FROM THE LIBRARY v NIGGER BY IRE SAME AUTHOR FOETRT GLAD OP EARTH THE EARTH TURNS SOUTH JEHOVAH FICTION MOUNTAIN E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY NIGGER A NOVEL BY CLEMENT WOOD Author of "Mountain," etc. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue Copyright, 1922, BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY All Bights Reserved PRINTED TS THE VHOTD STATES 0» AMERICA vail-ballou company 6IN6HAMT0N AND NEW YORK To THOMAS J. LIBBIN CONTENTS BOOK L GENESIS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Swamp . . . . > 3 II. The Black Belt 20 III. "Rollin' Through an Unfrien'ly World" . 37 IV. Deep River . 54 BOOK IL EXODUS V. Up the State ........ . • 73 VI. Scratch Ankle 94 VII. The White Man's Law 113 VIII. Short and Simple 132 BOOK IIL LEVITICUS IX. The Scarlet Call 151 X. IshmaeIi • 169 XI. The Swamp Light . ....... 192 XII. Emancipation > . . > . .. . ... » -• 216 vii BOOK I GENESIS NIGGER CHAPTER I THE SWAMP THE hollow baying of a bloodhound set the silence trembling. The small boy woke, startled, from a dark, unhappy dream, and sat up on his pallet, huddling the frayed quilts around him. The familiar unbroken blackness of the cabin was a comfort. Again the deep, solemn tones, booming out of the distance, en¬ tered and filled the room, throbbing and puls¬ ing in the peopled shadows. "Mammy!" From the thick gloom where the bed should be, a heavy, moaning breathing reached him. "Mammy!" he whimpered. H:e started up; the protecting quilts fell away from his bare body; his naked feet scuffed and slid across the floor. "Mammy! Gram'ma!" He plumped himself into the bed beside her, 3 4 NIGGER shaking her old shoulders in panic, and sob¬ bing, "Gram'ma! I's skeered—" The tepid body twisted out of his hands into a tense sitting position; a senseless jabbering whirled and danced from the mumbling Hps. "Gram'ma! It's Jake! I's skeered—" "Dar now!" The stiffened figure curved a protecting arm around him, and drew him with¬ in the covers. "Dar now. . . . W'ut skeered you, honey? . . ." "A dawg. ... I heard a dawg. ..." Again the booming call for prey shattered the rustling noisiness of the night world with¬ out. "Bloodhoun's . . . bloodhoun's, honey," she muttered. She slid to the floor; the quilts trailed and whispered across the wood, as she made for the window, and stood on her knees on the split-cane chair beneath it. Her chin cleared the high lower sash; Jake stood beside her, caped in the quilt, round eyes boring the dark. The voices of the dogs changed to an uncer¬ tain bickering. All at once this altered to the deep firm note he had heard at first. Nearer now—it was at the nearest end of the field. An THE SWAMP 5 uncanny dancing glow stained the background. The undergrowth complained at the leaping in¬ sult of heavy bodies crashing through. The light came closer. A lone hound snaked though the blackberry bramble, headed for the house. Then there was a whirling, writhing tumult of dogs—dogs vaulting the briers, curving in to right and left, leaping over each- other—six in sight at one time. The red radiance was just behind, as the panting jowls neared the log walls, sniffed and questioned the woodwork. Three scared black faces flared below the torches: one a knot of lightwood, the other two oil-soaked bundles of rags in flame. Quarter niggers. . . . After them half a dozen white faces scowled beneath black wide-brims. Grandma pulled the wooden shutter closer; only the tiniest slit of the picture showed. The harsh, water-soaked trudge *of the masters' boots halted before the door. The dogs whined and worried around the shack; one, growling, teased at a loose board. Jake felt his body within the quilt run cold. Again the sudden bell cry of the leader lifted. "That's coon smell," grunted a heavy voice. 6 NIGGER The dogs padded off; the light moved after them; then the men, shifting the shotguns in their cramped arms. Deep within the swamp the noise subsided; the ancient chorus of swamp frogs regained its hour. "Blood-houn's," Gram 'ma muttered. She crawled back into bed; Jake, unforbidden, found a place beside her. Hie lay awake, long after she had resumed her heavy breathing. The guttural 11 croak, croak" of bull-frogs, the shrill treble of tree- toads, alternated in soothing monotony. This was the first sound that Jake could re¬ member. Long before he had been allowed to creep down the single log step to the damp soil outside, his hours had been measured by the steady beat of the unending symphony. "Know w'ut dey tells yer?" Gram'ma had crooned to him. "Knee deep! Knee deep!" The shrill voice shifted to a cavernous bass: "Better go roun'! Better go roun'!" Out of the soughing heights of cypress and swamp pine, the piercing "Knee deep!" Back from the dismal depths the guttural harshness of bull frogs, "Better go round! Better go round! Better go round!" "Knee deep"— THE SWAMP 7 "better go round"— through every cranny in the swamp-locked cabin came the chorus. The boy's memory travelled back no further than this. At times came the cool "plunk, plunk" as the heavy bodies dove into the dead pools; and "with it the disappointed hooting that broke and stilled the chorus—the weird hunting discord of screech owls, the hollow jeers of hoot owls, the rare distant laughter of the great horned owl. After an awed silence, the exultant swell of the hidden chorus rolled and shivered throughout the swamp again. Jake learned these sounds first. Next he learned the geography of the cabin. There was the great flat clothes-basket where he slept; there was the big table, the roll of quilts for Gram'ma's pallet, the little table, the bed, the chair. This was all: he was forbidden the one door, he could not reach the one window. The light that came through the door or win¬ dow, like the thick swamp shadows, was black, even at sun-hot noon. The oozy soil that tracked the rough pine flooring was black. The night was blackest of all. He must have*known a mother; but he had no 8 NIGGER recollection of her. "Yo' po* mammy been an' sol7 up de state," Gram/ma told him again and again. "She 'n' yo' buddies 7n' sisters. No¬ body lef' but you 'n' me 'n' yo' po' pappy.'' Then would come a groan from the bed, from the grotesque bundle called "pappy." Jake never remembered seeing his face; there was only the spasmodic tossing of the hunched covers, and the endless groaning. The boy was glad at last to escape from the cooping walls to the ooze without. Here a world of playmates awaited him. It was a long time before he saw his first frog; but smaller neighbors were at hand from the start. There were red ants—hills upon hills of them. The boy soon made friends with them. It was a continuing pleasure to study their toil. His chief admiration went to the few great-headed ones, who came out only rarely, looked about, and then returned to the unseen underground plantations. Meanwhile, the hundreds of lesser ants scurried about their tasks, removed the dirt, dragged back the crumbs of pounded corn and the bodies of flies and bugs, bore the dead out of their quarters. THE SWAMP 9 Ceaseless work for the many; but a clever few escaped. After the ants, there were the lizards to be studied—the gay-colored gentry who circled the huge pine trunks, the brown ones basking on the logs and rounded rocks, the lithe chame¬ leons, teetering on the young leaves, and, most wonderful of all, the water lizards. Some were small and brown and slippery; you caught them with the sudden flirt of a gourd. Others were huge and smoothly fat and colored with evil splotches of muddy white and hot scarlet. These were the grandmother lizards; you could not catch them. After the lizards came' the crawfishes, building their crumbly clay cones; and the great hairy spiders, with striped backs and unwinking jet eyes; and the dazzling dragon- flies; and the frogs. From the hidden "tree- deedles" to the ancient bulls, Jake learned them all. There was a day when he returned to the cabin, and found the bed empty. He asked no questions of Gram'ma; and that night he slept with her above the thick quilts on the bed. 10 NIGGER The father with his groaning was gone: that was all. No one ever told him which rain- channeled mound in the slaves' burying-ground had been humped up as a final cover for the pain-racked body. The absence of his father had one ad¬ vantage: it gave Jake summer clothes for the next two years. One shirt was all he wore> tucked up and basted by Gram'ma's awkward fingers. In the winter he wore trousers as well, slashed and pieced out of the father's homespuns. There came a summer—Jake was now seven—when Gram'ma told him, "You's ol' enough to go to de fiel's, Jakey, 'n' he'p me pick cotton. Overseer he say so. Hyah, take dis bag. ..." He started to follow. "Wait a mite, honey. Dat's yo' only shuh't. You cain't wear dat out." She pondered, chattering meaninglessly under her breath. "Hyah—dis croker-sack'll hatter do." Jake obediently stripped off the one pre¬ cious shirt, while the woman ripped a hole in the bottom of the sack, and two in the sides, and slid it over his fresh tan shoulders. 1 'Ouch! Dat tickles . . , scratches . . THE SWAMP 11 "Come on—shet yo' trap." The improvised shirt tormented every step he took. It rasped and pricked the tender skin like a robing bed of nettles. For days the flesh was darkened by its touch; but the pricking novelty wore off, and the adaptable human covering, toughened to the inevitable sackcloth. Croker sacks thereafter were prized around Gram'ma's cabin; following each visit to the master's stables, when the cow-feed or horse-feed bags were being emptied, she re¬ turned with a tell-tale bulge under her skirts. Thus she clothed the otherwise naked. None of the stable hands told on her; for "Grandma" was a privileged person around the quarters. She had been brought direct from Africa; and, whenever she became ex¬ cited, would jabber unintelligible imprecations, in some forgotten clicking dialect. This was sure proof that she talked with the Old Man himself, and earned her the reputation of a "cunjur" woman. She capitalized this to the utmost, in order to keep the bottom of the meal bin white. It was after he began his cotton-picking that Jake got his first full view of a white man. 12 NIGGER He had heard much awed talk of the masters; when he saw the overseer at close range, it was with a sinking shock of disappointment. A white man did not look like a god, or even a superior. Yet his tones at once taught Jake that he was. His word was law: no plea from a slave could bend it. God, Jake was told, sometimes heard a black man's prayer. In this respect the overseer was not a god. One day, while the picking was going on, Judge Lowe himself rode to the field. Here, to Jake's amazement, was a white man in whose presence even the overseer stood bare¬ headed. The negro boy edged closer, open- mouthed, hand still clutching the fluffy cotton snow, to share the wisdom that spilled from these puffy, all-powerful lips. "Looks good, Anderson. The soil works all the time; can't you make your hands keep up with it?" 4'Pretty near." "Ah, the ground works day and night too: any clod's wu'th two niggers. There ain't a richer bit in the Black Belt." The Black Belt I Jake understood that much of what the master said. He had been THE SWAMP 13 born in it; as a boy, its blackness was all he knew. The mention of Black Belt ever there¬ after brought up a vision of a sweep of swampy darkness, stretching from far-off "Georgy" to the unmentionable horrors "down de ribber," and South and North as well—a region of bogged cotton and mired cabins, set within wild flooded lowlands, penetrable only to fleeing slaves and the bloodhounds of the white masters. These could go anywhere: there could be no city of refuge for the dark Black Belt folk. One morning—Jake was sleeping on the pal¬ let now—Gram'ma did not rise when he called her. Her eyes were red glitters, her twisted >mouth moaned brokenly the clicking jargon that always shook him with fear. 'i Gram 'ma! Gram 'ma! Hit's me—Jake—'' The red eyes did not see him. He ran to the quarters, and told one of the house serv¬ ants. Several accompanied him back to the cabin; then sent him on to his work. That night, Gram'ma too was gone. "Yo' granny, she daid," one girl told him. "Not her," a grizzled stableman insisted. "She cain't die. . . . Didn* you see dat oP 14 NIGGER gray cat go slinkin* out er de cabin? Listen:— dar's her, a-yowlin' to beat de ban'! She hear w'ut I's sayin'!" "Dasso!" "De Lawd's trufe!" One brazen, strapping fellow taunted, "Kitty, kitty! Go get dat cat, sonny." "Don* you do no sich thing! Dat's yo' granny's ha'nt, dat is. Don* nebber tetch her," several warned him solemnly. The lonely boy watched the cat's peculiar coinings and goings for several weeks. Once or twice he called "Or am'ma! Gram'ma!" softly, when no one was near. The cat yowled an unintelligible answer: it sounded like Gram'ma. He left the cat alone after that. "Dar, I tol' you so," the wiseacres repeated solemnly, a few months later. "Dat cat gone: but she ain' die. She done been translated. You'll hear her yowlin' agin'. Better min' yo'se'f den; Gram'ma's at de debbil's business!" Jake was twelve when this death occurred; and there were no other tenants to fill the swamp cottage. So he continued to occupy it, THE SWAMP 15 putting in his hours at the back-breaking cot¬ ton-picking. The years passed above him, full of incidents, significant to him, which mattered to few of the rest. As one of the field hands, he hardly noticed the departure of the "old master'' to Montgomery, to take his seat in the first government of the buoyant confed¬ eracy; or the gay "horse and away"-ing of the young masters, to the last one of them. What little he learned of the war came from Jim Gaines, a "hand" from the next planta¬ tion, rented out to the Lowes. "Dey's fightin' all ober de Nawth. Young Mas'r Bob he killed fo'teen 'damn Yankees,' he is." " W 'ut's er damn Yankee, Jim?" "Ain't you iggerunt! Dem damn Yankees say dey goin' ter free de slaves." "Free 'em? Free us?" "Foolishness. "Whuffur you want ter be free?" "I dunno." "Dar now! Jedge'll pertec' us—Jedge an' de young mas'rs. Mebby dey'11 let us fight— soon. How ol' is you, Jake ?'' i6 NIGGER "Dunno." "You dunno nothin\ I's nineteen—yon mus' be goin* on eighteen.'' " 'Speck I is." "Sho yon is. You watch—dey'll let us fight in a year. Come on." Discipline had insensibly slackened; the black boys were off for the afternoon. Jim usually spent the time at the other end of the Gaines plantation, by the river; and then retailed to unsophisticated Jake the impressive tale of his "crap-shooting" liquoring, and other banned joys. Today, however, they wandered up from the swampy footlands to the sandy pine hill be¬ yond the "big house," exchanging woodland lore and speculations concerning a hundred subjects, including the girls in the quarter. "Dat Mayella's a spry piece. Wen I mar¬ ries, I gwineter pick a piece spry as her," Jim volunteered. "Yeah." "You know Mamie, Miss' Agnes' girl? She been goin' wid de overseer at our plantation. Dey goin' ter make her a fieP-han\ She good at pickin\" "Yeah?" THE SWAMP 17 "Yeah. She gwineter pick a baby out er de bushes . . . soon." "Yeah?" "Yeah. Man, yon onghter come down to de pier on our plantation. Dem gals I Umm!" " Yeah?" "Whuffur all you say is 'yeah!' Cain't you say nothin' else?" "Yeah." "Yeah, yeah! Say it, den. You cain' fool me—dat Phoebe, w'ut come ober wid Miss* Clopton, she make eyes at you all de time you wuz dar. You make a hit, man!" "Me?" '1 Naw! Haw, haw! Ain' you de easy! You make a hit, man!" "Yeah." "Wid a yaller gal, too." They reached the neighborhood of the post road. Barring their way rose a gray-rotted skeleton of timbers, and, off to the side, two weather-bitten posts. "You oughter be skeered er dem pos'es, Jake." "Huccome?" "Dis de oP gin—dem's de whippin' pos'es. Ain' dey whup yo' pappy ter death hyah?" i8 NIGGER "My pappy t" "Dat's wut my ma say." "Did she say . . . w'y?" "He tnk on so, we'n dey sol' yo* maw tip de state. Am' you skeered?" Jake took a frightened glance around. No one was to be seen; no vengeful white faces peered through the bushy undergrowth of pines. Only the strident bickering of jays, flashing blue lightnings in the sunlight, broke the sultry quietude. "I am* skeered er nothing" he asserted firmly. Jim watched him in awe as he stripped off a blackened silver, and transferred it to a hand sticky with half-chewed sugar cane. "W'ut's dat fer?" "Dis mah luck piece, Jim. I got a rabbit foot; I got a snake-skin; I got a slick buck-eye; now I got dis." "W'ut you gwine do wid it?" "One half stays wid, me: one half gits buried whar dey planted Gram'ma. Den dey won' whup me on no whuppin'-pos'; Gram'ma'd ha'nt 'em ef dey did." Jim regarded the orphan with renewed rev- THE SWAMP 19 erence. True kin of Gram'ma! . . . "You wouldn't dare!" "You watch me. . . . Lawdie, dar's de horn! Come on an' feed, bad man." "Maybe dat Phoebe'11 be dar,n "I'll be dar." CHAPTER H THE BIACK BELT ONE broiling noon Harvey, a stable hand, came to the field where Jake and a dozen others were lounging over their pails of luke¬ warm dinner. "You all gotter knock off wu'k, an* come ter de big house." "W'ut's de rucus?" "01* Massa's gom* ter make an oration." *1Noration, you says ?'' Harvey sneered cuttingly, "Noration, you says. A speechifyin\ I fergits I cain't talk elegant ter corn-fieP coons." "When they reached the shaded portico of the mansion, they were lined up according to rank. Jake's eyes wandered over the uneasy rows; there must be two—three hundred of them. He recalled hearing the overseer boast that Carlowville, the nearest town, was the "boss town" in southern Dallas County,—a *'reeH3tricted" town, in whose neighborhood 20 THE BLACK BELT 21 no man could farm unless he owned at least a hundred slaves. Jake noticed, with some disquiet, that most of the neighboring gentry were on the porch. He knew them—he had seen them through back doors and windows, at frequent Christmas and New Year parties; even the ditching negroes could pick out most of the assembled figures. What were they all doing here? More work, probably. ... Or a change of masters. When they were in order, Judge Lowe came forward; his empty glass clinked against the broad wooden coping. Clearing his throat an¬ grily, he surveyed them through reddened eye¬ lids. *i Former slaves of the Lowe plantation—" an appreciative chuckle from the rear punctu¬ ated the pause. "Citizens of this grand and bloodily united republic, it has been made my duty to notify you that you have been freed by constitutional amendment. You are free to go where you damn please; and the sooner those of you who intend to leave get out of Dallas County, the better for them. Those who want to remain on the plantation will be paid for their work. The field hands will be permitted 22 NIGGER to rent the land they occupy; Mr. Anderson will 'tend to the terms. See him." He half turned to go. . That's all." There was a shuffling uncertainty, but no other response from the bewildered servitors. "Don't you understand?" he shouted ab¬ ruptly, his face darkening. "You're free, damn you!" "Three cheers fuh Mistuh Linkum!" a sub¬ dued quaver answered him. Judge Lowe came slowly down the steps to the group from which the cry had come. His breath reached them, flavored with toddy, gen¬ teel, mint-sweet. He peered from under bushy eyebrows up and down the line. "Jack;— Willis—I know you. . . . Jerry—Jake— Mamie—good niggers. . . . Mamie Brown —ah! Jim Gaines. Step out, you black bas¬ tard." Jim's face went chalky; he sagged at the knees. His companions nudged him forward. A flask bulged within his hip pocket; he smelled of liquor. The Judge regarded 'him dispassionately. "The man who says that in the Black Belt, for the next fifty years, can expect the whip- THE BLACK BELT 23 ping post ... or worse . . » before lie leaves the Black Belt for good . . . some way. Don't let me see your face again. Git!" Jim got. The others slowly scattered. There was no more field work that day. Two nights later, Jake came humbly up to the back door of the big house, and asked to see his former master. Word was given him to come around to the front. "Well, what can I do for you, Jake?" Aunt Marina's cooking was enough to put an ab¬ olitionist in a good humor. " 'Scusin' yo' pahdon, Jedge, I wants ter git married.'' "I'm damned! That's a good one! The law makes you free—an' you want to get mar¬ ried. Who's the gal?" " fin-mi *1 Clopton's gal Phoebe, suh." "I see, I see. Well, I've got no objection. I'm a free master now, remember; I don't have tp bother ajiy more with your troubles. What does the gal say? Want me to talk to the Colonel? Or do you want me to convey Cu¬ pid's billet-doux to the wench, like John Alden 24 NIGGER in Mr. Yankee Longfellow's poemf Speak up, nigger. "What does the gal say?" Jim punished an ear in embarassed bewilder¬ ment during most of this. Judge was smiling, anyhow. . . . "She haven't no objections, suh. We's already . . . been 'sperimentin' fer some time." "So that's the kind of gal she is!" "Oh, suh, dat wusn't nothin' onexception- able wid her. But—but she's a good gal." "Of course. Not more than a dozen darky Eomeos a week. I know those yaller gals. Want me to marry you?" "Well, seem' you's jedge—" "Now listen, Jake. You could get that negro preacher, Brother Jones, ain't hef He'd do. . . . But bring her along. Where is she?" '1 Phoebe! Hey, Phoebe!'' Out of the dusky shadows beside the house came the bright dusky face. Aunt Marina was called, and the other house servants. The white ladies were a crescented blur on the porch, beneath the scented glimmer of white clematis; the young men were otherwise en¬ gaged, in some low smoke-blue room in the THE BLACK BELT 25 Dallas House, in Carlowville. The judge, hugely genial, pronounced an improvised ceremony. The lives were knotted. "You're a good .nigger, Jake. Anderson," he singled out the overseer, "see that this boy has a cow for a dowry; and tell Colonel Clop- ton to do as well for the gal. Good night, now." "Jedge—" a timid voice spoke out of the gloom,—the voice of Tom, Harvey's brother, another field hand. "I'd like ter git married too—wid Pearl, er Enith—" "You go to—Washington! The planta¬ tion hasn't enough cows to go 'roun'. Good night, all of you." So it was that Jake and Phoebe set up home- making, in the hidden cabin at the gate of the swamp. This was in July; and the ancient milk cow, and the gift of a pig from the girl's former master, made the first winter's food problem an easy one. Just after the new year boy, a squally, puny youngster, widened the family circle—little Isaac, the first of five. Peace and plenty left the cabin, after the first rich year. There was, to begin with, a dearth at the big house—a dearth that reached 26 NIGGER throughout and beyond the Black Belt, as part of the harvest of the red years just gone. Jake had treasured two Confederate bills, pre¬ sented him one Christmas in a burst of jubi¬ lant generosity following piling victories. When the need came he dug them out of the crazy quilt, and presented them at the store. . . . They laughed at him. Later he heard many times that there was a safe full of such Mis at the big house . . . worthless. The negroes were drifting off the plantations; this he could see. Their absence left the land un- tilled, the corn to sprout in the husk, the cot¬ ton bolls to pop open and rot unpicked on the shrivelled stems. These were lean years at the big house—at all the "big houses.'* Then there were his own problems, as ten¬ ant farmer. The cow died the next Spring, of disease starting in one of her horns. There 'was no way to get another. Jake had no .stock. He had been allotted fifteen acres at iirst by the overseer, of which six were swamp, four thick with runty second-growth pines, and the final five cleared. But he had no mule. "Fohty acres an' a mule," grunted Tom, Harvey's brother, whose land lay north of THE BLACK BELT 27 Jake's. "Bat's w'ut dey promise dem nig¬ gers at de Freedman's Bureau. Fohty acres, all bull-frogs an' tree-deedles; reckon we de mules." "Wisht I wuz a mule," Jake added dog¬ gedly. "I mout git dat Ian' plowed den." "Plow it wif yo' 'mancipation, honey; plow it wif yo' 'mancipation," said Tom bitterly. "W'uts dis yere 'mancipation I hears so much consarnin' of?" " 'Mancipation means you pay fer yo' own hoe, yo' own plow, yo' own slab er bacon, yo* own 'lasses—wid nothin' to pay fer 'em wid." "Looks dat way, looks dat way." In distress, Jake took himself to Mr. Par¬ sons, the manager who had taken Anderson's place two months before, much to the relief of the negroes. "Mistuh Pahsons, I cain't raise no cotton widout no mules; an' I cain't raise no mules f'um cotton-seed." "What do you want me to do, Jake?" "I dunno." "Judge ain't got no extra stock." "No, suh." "You couldn't pay fer it, ef he had." 28 NIGGER "No, suh." "Tell you w'ut I'll do. I'll rent that whole forty to Tom; he's got an ox, an' he's makin' ont pretty well. Then you rent the three or four acres you need from him; I'll look to him for the rent." "Yassuh." The new arrangement certainly could not he any worse than the old. Jake finally took three cleared acres, and he and Phoebe did about half of the work on Tom's place, in ex¬ change for the use of the ox. On this three acres an average year gave two bales of cotton, and forty bushels of corn; one bumper crop had reached three bales. His crops Jake sold to the Judge, or rather to General Lowe, who owned the gin. That one great year he almost broke even; but, when the year's statement for supplies was deducted, there was not quite enough left to run them through the winter fol¬ lowing. The burden of debt owed to Lowe's store grew a little heavier each year. This was so, even though there were at the end only three mouths to fill. Isaac thrived in a stunted fashion. But little Tom, the third boy, choked to death on a rind of bacon in his THE BLACK BELT 29 first summer; Mary, who followed him a year later, died when only a month old. Mamie, who came last, after a lapse of three years, was the special sunshine in the swampy place. When she was only two, barely able to use her plump little legs to toddle out of doors, she wandered off alone into the dark morass. They found her body a week later. The swamp was not kind to children. This was not surprising when, to the mala¬ rial unhealthiness of the place, was added the lean diet that the thin years provided. Lucky winters they had a pig to kill; more usually, the menu consisted, for three meals a day, of corn pone, dipped into pot liquor made from turnip greens and other garden truck in the summer, and washed down in the winter with coffee steeped from parched corn. At times there was "long sweetening," or molasses, to sea¬ son this; usually their credit did not permit this addition. This was all the children had, unless a cup of milk could be begged from a sympathetic neighbor. This, liberally diluted with water, would go a long way, sometimes lasting into the third day. There were, of course, berries, plums, and peaches, in the opu- 3° NIGGER lent months; but the greater part of the year na¬ ture was not so considerate, and her simple children made out the best they could. 4'Come on, folks, git yo' bags," Jake would command, at sunset of a baking autumn day. They would reach the fields after sundown, Jake, Phoebe, Isaac, now seven, and "Judge," a year younger. After picking three or four hours, the tired boys would pillow their heads on the fluffy bags, and go to sleep in the swampy rows, crooned into dreamland by the familiar falls and swells of the frog lullaby. After an hour or two they would awake, stretch their cramped limbs, and get back to work. They thought it great sport. Judge contracted rheumatism in this way, and died at eight; Isaac, always a weakling, hung on, with stunted body and slow mind. Saturday was different. It was mill day. While Jake would work around Tom's larger farm, little Isaac would shoulder the bag of corn and trudge off to the mill, six miles away on Dry Cedar Creek. It was an all day trip; lie had to take long rests going and returning. Gradually things grew better. In cotton pick¬ ing time, the family would hurry through their THE BLACK BELT 3* own plot, and work around the white folks* fields, or those of more prosperous negro far¬ mers. Picking paid four bits a hundred pounds; a man could pick two hundred, a boy a hundred and fifty, in an average day. There were plenty of places to put this money, in the chill months that followed. A hundred and fifty yards down the swamp was a rotting shack which had been empty for* thirty years. As he sludged down the field one day, Jake heard a hail from the obscurity of the thicket that hid this derelict. "In Gawd's name, oP Jake! Howdy, man!" A familiar figure straddled the rickety fence. "Jim Gaines!" "Dat's de boy!" "Am' you 'fraid er dem Ku Kluxes, er Jedge?" "I done seed Jedge; he say I could farm dis lan\ Say he glad ter see one nigger movm* in. Come on in, man, an' meet mah Elly Lou." A small figure was bent over a steaming iron kettle, stirring the clothes within with a barked cypress branch. "Elly Lou, dis is dat no- 'count Jake I toP you 'bout." 32 NIGGER She turned up a shrewd, weazened little face, pocked and scarred. "Mus' 'a' got it f'um yon, den. Howdy, man." 4'She's a terror, Elly Lou is," Jim chuckled appreciatively. "Come on—I'll step down a piece wid you." "How long you been married, Jim?" "Not long, not long. Dat gal's only sixteen —an' I's thuhty-fo!" "She—she—" "Looks thuhty, eh?" His face grew som¬ ber. "I married her in Noo Or-leans, Jake. She was a crib 'ooman." "Crib. . . . ?" "I disrecollect you nebber knowed nothin! She was a jenny—a wench—a free 'ooman—" "I unnerstan's." " 'Twarn't her fault. She ain' nebber had no folks; dey got her young. I tuck her out, an' married her. She's spry, an' no missin'." "Got any kids?" "Not yit." Life became a more social thing, with these close neighbors. The two cabins conducted a constant open house to one another; Phoebe was much taken with the queer girl-woman, THE BLACK BELT 33 who had seen so much, and was so little of anything. Finally a child was promised; hut Elly Lou died on the day that the dead baby was delivered. Jim went through the next month with a moody, hang-dog air. Partly to cheer him up Jake dropped by one Saturday night. "Wanter drop in at chu'ch tomorrer night, Jim?" "W'ut's stirrin'?" "Little Isaac's gwineter git married." "New Zion?" "Naw; dis gal, Polly Scales, she favors Nebo Methodis'; dey gwineter be married in de new chu'ch." "Now ain't dat peculiar! I's gwineter git married Choosday night in Nebo Methodis' myself.'' "You gwineter! Who gwineter hab you?" "I got a quality nigger, I is. You know dat Miss Sophie Lide, f'um Lide's plantation? She de gal. I jes' walked over dis after¬ noon." "Dat's twelve miles, man!" "W*ut's twelve miles, wid a good looker at de other end? I'll come—en7 you coine." 34 NIGGER After the two ceremonies, life in the swamp developed into a race between Sophie Gaines and Polly, Isaac's wife, as to which should bring the largest family into the cabinned world. Jim's wife began it with little Jim, whose name evolved in course of time into "Waffles"; then the Lowe cabin was visited by an ebony stork, who deposited a young Daniel in the clothes-basket crib. Sophie's next was a girl, Hetty; Polly retorted with twins, Tom and Louis, and followed this up with a girl, Marthula, a year later. The Gaines household made a desperate attempt to catch up with a lean boy, blessed with the impressive name of "Wonderful Counsellor; but, discouraged by the prompt appearance of Nazarena Lowe and Ophelia Lowe, Sophie gave up the unequal con¬ test, leaving Polly Lowe to complete the rout with a seventh baby, named Pinkham, after the vegetable remedy which had just swept into vogue among the tan elite of Dallas County. Polly's victory proved too much for her; she never regained strength after little Pink's ap¬ pearance ; and Isaac, who had always been ail¬ ing, died a year after her. Jake and Phoebe were thus saddled with the seven husky, hun- THE BLACK BELT 35 gry grandchildren. These were accepted, as labor, and famine, and emancipation had been accepted before them. "Yon got yo's," Jake would say to Jim, "I got mine. Dat's all." "An' mine 's gone to cotton-pickin'," Jim boasted in answer. "Jim's earnin' man's pay now, an' him * lebben! Den Hetty an' Wonduh- ful all git in deir licks, too.*' "An* you am' nebber sont 'em to school? Dan stahted w'en he wuz six; he done put in three winters a 'ready now. Tom an' Louis been goin' two years; Marthuly stahted dis year. Nex' year, I'm goin' to sen' all fo' of 'em, an' Nazareny, ter dis Snow Hill Institute. Dey goin' ter l'arn somethin'." * * School! Ten weeks er piddlin' an' loafin'.'' "An' you say I dunno nothin'! Huccome dem white folks do w'ut dey wants? Huccome Jedge Lowe an' Cunn'l Gaines an' de res' got so much lan'? Ain' det smaht? Cain't dey read an' write ? Answer me dat!'' "Do readin' make yo' skin white? Do writ- in' gin you de vote? Do cipherin' mop out de black?" Jake pondered this from many angles. "I 36 NIGGER wus twenty years ol' w'en ,mancipation come, Jim. I am' nebber kriowed no thin'. Dem cbildern gwineter hab ejjication. Dey gwine ter hab all dey can h'ist. I don' want ter mop out no black; I wouldn' hab 'em white, ner yaller neider, no ways. But dey gonter hab dis ejjication. We ain' had no 'mancipation; dey gwineter fin* it." "We am' had no—" "Did Isaac fin* 'mancipation? He wu'k his sick han's ter de bone: he died. Did Polly fin* it, er dem little kids? Dey died. 'Man¬ cipation don' mean wu'Mn' an' sweating an no mo'." "W'ut do it mean, smaht man? You know so much—you say it." Again he pondered, face clouded heavily. "I dunno, Jim. But dey gwine ter fin* out." CHAPTER in "ROLLESr' THROUGH AN UNFRIElirtiY WORLD" OLD Jake stopped before the thicket of scrub pine that screened the Gaines house, one sleepy morning in July. He wedged his way between barbed brambles and long dew-beaded grasses, and scraped through the limping gate. The hinge had rotted away years before; the footboards furrowed the muddy ground. "Hey, "Waffles! Little Jim!" Impassively his eyes surveyed the ramshackle wreck of a cabin, the sagged bench below the rickety shutter of the one window, the filthy slop buckets piled upon it and the one weather- whitened splint chair. He had just left his own cleared and cleaned cabin yard, his or¬ derly porch, his house with the glass win¬ dows. . . . Negroes had journeyed from Fat- ama and Collirene to see this; it had been the first negro house with real glass windows this side of Snow Hill. All of this had come slowly; 37 38 NIGGER it had come through Dan and the* rest of the children, who had learned at the Institute how things might he, and had made them grow so. Education. . . . Jim's children had never had education. . . . A strapping black boy, full grown, rasped open the door. "Come in, oP shouter! Wut you wake us up fer?" He showed the full growth of the nineteen years that had elapsed since Sophie Gaines came to the shack, even if the warped pine scrubs in front of the place did not. "Fer nine o'clock! Don* you nebber wu'k, Little Jim?" "Not ef we kin he'p it, an* dat's gospel. Come on in—oP man's back." "Yo* pappy?" "Same oP bird. Dey let him out Choos- day." "An* jes' gittin' back?" "Yeah. He stop at de rigber, an' run in three gallons er licker. An* he fotch a new clock." "Uv all de foolishness! Am' you jes* buyed dat chiny-ware one ? Cos' you eight dolluhs—'' "An* am' paid fer yit. But dis baby's a ROLLIN' THROUGH 39 Lulu. Little bird pops out, an* say 'Coo-koo! Coo-koo! Coo-koo!' We run it so much las1 night, she done tire herself down. But you kin see her." He stuck his head inside the door. "Hey, pappy—giddap! Hyah's Jake." The visitor followed him into the slipshod murk of the hut. Hetty, Waffles' younger sister, seventeen and slouchily graceful, bent over a range long discarded by the "white folks," dousing careless hoe-cakes into siz¬ zling hog-fat. Jake disapproved of her; she ran around indiscriminately with white and black alike. He held his eyes away from her body, in embarrassment; for four months he had noticed the swelling bulge distorting her trim shape. Sophie, Jim's wife, observed her grown daughter sleepily from a sagging rocker, while the younger boys and the father strug¬ gled up from their pallets and into their over¬ alls. "Howdy, Jim! How'd dey treat you at de county hotel?" "Jails is all de same to me. I made out." "Out, eh? I see dat. Dey kotch you fer sellin' still licker, an* you gits out an* stahts selling agin!" 40 NIGGER "Gotter make a livin'. Dat's w'ut dis heah pro'bishim's fer, ain't it?" "You says so." The visitor examined the elaborate clock inside and out. "Some mo' foolishness! An' you a'ready got three! Boughten dis one on time, I'll be boun'." "Sho did." 44 An' er organ, an' a surrey, an' dat pitcher album, an' I disrecollec' w'ut else—" Hetty prompted him cheerfully. "An' dat big 'Hell an' Hebb'n,' wid de Doorway pitch¬ ers. ... an' dat grammerphone dat won' play. ... an' dat magic lantum. . » . an' dat fo' dollar diamon' ring—" "Wen you might er own' yo' own house, ez I does! Man, I owns it! Ev'y nail an' shingle—" "Like Tom Harvey boughten his'n, eh? Ain' he boughten dat place fo' times, an' ain' got it yit? De Probate Jedge say he ain' got de right papers yit." , "I got mine. Ain' you ebber said 'no' ter nothin' dey tries ter sell you?" Jim chuckled. " 'Member dat book mjans ROLLIN' THROUGH 41 w*ut tried to sell dem Bibles wid de nigger angels? I ain't bought none er dem." "Dat wus a sore white man! All dem bee- yutiful books, wid de gol' claspses an' de cul- lud pitchers, an* nebber sol' a one! Dem white fulks up nawth don* know niggers is gwine ter be whiter dan snow, w'en dey reaches New Jerusalem." Waffles broke in with boisterous, angry vigor. "Dey would hatter be whiter dan snow in Carlowville las' night, an7 no mistake." "How's dis?" Old Jim cleared his mouth out with a gourd full of stale well water, and spat a cat¬ aract though the open back door. "Ain' you nebber goin' ter know nothin' uv w'ut goes on 'roun' you, black man? Yo' black face wouldn't a been wu'th a bit in town las'' night." "W'ut's dis? W'ut's dis?" "You better ax w'ut's dis. You know dat Miss Nellie Gulley teaches at de county school? Black man, dey say, stop her on de creek road 'n' tried to 'sault her." *' My Gawd, man!" Jake's wrinkles grooved 42 NIGGER deeper all over his face. "Hyah in Carlow- ville! . . . Tried to, yon says. . . . Dat all lie did?" "Dat's a-plenty,'' Sophie put in darkly. "Am* dey done got tergedder a whole passel er white trash, an* say dey gonter clean up de niggers? Jim wus in town. ... ax him." "White trash?" Waffles corrected. "Two er Jedge Lowe's boys wus dar, an* Mistuh Sam Clopton, an' dem Lida boys f 'um Camden. . . . Quality, too." Hetty, tired from the stooping, rested her¬ self on an overturned tub, stroking her body to ease the discomfort. "Wonduhful heard 'em talkin'Dat's de Gaines bunch,' dey say. 4Let's git dat ol' debbil.' An' pappy jes' outer de calaboose I*9 Jake was on fire for further details. "An' den? An' den?" Old Jim's smooth tones filled in the rest. "An' den some white mens corned back—dey been to Miss Hayes's boardin' house, an' 'zamined Miss Gulley—it wuzn't no nigger a- tall, but dat low-down cousin er hern, Tom Donahoo; he done black up his face, but she knowed him, an' he run lak a jack-rabbit, an' ROLLIN' THROUGH 43 dey kotch him hidin' in de hay in his pappy's barn. . . . An' dat wus all." "But ef she hadn't er reckernized him, Jim?" "Yeah, Jake. . . . Ef she hadn't. . . "Dey wus ugly, dem white mens, you say?" "Ugly as hell. Dey wus out fer nigger." "Um-hmm, um-hmm. It am' been two years since dey burn dat Joe Brown at Fatama, Jim." "Dat's right, Jake." "Dey wouldn' do dat in Carlowville, I be boun'." " 'Speck dey wouldn'." "Well, dat am' w'ut I corned about." Jake shook off the shadow of the tragedy; his dark face creased with good nature below the griz¬ zled hair. "I got a message f'um Phoebe, Miss' Sophie. She say you gotter make a pan er soda biscuits—fer de chu'ch tomorrah night—de union meetin'. Dat is, ef you all gwine." "Not me." "In course you is, 'ooman! We all gwine. In cou'se you is," her husband grunted irrit¬ ably. 44 NIGGER "De hell I is! Wot de hell I gwine ter chu'ch fer?" "It len's tone, 'ooman; tone! Ail* den, we's a 'ligious fambly, we is. Am' I done name mah yonnges' a Bible name? Speak up, Won- duhfull" Jake shook his head smilingly. "Dat ain' no Bible name. Who ever heard uv no 4Won- duhful Counsellor' in de Good Book?" "You pusson! You grows iggerunter rn* iggerunter! You'll fin' it sot right down dar —'He shall be called Wonduhful, Counsellor,' —preacher done pick it out for me. Wonduh¬ ful done gib dis fambly 'ligion." "I reckon you needs it. Well, I gotter be humpin\ Don' fergit dem biscuits, Miss Sophie. We'll be by tomorruh." When the large flock of Lowes, led by the two grandparents, and tapering from twenty- year old Dan down to mischievous Pink, just turned twelve, called at the Gaines gate, the family of good-natured law-breakers was, as usual, not ready. At length the grumbling laggards got under way. Both families belonged to the New Zion Baptist Church, a venerable pine structure ROLLIN' THROUGH 45 on a hill outside Carlowville, whose cavern¬ ous interior could hold four hundred. The union meeting, however, was to take place at Nebo Methodist Church, the newer tabernacle which reared out of the swamp oaks half a mile away, and could house two hundred more. The Zions assembled at five, and set to work at first demolishing the supper provided by the energetic sisters of the church. In less* than an hour this had satisfactorily vanished. The stripping of the last chicken-bone was the signal for the singing to start. The women bound white cloth turbans around their unhat- ted heads, and joined the men in the old favorites, "I's Troubled in my Mind," "Deep River,'' "You May Bury Me in the East,—" "Nobody Knows the Trouble Irve Seen." Again and again they returned to I'm roUin,) rollin', Rollin' through an unfrien'ly world. . . . At last the singing line, led by Brother 'Zeke Foote and the two visiting preachers, snaked its way, still singing, toward the cita¬ del of the Nebos. The ancient trees saw nothing startling or new in the savage faces 46 NIGGER beneath the queer turbans: ten thousand years before, the lush growths in their homeland had flared to the same march, with many of the same mournful melodies. When the line was only a block away, it stopped, to let the hosts take up the tune. "Go Down, Moses," set the young acorns trembling. The Zion congregation informed the others that they were going "to be ready To walk in Jerusalem, jes' like John." The Methodists lifted "The Gospel Train" in answer; and, to the marching harmonies of "De Ark Kep* A- moverin', A-moverin' Erlong,'' the visitors jostled into the half of the church reserved for them. Now began the praying. There were six preachers present; and in this catch-as-catch- can wrestling in prayer, brevity was the soul of dishonor. The Lord was thanked for every single object in Dallas County at least six times, and for most of the remaining objects in Chris¬ tendom, as well as in the lands of "de por heathums" across the seas. When the last "Amen" had died away, there was a rustling silence. Out of it Brother Elijah Eeed, the ministerial host of the even- ROLLIN' THROUGH 47 ing, marched to the pine pulpit and spread wide the word of the Lord. "I takes my tex'," he began ponderously, "f'um de Fu'st Epistle uv St. Paul to de Secon' Corinthiums; 'Dose on de house; top¬ knot come down.* Dis tex*1 will furnish de substance fuh mah dissertation." His fingers continued to caress the pages of the big book. His hearers forgot that Brother Elijah could not read a line, as his moving words shook their eager spirits. " 'Dose on de house,' mah breddren. De worP am divided into two sorts uv folkses— dose on de house, an' dose under de house. De white man am on de house; dis Word uv de Libin' Gawd am fer him. De black man am under de house; dis Book uv de Blessed Lamb am fer him." "Amen, Brudder. . . "Dat's de Gospel!" "... Gawd, Gawd Ermighty!" "Dey am' one book fer white, an* ernudder fer cullud; one book fer po', an* one fer rich. Dar's one Scripchers fer saint anr sinner alike —fer sheep an* goats alike—fer de lion an' de lamb alike. . . . 48 NIGGER " 4Top knot come down,' mah brudders an* sistren. Dat means you, ez well as de white man. Some cullud folks sits on de house, too; dey sits on de house uv pride, de house uv sin an' fornication, de house uv broken com- man'ments an* smashed tablets uv stone. Dis word comes tuh dem—'Top knot come down!' You thinks you's sump'n, you proud scarlet sisters, you proud sinful brudders. You am' nothin'—you's less dan nothin'. Fer on de Day uv Jedgment de Good Book says uv evil things, 'Nothin' shall be sabed.' Even nothin' shall be sabed—but you—you ain* gwine ter be sabed. De ol' griddle's hot, an* de grease sputterin'; an' unless you lowers dat top knot, you gwine fry an' wriggle till de fires uv Hell need mo' coal—an' dat ain' nebber gwine be." "Lawd sabe us!" u. . . knows it, I knows it too!" "Amen, amen!" Brother Elijah rose on and on, until he and his hearers had climbed an emotional Nebo. At last he came to an end; and immediately Brother 'Thaniel Parker, the youngest visitor, who had been to school at Tuskegee, took the pulpit. He banged it and pounded it until the ROLLIN' THROUGH 49 rafters trembled, and the sinners, had any been present, would have prostrated themselves be¬ fore the altar of the Lord. Many of the con¬ gregation looked inquiringly at their neigh¬ bors ; how could such people fail to heed words flung so clearly at their wicked heads? After the second Methodist preacher had finished his exhorting, Brother Zeke Foote took the rostrum. Well did he justify his rep¬ utation, that touched seven counties, as a mighty striver with the Lord. He moved the mourners as no previous exhorter had done; dozens came forward in abject repentance, and Mamie Lide, Sophie's sister, who had never married, "threw a fit,'1 tearing her white tur¬ ban into shreds, and ripping her wrapper from the neck to the waist—a process that only ceased when she was led by sympathetic sis¬ ters to the Sunday School room in the rear and there dosed with stale sandwiches, pickles, ice water, and safety pins, until she was able to return. ' It was now well after midnight; but the hungry seekers were still clamoring for more. As she reentered, Brother Foote had given way to the last of the Baptists, old Peter Reynolds 50 NIGGER from Fatama. He had never learned to write or read; but Ms knowledge of the Testaments was stupendous. He could quote chapter after chapter; and chapter after chapter he did quote, accompanied by an incendiary flow of comments, threats, and cajolements that lifted his audience now into the seventh heaven of religious rapture, and sank them again into the brimstone depths below the seven hells of abasement and abnegation. "You gotter come! You gotter come now! 'I am de way an' de light;' but de way am growin' rougher, an' de light dimmer, while you waits. 'I am de Resurrection an7 de Life,' but dey ain't no resurrection for bodies gnawed by de maggots uv sin, an' dey ain't no life fer dem dead ter Jesus. I knows you sinners, ez you goes ker- nummuxin' an' kerfornicatin' through de worl'. Don' hug yo' kerflummery an' yo' kerfornica- tion to yo' sinful buzzums; hug de word uv de Libin* Lawd! "Oh, mah breddren, who'll be de fu'stl Who'll come—now? His ebberlastin' arms is spread ter kotch de weepin' backslider; His breast ter piller de man er woman w'ut's fell ROLLIN' THROUGH 51 sebbenty times sebben times. Who'll be de fu'st? Yon . . . f You?" A sudden commotion in the back of the church, by the central door. Sweat-beaded heads turned as one; somebody coming to Jesus. . . . One man stumbled into the room. The light from the oil bracket lamps suddenly flickered. The man faltered forward, all alone, face wet and staring. Those near him, on the right side, saw that where an ear should have been was a red pulp, and that his drab shirt on the shoulder beneath was stained dark. In the keen silence he came to the bewildered preacher. For a moment he stood there. Then he tumbled in a writhing heap on the floor. "Lawdie, Lawdie. ..." ". . . Name uv. . . ." Three or four men helped him to rise; his throat choked, his eyes rolled in despera¬ tion. "Ike—Ike Lide!" "Yeah," he managed to force out. "Bun... Run lak hell. . . . White folks comin'. . . . " "Here?" The queries were incredulous. 52 NIGGER "Dey strung one nigger. . . . De bridge. . . . Almos' got me. ..." "Yo' ear! Man, yo' ear's chawed off!" "Yeah. . . . Noo Zion burnin'. ..." "Noo Zion! Onr elm'eh—" "Dey comin'! Better run! Goo'-by. . . ." His tones wavered; lie turned uncertainly. "W'ut stahted it, man?" "Nothin'. Jes' talk. It's stahted." Brother Reed stretched protecting hands over the pulpit. 4'Sit down, Liza ... sit down, Deacon—take yo' seats, you no-'count weak-hearts! Dis is de Lawd's house; dis is de Lawd's book. Hell pertec' you. ..." "Not f'um white folks." Brother 'Zeke Foote started into the rabble flooding down the aisle. "We all better lie low. ..." A rising babble swallowed the rest of it. Jake Lowe, gathering his smaller flock around him, made for the nearest window. "Us fer de swamp. Dey cain't fin' us dar. Come on, Jim Gaines." There were no white men in sight when they paused for a moment under the cool shadows of the giant swamp oaks. The moon hung high in the west; a drowsy wind stirred in the ROLLIN' THROUGH 53 leafy branches. A heavy, low-flying night bird flapped away into the farther darkness. The far-off chorus of the swamp-frogs pulsed re¬ motely in the glittering night. Up the hill, toward Carlowville, a redder brilliance tinged the sky. A hidden uneasy swelling murmur came from beyond the hill. It grew louder, louder, to their frightened ears. . . . There was a last clatter of feet in the under¬ brush. The unlit shell of a church lay silent and deserted in the glimmer of the July moon. CHAPTER IV DEEP RIVEB TWO men swung out of the dense oak shadows across the main street, and made for the front of Guild's store. The sidewalk chairs were deserted. Just inside the door four men sat. They were all old. The acrid smell of kerosene thickened the air, musty with stale grocery smells. '' Howdy, Mart. . . . Pick. . . ." Old man Guild turned his shrewd, weazened face toward them. "Did yer git 'em?" "Mart'11 tell yer," Pick prompted servilely. Pick Spraggins was the son of a river fleecer —a professional gambler. Pick drank too much—alone; he was not allowed in the Dallas House bar. Martin Lowe was the Colonel's second son. A night like this made them brothers for a brief, black hour. "That short yaller nigger's hangin' from the bridge. They're after the other coon. It 54 DEEP RIVER 55 was that Gaines boy, wasn't it? Sam Clop- ton's after that new nigger over to Hayes's boardin' house. ..." " 'Twarn't neither." Pat Guild turned up the wick of the lamp a trifle. Carlowville still had kerosene lamps; the town was no longer to be mentioned with Selma, or even Camden; for the forty-five years since the war it had been a stagnant pool. " 'Twarn't neither. I told them fools. It,was that young Harvey." Lowe flung himself into a chair. "What did they do, Pat?" "The black bastards! That yaller nigger up and said I'd cheated him out uv a bale er cotton. Other coon put in his jaw. I chased 'em out; knocked one uv 'em down. ..." "You bet Pat did!" The second and third old men wheezed and chuckled appreciatively. "They'll get that Gaines boy, Mr. Guild; more'n half the crowd are after him," Pick Spraggins edged in. The storekeeper remained undisturbed. "That gang's always cookin' some devil¬ ment. . . "Come on. Pick," Martin Lowe swung to his 56 NIGGER feet, and made for the door. "We don't want to miss any of the fun/' Out from the curving shadow below the bridge the dozen men eddied. Their eyes never lifted from the object huddled at the rope's end. "That's enough. . . . Any matches?" "Here. . . A spurt of radiating sparks, a crescenting arc of fire, a steady, wind-whipped flame, that leapt from the match's head to the soaked rags. There was a sizzling and crackling. The men moved further back. "Won't it ketch the bridge?" "Iron. ..." . Come on; they gone down the Tilden road." Three remained, ears drinking in the dim¬ ming moans, eyes fast on the holiday spectacle. The rich odor of charring flesh reached them. Bits of burning cloth drifted down, spurted, vanished in the dark babble of Cedar Creek. "Got any fillings, Bill?" "Yeah. . . . Where in. . . . That damned Chad Hogan took my sack with him! We can ketch him. ..." DEEP RIVER 57 They turned at a brighter flare at their backs. Then they hurried up to the post rcfad, and broke into a run. Off from the Tilden pike two men cut down toward the swamp. They ran a bit, then slowed. When he came to a shadow, the leader jumped it grotesquely. "Whee-ee! Don' fall in, Neddie. ..." 44You damn fool! I can't keep up with you. Here—try this again, Pud." "Pud" Jackson took the bottle, and tipped it against his mouth. He raised it so that it obscured the moon. Cocking an eye judici¬ ously, he lifted it higher, sighting at one sharp star. A decisive hoist; the star was out. He returned the bottle with a flourish, wiping off his chin. "Holy catfish! That's stuff!" Ned Scruggs took an even longer swig. "Come on, ol' horse-thief. This the way?" Unaccountably they were both running again. Jackson kept the lead; "Neddie" hiccoughed and choked in the rear. At last Pud stopped. "Ought to be 'bout there. Hadn't we better wait?" "You got yo' forty-four. Go on, man!" 58 NIGGER They came to the pine undergrowth. 4'In there.'' The man ahead flung his arms around his companion; they hugged and danced gro¬ tesquely. "We beat 'em!" Separating, they crept closer to the shack. Voices came from the unlit blackness within. "Whar's dat chiny clock? .... No light. . . ." "For Gawd's sake, come on, Hetty!" All of the Lowes had gone ahead, except Mar- thula; she had stayed to help Hetty Gaines, who could not now keep up with the others. Old Jim fumbled about for the diamond ring, the crockery clock, other precious possessions. Ned and Pud stopped in the shadow. "Hy! Come out, niggers, or we shoot I Come out. . . . Lively!" "Don' shoot!" the old man's voice quavered. ■"I ain' done. . . "Lively, you black hog, or. . . ." Jim's torn face shoved cautiously out. "Move, there. ..." He came into the moonlight; Hetty slowly followed, resigned, pain-racked. Pud was watching the rear as well. "Come lere, you black wench. ..." DEEP RIVER 59 Marthula walked around the shack and stood quietly before them. Jackson steadied himself with an effort at dignity. ''Nigger, yon gotter git out of Dallas County, an' stay out. Where's that wu'thless son of yours?" "Am* nobody dar, suh." Pud satisfied himself that this was a fact; he returned to the glaring moonlight. i'You gotter git." "We's a-gittin', suh." "Give you five to go. One. . . . two. . . . three. ..." Marthula grasped Hetty by the arm, and started off. "Come here, gal." Pud leered broadly at his friend. "Old man fu'st; gals wait behin'. You come here—" He caught Marthula by the shoulder, and pushed her behind him. "You take that 'un." "Mosey along, nigger." Jackson waved the pistol uncertainly at the old father. "Make it quick. . . . Git!" He slipped the gun back into his pocket, and ran his hand familiarly up and down the daughter's bosom. "Plump meat; I likes 'em NIGGER that way. You come back this way, honey." He sought to drag her down the darkened pathway toward the road. Hetty moaned, and Jiept her place. "Let go dat gal," Jim Gaines commanded shortly. "We's a-gittin\,, The white man did not hear him; his fin¬ gers clawed into the girl's waist; he grunted incoherently. "Let go." Jim hardly raised his voice. "Let go, white man." A moment later, and he had taken three .great steps to the side of the ill-balanced pair. His fingers fell on the white man's fingers, •and tore them loose. Panting, the two fronted each other. Jackson's face worked blackly. "111. . . Jim closed with him. His hand came against the pistol in the man's pocket. They struggled back and forth on the crackling sod. Scruggs, loosing, Marthula, ran in to help. He was too late. The pocket ripped, as the negro tore the weapon out. Back into the moonlight he leapt, the captured pistol glitter¬ ing. "Run, gals». . . . lak hell. ..." From two sides they came at him. He backed DEEP RIVER 61 rapidly. His foot hit the remains of a bench; he almost went down. Then they jumped. At that moment, the pistol flared once. Pnd Jackson sank to the ground. "Oh, Jesus!'* he screamed. Jim Gaines*, face chalky, held his plaice. The other man ran to the side of the one who was down. "Git you J" "Winged my shoulder. Let's. ..." "Go on back, white mens." Jim, pistol still in hand, backed up the open stretch toward the Lowe cabin. He observed them blankly. "We's a-gittin'. ..." The girls were already out of sight behind him. "Let's get the crowd," Scruggs clung to the sleeve of the wounded man, holding him back. "He's got the gun. . . . They mus' be mos' here. ..." Jim, still backing, struck a tree; this time he fell to the ground. He jumped to his feet in fright. No one was pursuing. Pain wrenched and racked his back; he was not so young as he once had been. ... He lurched after the girls. At the entrance to the field the two white men met the first of the mob. "He's got a 62 NIGGER gun, the black bastard! Shot me on sight. . . . Hunnin' away. ... We can kotch him. . . ." The rest came panting up, in answer to the frenzied call of those in front. There was a real reason for the lynching now! Shot a white man! '1 Let's wipe 'em all out!" Led by two undergrown boys, they reached the empty cabin, then flooded along the swamp to the Lowe house. Two or three stayed to smash in the windows and set fire to the bed¬ ding, heaped against the dry pine-board wall. The rest hurried on. Shouts came from up ahead, and the sound ■of stumbling feet. This was all for a long time. " 'Member that possum we treed here?" Pud, easing along behind, asked the friend with him. The other grunted out a broken laugh. "It ain't possum tonight. . . . Coon." At last, up ahead, the nervous hush was broken by a shot. Those behind quickened to a headlong run. Two more shots. . . . then a silence. They closed in from three sides. The body DEEP RIVER 63 of Jim Gaines lay across U weathered white log, face rooted in the oozy black soil. Here he had stopped and ambushed for his last fight. As the first stragglers appeared, a group of men led up a tense-eyed negro girl. Marthula had done her best to keep Hetty up to the pace she set; but at last the older girl had s-tumbled, fallen, refused to rise. Here the white men had found her. The hands binding her arms steadied her, as she saw her father's; body. i 'He's dead, all right, all right. You got him, Wince." "I got that nigger," Scruggs disputed with, drunken belligerency. "Ain't he shot Pud Jackson? I plopped 'im, I did. You seen me —didn't you, Bob?" "What'11 we do with this gal?" They examined her curiously; there were nudges, coarse whispers, pleased leers. "Sho she is. . . . Look at her, man!" "Better let her go," young Winston Lide urged. "She didn't shoot anybody. . . . She's 'most dead, anyhow." "Let her go?" Scruggs bawled out. "Let her go, he says! Let her go! Am' she told 64 NIGGER her pa to kill Pud Jackson? 'Shoot him, pa; kill the white bastard.' Ain' I heard her? Let her go!" . She say that!" ''String her up!" "Oh, Gawd, boss, I am* done nothin'. . . . I am' said nothin. . . Oh, Gawd!" She fell on her knees, writhing, squirming. "Aw, leave her be," Lide repeated, half dis¬ gusted, half fascinated by the performance. "Like hell!" Scruggs came up to her, his feet plopping in the swamp soil. He yanked her roughly to her feet, and struck with all his force upon her face. "Come on, boys!" A ghastly scream rang through the swamp. . . . Another, another Marthula, less than a hundred feet away, hurrying desperately, her feet slipping off the bogged tussocks into the slimy pits be¬ tween, turned back at the cry. There was an opening between tree trunks; she had a horri¬ fied vision of what followed. Then she could stand no more. She turned and stumbled for¬ ward blindly. She screamed under her breath —snatches of anguish, moaned prayers, end¬ less sobbing repetitions of the Lord's name. DEEP RIVER 65 But through it all she held her sense of direc¬ tion. . . , Now she ran more easily, along the drier way the family were to take. She caught up with the others where they had stopped at a spring, above a dank, stag¬ nant creek bed half a mile this side of Cedar Creek. She did not see them at first— so stiff and still they stood. The dark ended abrupt¬ ly in an oasis of glaring moonlight. The fugi¬ tives were clustered gray against the gray tree trunks and gray trailers of Spanish moss. Then she made them out: Phoebe nearest, crouched with pricking ears at the sudden dis¬ turbance in the swamp noises. The girl threw herself on her mother's knob¬ by bosom, weeping and moaning incoherently. "W'ut's de matter, 'Thuly? . . . W'ut did dey do ter you %'' At first they could get no answer. Then it came. "They're dead . . . XJncle Jim. . . . Hetty. . . . dead. ..." "Dead!" "Oh, Lawdie, Lawdie! They're dead. ... I saw 'em. ..." Waffles planted himself loweringly before her; Sophie slumped moaning dn a ghostly 66 NIGGER fallen log at her side. "Tell me erbout ft, 'Thuly," he commanded. "Speak up. Dey- . . . dead?" She dashed her arm across her eyes. "They shot Uncle Jim fu'st. Then they beat Hetty. . . . Lawd, Lawd. . . "Whar wus disf Huccome dey. . . . dodis?" Marthula quieted enough, to talk coherently. "We were at yo' liouse. . . . Two white men came, an* they . . . they grabbed Hetty an* me. . . "Bad business, bad business," Jake muttered. "Uncle Jim tried to make 'em stop. He took the white man's pistol. . . . He shot one man." "Good fer dad!" And again, "Good fer him!" "Then we ran, an' ran, an' ran. But Uncle Jim fell down; he couldn't go fast. An' Hetty fell down; you know, she couldn't run. . . . They shot Uncle Jim fu 'st. Then they grabbed Hetty. . . . Oh, I can't tell it—I can't tell it. . . . " "You's gotter," Waffles menaced. "Talk out, gal. They grabbed Hetty—" "An' they hit her, an' they beat her. . . . DEEP RIVER 67 She fell down. Some boys had brought ropes. They tied her legs, an' threw the ropes over some limbs. Then they pulled her up. . . . that way. She was a'ready dead, I think. . . . I saw 'em with knives. ... I cain't go on!" Waffles stood squarely in front of her; his eyes did not let up their concentrated stare. "Oh, Gawd. . . . there was blood. . . . lots. I couldn't see no more; I ran an' ran. . . ." "Aw right." "Waffles stepped beside. his mother. '4 So long.'' He turned to his brother. "You's big enough. You come." "Whar you gwine!" Jake inquired. "I's gwine atter dem white debbils. . . . Now." "You gwine do no sich thing. Dey's white men, you fool! You come on. . . . W'ut kin you do to 'em?" "Dey kill my pappy. ... I kill. ... I kiU. . . ." "You ain't a plumb ijjit, Waffles. Dey'd hang you higher 'n high." "I gits me a white man. . . . now." "Don' be a fool. You cain't he'p yo' po' pappy none dat way. Dallas County ain' no 68 NIGGER place fer a nigger now. Wait till it cools down. You kin come back. . . . den, ef you wants ter." "We's gwine. . . "You ain't. Be reas'nable, man. Ef you go back, it's 'bout as sensible ez shootin' yo'se'f. We'll cross de ribber. ..." "How we gwine cross it? We am' got no boat—" "Watch me. Well cross it. I says so; an* w'en I says so, we does it. Den we leave dis Black Belt fer good.,, Doggedly Waffles stood Ms ground once again. He dug Ms foot obstinately into the crumbling clay soil at the base of a rotting stump; the wood scattered into the air, the light particles floating and dancing in the shafts of moon glitter between the great oaks and cypress. An owl hooted hollowly three times off toward Carlowville. The spring waters gurgled, gasped, choked out of the ground. "I'm gwine take erlong de man w'ut shot my pappy." "Den you come back an' git him. Quit yer projeckin'; it'll be sun-up in fo' hours. We DEEP RIVER 69 got three miles ter reach de ribber. We'g was'in' good time. Come on." He left off speaking, picked up his pole, and led the way toward the west. Phoebe wet her bandanna once again, to mop Marthula's fevered face at the next stop. Little Pink scampered after the old folks; the Lowes followed. Sophie took her son timidly by the shirt sleeve. "Come on; you kin come back . . . ." Waffles delivered one final kick at the rotted stump. This time the whole side of bark to¬ ward him cracked off, then the stump tottered and tumbled away from him. He watched it settle and lie, broken, defeated. . . . He set out to catch up with his mother and the others. BOOK II EXODUS CHAPTER V UP THE STATE JAKE set out on this leg of the journey con¬ fidently ; he was a swamp negro, bred, yes, born to the forbidding blackness. Soon enough he led the others into difficulties. The trees reached higher, with interlocked tops that shut out the moonlit steel gray of the sky. They lost the hogback they had followed from the cabins to the spring, and floundered blindly ahead. There were no towns to be feared. Pleasant Hill, Clematis, lay across the creek; and they had avoided it, 'as ground more familiar to the white outdwellers and charcoal burners. Like stiff, insensate antennae their improvised poles felt out the way. There was the barking of a dog to the south, that sent them creeping away from the river and made the way more roundabout. A dog meant people. . . . There was the endless, deep-fingered tarn they had to 73 74 NIGGER skirt; this lasted, it seemed, for hours. At length they had turned west again; or so Jake insisted. It was still dark overhead; but the uneasy grayness of day crept horizontally through the ghostly lanes of pines. They felt the dry crackle of pine needles beneath their sogged shoes. Before them a pocked and sluggish creek stretched, rustling south. "We's los'," muttered Phoeber, sinking to a log. "Gotter go back," Waffles gloated. There was nothing to be seen but the un¬ broken swamp. The nearer bank of the creek rose in a slow hump; they did not climb it. Jake did not stop with the others, but con¬ tinued ahead, up the hogback. They heard his shout, "Lawd. . . . de Lawd done foun' it. . . "W'ut you foun'?" "De Lawd done located it!" "Located w'ut?" "De ribber!" They hurried to where he stood. Through the matted boughs the wide daylit stretch of water shone. UP THE STATE 75 "Well, hyah we is." There was no enthus¬ iasm in Waffles' voice. One by one they emerged to the oozy, slippery top of the bank. They were a draggled crew: gingham, overalls, were dulled to one hue by the plastering mud; the dark line of water- soaked cloth reached in some cases to the waist. "An* now?" Waffles asked, nursing a night's slow grudge. Jake planted a foot firmly on the knee of a root-drowned tree, and swung his body clear. Nothing up the river. . . . and down. . . . Without a word he started south. Without a word they trailed after. Then they saw what he had seen: «a rude lopped-pine pier a hundred yards away, pro¬ jecting into draggled cattails. There was a log shanty against the bank. They stopped; Jake reconnoitered carefully. "Come on," he announced. "Lawdie! Look hyah. . . . De Lawd will pervidei" "Er de debbil." Waffles put his shoulder to the back of the rowboat; the father and the three older Lowe boys did their share; it slid over the slaty soil, and crushed upon the sogged water plants. 76 NIGGER One by one they balanced to the seats. There were no oars; Pink brought two of the poles. They pushed off. There was little current to speak of; most of the way the poles touched bottom. For a few uncomfortable minutes they drifted aim¬ lessly at the middle, the useless poles dangling in the deeper channel. Then a swirl bent them inshore again, and the danger was gone. They picked a pebbly spit, and shored her. Jake held her head, ankle-deep in the river; the women and boys clambered out and ashore. The old man gave her a final shove with his pole. "She'll fin' Mobile," he grunted. "Dat's one banana town," grudged Waffles, more civilly. The land was firm here; they bore straight inland, until they came to a barbed-wire fence, wdth a clearing beyond, and level rows of steel rails. "Dis de Southern," Waffles announced proudly. "A ... a railroad, I reckon." "Lawzee, man, dat's a fack—you am' nebber aseed no railroad before, nohow. Yassuh, dis UP THE STATE 77 de Southern. . . . Run cl'ar to Mobile. JesJ' like de ribber." Dan and Lonis were whispering off to the right. They were not argumentative, but sen¬ sitive Waffles gathered the drift of what they were saying. "Dis ain' de Southern, you. says." "This is the L. and N.," Dan explained care¬ fully. "It runs from Selma clear into Missis¬ sippi. The Southern runs soufnot west.'' "You ebber rid on her?" "No. . . ." "7 is. . . . Huccome you know so almighty much?" "We had a map," Louis explained.