Roots (71 page)

“Lawd, where dat at?” said Kizzy.

“In dat Washington Deecee,” said Uncle Pompey. “Dat’s a fur piece from here.”

“Jes’ long as dey keeps killin’ an’ burnin’ one ’nother ’stead of us!” exclaimed Sister Sarah.

Then during a dinner later that year, Miss Malizy came hurrying to tell them, “Be dog if dey ain’t all in dere a singin’ sump’n’bout dem England’s ships shootin’ at some big fort near roun’ Baltimore.” And Miss Malizy half talked and half sang what she had heard. Later that afternoon, there was an odd noise outside, and the grown-ups hurried to open their cabin doors and stood astonished: George had stuck a long turkey feather through his hair and was high-stepping along, banging a stick against a dried gourd and singing loudly his own version of what he had overheard from Miss Malizy: “Oh, hey, can you see by dat dawn early light ... an’ dem rockets’ red glare ... oh, dat star-spangle banner wavin’ ... oh, de lan’ o’ de free, an’ de home o’ de brave—”

Within another year the boy’s gift for mimicry had become slave row’s favorite entertainment, and one of George’s most popular requests was for his impression of Massa Lea. First making sure that the massa was nowhere near, then slitting his eyes and grimacing, George drawled angrily, “Less’n you niggers pick dis fiel’ o’ cotton clean fo’ dat sun set, y’all ain’t gon’ git no mo’ rations to eat!” Shaking with laughter, the adults exclaimed among themselves, “Is you ever seed anything like dat young’un?” ... “I sho’ ain’t!” ... “He jes’ a caution!” George needed but a brief observation of anyone to mock them in a highly comical way—including one big-house dinner guest, a white preacher, whom the massa had taken afterward to preach briefly to the slaves down by the chinquapin tree. And when George caught his first good glimpse of the mysterious old Mingo who trained the massa’s fighting gamefowl, George was soon aping perfectly the old man’s peculiar hitching gait. Catching two squawking barnyard chickens and holding them tightly by their legs, he thrust them rapidly back and
forth as if they were menacing each other while he supplied their dialogue: “Big ol’ ugly buzzard-lookin’ rascal, I’m gon’ scratch yo’ eyes out!” to which the second chicken replied scornfully, “You ain’t nothin’ but half a mouthful o’ feathers!”

The following Saturday morning, as Massa Lea routinely distributed the slave row’s weekly rations, Kizzy, Sister Sarah, Miss Malizy, and Uncle Pompey were standing dutifully before their cabin doors to receive their share when George came tearing around a corner chasing a rat, then screeched to a stop, having only narowly missed colliding with the massa. Massa Lea, half amused, affected a gruff tone: “What do you do to earn your rations around here, boy?” The four grown-ups all but collapsed as nine-year-old George, squaring his shoulders confidently and looking the massa straight in the eye, declared, “I works in yo’ fields an’ I preaches, Massa!” Astounded, Massa Lea said, “Well, let’s hear you preach, then!” With five pairs of eyes upon him, George took a step backward and announced, “Dis dat white preacher you brung down here, Massa—” and suddenly he was flailing his arms and ranting, “If you specks Uncle Pompey done took massa’s hog, tell massa! If you sees Miss Malizy takin’ missis’ flour, tell missis! ’Cause if y’all’s dat kin’ o’ good niggers, an’ doin’ well by yo’ good massa an’ missis, den when y’all die, y’all might git into de kitchen of heab’n!”

Massa Lea was doubled over with laughter even before George finished—whereupon, flashing his strong white teeth, the boy launched into one of Miss Malizy’s favorite songs, “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, O Lawd, a-standin’ in de need o’ prayer! Not my mammy, not my pappy, but it’s me, O Lawd, a-standin’ in de need o’ prayer! Not de preacher, not de deacon, but me, O Lawd, a-standin’ in de need o’ prayer!”

None of the adults had ever seen Massa Lea laugh so hard. Obviously captivated, he clapped George across the shoulders, “Boy, you
preach around here anytime you want to!” Leaving the basket of rations for them to divide among themselves, the massa went off back toward the big house with his shoulders shaking, glancing back over his shoulder at George, who stood there happily grinning.

Within weeks that summer, Massa Lea returned from a trip bringing two long peacock plumes. Sending Miss Malizy out to the fields to get George, he carefully instructed the boy how he wanted the plumes waved gently back and forth behind the guests he was inviting for dinner on the following Sunday afternoon.

“Jes’ puttin’ on airs, tryin’ to act like dey’s rich white folks!” scoffed Miss Malizy, after she had given Kizzy Missis Lea’s instructions that the boy must come to the big house scrubbed thoroughly and with his clothes freshly washed, starched, and ironed. George was so excited about his new role, and about all the attention that was being paid to him—even by the massa and missis—that he could scarcely contain himself.

The guests were still in the big house when Miss Malizy slipped from the kitchen and ran to slave row, no longer able to keep from reporting to her anxiously awaiting audience. “Lemme tell y’all, dat young’un too much!” Then she described George waving the peacock plumes, “a-twistin’ his wrists an’ bendin’ hisself back an’ forth, puttin’ on mo’ airs dan massa an’ missis! An’ after dessert, massa was pourin’ de wine, when seem like de idea jes’ hit ’im, an’ he say, ‘Hey, boy, let’s hear some preachin’!’ An’ I declares I b’lieves dat young’un been practicin’! ’Cause quick as dat he ax massa for some book to be his Bible, an’ massa got ’im one.
Lawd!
Dat young’un jumped on missis’ prettiest ’broidered footstool! Chile, he lit up dat dinin’ room preachin’! Den ain’t nobody ax ’im, he commence to singin’ his head off. Dat was when I jes’ run out!” She fled back to the big house, leaving Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey wagging their heads and grinning in incredulous pride.

George had been such a success that Missis Lea began returning from her and the massa’s Sunday afternoon buggy rides telling Miss Malizy that previous dinner guests whom they had met always asked about George. After a while the usually withdrawn Missis Lea even began to express her own fondness for him, “an’ Lawd knows, she ain’t never liked no nigger!” exclaimed Miss Malizy. Gradually Missis Lea began finding chores for George to do in or around the big house, until by his eleventh year it seemed to Kizzy that he spent hardly half of his time out with them in the fields anymore.

And because waving his plumes at every dinner kept George in the dining room hearing the white people’s conversation, he began picking up more news than Miss Malizy had ever been able to with her having to keep running back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen. Soon after the dinner guests left, George would proudly tell all he had heard to the waiting ears in slave row. They were astonished to hear how one guest had said that “roun’ ’bout three thousan’ free niggers from lots o’ different places held a big meetin’ in dat Philadelphia. Dis white man say dem niggers sent some res’lution to dat Pres’dent Madison dat both slave an’ free niggers done helped build dis country, well as to help fight all its wars, an’ de Newnited States ain’t what it claim to be less’n niggers shares in all its blessin’s.” And George added, “Massa say any fool can see free niggers ought to be run out’n de country!”

George reported that during a later dinner “dem white folks was so mad dey turned red” in discussing recent news of huge slave revolts in the West Indies. “Lawd, y’all ought to o’ heared ’em gwine on in dere ’bout ship sailors tellin’ dat Wes’ Indian slave niggers is burnin’ crops an’ buildin’s, even beatin’ an’ choppin’ up an’ hangin’ white folks dat was dey massas!” After subsequent dinners, George reported that a new ten-mile-an-hour speed record had been
achieved by a six-horse “Concord Coach” between Boston and New York City, including rest stops; that “a Massa Robert Fulton’s new paddle-wheel steamboat done crost some ’Lantic Ocean inside o’ twelve days!” Later, a dinner guest had described a show-boat sensation. “Bes’ I could git it, dey calls it ‘de minstrels’—soun’ like to me he say white mens blackin’ dey faces wid burnt corks an’ singin’ an’ dancin’ like niggers.” Another Sunday dinner’s conversation concerned Indians, George said. “One dem mens said de Cherokees is takin’ up sump’n like eighty million acres de white mens needs. He say de gubmint would o’ took care dem Injuns long fo’ now if wasn’t for some interferin’ big white mans, ’specially two name of Massa Davy Crockett an’ Massa Daniel Webster.”

One Sunday in 1818, George reported “sump’n dem guests was callin’ de ’Merican Colonize Society’ tryin’ to send shiploads o’ free niggers off to a ‘Liberia’ somewheres in dat Africa. De white folks was a-laughin’ ’bout de free niggers bein’ tol’ dat Liberia got bacon trees, wid de slices hangin’ down like leaves, an’ ’lasses trees you jes’ cuts to drain out all you can drink!” George said, “Massa swear far’s he concerned, dey can’t put dem free niggers on ships fas’ enough!”

“Hmph!” snorted Sister Sarah. “I sho’ wouldn’t go to no Africa wid all dem niggers up in trees wid monkeys—”

“Where you git dat at?” demanded Kizzy sharply. “My pappy come from Africa, an’ he sho’ ain’t never been in no trees!”

Indignantly, Sister Sarah spluttered, taken aback, “Well,
ever’body
grow up hearin’ dat!”

“Don’t make it right,” said Uncle Pompey, casting her a sidewise glance. “Ain’t no ship take you nohow, you ain’t no free nigger.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go if I was!” snapped Sister Sarah, flouncing her head and squirting an amber stream of snuff into the dust, annoyed now at both Uncle Pompey and Kizzy, whom she made a point of not bidding goodnight when the little gathering retired to
their cabins. Kizzy, in turn, was no less seething at Sister Sarah’s demeaning implication about her wise, stiffly dignified father and his beloved African homeland.

She was surprised and pleased to discover that even George was irritated at what he felt was ridicule of his African gran’pappy. Though he seemed reluctant to say anything, he couldn’t help himself. But when he finally did, she saw his concern about seeming disrespectful. “Mammy, jes’ seem like Sister Sarah maybe talk what ain’t so, don’t she?”

“
Dat
de truth!” Kizzy emphatically agreed.

George sat quietly for a while before he spoke again. “Mammy,” he said hesitantly, “is it maybe any l’il mo’ you could tell me ’bout’im?”

Kizzy felt a flooding of remorse that during the previous winter she had gotten so exasperated with George’s unending questions one night that she had forbidden him to question her any further about his grandfather. She said softly now, “Whole lot o’ times I done tried to scrape in my min’ if it’s sump’n ’bout yo’ gran’pappy I ain’t tol’ you, an’ seem like jes’ ain’t no mo’—” She paused. “I knows you don’t forgit nothin’—but I tell you again any part of it if you says so.”

George was again quiet for a moment. “Mammy,” he said, “one time you tol’ me gran’pappy give you de feelin’ dat de main thing he kep’ on his mind was tellin’ you dem Africa things—”

“Yeah, it sho’ seem like dat, plenty time,” Kizzy said reflectively.

After another silence, George said, “Mammy, I been thinkin’. Same as you done fo’ me, I gwine tell my chilluns ’bout gran’pappy.” Kizzy smiled, it being so typical of her singular son to be discussing at twelve his children of the future.

As George’s favor continued to rise with the massa and the missis, he was permitted increasing liberties without their ever really having to grant them. Now and then, especially during Sunday afternoons
when they look buggy rides, he would go wandering off somewhere on his own, sometimes for hours, leaving the slave-row adults talking among themselves, as he curiously explored every corner of the Lea plantation. One such Sunday it was nearly dusk when he returned and told Kizzy that he had spent the afternoon visiting with the old man who took care of the massa’s fighting chickens.

“I he’ped him catch a big ol’ rooster dat got loose, an’ after dat me an’ de ol’ man got to talkin’. He don’t seem all dat ’culiar to me, like y’all says, Mammy. An’ I ain’t never seen sich chickens! It’s roosters he said ain’t even grown yet jes’ a-crowin’ an’ jumpin’ in dey pens, tryin’ to git at one ’nother to fight! Ol’ man let me pick some grass an’ feed ’em, an’ I did. He tol’ me he take mo’ pains raisin’ dem chickens dan mos’ mammies does raisin’ dey babies!” Kizzy’s hackles raised a bit at that but she made no response, half amused at her son’s being so excited about some chickens. “He showed me how he rub dey backs an’ necks an’ legs, to help ’em fight de bes’!”

“You better stay ’way from down dere, boy!” she cautioned. “You know massa don’t ’low nobody but dat ol’ man down dere messin’ wid dem chickens!”

“Uncle Mingo say he gwine ax massa to let me come down dere an’ help ’im feed dem chickens!”

On their way out to the field the next morning, Kizzy told Sister Sarah of George’s latest adventure. Sarah walked on in thoughtful silence. Then she said, “I know you don’t hardly want me tellin’ you no mo’ fortunes, but I’m gwine tell you jes’ a l’il ’bout dat George, anyhow.” She paused. “He ain’t never gwine be what nobody would call no ordinary nigger! He always gwine keep gittin’ into sump’n new an’ different jes’ long as he draw breath.”

“H
e act like he well-raised, an’ he seem like he handy, Massa,” said Uncle Mingo, concluding his description of the boy who lived up on slave row but whose name he had neglected to ask.

When Massa Lea immediately agreed to give him a tryout, Mingo was greatly pleased—since he had been wanting a helper for several years—but not really surprised. He was well aware that the massa was concerned about his gamecock trainer’s advancing age and uncertain health; for the past five or six months he had fallen prey to increasingly frequent spells of bad coughing. He also knew that the massa’s efforts to buy a promising young slave apprentice trainer had come to nought among the area’s other gamecock owners, who were quite naturally disinclined to help him out. “If I had any boy showing any signs of ability,” the massa told him one had said, “you got to have more sense than to think I’d sell him. With that old Mingo of yours training him, five or ten years from now I’d see him helping you beat me!” But the likeliest reason for Massa Lea’s quick approval, Mingo knew, was that Caswell County’s annual cockfighting season would be opening shortly with the big New Year “main” fight, and if the boys simply fed the younger birds, Mingo would be able to spend that much more time conditioning and training the freshly matured two-year-olds that soon would be brought in from their open rangewalks.