Chapter Eleven

“Grace Annie Jenkins, I baptize thee in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Pastor Gibson Crawford poured the water over Grace’s head. She wrinkled her brow and drew her legs up in a ball under the christening dress Verna made her, but she never did cry. Verna decided after the service that Grace was to be called Grace Annie. “It’s more fitting, Adie,” she said, giving me a stern look. “You call her Grace and folks will think she’s a Yankee.”

There was a potluck social after the service. I brought along a jar of Mama’s chunky homemade catsup. Folks in Calhoun couldn’t get enough of it. They always bought every jar she made each year, but she saved me one.

The church social today wasn’t in honor of the baptism or anything. It’d been planned all along as a welcoming for Reverend Gibson.

“Y’all can call me Pastor Gib,” he said. He’d been transferred over from this church in Decatur. We all got in line to meet him and his family before we set about to eat.

“This is my wife, Edwina, and my daughter Margaret Mary,” Pastor Gib said when each of us inched our way to the front. I liked Margaret Mary right off. She was older than me, but I couldn’t tell by how much. She had the eyes of a woman but a real lean figure like a tomboy. When she walked you had to run to keep up. She pranced like a new colt, her brown hair shiny and sleek. It was near-perfect, tied up in a ponytail. Margaret Mary’s eyes were the same color brown as mine, but I noticed hers sparkled when she laughed. She got a plate of food from the table and came over and sat next to me under the oak tree. I had Grace Annie with me, of course. I didn’t go anywhere without her. She was sound asleep, tucked in a basket propped in Buck’s old wagon. I rested next to her on a blanket I got from the Army-Navy Store and leaned against the oak tree. Its trunk was as wide as a trailer.

“You mind if I set with you?” she said.

“Be right nice,” I said and smoothed a spot on the blanket for her. The day was near perfect, the sun full out, but not burning hot. The lilacs and azaleas were in full of bloom.

“Yelling for us to take notice,” Margaret Mary said as we admired them.

“You glad to be here?” I said.

“It doesn’t pay to like a place too much,” she said. “We move around a lot.”

“I didn’t know preachers moved around,” I said. “My mama dragged us from church to church trying to find one that suited her.”

“Sounds like my pa,” she said. “Where you from?”

“Cold Rock.”

“We’ve never been there, but pretty much every place else,” she said. “Pa always manages to mess up—! There I go. Hanging out the dirty laundry. Mama would have my hide.”

I smiled and just pretended I didn’t hear correct.

“You got a sweet baby,” she said. “You must be real proud of her.”

“She’s real good,” I said. “Mostly she just sleeps and eats.”

“She’s so tiny,” she said. “How old is she?”

“Three weeks tomorrow. She was real small to begin with. And they thought her lungs weren’t developed good, but they were wrong. She weighs six pounds now,” I said, proudly.

Margaret Mary smiled. “Can I hold her?”

“Sure.” I reached in the wagon and picked Grace Annie up out of her basket and placed her in Margaret Mary’s arms. She rocked her gently then settled her back against the tree and rested there with her.

“Which one’s your husband?”

“That’s him over there,” I said, pointing to the food tables where Buck was filling up his plate. Imelda Jane came up behind him and grabbed a biscuit off of it. He reached for it back, and she run off laughing, her black hair flouncing in the wind. Margaret Mary’s eyes watched her movements before they looked back at mine. We carried on a conversation, even though our lips never moved. I cleared my throat and looked away, hoping one of us would say something.

“Who’s that tall fella fetching the stick at the dog?” she said.

“Oh, that’s Murphy,” I said. “Murphy Spencer.” I watched her watch him. I knew a look like that—the same kind I gave Buck first time I seen him.

“You want to meet him?”

“Do pigs still stink?” she said.

“Well, come on then,” I said and took the baby from her arms. Grace Annie stretched her arms and legs but never did wake up. We walked on over towards Murphy.

“Murphy!” I called out. He was about to toss a stick back to Worry and spun around in our direction. The stick went flying at us instead of Worry. Margaret Mary caught it in midair and brought it back to him.

“That’s quite a catch, ma’am,” Murphy said.

“I’ve played my share of church softball,” she said. “I’m a pretty good outfielder, matter of fact.”

“This is Margaret Mary, Pastor Gib’s daughter, Murphy,” I said. Murphy reached over and shook her hand.

“Pleased to meet you. I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he said.

“Not yet,” Margaret Mary said. She drew the words slowly out of her mouth and stared Murphy in the eyes the whole time she spoke them. She glanced away for a second, and when she looked back she smiled at him with her mouth closed and her head lowered, but she kept her eyes held up toward his. Murphy flushed. She grinned. She had real pretty teeth. I wondered if Murphy noticed she had such pretty teeth. Margaret Mary turned and tossed the stick to Worry. The dog caught it before it hit the ground and fetched it back to Murphy. Murphy tossed it back to Margaret Mary. She took hold of the stick.

“Here, boy,” she called out. Grace Annie started to fuss. She was hungry. I took her back to the car to nurse her then went back to the blanket I’d spread out under the tree and put her back in her basket.

I watched Murphy and Margaret Mary run circles with Worry. They looked right fine together. She was a lucky girl having a daddy come to Hog Gap to preach. I looked around to see what happened to Buck. He wasn’t anywhere in sight. Neither was Imelda Jane for that matter. It was just me and the church women, who were busy ogling Grace. Later I noticed Murphy and Margaret Mary walk off toward the creek. After that, I didn’t see hide nor hair of either one of them till it was time to head home. Buck came sauntering out of the woods by himself. Two minutes later Imelda Jane came through the same spot and headed off in the other direction toward her folks.

“Adie,” Margaret Mary called out. “Wait up,” she said and came over to our car. Buck put the wagon in the trunk. I got in the front seat with Grace Annie on my lap.

“Murphy says you live right next to his place. Thought I might come by to see you.”

“That’d be right nice. I don’t get much company. Only Willa Mae.”

When we drove off, I asked Buck where he was all day. “Just walking along the river bank,” he said.

“Same river bank Imelda Jane went walking on?”

“It’s a free river bank, Adie,” he answered as he hit the accelerator.

Willa Mae was waiting on us when we got home. She took Grace Annie from my arms and tucked her into her cradle. I told Buck he best fix his own supper; I wasn’t feeling well. Actually, I was thinking about the time this woman from Macon poisoned all her husbands, wondering why I’d had such a hard time understanding how a body could do something like that. It made perfect sense to me now. I asked Willa Mae if she’d read to me.

“Help soothe my nerves,” I said. “I’m so mad at Buck, I just wanna put a pillow over his head till he croaks.”

“Poor chile,” Willa Mae crooned and took out Tempe’s journal.

• • •

Miz Caroline don’t have no baby be growing like she say she do and Massah Major be pretty mad ’bouts dat, and sends me out to the cabins instead of living in the big house with the house servants like I always done my tire life. I begs Miz Caroline to lets me stay in the big house, but she say be glad Massah not be selling me to the speculator man what coming soon and she see what she can do later ’cause he still crazy mad over there be no baby coming.

The cabins where they puts me, they was shotgun houses and they has three rooms built one in front of the other just like the barrel on the shotgun and dat’s why they calls them dat. The chilluns is put in the back part to sleep and the ones be grown or nearly so, in the front one. In the middle was a big fireplace what was built from stone where the cooking be done. This be called the kitchen part. It don’t have no floor, just dirt, but we sweep it like it do, when we told to. The beds be strung from the walls. They is hung from poles hooked into the walls and they’s planks laid cross them poles. And we has ticking mattresses filled with the corn shucks. It don’t make for no good mattress and dat’s a truth. But that’s where we sleeps. I meets a color gal be older than me. She be Liza. Her skin be yeller, too, like me. We work the fields every day ’til Saturday noon and then we rest a bit. Liza’s Mammy be Massah’s cook and she say Massah be her real daddy, but he not treat her no different.

That next year Miz Caroline have herself a baby for truth. A boy chile, Henry. And Massah Major carry that chile all around the cabins and makes us call him young Massah. ’Magine that. He a baby and Massah Major say, “He is your Massah now, too, and y’all calls him that. ’Hear?” I never do gets to go back to being a house Negro. Liza say that’s too bad.

“Massah comes out here at night and lie down with all the colored gals is in the front room,” she say.

“Oh, I’s in the back room,” I tells her.

“You won’t be for long,” she say. “When he see’s you be’s a woman, he gwine move you to the front where we all is.”

“I ain’t no womans,” I say.

“You best tell your body parts,” she say, “They’s pretending to be’s and they’s doing good at it.”

That puts a fright on me and I tells Liza I be’s sure not to cause no troubles and works hard to looks like I not be’s a woman. “I ties deze lumps on my chest down good with some deze rags,” I say.

“That not works for long,” Liza say. “Dem lumps gonna grows to be mountains and Massah be watching. He tries all the color gals, sooner den later. He sleeps with me and I be’s his own blood.”

“That ol’ Massah Major, what be your pappy, sleeps with you, Liza?” I say.

“Plenty times. My baby Martin be his. That’s why he slow in the head. Too much blood from the same vein, Mammy say.”

“When I moves to the front room to sleep, I best run and hide,” I say. “I don’t want no baby be slow in the head!”

“Where you hide?” Liza say. “He find you sure. Beat you good and sleep with you, he want.” I be maybe not yet thirteen, but close to it. Massah Major like the older girls was shaped like women. After he sleeps with them pretty colored gals, then he marries ’em to the man he want for each one to marry. He match them up to make good, strong chillun. Massah Major tells Liza to go with Calvin for to be married. No preacher come though. They just step backward over the broom they puts crosswise in the doorway, and Massah say, “You’re married. Be sure and make your Massah lots of children.” And the peoples he marry do, too. They do’s whatever Massah say, ’cause they be’s scared of him.

’Cepting for one gal, her name be Nicey, she say she not marry Big Jake when Massah tell her to jump backward over the broom. Massah tell her three times to jump over that broom and Nicey say, “I ain’t jump the broom with that Big Jake. His face be’s ugly!” Massah Major pull the dress Nicey be wearing clean off her back. Then he puts her in a buck to whup her. This be how he do that. He makes for her to squat and then he takes a cowhide strap and ties her hands together in front of her knees and when he do’s that her elbows be stuck out. He use this other cowhide strap and ties her ankles together real tight. Then he slide the handle of the broom he told Nicey to jumps backward over. He slides that broom in front of her elbows and in back of her knees, so now she be hobbled over like a chicken in a barnyard. Nicey flopping all about trying to get away from Massah. She know a bad whupping be coming when you put in a buck. This is the way the whipping be done. He makes for us to watch good or we be next. First Massah beat Nicey’s back with a cat-o-nine tails what bring the blisters. The cat-o-nine tails be strips of leather wound around a stick. The strips is braided past the handle and the ends all be tied in knots. And they spreads all out when Massah snaps it. This be the “cracker” and that’s what splits the skin and makes for the blisters. Some calls it a bullwhip. When Massah gots all the blisters he be’s happy with, then he breaks them blisters with a leather strap. Then he pours the salt on all them cuts, and somes them cuts slit clear to the bone, they is. When he do that, Nicey wiggle just like a worm on the ground, she do. Nicey got no place to run to, hobbled there like a chicken, all trussed up. Massah beat on her while she beg him to stop, and he keep pouring that salt on.

“Pray, Massah,” she say. “Mercy, Massah.” Massah say for us to keep watch this. He catch our eyes closed he say, we next. When Nicey too weak to ask for mercy no more, Massah cuts her loose, but she don’t move. We goes to help her, but Massah say, “Let her be! And let this be a lesson to y’all. When I say jump the broom, you jump the broom!”

“Yes, Massah,” we yells to him. Nicey jump the broom with Big Jake next time Massah tell her to and later she laughs on it, ’cause Jake be a good man to her and she like him fine and they have many strong babies. He just don’t look like he be fine, ’cause Big Jake face be real ugly. But after they jump the broom she see his heart and it look good and he be real fine to her and Nicey mostly be real happy, and don’t take no more whuppings from Massah. She say, “Yes, Massah,” when he tells her, “Do this. Do that.” And she do.

When Miz Caroline find out Massah Major be whupping on the Negroes she raise a big fuss with the Massah. We’un’s in the cabins can hear her, even. Mostly after that, Massah Major treats the folks better. One of the house gals goes with Miz Caroline to visit the plantation be Massah Major’s brother. The story go, the woman Massah’s brother be married to has all the house servants wearing clothes made from hemp, be real scratchy. Miz Caroline at dinner tells the man be her brother-in-law he should be ashamed of himself putting his Negroes in such rags. His face be red and the next day he tells his wife she is to get the cloth won’t bruise the skin and be quick. She do’s dat and spend time sewing the dresses while Miz Caroline be there to help. But she never like Miz Caroline much no more. She tells her husband not to ’vite them again. But he do anyway. Miz Caroline say she not going, but she always send that same house gal along with Massah Major and she asks her questions when they comes back, to be sure the Negroes there is not wearing the scratchy cloth no more.

And Miz Caroline tells Massah Major be sures to make good matches for us to marry so we be happy and have good many babies. I sure be glad about that, ’cause come the end of that year, Massah Major say for me to jump the broom. Massah have one the Negro mens with him, and he say, “This buck will be your husband by week’s end.” He do. Dat’s what Massah Major say. I be’s thirteen best I know.

• • •

Margaret Mary came by every few days to visit. She’d stay just long enough to be polite and then head next door to see Murphy.

“Come back soon,” I told her, “and don’t rush off!” But she always did. Even so, I looked forward to seeing her. I hadn’t had a good friend since my time in high school back in Cold Rock, and with Buck being gone so much I got a bit lonely. And, of course, I missed Mama something awful. Missed Pa now and then, too, even though he was mostly real hard to get along with and had been ever since Annie died and he started to drink too much. I wrote Mama every week. Sent her a picture of the baby that Verna took.

I was grateful I had Willa Mae. She came by every day, and a good thing, too. I learned more about babies from her than you could read in a book. She taught me how to care for the umbilical spot on Grace that used to be hooked onto me. I took little cotton tips dipped in baby oil and loosened up the edges each time I changed her diaper, and soon it fell off, just like she said it would. I had a lot of questions for her. Some had nothing to do with babies and were just the nosy kind. Things I wanted to know about her. But she didn’t talk about herself, so I jumped in and asked.

“You got any children, Willa Mae?”

“Had me chilluns, once,” she said.

“Well—”

“Dey’s gone,” she said.

“Where’d they go?”

“Ta’ glory.”

“You mean—”

“Dey’s only one kind a’ glory, chile,” she said.

“My sister Annie…died,” I said. “She…she was…three years old. She drowned in Cold Rock River.”

Willa Mae jerked to attention so fast I thought her head might snap off her neck.

“A sorrowful thing when the little ones dies,” she said, her eyes full of tears and distant as the top of Cold Rock Mountain.

“I was there…when she died…and…and…my pa…he…he—” I stopped myself. Willa Mae dabbed at her eyes. They were vacant, like nobody lived there anymore.

“Willa Mae? You okay?”

She waddled over to the window, Grace Annie tucked in her arms, and settled into the rocker. “I be’s fine. Just needs me a little dis fresh air.”

There were holes in the screen. The only things coming in were the flies. I reached for the swatter in case one got too close to Grace.

“Were your children…little…like Annie?” I knew I shouldn’t be so nosy, but it was a problem for me not to be. Mama said it was a major character defect and I best work on it. Maybe I would, starting tomorrow. Right now it was just getting interesting.

“Dey was babies,” Willa Mae whispered.

“Ohhhh—” I said. “I’m sorry. How’d…how’d they…die?” I asked softly, looking at Grace curled up fast asleep in Willa Mae’s lap. She stroked the baby’s forehead like her fingers were feathers.

“Dey drowns in dat same river. I don’t likes to thinks on it.” She placed Grace in her cradle.

“I’m sorry—I—I don’t much like to think on…Annie…neither,” I said, seeing the pain in her eyes and regretting the fact my prying put it there.

Willa Mae sat back down and stared out the window. Her face glistened with tears. I picked up one of Grace’s clean didies and patted her face like it would break if I rubbed too hard.

“Sweet chile,” she whispered and pulled the cloth from my hands. I took the journal out of her satchel and placed it in her lap, pointing to the spot where she left off. I curled up on the floor and leaned my head against the side of her lap. She smelled of Ivory soap and baby powder and lavender. Listening to her read was better than going to the picture show. Her voice was soft and smooth as Mama’s prized linens.

• • •

Massah Major be pretty good matchmaker, ’cause who do you think he tell me to jump the broom with? Grady Stowers. He be’s the best one to jump the broom with and that’s a truth. All the black folks I ever knowed always take their Massah’s name for their surname. That why Grady be Grady Stowers, after hiz Massah. And I be Tempe Jordan after my old Massah.

Grady be ’bout six feet tall with a nice face I likes more than I likes mine, even though peoples tell me I am the prettiest yeller gal in these parts and long ago my old missy, Mistress Jordan, say I could fool some folks I be white. But I’m not, she say, and don’t ever do that. It makes for all kinds of trouble, she say.

Most the time Grady be real happy, even though ain’t much to be happy ’bout. When people ask, “Why you always be happy, Grady?” he say, “’Cause I’s thinking ’bout the time I will be.” Grady say some day we’s all be free as the white folks. He say his mama saw it in a dream was a revelation. Grady pretty much believed it, but nobody much else did.

When Massah say it’s time for us to jump the brooms, Miz Caroline makes for us a special wedding up on the front porch. She decorates that porch with flowers just like a garden, and Massah mix the shine for us to drink. Land sakes Grady drinks too much that stuff. When it comes time for us to jump backwards over the broom, that be no problem for me, but Grady trips over his feet. His toes longer than the pickles we makes and puts in the big barrels. He near breaks his neck. Miz Caroline say, “You’re in trouble now, Grady Stowers. I declare. Mark my words. You’re in trouble for sure.” Miz Caroline tell that because the story goes whoever jumps the broom first be the boss of the marriage. And Massah say, “Grady, ’fore long you be afraid to open your mouth Tempe not say to.” Massah laughs and has hisself a good time and drinks plenty more that shine, too.

There be three stories I always likes to tell about Grady. The fust is when we’uns that live in our cabin don’t get enough to eat. Grady takes to fishing when Massah Major tells him to and catches plenty fish for Massah. But for every fish he catches he saves the next one for us and we cooks them fishes up at night when it be real late. Cooks them right over the outside fire but we gots to burn rags to cover the smell.

And Grady hides potatoes from the field in the woods and later gets them when Massah sure asleep and we puts them in the ash to bakes. There’s no better eating food on God’s earth than potatoes cooked in the ash and dat’s a truth. When Massah catch Grady hiding the potatoes in the woods he beats him and when he finds the fish Grady not give him when he gives him the others he chains him to the cabin outside at night till the fishing not be so good no more. Soons as Massah thinks Grady be learning his lesson he stop doing that, Massah do. But Grady go right back to hiding the fish and taking the potatoes for to put in the ash. And that be after he got plenty scars on his back from the cracker on that bullwhip, too.

Grady say, “So long as he don’t beat me dead we will haves us fish to cook and plenty potatoes in the ash.” And many nights Grady steals one Massah Major’s chickens for we gals to cook the next morning whilst we do’s our chores and gits ready to go to the field. Massah Major gives us a bit of chicken when he pass out the other meat and the beans and flour and taters and such, but it neber be near enough for all the hard work we do. Guess he thinks it is, but it ain’t. So Grady be out to git as many them chickens he kin. He steal so many them chickens when they sees his black face coming they runs for the hen house!

The second story is ’bout the patterollers what patrols in the night looking for the Negroes have no pass to be off the plantations. They whips them when they finds them and puts the dogs on ’em, too. The dogs kin eat the skin from the bones and they does. They is the hungriest dogs I ever knowed of. One woman belonged to Marse Hawkins, the next plantation over. She runned away when Marse Hawkins’s wife takes her baby what looked like Marse Hawkins and gives it to the speculators for to sell. The patterollers cotched up to her that night she run off and they sets the dogs on her and they eats the breasts right off her where her milk be still coming in.

The story about Grady and the patterollers go like this: One Negro man belong to Massah Major, he be fancying a gal belong to Marse Hawkins, that same Massah that owns the colored gal what got her breasts eat off. When the corn husking go on in the fall he see her all during that time ’cause the plantations git together and gets the work done faster. But when it over, he be missing that gal and he asks Massah Major for a pass for to go see her and Massah Major say they be plenty colored gals for to pick from on his plantation and tells him no he can’t have the pass. So this man be unhappy and goes to see the pretty gal he be missing on Marse Hawkins plantations plenty times anyway and he not have a pass for to do that with. One night when he be gone and the time is right for him to be back we hear the dogs what be ’cross the fence, not fifty feet away. The moon is high and we see the dogs closing in on him. His name be Samuel and he growed up on Massah Major plantation with Grady. Could be brothers, might not be though. Neither one knows who their daddy be. Grady see that the dogs soon to be on Samuel and he be running too long to have much strength left. Grady jumps himself over that fence and takes a club and beats at them dogs till Samuel get over the fence and back to the cabin. Grady makes it back, too, before the patterollers cotched up to the dogs. Grady be bleeding and be bit up pretty bad from the dogs, but the dogs not be in too good shape neither and they be whining to their masters, the patterollers, when they catch up to them. But the patterollers beats the dogs worse for not cotching who they send them after.

The last story I likes best about Grady is when he plays a tricks on Massah Major. When the corn shucking time comes it last mostly for many days, and Massah Major gives the pickers plenty likker late in the night after the food be et and the music be played. Massah Major drinks plenty shine too, and goes to sleep sitting in his chair got the armrests by the fire watching the shuckers. Grady ties Massahs laces together in the shoes Massah be wearing. For a time comes when the shucking be mostly done for that night and Massah wakes up and he be fixing to go back to the big house and when he try do that he fall on his face almost in that fire. Grady rush over to the fire and save Massah from falling on the flames and Massah say, “You saved me boy. You saved old Massah.” And Grady say, “Yes’m Massah, I saves you. I do. I saves you good!” Land sakes we laughs on that when Massah go off to bed. He never do wonder how his shoes tied like that. Guess he thinks he so taken with the likker he do that hisself. So Massah don’t git Grady dat time. But den later Grady gits in powerful trouble and Massah git him good.

Lordy, Lordy, ain’t nobody never forgets what ol’ Massah do to Grady. I don’t likes to thinks on it. Hurts real bad in my heart when I members it. All deze years later it still hurt my heart like it be’s happening yesterday.