Scarlet Sister Mary (1928, Bobbs-Merrill Company)/Chapter 11
Summer's time was out, yet it tarried stubbornly on the plantation. The deceitful season had fooled everything into striving for the utmost growth and fruitfulness and now, when harvest-time had come and cooler nights and paler days would bring a gentle ripening, summer hung on, ruining everything it had wrought. The cotton leaves were wilted and hanging limp, no longer able to hide the tight-packed bolls or to shade the tender new squares and late blossoms from the scorching sun. The pleasant rustling of corn blades had changed to a harsh complaining crackling, as the fodder was slowly withered. The roads cast up sullen clouds of red-hot dust to hang between them and the sky, and quiet little shady paths puffed up breaths of dry mold if the lightest footstep were laid on them. Instead of scratching for worms and hunting tender seeds to fatten themselves for the fall laying season, the fowls sprawled under the houses, panting through open beaks, holding their wing feathers far out from the down on their breasts. The birds left the high trees and went to stay near the water streams, singing blithely enough in the dawns but leaving the days silent after the sun swallowed up the dew.
The sky lifted high and far away. The tall pines stood still against it, every needle shining in the sun, and moaning softly with the slightest stir of the hot air. The old oaks shielding the cabins' roofs from the burning sun must have sunk their roots deep in the ground to reach moisture, for their leaves stayed glossy and green, and the long moss hanging from their branches kept its fresh grayness.
The people in the Quarters gave up sleeping in beds and spread quilts on the floors beside open doors and windows. Even if snakes and bugs and spirits walked in the darkness, the risk must be faced to get whatever coolness the night brought.
The river was shrunken, the lakes were dry, the clouds moved overhead white and empty. The water in the rice-fields lay as smooth as ice and as silent as death as the tides kept it rising and falling. The air drifted in heavy-scented with withered cotton blossoms, shriveled figs and grapes falling off the vines to waste.
Mary was unhappy, restless, disturbed, uncertain what to do. She must make up her mind to something for she could not go on any longer pretending she did not feel things that were breaking her heart. Even the plantation seemed different. Those hot fields, spread out before her eyes, looked silent and cruel. They offered her no hope for better things, no way of escaping sorrow.
She had been married less than a year, yet cold fear made her heart shiver when she thought of July and the change that had come over him this summer. As soon as first dark came he would go, leaving her alone, sleepless, wretched, to spend the long lagging nights as best she could. Misery dimmed the sunshine, blackened the shade, blighted her pleasure in the flowers and trees and in all the things she loved best.
To-day, instead of being noisy and gay with fun, the plantation Quarters was silent as on Sunday. Everybody who could raise the price of a round-trip ticket had gone to town, on the Saturday excursion. Men, women, old, young, saints, sinners, all had got up before dawn and walked the long miles to the landing where the excursion boat stopped to take them aboard.
The only people left in the Quarters were to a sick, or too young, or too old, and these were seeking shade from the sun-hot which beat down strong, burning up the smells of pig-pen and goats and cattle raised by the damp morning.
Mary sat alone by her cabin window, looking out across the fields where the cotton, only half gathered, hung dripping from the bolls. The long red road bordered with tall blooming weeds and seeded grass-heads was empty. The trees stood motionless, their dark green heads stretching upward toward the dry white sky, where the sun plowed a fiery furrow.
To-day, instead of staying at home with her and the baby, July had gone on the excursion and left them behind, all by themselves. He sould have taken them along and found them no trouble for the baby was as good as gold. But he said women and babies were better off at home, that they had no business gallivanting around on excursions.
The baby, Unex, was six months old to-day, yet he was able to creep across the floor and say things that sounded like words. He had more teeth than he was due to have and his head was covered with crinky little wool. A blessed baby. A joy. He had only one fault in the world. He put things in his mouth if Mary did not watch him, and wretched pain twisted his little middle if he swallowed nothing more than a straw or a stick. Food was the only thing his precious insides could stand.
Thank God, food agreed with him. Any kind of food. She had trained him from the very start to eat some of everything she ate. She took him right in her lap when she sat down with her victuals and held his mouth close to her pan. When she took a big bite she gave him a tiny taste. When she ate collard greens he had a sip of the pot licker. When she ate peas and rice he had a spoonful of the good blue gravy. When she all but bit her fingers over catfish stew, he smacked his baby lips over a thread of the tender white meat, or sucked at a knot of the salt bacon. He never had colic from her breast milk or her food, for his insides were taught and trained to deal with strong things, with good full-flavored man rations.
Maum Hannah had warned her at the very beginning of his life not to coddle and weaken him with sugar rags and sweetened water and hot milk tea, but to make him a real man and raise him hard, strong, tough, so he could grow up able and hot with life.
When he first began crawling and went near the door-step, she did not say a word, but let him fall down the steps and bump his head hard. He remembered it and next time watched out and was careful. The first time he crawled near the hearth where the old fire burned day and night, sometimes slowly with a dull blue light, sometimes fast and bright, she left him alone and let him burn his hand. He learned for certain that fire is hot and wicked, a bad thing for babies to play with. People learn best by experience, whether they are babies or grown-ups, and Unex had sense like people already, although he was only half of a short year old. She could leave him at home, alone on the bed, or on the floor, and he could take care of himself.
He was raven about his daddy. His baby eyes fairly danced whenever July came near him, and July's funny motions and talk made him shriek out with pleasure. Unex had manners too. At night, when he woke up in the dark, he cooed softly and patted Mary to wake her instead of bawling and disturbing July's sleep.
But now, in spite of Unex's nice ways, July had gone off on the excursion and left them behind, and Mary was down-hearted and weary. She never had any pleasure. She did not mind work, for she was raised to work and she was never happier than when she was jerking a hoe, or cooking, or washing clothes. To sweat made her feel better; to swing an ax and cut wood limbered up her muscles; to spread black manure in the field cleared out her lungs and gave her breath a good clean feeling. She Wed work when her mind was free and her heart light, but she needed some pleasure too.
Now, her heart lay like a rock in her breast and the same thoughts walked back and forth through her mind; her head well-nigh had a hole worn in it with studying about what was best to do. July did not love her, that was his trouble, and her love for him had become so bitter with jealousy it was a sickness, a weakening ailment.
When the preacher read out of the holy Book over them last fall, July promised to take her for better or worse, for richer or poorer. He swore to God he would love and cherish her until death parted them. He meant every word of the promise then. He spoke out so brave and loud that all the people laughed and even the preacher smiled. But he had forgotten the promises he made that day. He thought only of himself, now. He made money, but he spent it to pleasure himself, and expected her to be satisfied if she had food and clothes and shelter. He thought less and less of her, and more and more of other people. The excursion round-trip tickets cost three dollars apiece. Three dollars would have bought many things that she and Unex needed.
The people in the Quarters were careful what they said when she was around, but she was not blind or deaf. She knew more than they thought, more than July thought. She was no fool.
June always praised the way she managed things. The last time he brought her a piece of cloth and she cut it out and sewed it with strong, tight stitches into a dress, between supper and time to go to bed, June declared that no other woman in the Quarters could have done it. June praised her cooking too. He liked the way she seasoned things. He bragged that she kept the cleanest house in the Quarters, or on the whole plantation for that matter. But July was so taken up with his own life that he had forgotten Mary had any rights at all. He ate the food she cooked for him, slept in the bed she sunned and aired and made up for him, wore the clothes she washed and patched and darned for him, but he seldom noticed they were mended. When she was weary and down-hearted, July took what shegave him then went his way to find some more cheerful woman to go pleasuring with. She had no hat, no decent shoes. She told him so last night. The protracted meeting would begin next week too, but July laughed and said if a woman wanted to save her soul she must mind her husband and treat him right.
She tried to do that. This morning she was up ahead of the morning star, fixing hot coffee and bread for July before he went off with the crowd. But he swallowed it down and hurried off with hardly as much as, "Thank you."
After he had gone she worked on to keep from thinking about her troubles, but now she was hot and tired, her clothes were wet with sweat. The hands in her lap were skinny and hard, the skin on them was shriveled, her body was worn out, ready to drop to pieces like her faded dress, which was thin from so much washing and wearing.
When she married July everybody said she was the prettiest bride that ever stepped in the Quarters. Now she was withered and ugly with no way to stop being so. Trouble had caught her as a cat catches a mouse and she could not get loose. She would as soon be dead as not, except for baby Unex, who could not be left alone in the world for July would never bother with him; July, who was on his way to town now, laughing, talking, singing gay songs, eating bananas, drinking bottled soda-water, having pleasure in the cool breeze on the river, while she was here, lonesome and down-hearted and weary enough to die in this old empty tumble-down home, where every noise sounded hollow and strange.
May Satan wring Cinder's stringy neck and break her back in two before he drops her into his bottomless pit! July would have stayed athome and been a good husband if Cinder had never come back to the plantation.
Mary heard a hen's anxious clucking and baby chickens crying, then Maum Hannah's voice asked softly, "Honey—is you sleepin?"
She sat up quickly. She had heard no step, and she felt confused and guilty that Maum Hannah who believed in loving everybody had caught her crying and wishing bitter curses on Cinder.
"No'm, I ain' sleep. I just got de headache. I was a-leanin out de window by it's so awful hot to-day. Seems like I can' hardly catch enough air."
"We must be tanksful we is able to feel de hotness, honey. Be tanksful, gal. Tank Gawd for life, den come look at de present I brought you. My lil blue hen stole a nest in de chimney corner and hatched dese beedies, all blue like dey mammy, an' spry as can be. A blue hen's chickens is lucky, so I fetched em to you for seed. But don' feed em, not yet. Let em sleep in de basket until to-morrow."
Maum Hannah put them down in a dark corner of the room and carefully covered them up; then she sat down, took her pipe out of her apron pocket and filled its small bowl with plug-cut tobacco. "Git a coal, daughter, an' light my pipe. I feel de need o a good cool smoke. Dat blue hen sho made me sweat befo I could put em an' all e chillen in dat basket. You wouldn' believe it to see how quiet e is now."
Maum Hannah had come to say something else and she was uncertain just how to begin, but presently she asked between puffs of smoke, "Whe is July, Si May-e?"
"Gone to town on de boat."
"On de excussion?"
"Yes'm."
"Is Cinder gone wid em?"
"I don' know, Auntie."
Maum Hannah smoked in silence, then she took her pipe out of her mouth and pressed the burning tobacco down tighter.
"Budda Ben's been a-talkin about how July goes off an' leaves you all de time whilst e's a-spendin money on dat Cinder."
Maum Hannah's eyes sent sidelong looks at Mary to see how these words were being taken. Mary hung her head at first, ashamed that they were so and she could not deny a single word.
"Budda Ben talked it all over last night, an' we done agree dat you don' need to stay here wid July lessen you want to. You got a home right yonder wid me an' Budda de same as you had befo de preacher ever read out de Book over you an' July an' made yunnuh man an' wife. If you want to come home, den you come. Me an' Budda will divide de last crust o' bread we got wid you an' lil Unex, long as we live. You don' have to stand mistreatment a day longer'n you want to. Notaday. You just say de word, an' we will help you move all you things right now."
Mary's heart thumped with hollow sickening licks. "Thank you kindly, Auntie, but I can' leave July. I know you an' Budda Ben would take me an' de baby an' do for we de same as you done for me, but July couldn' get on widout me. July is a fine man. E's raven about me an' about de baby too. Cinder has been a-tryin to get em off de right track by runnin after em so much all de time, but I'll get em straight befo long. July don' never mistreat me. E has a short patience, fo-true. Sometimes e misses an' talks kind o' short, but I don' mind dat. Budda Ben used to talk de same way. Me an' July gets on good most o de time. You an' Budda Ben mustn' fret about me. No."
Once she had started defending her husband, Mary's words flowed on and on. Sometimes they rose loud and jerked and broke, then they slackened and started all over, saying the same things, as if repeating them made them true. Declaring to Maum Hannah that July was good and kind and free-handed brought easement to her heart, somehow.
Maum Hannah smoked slowly and listened without a word until Mary finally stopped.
"You ever did have a brave heart, gal. I'm glad to hear you got such a good husband. But if I was you I'd go to see old Daddy Cudjoe an' get me a good strong charm to keep him a good one. Times is changed. Women ain' like dey used to be. When I was young, a married man was a married man an' nobody didn' bother em. But dese days, it don' matter if a man is married or single, de womens don' let em rest. No. Gawd knows what de world is a-comin to." She sighed deep to think of how slack the ways of the women were.
"You take my advice an' go see Daddy Cudjoe an' get em to fix you a charm to keep July home. Daddy is a wise man. E knows black magic as well as white. E could gi you a charm so strong July never could leave you no more. Not long as e lives. Daddy's wise."
Mary sat thinking, listening while Maum Hannah told of the many ways in which Daddy Cud joe had helped her. Once she had a pot that would not boil, and she took the contrary thing to Daddy Cudjoe. He gave it a good frailing with a stout hickory stick and the pot had been the quickest one on her hearth to boil ever since. Once, when Budda Ben's ax refused to cut straight, Daddy Cudjoe taught it to behave itself right. Everything gets out of order and gives trouble sometimes; men and women and pots and pans and axes; everything needs to be ruled. The river flowed quietly and kindly now, but sometimes it got mean too, and overflowed and drowned out the crops and swallowed up men and their boats. Instead of giving rain to water the earth, the clouds held every drop so tight, not one can leak out. Sometimes they get cross and send down hail that breaks everything, and lightning to strike trees and houses and kill men and beasts.
In the old days, all the people trusted to magic to rule the river and clouds and seasons as well as their tools and each other, but times have changed. Only Daddy Cudjoe, of all the old people left, knew any of the old secret ways. But he knew them well. He could fix July too.
Mary admitted she had thought of going to Daddy Cud joe, but she wondered if he could help her now since Cinder had him conjured. Maum Hannah declared that every ailment on earth has its cure and sometimes the simplest things, such as river mud, or the scale of a fish, or the eye of a snake, or the skin of a frog, even a hair or a toe-nail can work wonders. Daddy had always been kind to the most useless things and befriended them. In return they worked for him. They told him where lost things were, what the past was, what things were to come; they trusted him, and taught him all their own wisdom.
He could fix Mary something that would not only keep July safe from Cinder and all other women, but would bind him to her for ever. It would pay her to go and see the old man and tell him about her troubles.
If she had stayed a good Christian girl, as she started out to be, then God might have listened toher prayers. But she sinned. She was a fallen member. She would have to depend on magic now, the only power that will work as well for a sinner as it does for a Christian.
When Daddy Cudjoe did give her a charm, she must be mighty careful with it. Charms are strong things. Sometimes they miss and start, up troubles of their own that are worse than ther ones they are meant to cure.
Daddy Cudjoe made a bad mistake one time himself, when he fixed some kind of a root medicine to help his shortness of breath. Lord! That was a funny thing! Maum Hannah laughed go she could hardly tell how the old man came to her house late in the night one cold night last winter and tapped softly on the door. She jumped up quickly for she thought some poor sick somebody had sent for her. But there stood old Daddy Cudjoe, shivering with cold but with his eyes hot and shining. He began whispering to her so easy she could hardly make out what he said. He wanted to come in and spend the night with her. Think of that! Poor Daddy Cudjoe, already so old he could hardly walk, and all upset by a root tea he had made for himself.
He almost cried when she told him to go on back home and sleep his misery off. Poor Daddy Cudjoe! He swore he had not thought on a woman for twenty years, but that root medicine he took for his shortness of breath was so awful strong. One dose had made him too restless to stay home. He had come all this way to ask her to do him a favor.
She told the joke on him the next day, but Daddy did not seem to mind. Some men would have got vexed, but not Daddy Cudjoe. He laughed about it himself, and said he thought he would have to get himself a wife, he was getting so young and spry. Didn't apple trees bloom in the fall sometimes? And didn't the Book tell about an old woman named Sarah who bloomed in her old age? Maybe such things were not so uncommon after all.
Charms and roots and teas are dangerous things if people don't use them exactly right. Mary would have to be careful when she got a charm or it might do herself harm too.
Mary's heart was so heavy she could hardly get up to go. If Cinder had July conjured what good could any charm do?
Sadness filled the world. The sunlight was pale. The trees sighed as the soft wind fluttered their leaves and stirred the hot grass-blades. A rabbit peeped out from a briar patch with his scared eyes staring, and his nostrils twitching. He must not cross the road in front of her now. Mary clapped her hands and shouted, "Git back," as loud as she could. Everything was against her; even the field rabbit which hurried across the path, added more bad luck to what she already had.