Part 6

The red rooster out in the china-berry tree crowed huskily. It was hot. The blossoms thick on the tree out there were too heavy sweet. Their fragrance filled the cabin. They made breathing an effort. Rose couldn’t sleep. Killdee lay so quiet, he must be asleep.

Rose sent out a prayer in the darkness; a prayer for her baby, that God, wherever He was, would take care of her little girl. Then she prayed for Jim. She prayed again for herself, that she’d get well--well as she was before Sis was born---- Then she prayed for Killdee, that he would have longer patience--and be happier--and get saved from sin.

But her thoughts wandered. She was praying here in the darkness. Where was God that He could hear her?

A fear of things crept into her heart--a fear of the dark, of what she didn’t know. Her fear made her get closer to Killdee and, gently lifting his heavy arm, she put it over her. She somehow felt protected by it, and soon fell into a heavy sleep.

* * * * *

When breakfast was ready the next morning, Killdee got up and ate hurriedly and went to the field with his mule and plow. Missie followed with a hoe. Rose stood in the door and watched them going to the field. Killdee looked tired, though the day’s work had not begun. His lean shoulders were stooped, and he was only a young man.

The plow was rickety. Missie did the best she could, but she was little and the grass was tough and wiry.

But this was Monday morning. Rose didn’t have time to be standing there thinking foolish, useless thoughts. No! She had work to do.

First, she sat down by the hearth and ate a bite of breakfast; then covered up what was left in the pot and put it closer to the coals to keep warm until Jim woke.

She hadn’t slept well last night. The china-berry blossoms were too sweet, and the red rooster kept crowing all through the night. She had never heard him crow so loud before. He woke up baby Sis two or three times. Jim never waked for anything. No. He was a good sleeper. That was why he grew so fast.

She went to the bed where he lay asleep. In the early morning light her two chubby, little black children looked almost exactly alike. One was a very little larger than the other. Rose looked with pride at Jim’s soft, round chin; his curved cheek. The full lips, slightly parted, showed teeth white as new milk. A sturdy little boy, but Rose shook her head as she looked, and her eyes filled with tears. Jim’s little clothes were all ragged.

The red rooster gave a shrill crow right at the doorway. Baby Sis, asleep in the cradle beside Rose’s own bed, woke and cried out sharply. Rose went quickly to her and took her up and held her close and murmured:

“Did de bad ol’ rooster wake up my baby? E did! E skeery ’em. Go to sleep----”

She sat in the creaky rocking-chair and crooned to the child she fed at her breast.

The sun had risen bright and hot. A light breeze fluttered through the leaves of the china-berry tree outside and came in through the door, cooler than the fire-warmed air inside the cabin.

Rose rocked back and forth till Sis’s little eyelids fell, then she kissed the fuzzy little head gently and, rising carefully, tipped over to the cradle and laid the baby down.

The red rooster crowed. Baby Sis’s bright eyes opened wide. Rose leaned over and patted the soft little body and rocked the cradle till the heavy eyelids closed tight again. Then she went to the door and waved her apron fiercely at the red rooster.

“Git on off!” she whispered angrily at him. “Git on off! Sometime I wish you was dead! You won’ let nobody sleep een de night wid you crowin’! Now you keep wakin’ my baby up! Quit you doin’s! I got work fo’ do! I ain’ got time fo’ be runnin’ you ’way f’om de do’! Shoo!”

He ran away cackling with terror. Rose began getting up the clothes to wash. This was Monday morning. She piled them all together in the middle of the floor. Then she took up each garment, piece by piece. She must find where there were missing buttons or torn, worn places.

A small paper box sat on the mantelshelf, a box that had once held shells for Killdee’s gun. Now it held her one needle and a ball of coarse thread. She drew the rocking-chair to the door where there was light, and with her big-eyed needle and coarse thread, she repaired the clothing carefully.

The big, black, iron wash-pot sat out in the yard not far from the woodpile. Killdee and Missie had filled it on Saturday. Rose built up a hot fire under it. She took the two wooden washtubs out from under the house and put them up on a bench by the cabin, in the shade of the china-berry tree. Then she brought out the clothes and separated the white ones from the colored ones. With a tin bucket she dipped hot water from the big, iron pot and poured it into the tubs. Soon she was bending her body up and down, up and down, over the wash-board, and white soap-suds foamed through her fingers.

She sang as she worked, a low, spiritual melody. She felt happier, somehow. Work was good, after all. It helps people to shed their troubles. As she washed each garment in one tub, she dropped it into the other tub to be washed again. They’d all be clean when she finished with them.

The red rooster hopped up in the doorway. Rose did not see him. He peeped around carefully to see if she heard him, but she was thinking just then she would have to be careful or the soap would not last through this washing. Jim and Killdee used so many clothes this rainy weather. So many more than she did, or Missie. They got them so dirty too. She didn’t mind that, bless their hearts, if the soap would hold out. Rubbing clothes without soap made sorry washing.

The red rooster stepped cautiously inside the cabin. He was hungry and curious, and with Rose out of sight he was bold.

He looked at the pot on the hearth. The fire coals near it blinked red and hot. He was afraid to go closer to them.

He looked all around the room. A few white threads were scattered on the floor. He pecked at one. It hung on his beak, a tasteless, annoying thing. He shook it off with a croak of disgust.

Jim was a sound sleeper. He did not wake. But Baby Sis’s ears were keen. Her eyes opened wide and caught sight of the red rooster’s glossy, bright feathers and his scarlet comb. She cooed with delight.

The red rooster listened and walked timidly up to the cradle. He stretched his neck and looked over the side to see what was there. Tiny dimpled fists and small black feet jerked uncertainly, quickly. Two black eyes danced and sparkled.

The red rooster leaned a little closer. The child seemed harmless enough.

He was hungry. He had not had a single grain that morning. Not a crumb. Rose and Missie and Killdee had all forgotten to feed him.

The hens were scratching for worms, but it was very hot. They had to hold their wings out away from their bodies while they scratched. A tiresome thing.

Maybe these two, bright shiny eyes would be good to eat. He would have to be quick to get them. They didn’t keep still like blackberries. No, but maybe they tasted better.

His yellow beak was sharp and his long neck was strong, and he gave a swift peck.

Rose outside was washing and singing, but she heard the strangled gasp of terror, the silent held breath, then the shrill, heart-breaking scream.

She flew up the cabin steps, stumbling over the frightened red rooster. He squawked and cackled with terror and tried to fly past her out through the door.

It was easy to see what had happened. A bloody hole gaped, then it poured out red tears.

Rose’s eyes dazzled. She picked up the child and held her close while she stumbled blindly, wildly over the soft furrows to where Killdee worked to kill grass in the field. Killdee would know what to do. He’d know.

“Killdee--Killdee----” she moaned as she went, “mah po’ lil baby---- Looka wha’ de rooster done to em, Killdee----”

Killdee heard her and went running to meet her. Missie ran too. Killdee looked once at Sis’s poor little blood-stained face and turned away with a breath that whistled sharp through his teeth. His mouth went hard. His lips taut.

Why couldn’t he speak? What was the matter with him?

Rose put out a hand to touch him, then drew it back.

He was laughing--no--not laughing, either, but his face was working curiously----

Missie followed his eyes as they looked wistfully across the fields where heat waves danced merrily in the hot sunshine. What was Killdee thinking? Why was he so quiet?

“Yinner mus’ be blame me--yinner won’ say nuttin’,” Rose sobbed. Killdee said slowly, hoarsely:

“No--I dunno nuttin’ fo’ say----”

Rose turned away crying. Killdee was blaming her. She had let the rooster get in. It was Monday. She had to wash. He knew that.

“Look lak you’d come kill de rooster--Killdee---- Don’ look lak you’d stan’ up dere an’ don’ say nuttin,--an’ don’ do nuttin’----”

Killdee held out his arms.

“Gi’ Sis to me, Rose. Lemme tote em home fo’ you. Missie, you go walk behime Mike. He kin keep to de row an’ plow tell I git back. You des hol’ de plow up fo em.”

With the child in his arms, he walked toward the cabin. Rose followed him, sobbing and saying as she went:

“I can’ wash no mo’ to-day. No. Not at mah baby eye done pick out---- You haffer kill da rooster, Killdee. I can’ stan’ fo’ hab em roun’ de do’ no mo’--no--not at e pick mah baby eye out. I know all de time somet’ing been gwine happen. Nobody wouldn’ lis’n at me when I talk--nobody wouldn’ pray, but me.”

Killdee did not answer, but he remembered how the new moon hid behind the china-berry tree last night. Bad luck had come. Yes.

When he killed the rooster, he’d cut the damned tree down too.

_Teaching Jim_

Killdee walked home beside the load of wood. In a kind voice he urged Mike on. The sun was going down.

Far across the cotton field it shone red. As Killdee lifted serious eyes to look at it, his lean, gaunt, black face saddened.

The sun that set in Baby Rose’s grave was red, just like this sunset. Red like the fire that burned her tender baby flesh and killed her. He never saw a red sunset without thinking of little Baby Rose.

Now as he thought, his tired eyes filled with tears, and through the tears, the red coppery glow glistened, and flashed and gleamed mockingly before him.

Killdee heaved a deep sigh--a sigh so deep as to be almost a sob. He thought of Baby Jim there at home. Chubby little Baby Jim. Bright-eyed, brown, dimpled, with fuzzy little black wool just beginning to grow on his head.

Little Jim knew his daddy--knew him as well as Rose and Missie did. Jim loved him, too. He always came toddling with funny, uncertain steps to meet him.

Jim had already learned not to fall out of the door any more. He had learned that by falling over and over. He knew how it hurt. When he stood in the doorway, ready to go down the steps now, Rose and Missie laughed at the way Jim’s tiny fingers clutched the door-facing.

Jim laughed with them too. Perhaps he didn’t know why they laughed, but he always tried to join in whatever other people did. Good little Jim!

The thought of Jim cheered Killdee. Jim was his. His son. For Jim he was willing for hard work to crack his very sinews. For Jim’s sake he tried to be careful. Never again would he stir the earth on Green Thursday. Never.

Jim was a part of himself. Jim’s little hands, his funny little words, his stumbling, uncertain little feet, were the most precious things on earth.

Jim thought his old daddy was the greatest thing. The greatest man. Jim thought he was great as God! Jim didn’t know any better.

He liked to play in the fire just as Baby Rose had liked to do. He must be taught not to do it. He must learn that fire burns.

Baby Rose lay yonder in the graveyard in the little pine box Andrew made to fit her, with the heavy red earth piled up on her, all by her little lonesome self, because the thing she loved best to play with had killed her.

He ought to have taken her and shown her how it felt to be burned. She would not forget pain. No. But he didn’t think about it. He thought she would learn by herself.

Why did God make people like the things that would hurt them? Kill them? Why didn’t He let them know danger?

Winter was here. Fire had to burn big and bright in the chimney to keep the cabin warm. All day it must burn and at night be banked deep with ashes so it wouldn’t die out.

Cold weather was here. Even on fair days, Jim would have to stay inside the cabin to keep warm. Rose would be in the field. Missie, too. Rows of brown stalks still held fluffy, white cotton.

Rose and Missie would have to help pick the cotton. Killdee couldn’t gather it by himself. Sometimes nobody would be left at home with Jim.

If Jim were a little older he would be safe, for he’d know that fire burns. But Jim, happy little Jim, did not know it yet. Already he tried to take straws and sticks and hold them in the fire to see them blaze. When Rose or Missie scolded him and made him drop his pretty plaything, Jim didn’t understand why. He’d watch it when they made him drop it on the hearth, and his little lips would quiver because he couldn’t keep it in his hand.

Killdee sighed as he trudged on homeward. The time had come. He must teach little Jim that fire burns! Telling him so did no good. He’d have to show him. To-night he’d have to show him. He and Rose and Missie had talked it over. They had decided. It must be done. Jim must learn that fire burns.

When Killdee got nearer the dusky little cabin by the side of the road, two little black children stood on the doorstep waving at him. Black smoke rushed briskly out of the broad clay chimney. Bright sparks rose with it, shone and died.

A strange thing, fire! Burning inside there, hot, strong, fierce, while Rose cooked the supper. That fire was a good, kind friend that cooked food for them and kept them warm. Yet, it could scorch and kill a baby’s body, too.--Just as it ate up strong wood and turned it to ashes.

When those bright sparks rose and went out, where did they go? Killdee watched them. They sparked, raced, and were gone. Where?

Where did Baby Rose go?

Missie and Jim were coming running to meet him. Killdee stopped Mike and waited. Jim must have a ride. Missie was picking Jim up in her arms to bring him. He walked too slow to keep up with her.

Killdee took Jim from her and set him on the pile of wood in the wagon and put the rope lines into the chubby hands. Missie shouted and laughed when Jim shook the lines and tried to make patient, old Mike go faster.

When Mike stopped with his head at the wide gate of the barnyard, Killdee took Jim down and gave him back into Missie’s arms. He struggled and kicked and screamed to stay with his daddy, but Killdee smiled, and said gently:

“Tek him on een de house, Missie. Night air ain’ good fo’ lil chillen. Jim don’ know no better. Tek him on.”

As Killdee loosened the collar from Mike’s neck, he said to himself:

“Dey’s a lot he don’ know, po’ lil Jim! But I reckon none o’ we don’ know much, atter all.”

When Killdee went into the house, Rose was cooking supper on the open fire.

The chimney’s wide, black, sooty mouth, which stretched across one side of the room, was filled with logs of wood. A great fire licked at them with smacking, hungry tongues. Yellow flames crackled and roared up the chimney, devouring the logs, while red and blue flames played over the coals.

Pot hooks fastened firmly in the stone and clay held black iron pots in the blaze. The sandy hearth held three-legged pots. Pots with handles. Iron kettles. Iron spiders. All had tight-fitting covers. They sat black and comfortable. Missie had just scoured them clean and they were waiting there, ready to be used.

Ashes piled in one corner on the fireplace lay very still, until a puff of steam from underneath raised them like dust, and a fragrant smell went out into the room. Sweet potatoes were roasting there.

In another corner, corn shucks showed through a mound of ashes. Spurts of steam sizzing out made the mound heave like a small volcano. Ash cake was cooking there.

A frying-pan sat on live coals pulled out on the hearth. Slices of fat bacon sputtered and spit and curled around the edges as Rose dropped them on it. Good smells filled the room and streamed out of the open door to where the two little black children sat in the half-light.

They sniffed and laughed and got up and came running inside. Both hurried to the cupboard for a pan. Then to the shelf for a spoon. Little Jim did whatever Missie did. The frying bacon was the supper bell. They knew supper was ready when they smelled it. Killdee, coming in, saw them and smiled wistfully.

When their pans were helped, Missie and Jim sat on the floor to eat. When all the pans were empty, Missie washed them and put them away. Jim crawled up into Killdee’s lap.

“Sonny,” said Killdee, “is you lub you ol’ daddy?”

Jim answered with a bear-like hug.

“Sonny--” Killdee’s voice sounded queer and broken, “wha’ mek you play een de fire?”

Killdee took the baby’s fat fingers and looked at them.

Rose sat by the firelight with her patching.

“Killdee----” She leaned forward. Fear warped her face. “Killdee, wha’ you gwine do?”

“Honey----” Killdee met her eyes, then turned his own to the fire. Jim sat up and looked at each of them. Reaching up, he patted Killdee’s rough cheek.

“Ol’ Pa,” he said, laughing mischievously, “Ol’ Pa.”

Killdee looked at Rose. Her face was queer and drawn.

“I can’ ha’dly stan’ fo’ do em, Rose, but looka da fire. S’pose--s’pose----”

The strong oak logs were already crumbling to ashes, turning from fiery red to gray.

“Jim will play een de fire. Nobody can’ stop em. ’E’s a lil, ign’ant, trus’ful baby. ’E is. I better show em how fire kin bu’n. I better. Don’ look at me sorrowful, Rose. It hu’t me clean to my heart.”

Rose’s hands clasped and unclasped. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Killdee kept trying to comfort her.

“People mus’ try fo show dey chillen how t’ings kin pain ’em. An’ kill ’em. Mebbe ef we had a show lil Rose ’bout fire--I dunno. Some t’ings _is to be_, I reckon. Maum Hannah say Baby Rose’s time was out.

“Tellin’ people don’ do no good. You haffer show em. Suffer em.”

The bright flames rippled innocently. They gave out a warm, kind light.

“You might be right, Killdee,” Rose tried to agree, but her breath caught with a sob.

Killdee turned up Jim’s small brown palm and looked at it. How could he burn it? How? Yet he must.

His strong fingers tightened sternly. He leaned forward and yook up a hot, live coal off the hearth, and laid it on Jim’s tender fingers.

The baby’s scream, the woman’s cry, the man’s groan, sounded all together. Missie came running to see what was wrong. Big tears rolled down her thin cheeks. She looked at Killdee with big, solemn eyes, then turned away without a word and went slowly back to bed in the shed room.

She understood. Little Jim had to be taught his lesson. Killdee had to do it. It was the only way.

Jim sobbed himself to sleep in Killdee’s lap. Sorrow had come to him without warning from the very one he loved best. His hand was burned and his baby heart was cut to the quick.

Killdee gave him to Rose and walked out into the night. He looked up at the stars. They shone up there like sparks that never did go out. He wondered if Baby Rose was up there--up there with them, and God.

_Catfish_

Killdee came home from the Cross-roads store one Saturday afternoon and his black face was bright with enthusiasm.

“Rose,” he said, taking a chair and putting it up close to the hearth where an iron pot simmered industriously with catfish stew, “I got a good plan. A good one. Lemme tell you ’bout em.”

Rose looked up from her sewing.

“Wha’ e is?” she asked with interest.

“I dunno wha’ you gwine t’ink ’bout em. We can’ hab much catfish fo’ eat ef I do em.”

Killdee breathed in the appetizing smell thoughtfully.

“Wha’ you duh talk ’bout, Killdee?” Rose asked, puzzled indeed.

He laughed and said teasingly:

“Guess wha’ e is.”

“Oh, go on an’ tell me,” she urged him.

“Well, dis is it. A man sellin’ futilizer wuz at de sto’ dis ebenin’. I heah him talkin’ ’bout de crops an’ t’ing. ’E say fish-scrap is de bes’ futilizer een de bunch. It’ll mek cawn an’ cotton grow off faster dan anyt’ing. De futilizer man say de factory meks de pure, naked fish into fish-scrap.”

Rose forgot all about the fish-stew in the pot there on the coals while Killdee described to her what he had heard. How big boats go on the ocean with wide, long nets, which they spread around schools of fish. How the fish are caught and carried to a place where they are ground up and sacked and sold to farmers for high prices.

“Lawd, Rose, ef I could mek my own futilizer! Ef I didn’t hab to buy none! We’d hab mo’ money dan we’d know wha’ fo’ do wid.”

Rose listened thoughtfully. It sounded wonderful indeed.

“But you ain’ got nuttin’ fo’ grind up de fish wid, Killdee.”

“No. Da’s so. But de fish don’ haffer be grind up. I could easy put dem een de groun’ an’ dey’d rot befo’ you know it. I gwine try em.”

Before many days passed, Killdee had fish traps made of split hickory strips set all along the bank of the tawny river. He used corn meal cooked into thick lumps for bait.

Every morning by daylight he was there at his traps getting out the fat catfish.

“How-come you goes to de ribber so reglar, son?” Maum Hannah asked him one morning, as he passed her cabin.

“I’m a-tryin’ fo’ git catfish,” he answered.

Maum Hannah thought he had a guilty look. She wondered what Killdee was doing back there on the river every day. Maybe he had a still.

“Better mine,” she warned, “you gwine ketch de fever. Too much o’ ribber swamp ain’ good. You better not be mekkin’ whiskey back dere. Mine! I heah you been gittin’ a lot o’ cawn mek eento meal, too. Mine!”

Killdee kept on patiently, persistently, until every stalk of corn in his field had a catfish right at its root. When those fish rotted, what a crop of corn he would have! His crop would be ahead of all the other crops, and he’d have no fertilizer bill to pay.

His fingers were often sore with poison from the catfish fins, and it did take a lot of meal for the bait, but Killdee felt he’d more than make it all back.

In the Fall he’d have more corn than he needed. He’d sell some. The barn would be full. The mule fat. The hogs would make bacon enough to last all year. Killdee was happy over the good work he was doing.

When every stalk was fed with a fish at its roots, he decided to go over and tell Maum Hannah all about it. He’d give her a load of the corn when it was made. She was so good to his folks. Now would be his chance to do something for her.

That night when supper was over, he took the path across the field and went to her cabin. His heart and step were light.

“How you dis ebenin’, Auntie?” he greeted her, as he walked right in through the open door.

“Come een, son. You had supper yet? I’m des’ now sta’tin’ fo’ eat.”

Maum Hannah was always glad to see him. She pointed to a chair.

“Yes’m, I done eat. You go on. Don’ stop. I des’ come fo’ talk wid you a lil, an’ fo’ see how you do.” His face was beaming. Maum Hannah’s eyes twinkled mischievously as she rallied: “I’d do better to-night ef I had catfish stew fo’ eat wid my bread. How-come you don’ bring me catfish no mo’?”

Killdee grinned.

“Da’s de bery t’ing I come fo’ talk wid you ’bout,” he said.

“I don’ see no fish een you han’, dough,” she answered.

“No’m, but I come fo’ tell you wha’ I duh do wid all dem catfish I catch. I feeds my cawn fiel’ on dem fish, ’stead o’ you an’ Rose an’ de chillen.” Killdee laughed heartily at his joke.

“Yes’m. Da same cawn fiel’ out yonder is got a catfish to eby stalk. You wait tell it rain. Da’s gwine be de fines’ piece o’ cawn een dis country. Da’s de reason I been gwine to de ribber so reg’lar. I been baitin’ fish wid all da meal.”

Maum Hannah grunted.

“Whe’ you heah o’ sich a t’ing, son?”