BLACK APRIL

BLACK APRIL

by Julia Peterkin

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers
by arrangement with
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

Copyright, 1927
By The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Printed in the United States of America

To

JULIUS MOOD

CONTENTS

BLACK APRIL

BLACK APRIL

I
APRIL’S FATHER

The cool spring dusk fell drowsy and soft over Sandy Island, all but blotting out a log cabin that nestled under great moss-hung oaks close to the river’s edge. The small drab weather-stained house would scarcely have shown except for the fire that burned inside, sending a bright glow through its wide-open door and showers of sparks up its short stick-and-clay chimney.

A gaunt, elderly black man strode hastily toward it along the path leading up from the river and went inside, but in a few minutes he came to stand in the doorway, his bulk well-nigh filling it as one broad shoulder leaned dejectedly against the lintel. When a moan came from inside, his brawny hands clenched and buckled in a foolish helpless way, and a frown knitted his forehead as he cast a glance at the old black woman who pattered back and forth from the hearth to the bed in the corner with a cupful of root-tea or a bit of hot grease in a spoon or a pinch of salt in the palm of her hand.

Once in a while she called to him that everything was going well. To-morrow this same girl would laugh at all these groans and tears. Birthing a child is tough work. He must have patience. Long patience. Nobody can hurry a slow-coming child.

The fire crackled and leaped higher, lighting the dirt-daubed cracks of the walls, shining under the bed where it played over the freshly sharpened point of a plow-share. A share ground and filed and put under a bed is the best thing in the world to cut birth-pains, but this one lagged with its work. Its clean edge glittered bright enough, yet as time dragged on the pains lingered and the expected child tarried with its coming.

The moon must be to blame. This new moon was right for planting seed but wrong for birthing. Swift labor comes with a waning moon, not a growing one.

The man heaved a deep sigh and looked out into the gathering twilight. The slender young moon was dropping fast. This birthing ought to get over. When the river’s tide turned, life could go out mighty quickly. Ebb tide is a dangerous time for sick people.

Old Granny was too slow. Too easy-going. When this same girl was born sixteen years ago, or was it seventeen, Granny had a long race with Death and lost, yet here she was poking around with her roots and teas, trifling away the time.

“Granny,” he stopped to clear the huskiness out of his throat, “better make haste. De tide’ll soon turn. Ebb tide ain’ to be trusted, you know.”

A wry smile shriveled Granny’s face. “You’s too short-patienced, Breeze. Dis is a long-patienced task. It takes time. You better go cut one more turn o’ fat lightwood an’ fetch em in. De fire is got to keep up shine to-night.”

A pitiful moan from the corner stopped her talk, and, with an echoing grunt, the man stepped down into the yard.

Granny’s shaking head bobbed faster as she watched him hurry to the wood-pile and pick up the ax. Her trembling hands drew her shawl closer around her bent shoulders. Lord, how time does change people, she muttered to herself. Breeze was no mild fellow in his youth. No. He was a wild scamp. But when his own girl got in trouble, he r’ared around and wanted to kill the man that fooled her. As if she wasn’t to blame too. A good thing the girl had sense enough to keep her mouth shut. Nobody could make her say who the father of her child was. She was a shut-mouthed creature. But spoiled to death. Rotten spoiled. No wonder. Here she was, disgracing her father’s house, after he had raised her nice as could be, but he hadn’t a hard word for her. Not one. If he hadn’t humored her all her life to everything heart could wish, she’d get to work and finish this birthing before dark, instead of keeping people fretted with worry-ation all day and now, more than likely, half the night. But as long as her soft-hearted old father took her part, Granny was helpless, and her scolding did no good.

The sturdy ax-cuts that rang out gave Granny an idea. That ax was sharp and clean. The plow-share was hampered with rust. Why wouldn’t the ax cut the birth-pains far better? Hurrying back to the door she quavered out shrilly, “Bring me dat ax, Breeze! Hurry wid em.”

He came with it, but halted at the door. He had ground that ax only this morning. Its edge was awful keen. This was no time to be risking anything. Granny had better be careful.

Granny stretched her old neck forward and her forehead furrowed with a frown as she said sharply that as long as she’d been catching children, if she couldn’t rule an ax, she’d better quit right now and go home! She couldn’t stand for people to meddle with her when she was doing her best. What did a man know about birthing? Put the ax beside the share. Together they’d fetch the child like a lamb a-jumping!

When steel jangled against steel under the bed, Granny ordered sharply, “Now you git out de door till I call you. You ought to be glad for de pain to suffer dis gal. I’m so shame of how e done, I can’ hold my head up. I hope to Gawd you’ll lick em till e can’ stand up, soon as e gits out dis bed. I never did hear no ’oman make sich a racket! E ought not to much as crack e teeth! I wish e was my gal. I’d show em how to be runnin’ round a-gittin’ chillen, stead o’ gittin’ a nice settled man fo’ a husband.” Granny eyed the girl, then her unhappy old father, severely, but her talk was to no purpose, for old Breeze’s eyes were bloodshot with pity, his very soul distressed.

“You’s wrong, Granny. I used to t’ink like you, but I know better now. If de gal’ll git thu dis safe, I wouldn’ hold no hard feelin’s ’gainst em. Never in dis world.” He leaned over the bed and gave the girl’s shoulder a gentle pat, but Granny hurried him away. This was no time for petting and being soft. Some hard work waited to be done. The sooner the girl got at it, the sooner it would be finished.

“Quit you’ crazy talk an’ go on out de door! Don’ come back in dis room, not less I call you.”

Granny spoke so sharply, he obeyed humbly, without another word.

The breath of the earth was thick in the air, a good clean smell that went clear to the marrow of the man’s bones. God made the first man out of dust, and all men go back to it in the end. The earth had been sleeping, resting through the winter, but now, with the turn of the year, it had roused, and it offered life to all that were fit and strong. The corn crop, planted on the last young moon when the dogwood blooms were the size of squirrel ears, was up to a stand wherever the crows let it alone. Pesky devils! They watched every blade that peeped through the ground and plucked it out with the mother grain, cawing right in the face of the scare-crow that stood up in the field to scare them, although its head, made out of a pot, and its stuffed crocus sack body were ugly enough to scare a man. To-morrow he’d hide and call them. He could fool them close enough to shoot them. It was a pity to waste shells on birds unfit for man or beast to eat and with too little grease on their bones to add a drop to the soap pot, but there’d soon be another mouth to feed here.

To-morrow, he must plant the cotton while the young moon waxed strong. There was much to do. He needed help. Maybe this child being born would be a boy-child, a help for his old age. A sorrowful woman will bear a boy-child, nine times out of ten, and God knows, that girl had been sorrowful. When she helped him plant the corn, she had dropped a tear in mighty nigh every hill along with the seed. No wonder it grew fast.

Soon as the moon waned, the root crops, potatoes, pindars, chufas, turnips, must be planted. Field plants have no sense. If you plant crops that fruit above the ground on a waning moon, they get all mixed up and bear nothing but heavy roots, and root crops planted on a waxing moon will go all to rank tops no matter how you try to stop them. Plants have to be helped along or they waste time and labor, just the same as children you undertake to raise. That poor little girl was started off wrong.

She was born on a moon so wrong that her mammy died in her birthing. He had done his best to raise the little motherless creature right, but he made a bad mistake when he let her go to Blue Brook without him last summer. She went to meet his kin and to attend the revival meeting. She was full of life and raven for pleasure. He couldn’t refuse her when she asked to go. But he hadn’t made her understand that those Blue Brook men were wicked devils. He knew it. He had been one of them himself. Poor little girl, she knew it now! Now when it was too late for anybody to help her out of her trouble.

Years ago, over thirty of them, he had left Blue Brook and come to Sandy Island on account of a girl. She had named her child April because it was born this very month. Afterward, she had married and forgotten him. Now she was dead, but her child, April, was the finest man on Blue Brook. Barely middle-aged, April was already the plantation foreman, ruling the other farm-hands, telling them what to do, what not to do, and raising the best crops in years. April had made a name for himself. Everybody who came from Blue Brook had something to say about him, either of his kindness or of his meanness, his long patience or his quick temper, his open-handedness or his close-fistedness. On Blue Brook, April was a man among men.

He had seen him, a tall, lean, black, broad-shouldered fellow, so much like himself that it was a wonder everybody didn’t know that he was April’s daddy. But they didn’t. For April’s mother had been as close-mouthed as the girl lying yonder on the bed. She never did tell who fooled her and made her have sin. She died without telling.

Some day he’d like to tell April himself. But after all, what was the use? April had taken the name of his mother’s lawful husband and he loved the man who had raised him as well as an own father could have done. Why upset them?

Granny’s shambling steps inside the cabin took his thoughts back to the girl there. If the child was born on this rising tide, it would more than likely be a boy-child. April would be a good name for him too. April was a lucky month to be born in; it was a lucky name too. If the child came a girl, Katy, the name of April’s mother, would be a good name for it.

The spring air wafted clouds of fragrance from the underwoods bordering the forest. Crab-apple thickets and white haw trees were in full bloom. Yellow jasmine smothered whole tree-tops. Cherokee roses starry with blossoms sprawled over rail fences and rotting stumps, piercing through all other scents with their delicate perfume.

Sandy Island looked just so, smelled just so, on that April night when he came here so many years ago. He thought then that he’d go back some day and fetch Katy here to stay with him. But the years had tricked him, fooled him. They had rolled by so fast he’d lost track of them, and of Katy and her boy, April. Now, he was almost an old man, and Katy was up yonder in Heaven. His own lawful wife and his other boy, his yard son, were up there too. Had Katy told them about April? Or would she stay shut-mouthed for ever and ever?

As he wondered and pondered about the ways of people in Heaven, the river, gorged by a high spring tide, slowly flooded the rice-fields encircling the island. The black water lapped softly as it rippled over the broken dikes and passed through the rotted flood-gates, hiding the new green shoots of the marsh grass and uprooting the tall faded blades, that had stood through the winter on the boggy mud flats.

Frogs chanted. Marsh-hens chattered. Wood ducks piped and splashed. Ganits flew in long lines toward the sunset, squawking hoarsely and flapping the air with blue and white wings. Partridges whistled. Doves mourned. Where were the groans from the bed in the corner? Maybe all was over at last.

Granny stood in the door beckoning him to come. Her harshness was all gone. She hobbled down the steps and came tottering to meet him, then laying a bony hand on his shoulder she whispered that the ax was too sharp. It had cut the pains off altogether. They had ceased too soon and she couldn’t get them started again. She had tried every tea she knew. Every root. Every ointment. Every charm. She was at her row’s end. This moon was all wrong for birthing. A young moon makes things go contrarywise. The child should have waited a week longer to start coming. And two weeks would have been still better.

The girl had dozed off in spite of everything. He must come and try to rouse her up. Girls behave so crazy these days. They do like nobody ever had birthed a child before them. She was fretted half to death the way this girl carried on. He must come and make her behave. If she had been a nice decent girl, all this would never have been.

The girl’s eyes opened and looked up at him, and he leaned low over the bed to hear her whispered words. She spoke with worn-out tired breath, begging him to go and get help from somewhere. She hated to die in sin, and leave him, but she couldn’t hold out much longer. Death already had her feet cold as ice, it was creeping up to her knees. Couldn’t he take the boat and go across the river to Blue Brook? Wasn’t somebody there who could come to help her?

He studied. Certainly there was. Maum Hannah, his own first cousin, had a string of charm beads their old grandmother had brought all the way from Africa when she came on a slave ship. They and the charm words that ruled them were left in Maum Hannah’s hands. Ever since he was a boy, living on Blue Brook, he had heard people say that those beads had never failed to help a woman birth a child safely. No matter how it came, head foremost, foot foremost, or hand foremost, it was all the same when those charm beads got to working.

He’d go fetch Maum Hannah. She’d come. Old as she was, she’d risk the booming river if her beads were needed to help a child come into the world.

His boat was a dug-out and narrow for two people in a river running backward in a flood-tide, but she’d come. He felt sure of it. Barefooted, bareheaded, without a coat, he ran down the steep slope to the black water’s edge, and soon the sharp bow of his boat, driven by one short paddle, sliced through the current. Swift wheeling circles of water marked every steady dip it made. Hugging the willow banks, the boat hurried on, then cut straight across the river. Thank God, the high-running tide made the rice-fields a clear sheet of water. The boat could take a bee line to Blue Brook without bothering about how the channel ran beyond the river. The landing aimed for was on a deep, clear blue creek, which gave the plantation its name, Blue Brook. The man’s knees were shaking as he stepped out of the boat and dragged it higher up on the bank to wait until he came back with Maum Hannah and the beads. Up the path he trotted, to the Quarters where the long low houses made blurs of darkness under tall black trees. The thick-leaved branches rose against the sky, where the fires of sunset had lately died and the moon had gone to its bed.

Rattly wagons hurried over the roads. Cattle bellowed. Children shouted. Dogs barked. An ax rang sharply and a clear voice sent up a song. “Bye an’ bye, when de mawnin’ comes!” How trustful it sounded. He tried to hum the tune, but fear gnawed at his heart and beat drums in his ears and throat and breast.

He was born and reared on Blue Brook. He knew every path and road on it. Every field and ditch and thicket. Every moss-hung oak. He had lived right yonder in the foreman’s house with his grandfather, the plantation foreman. The foreman now was his son! His blood kin. A proud fellow, that April! Lord, how April strutted and gave himself airs!

The darkness melted everything into one. The whiteness of the Big House was dim.

Fences, cabins, trees, earth were being swallowed up by the night.

Maum Hannah’s cabin was the last in those two long rows of houses, and firelight shining out from her wide-open door sent a glow clear across her yard. She was at home. It wouldn’t take long to get her and the charm beads into the boat, then back across the river.

Black people were gathered in the doorways, most of them his kin with whom he’d like to stop and talk, but there was no time for one extra word, even with April, the foreman. Dogs ran up to him, sniffed, recognized that he was of the same blood as their masters, and went back to lie down.

II
APRIL’S SON

Taking Maum Hannah’s three steps as one, he called out a breathless greeting:

“How you do, Cun [Cousin] Hannah?”

She was stirring a pot on the hearth and the long spoon clattered against the iron sides she dropped it. “Who dat call me?” She limped backward a few halting paces and gazed at him with questioning eyes.

“Dis is me, old man Breeze! Git you birthin’ beads quick an’ come go home wid me!”

She stared at him vacantly. “Fo’ Gawd’s sake, who is you?” She whispered sharply.

“You don’ know me? Is you gone blind, Hannah?”

Her arms dropped weakly as she peered at him, taking in his bare feet, his patched clothes, his shirt, open at the neck, showing the swell of his throat, the panting of his breast. With a sudden burst of laughter she reached out and took his hand. “Lawd, Breeze, I thought sho’ you was Grampa’s sperit come fo’ me! You scared me well-nigh to death, son! Come on een an’ set down! Jedus, I’m glad to see you! But you is de very spit o’ Grampa!”

“I can’ set, Hannah. I ain’ Grampa’s sperit, but I sho’ did come to git you! My li’l’ gal is ’bout to die, Hannah. E can’ birth e chile to save life, no matter how hard e try. Git Gramma’s birthin’ beads. You got to go wid me. I couldn’ stan’ to le’ dat li’l’ gal die, an’ don’ do all I can to save em. E’s so pitiful in e pain.”

Maum Hannah grunted. “Pain don’ kill a ’oman, son. It takes pain to make em work steady till de task is done. I can’ stop no pain! No, Jedus! De gal might be well by now anyhow.”

But he was firm. “Listen to me, Hannah! You got to go home wid me to-night! Now! In a hurry! Make haste, too!”

“It’s a mighty black night since de moon is gone down.”

“Bein’ black don’ matter. I know de way. You come on, Hannah.”

“I declare to Gawd, my cripple knee is so painful I don’ know ef I could git in a boat.”

“Den I’ll tote you, but you sho’ got to come.”

“I’m mighty ’f’aid o’ boats an’ water in de daytime much less at night.” She leaned down to fix the sticks on the fire, but he caught her roughly by the arm.

“Don’ you tarry, Hannah. You come on right now!”

“What kind o’ boat you got?”

“De boat’s narrow an’ de river’s high, but you got strong heart, enty? You’ll be as safe wid me in dat boat as ef you was settin’ right here by de fire in your rockin’ chair. I promised my li’l’ gal to fetch you an’ you’ birthin’ beads ef e would hold out till I git back. You better come on! Gramma’ll hant you sho’ as you fail me to-night!”

Maum Hannah sighed deep. “I know I got to go, scared as I is. A boat on a floodin’ river is a turrible t’ing, but I sho’ don’ want Gramma’s sperit to git no grudge against me. Catchin’ chillen is Jedus’ business anyhow, an’ de river belongs to Jedus, same as me an’ you, I reckon. You wait till I git de beads out de trunk. Sometimes I wish Gramma didn’ leave me dem beads. It’s de truth!”

She groped her way to the shed-room and fumbled in a trunk, then called out that she needed a light. He broke a splinter off from a stick of fat lightwood on the hearth and, lighting it, took it to her. The small flame blazed up, sputtering and hissing, and spat black drops of tar on the clean floor, on the quilt covered bed, on the wide white apron she was tying around her waist. The shaking hand that held it was to blame.

“How come you’ hand is a-tremblin’ so, Breeze?” she asked gently. “You is pure shakin’ like a leaf. Trust in Gawd, son. You’ gal b’longs to Him, not to you. Jedus ain’ gwine fail em now when e have need.”

The light wavered wildly as he raised an arm to draw his shirt-sleeve across his eyes. Big teardrops rolled down his cheeks, and his face twitched dumbly.

“You mus’ scuse me, Hannah. I’m so weakened down wid frettin’ until de water dreans out my eyes. My mind keeps a runnin’ back to de time dis same li’l’ gal’s own mammy was taken dis same way. When de tide turned, e went out wid em. Dat’s how come I’m hurryin’ you so fas’. We mus’ git back whilst de tide is risin’.”

He stood, straight and tall, and strong for his years, but the troubled look in his eyes made the old midwife wonder.

Her weight tilted the narrow boat so far to one side that some of the black river water slid over its edge and ran down cold on her feet. “Jedus hab mussy!” she groaned. “If dis boat do go down, I’ll sho’ git drowned to-night! I can’ swim, not a lick.”

“You set still, Hannah. Dis boat knows better’n to turn over to-night. I got em trained. E’s got sense like people. E knows e’s got to take me an’ you safe.”

“I’m mighty glad to hear dat, son, mighty glad.”

The boat was already gliding swiftly past the black willows on the Blue Brook’s bank and around the bend where the thick trees made shadows and long tresses of gray moss waved overhead. Soon they’d reach the river. When a dark bird flew across the stream Maum Hannah shivered and whispered, “Do, Jedus, hab mussy,” but Breeze muttered, “Dat ain’ nuttin’ but a summer duck.”

The whole world lay still, wrapped by the night, quiet, save for the swish of the water against the sides of the boat as the noiseless dips of the steady-plying paddle thrust it on.

As they neared Sandy Island the shrill cry of an owl in the distance caused the boat to falter in its forward going.

“Wha’ dat, Breeze?”

“Dat’s one o’ dem blue-dartin’ owls. Dat ain’ no sign o’ death.”

Ripples from the boat broke into glittering sparkles of light laid by the stars on the water. The river murmured. Trees along the bank were full of strange shadowy shapes. Whenever the lightest rustle of wind drifted through the black branches, low smothered sobs fell from them.

A tall sycamore with its white outstretched arms high up toward heaven, reached toward the river waving, beckoning.

The night air was cool, but Maum Hannah took up the edge of her apron and wiped off big drops of sweat that broke out cold as ice on her forehead. “Do, Jedus, hab mussy!” she prayed.

The new moon had gone to bed. Now was the time evil spirits walk and take people’s souls out of their bodies. Pines on the island made soft moans. The darkness quivered with whispers. Only the firelight shining out from the cabin on the hill made a clear red star to guide them.

The narrow boat swerved and turned in-shore. A cypress knee, hidden by the water, bumped hard against it, but didn’t stop its leap toward the bank. Old Breeze eased himself past Maum Hannah, and hopping out on the wet sand drew the boat up a little higher on the hill.

“Git up, Hannah. Le’ me hold all two o’ you’ hands. Step slow. Hist you’ foot. Don’ miss an’ trip. Now you’s on dry land.”

“T’ank Gawd! Praise Jedus’ name!”

“You got de beads, enty?”

“Sho’ I got ’em. Dem beads is all de luck I got in dis world. If dey was to git lost, I’d be ruint fo’ true. Pure ruint!”

The steep climb cut her breath and stopped her flow of talk, but Granny who had heard them coming, croaked out:

“Yunnuh better make haste. De chile is done come, but de gal won’ wake up an’ finish de job. Yunnuh come on.”

Maum Hannah lifted the long dark string of beads from around her neck and handed them to old Breeze. “Run wid ’em, son. Put ’em round de gal’s neck. Right on e naked skin. If I try to walk fast I might fall down an’ broke my leg.”

Breath scarcely came and went through the girl’s parted lips, and her teeth showed white. Were they clenched? Old Breeze pressed on the round chin to see. Thank God the mouth could open!

Maum Hannah got inside the room at last. The charm words that went with the beads would set things right. Death might as well go on home! Let the girl rest. She was tired. Things could wait while she had her nap out.

The big hickory armchair, drawn close to the fire, held a feather pillow on its cowhide seat, and lying in the nest it made was a small black human being. Granny laughed as she picked it up and put it into Maum Hannah’s hands, saying:

“A boy-chile! An’ born wid a caul on e face!”

“Great Gawd, what is dis! You hear dis news, Breeze? Dis chile was born wid a caul on e face!”

The man turned his troubled eyes away from the bed. “Wha’ you say, Hannah?”

Laughing with pleasure Maum Hannah and Granny both told him again. His grandson had been blessed with second-sight. He had been born on the small of the moon and with a caul over his face. He would have second sight. He’d always be able to see things that stay hidden from other people. Hants and spirits and plat-eyes and ghosts. Things to come and things long gone would all walk clear before him. They couldn’t hide from this child’s eyes.

“Hotten another pot o’ water, Granny. Lemme warm em good, an’ make em cry.” Maum Hannah cradled the child tenderly in her hands, then held him low so the firelight could shine in his face. With a quick laugh she caught him by one foot and holding him upside down smacked him sharply with three brisk slaps.

“Cry, suh!” she scolded. “Ketch air an’ holler! I hate to lick you so hard soon as you git here, but I got to make you fret out loud.” A poor weak bleating sounded and she handed the child to Granny.

“You fix em, whilst I finish up wid de mammy.”

“Wake up, gal!” she plead, shaking the girl’s limp arm. “Wake up!”

The rigid eyelids fluttered open and a faint smile played over the girl’s face. She was too weary to draw her breath. The pain had sapped all her strength, every bit.

Maum Hannah stooped and looked under the bed.

“Great Gawd,” she grunted. “Who dat put a’ ax under dis bed? No wonder de pains quit altogedder. You ought to had chunked dese irons out de door!” She did it forthwith herself.

“Now! All two is gone! Open you’ eyes, gal! Ketch a long breat. Dat’s de way. Hol’ you’ two hands togedder. So. Blow in ’em! Hard. Hard as you kin! Make a stiff win’ wid you’ mouth! Blow you’ fingers off. Dat’s de way!”

Then something else went wrong. Where was a spider’s web? Granny ought to have had one ready. Every good midwife should find one as soon as she takes a case. Maum Hannah’s eyes were too dim to see a web on the dark rafters overhead. Somebody must find one and fetch it quickly. Life can leak out fast. Spider webs can dam it up better than anything else. But, lord, they are hard to find at night! Where was Breeze?

One was found at last. Then it took careful handling to get it well covered with clean soot from the back of the chimney. Thank God for those beads. The girl would have lost heart and given up except for them and the charm words which Maum Hannah kept saying over and over. With those beads working, things had to come right. Had to. And they could not help working. Couldn’t, thank God.

The next morning’s sunshine showed plenty of gossamer webs spun with shining wheels. Long threads of frail silk were strung across the yard from bush to bush, traps set by the spiders for gnats and mosquitoes, strong enough to hold a fly once in a while. But it takes a house spider’s stout close-woven web to hold soot and do good. For a house spider to make its home under your roof is good luck, for sooner or later the cloth it weaves and spins will save somebody’s life.

Old Breeze got up early and cooked the breakfast, fixed himself a bit to eat and a swallow or two of sweetened water to drink and went to the field to work, but the two old women sat by the fire and nodded until the sun waxed warm and its yellow light glowed into the room through the wide-open door. Then their tired old bodies livened and their heads raised up and leaned together while whispered talk crept back and forth between them. Granny held that Breeze was a good kind man to take the girl’s trouble as he did. Many a man would have put her out-of-doors. Girls are mighty wild and careless these days. But their parents are to blame for it too. Half the children born on Sandy Island were unfathered. It wasn’t right. Yet how can you stop them? Maum Hannah sighed and shook her head. It was a pity. And yet, after all, every child comes into the world by the same old road.

A thousand husbands couldn’t make that journey one whit easier. The preachers say God made the birthing pain tough when He got vexed with Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wanted all women to know how heavy His hand can be. Yet Eve had a lawful husband, and did that help her any?

Granny blinked at the fire and studied a while, then with a sly look at the bed she whispered that this same little boy-child was got right yonder at Blue Brook during the protracted meeting last summer. Her wizened face showed she knew more than she cared to tell. Not that it was anything to her whose child it was.

She fidgeted with her tin cup and spoon and peeped at Maum Hannah out of the corner of her eye, then asked with pretended indifference:

“What’s de name o’ de gentleman what’s de foreman at Blue Brook now?”

“E’s name April.”

“Enty?” Granny affected surprise. “Is e got a fambly?” she presently ventured in spite of Maum Hannah’s shut-mouthed manner.

“Sho’, e’s got a fambly. E’s got a fine wife an’ a house full o’ chillen too.”

“Well, I declare!” Granny mirated pleasantly. “Was any o’ dem born wid a caul?”

“No, dey wasn’t. I never did hear o’ but one or two people bein’ born wid a caul. Ol’ Uncle Isaac, yonder to Blue Brook is one, and e’s de best conjure doctor I ever seen.”

“Who was de other one?” Granny inquired so mildly that Maum Hannah stole a look at her hard, dried furrowed face. There was no use to beat about the bush with Granny, so she answered:

“April, de foreman at Blue Brook, was de other one. Dese same ol’ hands o’ mine caught April when e come into dis world, just like deys caught all o’ April’s chillen.”

“You mean, April’s yard chillen, enty?” Granny looked her straight in the eyes like a hawk, but Maum Hannah met the look calmly, without any sign of annoyance.

“I dunno what you’s aimin’ at, Granny. April’s a fine man. Blue Brook never did have no better foreman. An’ his mammy, Katy, was one o’ de best women ever lived. April was she onliest child. April was born dis same month. Dat’s how come Katy named him April. April’s a lucky month an’ a lucky name, too. Wha’ you gwine name you li’l’ boy-chile, daughter?”

Granny looked toward the bed and listened for the answer.

“I dunno, ma’am,” the girl answered weakly, and Granny sweetened her coffee with a few drops more of molasses. She stirred and stirred until Maum Hannah suggested:

“April’s a fine name. Whyn’t you name em dat? When I git back to Blue Brook, I’ll tell de foreman I named a li’l’ boy-chile at him. Dat would please em too. E might would send em a present. April’s a mighty free-handed man, an’ e sho’ thinks de world o’ me too.”

Granny waited to taste the sweetened coffee until she heard what the girl said. The girl didn’t make any answer at first, but presently she said with a sorrowful sigh, she’d have to think about the baby’s name. She couldn’t decide in a hurry. Sometimes a wrong name will even kill a baby. She must go slow and choose a name that was certain to bring her baby health and luck.

She talked it over with her father and named the baby Breeze, for him. No foreman in the world was a finer man, or a kinder, stronger, wiser one. The breeze for which he was named could have been no pleasanter, no sweeter, than the breeze that blew in from the river that very morning.

The old man beamed with pleasure. He was glad to have the child named for him. But since the month was April, why not name him April Breeze? Then he’d have two good-luck names, and two would be better than one.

“We could call em li’l’ Breeze, enty?” she asked with a catch in her voice.

“Sho’, honey! Sho’! If dat’s de name you choose to call dis chile, den e’s li’l’ Breeze f’om now on. But April is a mighty nice name for a boy-chile.”

“It’s de Gawd’s truth,” Maum Hannah declared, and Granny grunted and reached for a coal to light her pipe.

Li’l’ Breeze grew and throve and his grandfather prized him above everything, everybody else. He was a boy-child, and, besides, he was born with a caul on his face. Men born so make their mark in this world. Rule their fellows. Plenty of people have no fathers, and many of them are better off. A child that has never looked on his daddy’s face can cure sickness better than any medicine. Just with a touch of the hand, too. It was a good thing for Sandy Island to have such a child.

Before Breeze was weaned people began coming to have him stroke the pain out of their knees and backs and shoulders. He could cure thrash in babies’ mouths, and even cool fevers.

His mother’s disgrace was completely forgotten, when she married a fine-looking, stylish young town man who came to Sandy Island to preach and form a Bury League. He could read both reading and writing and talk as well as the preacher who read over them out of a book.

Breeze stayed on with his grandfather, helping him farm in the summer and set nets for shad in the spring. When the white people who owned Sandy Island came from somewhere up-North in the winter and crossed over the river on a ferry-flat from Blue Brook with their dogs and horses to hunt the deer that swarm so thick on the island that they have beaten paths the same as pigs and rabbits, Breeze went along to help hold the horses and watch the dogs. People said he was Old Breeze’s heart-string, and Old Breeze’s eyeball. He was, although the mother had other boy-children now, fine ones too.

And instead of the grandfather’s getting feeble and tottering with age, he grew younger, and worked harder, so that he and Breeze might have plenty. Every extra cent saved was buried at the foot of a tall pine tree growing on the bank of the river not far from the cabin’s front door. When hard times came, they’d have no lack. The money would be there, secretly waiting to be spent.

One spring when the shad fishing was done, Old Breeze got leave from the white folks to cut down some dead pines the beetles had killed. He dragged these to the river with his two old oxen, and made them into a raft which he floated down to the town in the river’s mouth, and sold to a big saw-mill there. Breeze stayed with his mother until his grandfather came back home, pleased as could be, with presents for everybody, and a pocket full of money besides. But although he brought the mother a Bible besides many other fine things that made her smile, she shook her head and said, “Dead trees are best left alone. Trees have spirits the same as men. God made them to stand up after they die. Better let them be.”

But the grandfather was not afraid of tree spirits, and he cut and cut until no dead tree was left standing and the ground all around the big pine tree was full of hidden money. Then there was nothing to do but fish and hunt, and to hunt in the spring is against the white men’s laws. Old Breeze got restless. He gazed in the fire night after night, thinking and thinking.

One morning he got up early and skimmed all the cream and put the clabber in a jug, then he took the brace-and-bit down off the joist where it stayed and walked off to the woods alone. Every morning he did it. There was no more clabber for the pigs or the chickens, but the pine trees began dying so fast that before long enough were ready to cut for a raft to be floated down the river.

The tall pine close to the bank was the biggest tree on Sandy Island. It stretched far above the oaks before it put on even one limb. If that tree ever died, it would make a good part of a raft by itself.

One cold dark dawn, Breeze was roused by the cabin’s door creaking on its hinges as it closed behind somebody’s muffled steps. Where was Old Breeze going? Easing a window open, he peered out and saw the old man going toward the big pine with the jug and the brace-and-bit.

“Wait on me! I’m a-gwine wid you!” he called.

Old Breeze stopped and stood stiffly erect.

“Who dat call me?”

“Dis me! Breeze!”

The old man broke into a laugh. “Lawd, son, I thought sho’ a sperit was a-talkin’ to me. How come you’s ’wake so soon? Git back in de bed an’ sleep!”

But Breeze dressed in a hurry. He wanted to see what would be done with clabber and the brace-and-bit.

Outside in the half-light it was silent except for the rustle of the big tree’s needles in the wind. Breeze watched while holes were bored deep in the solid roots and the clabber all poured down them. He promised never to tell a soul. Not a soul. That was a stubborn tree. It swallowed down many a jug of buttermilk and clabber without getting sick at all, but at last the tips of its needles looked pale. The green of them faded into yellow, then brown, and its whole top withered. The old tree gave up. Poor thing.

Its heaviest limbs faced the south, away from the water. That was good. When it fell, the big butt cut, the heaviest one, would be easy to roll into the river, and the next two cuts would not have to be pushed very far. That tree would bring money with its stout, fat heart. A pocket full of money.

Sunday night came, and Old Breeze wouldn’t go to meeting, but went to bed for a long night’s sleep. He must get up a high head of strength before sunrise to cut the big tree down.

Day was just breaking through the cracks of the cabin’s log sides when Breeze heard it fall. It gave a great cry, and its crash jarred the cabin. The weight of a big tree’s falling always leaves a deep stillness behind it, but after the big pine fell the stillness stayed on. Breeze lay quiet and listened. The tree must have dropped wrong, and gone across a clump of bamboo vines. Old Breeze would have to clear them away before his ax could begin to talk.

He’d hear it soon. Lord! Nobody could make an ax speak faster or louder or truer. Nobody. This was Monday morning and he must get the clothes up for the mother to wash. Every Monday he carried them to her and helped her do the washing.

Kingfishers splashed into the river. Once an eagle cried. The day moved on, smooth and bright and yellow, as the sun walked up the sky past the tree-tops, higher and higher until noon stood overhead. But the grandfather’s ax had said nothing yet. Not yet. But wait! It would make up for lost time when it started to ring!

Sis, the stepfather’s young sister, lived with Breeze’s mother and helped her mind the children. Every Monday morning they washed the clothes out in the yard, where the washtubs always sat on a bench in a sunshiny place. The other children, Breeze’s half brothers and sisters, roasted sweet potatoes in the ashes under the big black washpot, and kept the fire going.

On that Monday morning, the fire burned blue and kept popping, and every now and then the mother cast her eyes, full of dark thoughts, at the sun. Old Breeze always came for dinner with her on Monday. Something must have happened. The big tree must have fallen wrong to keep him so long. But Sis could talk of nothing but the new dress and the ribbon he had promised to buy her with some of the money the big pine brought.

The mother lifted the lids of the little pots that sat all around the big washpot cooking the family’s dinner. With a big iron spoon she stirred and tasted, added salt and a pod of red pepper. Pepper is good to help men be strong and warm-hearted. It makes hens lay, too. She filled the bucket with victuals and told Breeze to run, fast as he could, to the big tree, so the dinner would be hot when he got there. Hopping John, peas and rice cooked together, is so much better fresh out of the pot and breathing out steam. When rice cools it gets gummy. The fish stew was made out of eels, and they get raw again as soon as the fire’s heat leaves them. Breeze must take his foot in his hand and fly.

Breeze did run, but he soon came running back, for Old Breeze wasn’t there. His ax lay almost in the water, with its handle wet, and his throwing-wedge beside it.

The two old oxen were chewing their cuds, but the ground around the tree was all dug up and broken, as if hogs had rooted it up to find worms.

Breeze had called, and called, but nobody answered! When the mother heard that, a shiver went clear through her body. Her hands shook so when she lifted them out of the washtub that all the soap-suds on them trembled.

She said she’d go and call. She knew how to send her voice far away. She could make him hear and answer. Maybe a deer or a fox or a wildcat had come and tricked him away from his work, but her words quivered in her mouth as she said them.

All the children went trailing after her; Sis went hurrying with baby Sonny in her arms; and they all stood still and listened while the mother’s throat sent long thin whoopees away up into the sky. Her breast heaved with hoisting them so far above the trees into the far-away distance. She’d wait for an answer until all the echoes had whooped back, then she’d take a deep breath and cry out again.

An old crow laughed as he passed overhead, an owl who-whooed far in the distance. The wind began moaning and crying in the tops of all the other trees around the fallen pine.

The mother dropped on her knees and laid her forehead down on the earth. Her thin body shook, and her fingers twisted in and out as her hands wrung each other almost to breaking. She prayed and moaned and begged Jesus to call Granddad to come back. To come on in a hurry. She couldn’t stand for him not to answer when she called so hard and so long.

All the children began crying with her. Even Sis, who never cried no matter what happened, put Sonny down on the naked ground and with tears running out of her eyes all over her face, reached out and took the mother’s shoulders in both arms. She tried to keep them from shaking, but she soon shook with them, for the mother said over and over she had known all the time that something bad was going to happen. She knew it last night when she came home from meeting. Her fine glass lamp-shade, the one Granddad brought her from town, with flowers on it, broke right in two in her hand. She hadn’t dropped it, or knocked it against anything, but it broke in two in her hand. Her moaning talk changed to a kind of singing as her body rocked from side to side. Her face turned up to the sky, her eyes gazed straight at the sun, and over and over she wailed the same words until the littlest children all cried out and screamed them too:

“Las night I been know

Somebody gwine dead!

Yes, Lawd! Somebody gwine dead!

A sign sesso!

Yes, Lawd, a sign sesso!

De hoot-owl ain’ talk!

De wind ain’ whine!

I ain’ see a ground-crack needer!

But I had a sign,

Jedus gi’ me a sign!

Da lamp-shade!

F’om de town-sto!

E come een two

Een my hand!

Yes, Lawd!

E come een two een my hand!

I ain’ drap em. No!

I ain’ knock em against nuttin,

But e come een two

Een my hand!

De lamp-shade know,

E try fo’ talk,

E broke fo’ gi’ me a sign.

My Pa is dead!

I know, fo’ sho’!

Da lamp-shade broke

Een my hand!”

Her breath caught in her throat with gasps and her grieving got hoarse and husky, the steady sing-song braced by the children’s shrill mourning reached the neighbors who came hurrying to see what was wrong.

At first they tried to cheer up the mother’s heart with big-sounding, bantering talk. Granddad could outswim an otter. The river could drown him no more than a duck. He had followed a wild turkey, or a hog going to make her bed. It was wrong to trouble trouble before trouble troubles you. Hogs had rooted up the earth around the pine. Nobody had done that. Granny hobbled up, muttering to herself between her toothless jaws. The sun shone right into her eyes and marked how they shifted sly looks from the fallen tree to the earth. Her withered fingers plucked at the dirty greasy charm thread around her wrist. One bony finger pointed at the broken ground.

“Whe’ is e, Granny?” the mother asked, and the silence was that of a grave. Granny’s palsied head shook harder than ever, and the mother rent the air with her cries. Sis and the children joined in with wails, and the dogs all howled and barked. Granny said Old Breeze was done for! The same as the felled tree. Who was to blame? How could she tell? Had he eaten any strange victuals lately? Had he drunk water out of any strange well? No? Then he must have been tricked by somebody under his roof. Somebody who wished him ill had put an evil eye on him. No strong well man would melt away unless he had been bewitched. Granny peeped sidewise at Breeze. Where was his stepfather? Where? Nobody answered the old woman, but feet shuffled uneasily as she said that the whole of Sandy Island showed signs of bewitchment. When had it rained? The fowls’ eggs hatched poorly. The cows lost their cuds. The fish didn’t bite. Shooting stars kept the sky bright every night. Black works were the cause! Then everybody chimed in; it must be as Granny said. And the old woman looked straight at Breeze. He was born with second-sight. The young moon was here. This was the time when all those who are cheated out of life come back and walk on this earth whenever a young moon shines. If Old Breeze had met with foul death, he’d come back that night and walk around that very pine as soon as the first dark came. Young Breeze must watch for him and talk with him and find out what had happened to him. Nobody else on Sandy Island could talk to spirits like that boy. He had been born with a caul over his face, and that strange thing that had veiled his eyes when he came into the world gave them the power to see things other people could never witness. Spirits and hants and ghosts and plat-eyes.

Granny’s talk made Breeze’s flesh creep cold on his bones. His blood stopped running. Fear tried to put wings on his feet, but he clung to his mother’s skirt and wept, for even the shadows began an uncertain flickering and wavering as if they’d reach out and grab him.

“Hogs ain’ rooted up de ground. Not no hogs what walks on fo’ legs. No. Sperits might ’a’ done it—but whe’s you’ husban’, gal? Whe’ e is?”

Nobody knew. Nobody ever knew. And Breeze was too coward-hearted to watch for his grandfather’s spirit. No matter how Granny scolded him, he couldn’t do it.

Days afterward, April, the foreman on Blue Brook Plantation, came to Sandy Island, bringing a pair of blue overalls holding pieces of a man. He had fished them up out of the Blue Brook itself where they had drifted instead of going on down to the river’s mouth.

Old Breeze had worn blue overalls that Monday morning. Maybe it was he. More than likely it was he. Granny was certain of it.

The stepfather had disappeared with the money buried at the foot of the old dead pine, but April stayed to help dig a grave and bury the poor thing he had found. The mother shrieked and wailed, but Granny grunted and shook her head. She said Old Breeze’s body floated to Blue Brook on purpose so April could find it, for April was Old Breeze’s son, and, more than that, April was li’l’ Breeze’s daddy!

III
COUSIN BIG SUE

Breeze had heard about Blue Brook Plantation all his life, but he had never heard about his mother’s Cousin Big Sue until one hot October afternoon when he was minding the cow by the spring branch and helping his mother break in the precious nubbins of corn and put them in the log barn. Sis called them to come on home in a hurry! The stepfather had gone to town hunting work. Maybe he had come home. Sis’s voice was high and shrill and scared, and Breeze knew something had happened. These hot days the mother always worked in the field until first dark because that was the coolest part of the day, and Sis, who stayed at home and sewed and patched and cooked, never called anybody until after the sun went down.

Breeze forgot that the cow was in reach of the low-ground corn and hurried across the stubby furrows as fast as his skinny legs could carry him, but he stopped short when he saw a big fat black woman with a good-natured smile on her face, standing beside Sis in the cabin’s back door. Who was she? Why had she come? Why did Sis look so grieved?

The other children were in the yard, giggling, trying to hide behind one another, but the woman’s eyes stayed on Breeze.

“I kin see de likeness!” she laughed. “Lawd, yes! Dat boy is de pure spit o’ April! De same tar-black skin. De same owl eyes. A mouth blue as blackberry stain.”

Breeze had run so fast he was out of breath and his heart beat against his ribs as he watched his mother kiss the stranger and go inside the cabin with her. Presently Sis called him to come in too.

The mother put an arm around him and drew him up close to her side. Her sleeve was wet with sweat, her body hot and steamy, but her hand was cold and shaking like a leaf. How weak and frail she looked beside the fat outsider, who held out a thick hot hand to shake Breeze’s. The gold rings on it matched the gold hoop earrings glittering in her small ears, and they felt hard as they pressed against his fingers.

In the silence that followed Breeze looked at the big woman’s sleek smooth face. It was round and tight like her fleshy body but with dimples in its cheeks like baby Sonny’s. She took a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles out of her pocket and put them on, then leaned back in her chair and laughed a queer gurgling laugh that widened her flat nostrils and stretched her full lips.

“Lawd, ain’t it funny how dat boy favors his pa! Dat’s a pity too. A boy-chile ought to favor his ma to be lucky. I hope e ain’ gwine be de devil April ever was. April was born wid a caul de same way. Lawd, e’s a case too!”

Without giving his mother time to answer she talked on; her son Lijah was like her and her girl, Joy, the image of Silas, her husband. Thank God, Joy didn’t have ways like Silas. He was good-looking enough, but God never made a more trifling creature than Silas. He ran off and left her seven years ago and she had raised those two children all by herself. Lijah was in Fluridy now. Or maybe it was Kintucky, she wasn’t certain which; but he was the worst man in the town where he lived. Everybody was scared to meddle with Lijah. She laughed and rubbed her fat hands together. Nobody would ever run over her Lijah. He took after her that way. Now Joy was different. Joy was weak and easy. But she was a nice girl. She was in town, going to college, getting educated. Joy wouldn’t rest until she got a depluma. When she got it, she’d teach school or marry some fine stylish town man. Joy was a stylish girl herself. Maybe too slim, now, but she’d thicken out. When she was Joy’s age, Silas could span her waist with his two hands. Joy would fatten up too when she reached a settled age.

Cousin Big Sue rolled out her talk without stopping to catch one breath, and all the time her small sparkleberry eyes roved from Breeze’s face to his mother’s, then back to Breeze again.

The mother sat huddled low in her chair, her forehead wrinkled, her shoulders drooped. She reached out and took baby Sonny from Sis, and with fingers that shook she unbuttoned her dirty sweaty dress to feed him. For the first time in his life Breeze noticed her poor ragged underclothes and her bony feet and legs. They looked so lean and skinny beside Cousin Big Sue’s tight-filled stockings and wide laced-up shoes.

Two bright tears fell swiftly in baby Sonny’s fuzzy wool and shone there, two clear drops. Breeze was about to cry himself for his mother’s stooped body looked so pitiful. The corners of her mouth were pinched in and the back of her dress, all darkened with sweat from the hard work she had been doing, was humped out in two places by the bones of her thin shoulder-blades. But baby Sonny bobbed his head in such a funny way as he seized the long thin breast that came flopping out. He crowed and kicked his little feet with joy just as if that ugly flesh was the finest thing in the world. Breeze forgot himself and laughed out loud.

Cousin Big Sue’s fat hands stroked each other gently, and the laugh that oozed out of her mouth squeezed her eyes almost shut.

“Dat boy Breeze is got nice teeth, enty? But Lawd, his gums sho’ is blue! April’s got ’em too. An’ April’s wife, Leah, is got ’em. Dat’s dog eat dog, enty? I wish dis boy didn’ had ’em, but I know e won’t never bite me. Will you, son?”

Breeze felt so shamefaced he shut his mouth tight and hung his head, and his mother began telling Big Sue about the terrible dry-drought. How it had worked a lot of deviltry since June. The crops had promised to make a fair yield, and she kept stirring the earth to encourage them to hold on to their leaves and blossoms, even if they couldn’t grow. But the hot sun wouldn’t let a drop of rain fall, no matter how the clouds sailed overhead full of thunder and lightning. The leaves all got limp and dry. Sis said they were hanging their heads to pray, but they stayed limp, then they parched brown and dried up and fell off. The peas-patch didn’t make enough hay to stuff a mattress. The corn planted on the hill looked like dried onions. The patch of corn in the rich low-ground, close by the spring branch, had done little better. Mid-summer found every blade with its hands shut up tight, trying to hold on to what little sap the sun left. The grass quit trying to be green and the cow had nothing to eat but the coarse bitter weeds growing alongside the spring branch. She was nearly gone dry. What little milk she gave was skimpy and rank, and turned to clabber soon as it cooled. The cream was ropy, and the curds tough. When the butter was churned it wouldn’t gather, but laid down flat like melted lard.

The hens had quit laying and spent the summer panting air in and out of wide-open mouths, with their wings away off from their bodies, trying to get cool. The old sow had quit rooting and stayed in the mud-hole wallowing, until the mud baked into squares like an alligator’s hide. She had no milk for her pigs, and those that didn’t starve turned into runts.

Winter was coming. Not a leaf of collards was growing, the few nubbins of corn left wouldn’t make bread to last until Christmas. God only knew how she’d feed the children.

When she leaned down to wipe her eyes on her skirt, baby Sonny raised up his hard little head and jerked it down on her breast with a hungry butt, and Breeze forgot again and snickered out. Not that he would ever make sport of Sonny. Never in the world. He loved every crinkly tuft of wool on the baby’s head, every tiny finger and toe. Even if he didn’t grow a bit, his lightness made him easy to hold. Breeze loved him better than all the other children put together because he was small and weak.

Big Sue broke into a bright smile. “Son, I’m sho’ glad you love to laugh. I love to laugh my own self.” Her narrow eyes sparkled through her gold-rimmed spectacles, and her wide loose lips spread across her face. “De people on Blue Brook is almost quit laughin’ since de boll-evils come. But boll-evils don’ fret me. I cooks at de Big House. An’ no matter if de buckra is at Blue Brook or up-North whe’ dey stays most o’ de time, I has all de victuals an’ money I wants. I has more’n I kin use. It’s de Gawd’s truth. You’ll sho’ have sin, if you don’ give me dat boy to raise. Po’ as you is, much mouths as you got to fill, you ought to be glad to git shet o’ one. You better listen good at all I say. I’ll train em good. I’ll fatten em up. I’ll learn em to have manners. Dis same boy might git to be foreman at Blue Brook yet. E comes from dat foreman breed. You sho’ ought not to stand in his way. No, ma’am.”

If she wanted a boy-child to raise why didn’t Cousin Big Sue choose one of the others? Maybe she didn’t like the way their shirts were unbuttoned, with their naked bodies showing down to their waists. Their ragged breeches were not only dirty but ripped open.

Breeze’s heart fluttered like a trapped bird’s. Fright had him paralyzed so he couldn’t run off and hide. His mother looked shrunken, withered. A few tears fell from her eyes as they stared out of the door.

“I bet you ain’t got decent victuals for supper right now. I got plenty, yonder home.”

Cousin Big Sue’s eyes were riveted on Breeze, as she declared he’d be far better off with her than here with his mother, and a house full of starved-out children, growing up in ignorance and rags. She’d teach him and train him and raise him to be a fine man, to know how to do all kinds of work, to make money and wear shoes and fine clothes like her Lijah.

“April”—she peeped sidewise at the mother when she spoke the name—“April’s de foreman at Blue Brook, an’ e’ll help me raise Breeze. E tol’ me so las’ night.”

The mother listened and looked at Sis. Sis slowly nodded back, yes. Breeze burst out crying. He begged them not to give him away. He didn’t want to leave home. He wanted to stay right there and be hungry and ragged. He liked to grow up in ignorance and sin.

The shed-room was open so that Big Sue saw the beds covered with old quilts worn into holes. She said Breeze would have good quilts and a feather-bed at her house. The softest lightest feather-bed in the world. It was stuffed with breast feathers plucked off the wild ducks she’d picked and cooked for the white folks at the Big House. Breeze would think he was sleeping on air. She had dry-picked the ducks so the feathers would be puffy, though scalding would have made picking easier.

She’d buy him a pair of ready-made pants from the store, and two or three shirts. She’d get shirts with tails on them like a grown man’s shirt.

After that first outcry Breeze couldn’t make a sound with his voice, for a lump rose in his throat and choked him. He’d rather stay at home and do without bread, or bed.

“Please, please——” he wailed. But his words were dumb and his crying did no good.

The day was moving. The shadow cast by the china-berry tree had stretched from the front steps to the four-o’clocks over on the other side. Big Sue said she must go. A long walk was ahead, and her feet were not frisky these days.

Breeze could scarcely take in what had happened. He was given away. When Big Sue closed her warm, wet-feeling hand over his and led him away down the path that followed the deep, wide black river, he wanted to scream out, to yell that he didn’t want to go. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even stop his feet from stepping side by side with hers, one step after another.

Something about this big fat woman kept his mouth shut. Even when the long sandy path was behind, and he could see the ferry-flat, that would take him across the river, he couldn’t speak, and the throat lump had swelled to a great big ache in his breast.

When a sudden patter of feet sounded behind him Breeze looked around expecting to see a fawn go across the road, but instead, there was Sis, with her arms outspread. She ran straight to him, fast as she could, and with a sharp little cry hugged him tight. She pressed her soft cheek, wet with tears, on his and whispered in his ear that he must go like a man, and try to be a good boy. She held him close for a minute, then without another word let him go, and ran. She was soon hidden from his eyes by the bend in the road. He strove for one more glimpse of her, but he could see nothing but trees and shadows.

They had reached the far end of the island and the dim road turned to drop down to the river where the flat waited, floating with one end tied up close to a cypress knee. Nobody was in sight. Big Sue stopped. “Whe’ is you, Uncle?” She shouted. Echoes answered and reechoed. “Come on, Uncle! Le’s go!” She waited, then grumbled. “Lawd! Uncle’s too deef.”

A few steps nearer the river showed a little old man, sitting crumpled up with his back against a tree. His head was dropped forward, his old cap awry, showing the milk-white wool on his head. Big Sue broke out laughing and went close enough to him to yell in his ear. At once he jumped awake, jerked his chin up off his breast, sat up straight. His eyes, dazed with sleep, gazed around, groping for the sound. When they found Big Sue hiding, he joined her laughter with a hearty cackle that bared his pink toothless gums set in the midst of the bristling white whiskers that stood out around his jaws and chin, fiercely denying the bright twinkle in his eyes.

“Takin’ a li’l’ nap, Uncle? I couldn’t sleep on Sandy Island, not to save life.”

Yes, he admitted, he had dropped off. No use to lie, for he’d been caught. Sleep was a tricky thing. A sly-moving thief. Always stealing time from somebody. He gave a wide-mouthed yawn, stretched his arms to try the sleeves of his long-tailed faded black coat, then strove to get his crooked legs straightened, to unbend his knock-knees, and get his stumbling feet clear of the rough footing made by the great puckered roots around the tree. When he finally reached the clear ground he appeared to see Breeze for the first time.

“Lawd, Big Sue, you had luck fo’ true! I too glad! Wha’ you’ name, son? Come shake hands wid Uncle.”

He made a polite bow when he took Breeze’s hand, his dry old face shone with a kindly smile, his frock coat opened, showing a flowered waistcoat underneath.

“A good-size boy too. E ought to could plow by next spring. Sho’! How old you is, son?” Uncle stood back on his heels, straight as a ram-rod, his eyes sparkling as he praised Breeze’s looks.

“I gwine on twelve, suh,” Breeze answered. But Big Sue put her mouth up close to the old man’s ear and bawled:

“His mammy say e’s gwine on twelve, but e looks mighty small to me. You t’ink e’s a runt?”

Uncle’s eyes watched her lips.

“No, no, Sue, dis boy ain’ no runt. You feed em up. E’ll fill out an’ grow. Bread an’ meat all two is been sca’ce on Sandy Island since de dry-drought hit em las’ summer. You keep de boy’s belly full, an’ dis time nex’ year you wouldn’ know em.”

“I wouldn’ live on such po’ land!” Big Sue bawled again. “Not me! Dis sand looks white as sugar. T’ank Gawd, us home yonder is on black land what kin hold water!”

“You like de black land, enty? No wonder, black as you is, gal!” Uncle chuckled at his joke.

“Sho’! Gi’ me black land eve’y time! You ain’t so white you’self, Uncle.”

Uncle missed her last words. He was too busy laughing and talking.

“You like you own color, enty, gal?”

Big Sue nodded and joined in heartily with his hollow clattering guffaws.

“Gi’ me de black all de time. White t’ings is too weakly!” she shouted gaily, as Uncle led the way toward the flat. Big Sue followed, holding Breeze’s hand tight. She picked her way down the short sandy hill with slow uncertain steps.

“I ain’ use to shoes an’ dey hinders my feet in dis sand,” she explained loudly, but Uncle was busy starting the flat across the river. Grunting, straining until veins showed in his forehead, he finally got the waterlogged hulk to moving by means of a rusty cable and a curious narrow board with notches cut in one side so it could clutch the cable tight.

The sun fell lower as they slowly crossed. Colors of the sky on the still water made a band of flame, of scarlet and purple down the middle of the dark stream, that spread out into the marshy forest.

The old ferryman paused in his pulling and muttered, as he gazed at the sunset; then with a bright look at Breeze, and a chuckle, he began pulling hard again. A flock of crows streaked the sky, going home; a lone fish-hawk sailed not far behind them; tiny swamp sparrows twittered and chattered.

Night was coming and the whole world knew it. The wind dropped into a quiet whispering, waiting for the tide to turn. Every tree and leaf and bough, even the water itself, was darkening. Squirrels chittered softly in their nests, a wildcat yeowled gently. Breeze’s heart, that had been thumping miserably in his breast, now beat up in his throat and the lump that had risen when he told his mother good-by swelled bigger and harder than ever. Tears that had been stinging his eyes all the way began rolling down his cheeks.

He turned his back, and easing a hand stealthily up to his face, tried to brush them away. Cousin Big Sue mustn’t see him cry. Sis said he must be a man and try to be good.

He suddenly forgot his sorrow when swarms of tiny, almost invisible insects rose from nowhere, and settled in his eyes and ears and nostrils and teeth, with a fierce singing and stinging that was maddening. He took off his ragged hat and tried to fight them away, but they ignored its waving. As fast as he killed what seemed to be handfuls, by crushing them on his face and neck and bare legs, others took their places. Sand-flies and mosquitoes were eating him up. Cousin Big Sue had to fight them too, but Uncle was not troubled at all.

“Is de sand-flies pesterin’ yunnuh?” he asked mildly.

“Great Gawd, dey sho’ is!”

“Git some sweat out you’ armpits an’ rub on you’ face. Dat’ll run ’em!”

“Do, Uncle! Fo’ Gawd’s sake! I ain’ no filthy ol’ man like you! I washes myself!”

“Wha’ dat you say, daughter?”

Big Sue broke into a laugh. “I ain’ say nuttin! Not nuttin!”

Uncle calmly worked on, unconscious of what she said. Sweat trickled over his wrinkled face, but it kept its pleasant smile. More than once Big Sue opened her mouth to speak, but closed it without a word, and her face was as doleful as if, like Breeze, she was lonely and homesick.

Breeze wondered bitterly why he hadn’t run away and hidden down in the branch where nobody would ever find him? Baby partridges, or new hatched guineas, will sneak under a leaf and stay there until they die before they’ll let a stranger find them. Why didn’t he do it? He would rather die by himself in the woods than be here on his way to live with this strange woman whose wind was broken.

The sticky mud on the bank had shown no respect for Big Sue’s wide-laced shoes. It clung to their soles and stained their shiny tops. The hem of her stiff starched white apron was streaked with dirt. Everything here was strange and unfriendly. The water and trees, the tangled vines and rank undergrowth were all dark and scary. Snakes and alligators and hog-bears and jack-o’-lanterns lived in such places. More than likely hants and plat-eyes and fever and spirits were thick all around. Suppose he’d see them now, with his second-sight! He didn’t want to see anything but his home yonder behind him, and it was too far to see even the smoke rising out of its low clay chimney. A thick green dusk had risen up from the earth, cutting off the shore on the other side of the river.

The cable slapped the water as it drew the flat across. The old man kept up his grunting and straining. He was not afraid, although he was so old that the years had dried up the flesh on his crooked bones. Breeze jumped sharply, startled and bewildered, when, without any warning, the old man’s laughter cackled out. Looking down where the old bent forefinger pointed, he caught sight of an alligator which settled slowly, noiselessly, under the water until two eyes and a nose tip made three small dark bumps above the smooth surface.

“De alligator see you, son!” the old man squeaked out gleefully, and Big Sue broke into shouts of laughter.

“Great Gawd,” she cried. “Do look how e gaze at you, Breeze. E mus’ be hongry! E don’ see how you’s po’ as a snake! You’ li’l’ bones would pure rattle inside dat big creeter’s belly.”

Stinging homesickness filled Breeze’s heart. Why had he come? Truly, this was out of his world. But there was no way to turn back. None. Shrill piercing bird-cries that rose and fell out of the sky answered something that ached in his heart.

IV
JULIA

Overhead the high thin air swished, beaten by the wings of wild ducks that flew swiftly across the sky in an even fan-shaped line. Uncle kept looking up at them. Once when he spoke to them in strange muttered words, Big Sue observed:

“Lawd, do listen at Uncle! A-talkin’ to dem ducks same as if dey was speerits!”

The trees leaned dreamily over the water which trembled as the sun turned it to dark blood. Uncle’s pulling slackened. The flat touched the firm earth at last.

With amazing nimbleness the old man hopped out and tied it fast to a tree, his crooked fingers fumbling stubbornly with the frayed rope until he was satisfied it would hold; then he followed Big Sue and Breeze up a short sandy climb where the road made a swift bend and ran underneath great trees whose thick branches lapped overhead, shutting out all but small white pieces of the sky.

A bony gray mule hitched to a two-wheeled car stood tethered to a limb. Uncle hobbled to the beast’s head: “Wake up, Julia! Open you’ eyes, gal! You too love to nod! Dat’s de biggest fault I got to find wid you! Lula was a wakeful mule! Lawd, yes!”

Big Sue was panting and climbing in over the cart’s wheel, using the hub for a step. She sat on a board laid across the body. Breeze got in and sat on the floor. Uncle crawled over the dashboard, and jerking the rope lines urged Julia to move on.

“Mind, Julia! Don’ git me vexed! I ain’ used to no triflin’ ways! Lula was pearter’n dis!” Uncle sat up very straight and his tone was terribly threatening.

Julia shook the gnats out of her ears, then snorted them out of her nose, but not until Uncle got to his feet and, raising a long dry stick high as his arm could reach, brought it down on her hip with a powerful whack did she move out of her tracks.

“Git up, Julia!” He gave her another lick, and she turned slowly about and got into the sandy road.

Big Sue heaved a weary sigh.

“Julia is de laziest mule I ever seen in my life, Uncle! Whilst you was a-buyin’ one, whyn’t you git a spry one?”

“Julia ain’ lazy. E’s just careful. Julia knows dis cart ain’ so strong.”

“I hear-say Julia kicks awful bad sometimes!”

“Who? Julia? No, ma’am! Julia’s kind as kin be!”