fingers was soft as Joy’s baby’s. He wouldn’t hurt it for the world.

“I ain’ mad. I’m a-playin’ wid you, too,” he explained.

“Enty?” Emma’s smile was so sudden, so merry, Breeze felt confused, troubled.

The Blue Brook trickled on with a soothing purl, its surface shimmering as the wind stirred it into rolling ripples. Roses and honeysuckles added fragrance to the stench of decaying leaves and wood. A deep stillness began spinning a web over them all.

“Oh--Breeze!” Joy was calling.

“Ee--oo! I’m a-comin’!” He answered, and Emma was gone.

Joy sent him to the post-office, and when he came back with a letter, she snatched it out of his hand, but it was from the hospital and said April was improving. He’d soon come home, and he sent messages to all his friends. He craved to see them.

* * * * *

Dewberries were ripe, wild plums reddening, maypop vines had the roadsides purple with bloom. The day drowsed with heat, the rice-fields smelled sweaty, the sun, half-way between noon and sunset, drew out perfume from the grass and flowers.

Breeze was in the pasture picking berries for supper when the boat-whistle made a long extra blow for the landing. He stood up and held his breath to listen, for he knew something unusual had happened. It wasn’t long before Brudge came in sight, waving his arms and shouting, “Sherry’s come! De boat fetched em just now!”

Breeze sprang up in such haste, he spilled every berry in the bucket and had to stop and pick them up.

“How do e look, Brudge?”

Brudge made a face. “E look ugly as ever to me.”

“I got a good mind to choke you,” Breeze threatened.

“Come on an’ choke! I’ll mash you’ goosle flat! Wid one hand! Ha! Ha!”

Burning with hate for Brudge and joy over Sherry’s coming, Breeze flew home by a short-cut. Joy sat on the steps, feeding her baby, but it was plain she knew Sherry had come, for her words halted so she could hardly speak, and her eyes were wide and bright.

“Sherry’s come!” Breeze panted, all out of breath. “I’m gwine to see em.” She stroked her baby’s fat little legs, then clasped both small feet together.

“Tell em--tell em---- No, don’ tell em nothin’. I’ll go tell em myself.”

She laid the baby face down across her lap and began unfastening him in the back. “Go git me some clean clothes fo’ em befo’ you go.”

She leaned quickly and kissed the back of the tiny neck where the head joined the plump body, leaving a hollow shaped just right for her mouth.

She slipped his one garment off his soft rolly body, slipped the clean one on over his head, laughing at the way his head wabbled, then suddenly cuddled him close in her arms. She held him so tight, his restless arms and legs squirmed to get loose.

Breeze hurried to Zeda’s cabin so fast he had no wind left to tell Sherry how glad he was to see him. Sherry gave him a hand-shake, then a mighty hug that squeezed Breeze into a happy laugh.

“Lawd, boy, you is growed! How’s Clara? Did e kick you yet?”

Breeze could do nothing but grin. How much bigger Sherry looked! How much finer! He was a town man now, with shoes and cravat and a white straw hat, and presents for everybody. Breeze was so happy blowing his new mouth-organ he didn’t see Joy until she asked, “You don’ know me, Sherry? Is I changed dat much?” Her words shook, her smile trembled.

“No, Joy, you ain’ so changed. No---- But I didn’ know you had a baby----”

“Sho’ I is. Look at em. Ain’ e de fines’ t’ing you ever see? E kin ’most talk, enty, Breeze?”

Breeze could hardly take his eyes off Sherry long enough to answer her, but the baby cooed and his wabbly head bobbed back and forth against Joy’s arm. His toes stretched out in the hot sunshine, and both tiny balled-up fists tried to thrust themselves into his small drippy mouth. He gnawed at them, then let them go, and a disappointed wail suddenly wrinkled up his small face and made it so funny-looking, even Sherry had to laugh.

“Wha’ e name, Joy?”

“E name Try-em-an-see, but I calls him Tramsee fo’ short.”

“Whe’ you git dat name?”

“Maum Hannah helped me to make em up. It’s a lucky one, too.” Joy turned away suddenly, and her full short gingham skirt twirled about her thin legs. They were bare and matched her small wiry body well, and her face had been greased until its black skin shone hard with glints of blue in the sun. Her ripe breasts strutted full under her tight-fitting dress. Her bare head had its wool wrapped into tight cords with white ball thread. She looked very different from the stylish town-dressed Joy who came home just before Christmas. No wonder Sherry stared at her.

All her town airs were gone. She was as countrified as Zeda. Sherry gazed at her so hard, Joy dropped her eyes. Her lips twitched and the hollows at the corners of her full mouth deepened.

“I’m sho’ glad you come home, Sherry. Whyn’ you bring you’ wife?”

The slim fingers of one hand plucked at a button on the back of the baby’s dress. Her voice, raised and strengthened, sounded clear and hard.

“E wouldn’ come South, Joy. But I thought you had mo’ sense dan to go take Leah’s husband. You’d sleep in dat house fo’ Leah to hant you? You kin rest dere?”

Joy’s eyes flickered and shifted in a side-glance toward him, then beyond him, where trees fringing the rice-fields shimmered blue like trees in a dream.

“Sho’, I kin rest dere. April’s a fine man, Sherry. E treat me white too. I wish to Gawd e didn’ got sick. De crop has been a-needin’ him bad.”

“Whe’ e is now?” Sherry’s eyes were cloudy, his voice dull.

“To de horspital.”

The china-berry tree full of purple blossoms cast a pool of hot shade at Joy’s feet. Reddish scions, sprung up around the root of the crêpe myrtle, gave out a sickly scent as Sherry’s restless feet trampled and bruised them. The yellow afternoon glare stressed a stern look in his eyes and marked a swift-beating pulse that throbbed with tiny strokes in a vein of his thick strong neck.

It was a relief to hear Joy say coolly, “April’ll be glad you’s come. De boll-evil is swarmin’ in de cotton.”

And Sherry answered, “I’m glad to git back, Joy. Yonder up-North ain’ like home.”

“Stay an’ eat supper wid us, Joy. You an’ Breeze all two,” Zeda invited cordially.

Breeze looked at Joy and waited for her answer. “You stay, Breeze,” she said. “But don’ stay late.” And she walked on home to April’s cabin.

Sherry slept a good part of each day, but at night the big poison machine hummed over the cotton-fields, puffing out clouds of white poison dust until every stalk was covered, every leaf silvery. The dry weather was a help. No rain came to wash the poison off. Plows kept the middles of the rows stirred and the fallen squares buried. After a week’s rest the poison machine ran all night again. The cotton throve. The stifling nights were perfumed with the honey of cotton blooms. Already bolls were showing, some as large as hickory nuts! April himself could have managed no better than Sherry.

Joy bustled about working hard all day, but she sang at her work and night found her unwearied. Brudge got more and more sullen and surly. He was often impudent to Joy, but she paid him no attention. One night when the supper things were washed and put away she slipped out of the door and walked off in the darkness alone. When the others had gone to bed Brudge barred all the doors so she couldn’t get in. As if she were not April’s wife and the mistress of the house. But even then she laughed and treated it as a joke.

The next day her baby lay on the bed sleeping. Brudge walked up and looked at it and called it an ugly name. Joy heard and before Brudge had time to catch his breath, she grabbed him and gave him such a beating he yelled for mercy.

After that Brudge spied on her all the time, even jumping out of bed to see if anybody came home with her at night. And Joy drove him to his work every day as if he were a lazy mule. They quarreled constantly. The cabin became a wretched place to Breeze, except those times when Joy sat on the steps in the dusk and talked to him and told him how much she thought of him and of the help he had been to her.

With her face wreathed in smiles and her eyes bright with gladness, she’d look up at the stars shining through the tree-tops and Breeze would hold his breath and listen at her voice and sigh with love of her, and forget that life was ever painful or burdensome.

One night Sherry walked home from meeting with Joy, but when they reached April’s house she didn’t ask him in. He stood by the step and rolled a cigarette, lit it and walked away. Brudge watched him with eyes full of cunning and when he was out of hearing laughed: “Sherry t’inks he’s somebody. My Gawd!”

“Sherry is somebody,” Breeze defended. “Sherry is de foreman now.”

“You wait till Pa gits home. You’ll see who de foreman is den. Me an’ Uncle Bill is gwine to town to git Pa befo’ long. I bet a lot o’ t’ings’ll change den. You’ll see it too.”

The moon glittered thin and sharp in the sky. Crickets chirruped. Katydids droned long shrill cries. A whip-poor-will called and called. Breeze was so fretted that he forgot Joy sat on the step beside him. He jumped when she spoke, although she spoke quietly: “Sherry an’ Uncle Bill is gwine to town on de boat to fetch Cun April home. You is not gwine, Brudge.”

Joy’s voice was husky, perhaps from the dew or from singing so long at meeting. Brudge made no answer, but in a little while he got up and slunk off to bed without even saying good night.

* * * * *

The people met the boat to welcome April home just as they met it when he brought Joy, a bride. All except Joy herself. She stayed to have everything ready for him at the house. She knew he’d be hungry and the soup must be kept hot, the chicken nice and tender but not too done. Unwatched rice is easy to scorch. And besides, the chicken’s raw heart had already mysteriously disappeared! Out of the pan! After she had washed it and salted it! She told Breeze this in a whisper.

* * * * *

Sherry picked April up in his arms and brought him ashore. April was not much longer than Joy’s baby, now, and tears poured down his cheeks, but he seemed not to care at all who saw them. Lord, he was so glad to get home! There was no place like Blue Brook!

The close-packed crowd listened, motionless and hushed, for April’s voice was low and broken and his words like somebody else speaking. Lord, how the man was changed! His lean body with its broad bony shoulders and long thin arms was a shocking sight. No matter what wrongs he had done, he had been punished enough. More than enough! Uneasy and curious, but filled with respect, they pressed around him. They fed their eyes on his terrible plight. April was no longer a man. Poor soul! God’s hand had fallen hard, heavy, upon him.

A grave silence held most of them, but April, so full of joy at getting home again, called out cordial greetings to every one of them by name. He was so glad to hear the crops were good, so glad Sherry was back, so glad for the dry weather.

When he paused to take breath, their sorrowful pitying words fell: “Do, Jedus!” “I too sorry fo’ em!” “My Gawd!” “I ain’ never see sich a t’ing!”

Breeze’s heart shrank smaller until it felt no larger than the heart of a mouse in his breast. Old Louder gave a long sad howl. The birds sang no more. The sun in the west hid under a dark drab cloud.

April was the only cheerful person in the whole crowd.

“How yunnuh likes Sherry fo’ de foreman?” he asked brightly.

No answer came at first, then Jake cleared his throat and spoke out:

“Sherry does de best e kin, but e ain’ got no time wid you, April. No.”

Then many other answers chimed in, “Shucks, nobody livin’ could make de foreman you was!”

“Dat’s de Gawd’s truth!” Sherry’s voice praising April as loud as any.

Uncle Isaac had Julia hitched to Uncle Bill’s buggy to take April home, and when the old mule became terrified at the boat’s whistle, April laughed at the beast’s lack of sense. Poor Julia! So old and so foolish!

Breeze had never realized how much April loved everybody. “How all o’ yunnuh do?” he asked affectionately. “How’s all home?” He had to choke back a sob as he looked into their serious faces.

Sherry put him on the buggy seat beside Uncle Isaac, who held the reins, but April couldn’t keep his balance, and Uncle Bill had to get in and hold him steady.

April excused himself by saying he was weak and nervish from lying flat down on his back so long. A bed draws a man’s strength in a hurry. Even a chair will do it.

Over and over he said how good everything looked. He breathed deep of the smell of the woods full of bay-blossoms. The splash of Julia’s feet in the shallow branch made the water come into his eyes. Everybody who walked alongside the buggy could see it.

When they got in sight of the barnyard, Julia broke into a trot. It was her supper time and she was in a hurry to eat. April laughed at her sudden willingness to go. “No, Julia. You can’ stop at de barnyard, not dis time. You got to pull me home. You don’ know I can’ walk, enty?” But his voice broke, and Uncle Bill began telling about the crop, how fine it was, how loaded with fruit. When he got stronger, April must take Julia and the buggy and ride everywhere. Sherry did very well, but he was young and needed advice about a lot of things.

Joy and Leah’s little children stood waiting out in front of the cabin to meet him. A quiet awed group. April was the only one who felt at ease.

“How you do, honey?” he said gently to Joy, who came forward first, but she looked uncertain what to do or say. “I reckon I is look strange to yunnuh. But I’m thankful to git home widout comin’ nailed up in a box.”

The children huddled together watching April as if he were a perfect stranger.

“Come speak to you Pa, chillen,” Joy bade them, and they came forward slowly, shyly. Brudge snuffled and sobbed right out loud, so moved was he, but one of the littlest boys looked at his father’s shortened body and giggled. Joy grabbed his shoulder and shook him soundly and sent him behind the house, just as she did when he laughed at April months ago.

“E don’ mean nothin’, April. E ain’ got so much sense. E’d laugh if e was a-dyin’ himself. His mammy must ’a’ marked him so.”

Joy spoke kindly, but April’s face changed. His mouth quivered; a strange weary look wrung all the life out of his eyes. His own child had made sport of him. Laughed at his shame. The last time it happened he had reared and pitched, but this time his bosom heaved and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

Joy helped Sherry to take him inside the cabin and lay him on a bed in the shed-room. It did look inviting. The feather mattress was puffed up high and covered with a clean white spread. April sighed deeply as he sank in its soft depths, and he closed his eyes in enjoyment.

His head was too low to see well, and he asked Joy to get him another pillow. She looked at the long empty trousers that twisted about foolishly over the white counterpane. April whispered to her that she’d have to cut them off shorter for him, or pin them back. Joy didn’t answer, but she got a quilt from another bed. When April saw what she was going to do, he protested that it was too hot to lie under a quilt. But something he saw in Joy’s eyes made him change his mind, and he let her cover him up.

Big Sue came to see if there was anything she could do for April’s comfort. She spoke kindly to Joy and told Breeze he looked well and grew fast. April hardly heard Big Sue’s offer, for his friends had crowded into the room and called to him from the open windows. They meant to be kind, still no one of them could conceal astonishment and horror that April had no feet, no legs, at all. There were gentle murmurs of:

“God bless you, son, how’s you gwine do widout legs?”

“I’m sho’ glad you lived to git home, but what’s you gwine to do?”

April’s pleasure at being home was somehow chilled. He kept saying he thought two or three times he’d never see them again and he had to pull hard to do it, but his cheerful tone had faded into gloominess.

Uncle Bill suggested that the people had better leave. April had had a long trip. He was tired. He had been very weak. He wasn’t strong enough to stand much excitement. They were all good-mannered about it. They passed out of the door with little to say, and their tones were subdued when they spoke.

When the last one had gone, April burst out crying. He held Uncle Bill’s hands and blubbered out he was nothing but a baby! He had no manhood left at all! He couldn’t even stand kindness! Everything made him cry! Everything!

Joy came back into the room and stood by the bed and looked down at him and he reached up a long arm and took her hand uncertainly and called her by name. No eyes were ever more appealing, no voice in the whole world ever plead for tenderness as April’s did then.

“Joy, you don’ mind me bein’ dis way, enty? I’m gwine git wood legs befo’ long.”

Joy stood silent, a shudder ran through her, her fingers lay limp in April’s. April groaned and let her hand go.

Then Joy tried to smile bravely and say she didn’t mind. She had fretted herself half to death about him and now she was happy because he had come. But it was too late. She couldn’t fool April. He had seen how she felt; and he drew away from her as from a stranger.

She turned and went briskly out of the room, and April turned his face to the wall. His thin breast lifted, while one deep bitter sob after another shook him. He had fought a long hard fight with Death, and now he was sorry he had won! If he had known how things would be, how Joy would feel, he would have given up, but it was the thought of Joy that made him try to live.

* * * * *

April stayed on the bed in the shed-room day after day, looking out over the rice-fields where the tides rose and fell. Breeze’s work was changed from minding Joy’s baby to staying with April, keeping the flies off him, handing him water to drink.

Few plantation sounds could reach this shed-room at the back of the cabin and when staying by April became unbearable, Breeze would go outside and walk as far as the water’s edge, or stand by the window watching cranes and kingfishers. One old bald eagle spent much of his time on a branch of an old dead tree and when a fish-hawk dived and got a fish the eagle took it from him.

* * * * *

April complained little. Once when the night was damp and the sound of the poison machine louder than usual he got very restless. He said it was hard to lie helpless. Without legs. Flat on his back. Most of the time alone. While another man took his place. But except for sighs and a few moans, that was all.

At first the people on the place came often to see him. They brought him things to eat. A chicken, a few eggs tied up in a cloth, a bottle of molasses, whatever they had that they thought he might enjoy. Occasionally some friend put a piece of money in his hand. But his persistent low-spiritedness and down-heartedness did not encourage them to come back. Soon they stopped only long enough by his window to say, “How you do to-day, April?” or “How you feelin’?” as they passed by, with troubled glances.

Uncle Bill was the exception. He came very often and he’d sit and listen as long as April wanted to talk about his weariness or his misery.

April never grew tired of telling over and over his experiences at the hospital. About the nurses and doctors, their kindness to him and interest in him. How he had fought through the long dark nights with pain. At first it was a steady fight, then after a while the pain came in showers. But he had thought out many things. He’d learned that every man has to bear his suffering alone. He realized that the doctors could not help him. Neither could his children, nor any friend. He had to go the whole way through by himself--to the very end.

When April first came home, Joy stayed with him every night, then she began going to parties and birth-night suppers once in a while, and finally, every night as soon as the supper was over and the dishes washed and put away, she’d tip quietly down the steps and go. Without a word.

April said little about it. Nothing to Joy herself. What was the use? What was he? Just half a man, that was all. He had no right to expect Joy to stay always at home with him. Breeze was always there to mind the flies or give him a drink of water, or tie a collard leaf on his aching head.

Joy shirked no household duty. She had learned to cook almost as well as her mother. He had no cause to complain of the food she gave him. It was well seasoned enough for those who had appetites to eat. Joy was young. She had to pleasure herself. He hadn’t the heart to forbid it. And nobody could say she was a gad-about. She kept the house clean, the clothes washed and patched, and she did her full share of the field work too.

April talked fairly enough to Maum Hannah and Uncle Bill and Zeda, even to Big Sue, who came to see him once in a while. But all of them could see that jealousy was disturbing him, making him fretful and suspicious.

Hour after hour he stared doggedly out of the window, moaning, sighing, wishing he could go to sleep and never wake up. His gloom filled the whole cabin. Breeze could hardly bear to stay with him, and Uncle Bill came in as often as he could spare the time.

One night Uncle Bill begged April to pray. It was the only way to find peace, to be satisfied. If he would do like Jacob, and give God no rest day or night until he had some sign his prayers were heard, his whole heart would be changed and filled with rejoicing.

April answered that he had lost faith in God’s fairness. What had he ever done to make God deal with him so? Would any decent man on the plantation treat a dog any worse than God had treated him? Or suffer a worm as much?

Uncle Bill admitted God had laid a heavy hand on April. Had smitten him hard, but if April’s suffering would make him pray, and save his soul from everlasting torment, then all suffering would be gain. Pure gain.

Joy had a Bible and Uncle Bill could read well enough to teach April to spell out a few verses. At first he learned a few of them by heart, then he strove to learn how to find the right place in the Bible and to read them there. “The Lord is my Shepherd” was the first one he located. It was the easiest of all to find and learn. Next he learned “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

Sometimes Uncle Bill read a whole chapter to him, but it was a hard task for them both, labored work for Uncle Bill to read and for April to understand.

The one April liked best was “Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

Breeze wondered who Israel was and who kept him, but he durst not ask.

One day Uncle Bill stumbled on this verse: “As a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.” The words were scarcely spoken before April put up a hand.

“Don’ read dat one, Uncle. E’s done me too bad. E ain’ treat me fair. Looks like E ought to let up on me. E done suffer me so long----”

April turned his face toward the window to hide the tears that poured out of his eyes, and there was Sherry in full view, riding the sorrel colt and holding Joy’s baby in his arms!

April’s face went a ghastly gray, his moist features shriveled. Tremors shook the muscles in his jaws, but he said nothing.

Uncle Bill stroked out the fingers of one long, blue-nailed hand, but they curled back into the palm as soon as they were released.

“You must be gittin’ a chill, April.” Uncle Bill’s eyes were full of fear. “How ’bout a mustard plaster on you’ back?”

“Nemmine, Uncle. Nemmine,” April chattered.

As the dusk fell Zeda came to inquire about April, but she found him shaking as with ague. He said he was cold through and through and his insides felt wrung and twisted. The very heart in his breast ached sorely.

Zeda said if April had a chill Joy had better give him some red-pepper tea. She’d go home and make some tea out of her own red pepper. Her pepper was strong, hot, she had gathered it at noon on a sunshiny day.

The jangle of a cow bell broke through the still night. On and on it rang, saying it was meeting night. Uncle Bill had promised to lead, and when he got up to go, Joy suggested that Breeze go along with him. Not that Breeze cared especially for the singing and praying, but anything for a change would do him good.

Maum Hannah’s house was crammed. Half the people had to stand outside, and heads crowded the windows so not a breath of air could come in or go out. The night was stifling hot and sweat trickled down Uncle Bill’s forehead as he read the Bible by the dim smelly flame of the smoky lamp. He read about a man named Jonah who sinned, and a great whale in the sea swallowed him whole! God sent the whale to get him!

Uncle Bill closed the book when the chapter was ended and talked slowly, sorrowfully, about the sin that prevailed on the plantation. The people bickered with one another instead of living in love and charity. Instead of praying for each other, they spent good money for charms to conjure one another. They danced and sang reels instead of shouting and singing spirituals and hymns. Unless they changed, no telling what would happen! God is patient. Long-suffering. He gives men every chance to get saved. But they had overlooked every warning. They had forgotten that the jaws of Hell were stretched wide that very minute, craving to swallow every soul in that room just as the whale swallowed Jonah. Jonah got out of the whale after three days, but no man ever gets out of Hell. Sinners spend eternity burning in fire and brimstone.

Why not give up sin? Why not trust in Jesus instead of putting fresh stripes on His bleeding wounds? Every sin cut Him to the quick! Not only the sins of grown men and women, but the sins of little children. Jesus was crucified over and over again by the sins of people right on Blue Brook Plantation. And yet He had died on the cross to save them from that awful place where there was nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!

The members moaned and groaned until Maum Hannah lead the spiritual, “God sent Jonah to Nineveh Land, Jonah disobeyed his Lord’s command.”

The congregation sang answers in a solemn refrain.

Verse by verse the whole story of Jonah’s awful punishment was told.

Breeze had never heard it before and he shuddered from head to foot with horror and pity for poor Jonah. God seemed as cruel and awful as the Devil. Between the two, there was small chance for any safety. Poor Jonah! Poor April! Poor Breeze!

On the way home through the night he held to Uncle Bill’s hand so tight that Uncle Bill asked what was the matter. Breeze admitted he was afraid. Afraid of the dark, of God, of the Devil, of everything, especially while it was night.

“De spirit is strivin’ in you’ heart, son. Strivin’ to convict you of sin. You start prayin’ to-night. Soon as you git home. Rassle wid God. To-morrow, you go off by you’self in de woods. Wallow on de ground an’ pray. Don’ rest, not till you done found peace, so you won’ never be ’fraid no mo’. I’ll come stay wid April to-morrow whilst you seek salvation. Start to-night, son. Pray hard as you kin. Ax Gawd to le’ you be born again. You is a human chile now, subject to sin an’ death an’ hell. When you’s born again, you’ll be Gawd’s chile. Free! Nobody can’ touch you or either harm you. Nobody!”

The cabin was dark and silent. Joy opened the door and whispered that April was asleep. Uncle Bill whispered back he’d come next day and stay with April. Breeze was going to start seeking.

“Brudge come in just now an’ said he was gwine seek too.”

“Well, I declare! Dat is de best news I heared lately! De sperit is workin’ fast to-night.”

Joy put the door-bar in place and Breeze went to bed. As soon as he crawled under the covers he tried to begin his praying for the dread of Hell racked him as bitterly as the fear of God. A round spot of moonlight fallen through a hole in the roof made an eye on the floor. A round, shining eye, that stared at him, winkless.

XX

SEEKING

It was early dawn when Joy woke him. He must get up and fetch plenty of water, and cut some wood. By that time Uncle Bill would be here to stay with April and he could go to the woods and seek.

Breeze sat up and rubbed his eyes and tried to listen, but it was all he could do to keep from sinking back deep under the covers and pulling them over his head. He didn’t want to seek, he’d a thousand times rather sleep. But April spoke:

“Git up, Breeze! You don’ hear Joy talkin’ to you!” And Breeze opened his heavy eyes and sprang to his feet. He dressed, then put his bed in order, and went at his work. By the time it was done, Uncle Bill had come, and he was set free to pray.

Cocks were crowing, birds chirping, crows cawing. Uncle Bill said they were saying their morning prayers. Breeze must listen how earnestly they did it, and learn how to pray just as hard.

Everything out-of-doors was silvery with dew, and the early sun gave the earth a mysterious radiance that dazzled Breeze’s drowsy eyes as he dragged himself slowly along. The woods looked far away. In the distance their hazy darkness blent into the sky. The path to the corn-field was shorter, and it led toward the sunshine, whose warm yellow light drew every flower face toward it.

He reached the corn-field before the morning dew was dry. The black furrows between the tall green rippling blades felt cool and damp. As a light breeze blew, the corn rustled and waved and the silks added their perfume to the fruity blossomy fragrance in the air.

Breeze sat down on the ground and looked up at the sky overhead, pondering. He couldn’t remember his sins. He hated Brudge, but that couldn’t be sinful, mean as Brudge was. Anybody who knew Brudge would hate him.

“Oh, Lawd,” he began, then halted. If he knew how to pray it would be easier. Where was Jesus? How could he make Jesus hear him? The blue sky where Heaven was looked high and far and empty.

Getting on his knees Breeze closed his eyes and repeated the words of Uncle Bill’s prayer as nearly as he could remember. Over and over he said them, until in spite of all his striving to keep awake, the stillness overcame him and he fell into a gentle doze. Something tickled his nose, then crawled across his lips. He jumped, hit at the pest, a straw. The sun’s midday light was a hard hot glare; the black shadows short. Emma stood over him, her white teeth shining in a broad grin that vexed him bitterly, a wisp of dry grass in her fingers.

“How you duh sleep! You ain’ gwine pray?” Emma giggled as she asked it.

Breeze rubbed his eyes and looked all around. He hated being caught, and Emma had no business tickling his face while he slept. Stung to the quick with shame and vexation, he snapped out angrily:

“How come you duh grin like a chessy-cat? Who you duh laugh at so frightenin’?”

His ill humor sobered her and she made haste to explain, “I ain’ laughin’ at you. I’m a-laughin’ at Brudge. Brudge is done found peace in dem woods back o’ we house. Lawd, e hollered so loud, I thought sho’ e had got in a yellow-jacket’s nest! Jedus, you ought to heared em!” Emma’s laugh rippled out and shook her slim shoulders so that the beads Joy had given her chinked merrily against the hot black skin of her little black neck. Her three-cornered face glowed with fun, her slanting eyes sparkled as they met Breeze’s, but he shrugged disdainfully. “I know dat ain’ so. Brudge didn’ start seekin’, not till dis mawnin’. E couldn’ find peace, not dat quick. You can’ fool me. Shucks!”

“I ain’ tryin’ to fool you. Gramma made me go see wha dat was ail Brudge, made em squall an’ holler so loud.” Emma’s face had got serious, her teasing eyes grave.

In spite of the too-big, ugly dress she wore and the long awkward sleeves that hung over her small hands, the child had a half-wild grace and lightness, and as she knelt down in the soft dusty furrow and one hand crept out from the folds of her dress toward Breeze, he grabbed it and held it before it could draw back.

“Breeze----” her husky little voice made his name a new thing. He could feel a smile twitch at his mouth. “Breeze--if you’d find peace, you wouldn’ be scared to git baptized?”

Breeze knelt beside her and he glowed, all on fire with courage now. “Who? Me? Lawd, I ain’ scared o’ nothin’. Not nothin’!”

Emma’s eyes widened with wonder and respect for his boasting. “You ain’ scared o’ nothin’ in de world?”

Breeze turned his head and spat far away like a grown-up man. “Not nothin’ in de world.”

Breaths of hot air drove the clouds along over their heads. A grasshopper played shrill faint music, a dove mourned softly, the corn blades rustled gently.

Breeze dropped her hand and grasped her thin shoulders, but she tore herself from his hold with a breathless laugh. Then he caught her arm, but she was stronger than he thought. The muscles in her small arm tightened under his fingers and, wriggling herself loose, Emma went flying down the corn row, calling back mockingly, daringly:

“Better go on an’ pray. A witch might git you!”

And Breeze answered boldly, his fear of God and the Devil all forgotten,

“I ain’ gwine pray. No! Wait on me, Emma! Don’ run so fast! You t’ink you kin outrun me! Good Lawd, you can’ do dat! I’ll show you so right now!”

* * * * *

At the cabin a crowd of people gathered. Breeze could hear them babbling together, then keeping silent while one voice rose high. There was no making out what it said, and Breeze went as fast as he could, eager to know what was the matter. He found Brudge telling his experience. The boy had told it over and over until his voice was hoarse and trembly, yet he kept on, excitedly, as the people, mostly women, urged him to tell them again what God had done for him. Brudge said he was away off in the woods praying. Down on his knees with his eyes wide open, looking up through the trees at the heavens, begging God to hear him, to give him some sign, to let him know his sins were forgiven, just as Uncle Bill said he must do. He had been there for an hour or two, calling on Jesus with every breath, when all of a sudden the light cut off, just like the lights in the Big House at night when the white folks go to bed. Everything was pitch black dark. There was not one sound anywhere. He thought he had died and it scared him so he raised up and hollered loud as he could; the light came back quick as a flash, with such a brightness he was mighty nigh blinded. All the trees over his head began waving their arms and shouting. All the clouds up the elements broke in half, and in the middle of them he could see people, crowds of people waving their arms and shouting. He jumped up and shouted with them! He felt light as any feather! The wind fair blew him along as he ran home to tell the people what he had seen this morning!

“Great Gawd, what a vision dat boy did have!”

“Dat’s de first time anybody on dis place ever did see right spang into Heaven!”

“Son, Gawd is sho’ blessed you to-day!”

“It makes me pure scared to hear de boy talk!”

“It sounds to me like Brudge is called to preach!”

“De Holy Sperit sho’ did knock em on de head. Listen how de boy talks!”

“Now ain’ it so? Brudge must l’arn how to read an’ write.”

“Sho’! A preacher has to read readin’ an’ writin’ too.”

“Don’ you know Leah is happy in Glory to-day!”

The mention of Leah’s name brought pitying groans.

“Po’ Leah. Gawd took em home too soon. Leah ought to be here to-day.”

Brudge’s ranting became louder, more breathless, as he declared God had made him so strong he could lift up a mule by himself. He would pray for April’s legs to grow back. God would answer his prayer. The people would soon see. April would be well.

April lay on the bed by the window, his short body covered over with a quilt. When Breeze peeped in at him, he threw out his long arms with an impatient gesture that made the flies rise with a buzz.

“Tell Uncle Bill I say come here!” he ordered, then he groaned and put his clasped hands under his head. Breeze felt vaguely uneasy. He whispered to Uncle Bill to hurry, and the old man’s feet stumbled up the steps, for Brudge’s unexpected conversion had him shaken and bewildered. But he steadied when April burst out furiously, “Whyn’ you make Brudge hush dat fool talk? Brudge’s mind ain’ never been solid, an’ now yunnuh’s gwine run em clean crazy! Tell dem people to go on home! Brudge went to sleep in dem woods. E ain’ seen nothin’ but a dream! No!”

Uncle Bill patted his shoulder and tried to cool his heat. “Brudge is just happy, son. Dat’s all. I know ezactly how de boy feels. I felt de same way when I found peace. You ain’ never been saved. Dat’s how come you don’ un’erstand. Brudge is called to preach, April. Sho’ as you’ born. You ought to be so t’ankful!”

“Great Gawd!” April fairly bellowed. “You is fool as Brudge! Whe’s Joy? Tell Joy to make Brudge hush dat fuss! I can’ stand so much racket! No!”

April’s eyes glowed fever bright and his forehead held drops of sweat. Nobody but Uncle Bill would have dared to cross him, and even Uncle Bill was upset.

“You mustn’ fret dis way, April. You’ll git you’ liver all hottened up. I’ll make Brudge stop talkin’, but you mustn’ holler like a baby. People’ll t’ink you’ mind ain’ solid. Anybody else but you would be rejoicin’!”

The yard was soon empty, the cabin still. Only Joy and Uncle Bill sat outside on the steps, talking in whispers.

That night Joy went out in a blustery wind and rain, and did not come home until late. The heavy steps that always left stealthily came inside along with hers. Doors creaked sharply. There were little hissing sounds like whispers. Maybe it was the wind.

April raised up on an elbow. Listened. Leaned toward Joy’s room and listened. Crawling out of bed on his long thin arms, he crept across the floor and strained his ear against the wall between his room and the room where Joy slept.

He crouched and listened but he made no sound. It was not the wind that he heard.

Suddenly, something inside him seemed to break. Something in his head or his breast. With a yell he beat on the door, and tried to break it down. Then he lost his balance and fell back on the floor where he lay and raved and cursed himself and Joy and God.

* * * * *

During the days that followed, April’s darkened room was filled with his wild delirium. Joy sat by him for hours at a time, brushing the flies away, wiping off his face with a cool wet cloth, trying to hush him, to lower his fever with the root teas Uncle Isaac brewed for him. Outside in the heat, the trees slept, the moss on them hung limp, the tree ferns were brown and lifeless.

Whenever Joy flung herself down on Breeze’s straw mattress in the corner to rest, Uncle Bill took her place, watching, waiting for some change to come. His big rough hands, blue at the nails and knuckles, squeezed each other distressfully, or stroked April’s restless fingers trying to stop their plucking, plucking, at the cover. Coaxing them to stand still. His old ears constantly listened at the window for the marsh birds to tell him if the tide came in or went out and his eyes were dim with pity and sorrow and love for April, who tossed on the bed, mumbling, raving.

Sometimes April thought the mules were loose in the fields and trampling the cotton, and cried out to stop them! Once he thought he had swallowed Joy’s fine diamond ring and it was cutting his chest to pieces. He babbled of boll-weevils and poison and ginning the cotton.

Uncle Bill tried to hold the weak nerveless hands, to steady them and keep them quiet. Over and over he prayed to God to have mercy on April, to give him back his right senses, not to let him die out of his mind, and at last his prayer was heard.

The night was sultry, the cabin parching hot. Joy had broken down, panic-stricken, and she knelt on the floor with her head on Uncle Bill’s knee. She burst into a storm of weeping that drowned out April’s raving, but Uncle Bill put his arms around her and took her into another room and made her go to bed. She must sleep. He’d wake her if he needed anything. Breeze would sleep with one eye open and jump up the minute Uncle Bill called him. Zeda and Jake were both coming at the first turn of the night after midnight. Joy must not fret and wear herself out. She’d poison her breast-milk and make her baby sick.

Midnight must have passed but dawn had not come when April called Uncle Bill so distinctly Breeze woke up, leaped to his feet, but Uncle Bill was at April’s bed.

“Uncle,” April called again weakly, “you’s wake, enty?”

“Yes, son, I’m right ’side you.” Uncle Bill took both April’s hands and held them close, while he leaned low to hear every word the sick man spoke.

“My time’s come, Uncle. I ain’ got much longer----” April’s voice climbed up, then dropped.

Uncle Bill looked up at the rafters. “Do, Jedus, look down. Do have mercy!”

“Don’ stop to pray! De time’s too short now!” April’s short patience had come back, but his shortened breath held it in sudden check.

“Uncle--my feets is cold--I feels death up to my knees----”

“Son, you ain’ got no feets; neither knees! Is you forgot?”

“No, I ain’ forgot. But I feels ’em--dey’s cold---- Listen, Uncle----”

April’s sense had come back. He was in his right mind, even if he did feel the feet and legs that had been gone for months. His low husky words were earnest.

“I ain’ scared to go. I’d sooner go dan stay. My time’s out. I’m done for. I know it. I got one t’ing to ask you. Not but one. You’ll do it, enty? I couldn’ rest in my grave--if you fail me----”

His breath cut off his words and he closed his eyes as it came with a rattle through his teeth. Uncle Bill called Breeze to open the window.

“Open em easy, son. Don’ wake up Joy, not yet,” he cautioned.

“Not yet,” April’s whisper echoed.

Outside, the black trees sounded restless. An uneasy pattering and rustling ran through the dry lips of the leaves. Flying insects buzzed into the room and beat against the walls with noisy humming wings. Moths flew wildly about the glass lamp on the floor at the foot of the bed. They were crazed by its smoky yellow bitter-smelling light.

“Uncle----” April’s breath stifled, his eyes widened with the strain, but he forced his lips to twist out the words he wanted to say.

“Bury me in a man-size box---- You un’erstan’?-- A man--size--box---- I--been--six--feet--fo’--Uncle---- Six feet--fo’!”

The blaze in his eyes fell back, cold, dim. A long shudder swept over him. The tide had turned.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.