Roots (80 page)

B
y daybreak, Chicken George was gone back down the road to his gamefowl. Then, about an hour after breakfast, Miss Malizy heard someone calling her name and, going to the kitchen door, she was startled to see the new bride, whom she greeted and invited inside.

“No’m, thank you,” said Matilda. “I jes’ wanted to ax whichaway is de fiel’ dey’s workin’ in today, an’ wherebouts can I fin’ me a hoe?”

A few minutes later, Matilda simply appeared and joined Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey in the day’s field work. Late that evening they all gathered about her in slave row, keeping her company until her husband got home. In the course of conversation, Matilda asked if any slave-row prayer meetings were held regularly, and when she was told that none were, proposed that one be made a part of each Sunday afternoon.

“Tell you de truth, I’se shame to say I ain’t done nowhere near de prayin’ I ought to,” said Kizzy.

“Me neither,” confessed Sister Sarah.

“Jes’ ain’t never seem to me no ’mount of prayin’ is did nothin’ to change white folks,” said Uncle Pompey.

“De Bible say Joseph was sol’ a slave to de Egyptians, but de Lawd was wid Joseph, an’ de Lawd blessed de Egyptians’ house for Joseph’s sake,” Matilda said in a matter-of-fact manner.

Three glances, quickly exchanged, expressed their steadily mounting respect for the young woman.

“Dat George tol’ us yo’ first massa a preacher,” said Sister Sarah. “You soun’ like a preacher yo’se’f!”

“I’se a servant o’ de Lawd, dat’s all,” replied Matilda.

Her prayer meetings began the following Sunday, two days after Chicken George and Massa Lea had gone off in the wagon with twelve gamecocks.

“Massa say he finally got de right birds to go fight where de big money is,” he explained, saying that this time the Lea birds would be competing in an important “main” somewhere near Goldsboro.

One morning when they were out in the field, carefully employing a gentle tone that suggested the sympathy of a forty-seven-year-old woman for a new bride of eighteen, Sister Sarah said, “Lawdy, honey, I ’spect yo’ married life gwine be split up twixt you an’ dem chickens.”

Matilda looked at her squarely. “What I done always heared, an’ b’lieved, is anybody’s marriage jes’ what dey makes it. An’ I reckon he know what kin’ he want our’n to be.”

But having established her stand about marriage, Matilda would readily share in any conversation about, her colorful husband, whether it was humorous or serious in nature.

“He done had itchy foots since he was a crawlin’ baby,” Kizzy told her one night, visiting in the new cabin.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Matilda, “I figgered dat when he come a-courtin’. He wouldn’t talk ’bout hardly nothin’ ’cept rooster fightin’ an’ him an’ de massa travelin’ somewheres.” Hesitating, she then added in her frank way, “But when he foun’ out weren’t no man gwine have his way wid me ’fo’ we’d jumped a broom, Lawd, he had a fit! Fact, one time I give up on seein’ ’im again. Don’t know what hit ’im, but I like to fell out de night he come a-rushin’ in an’ say, ‘Look, let’s us git hitched!”

“Well, I’se sho’ glad he had de sense!” said Kizzy. “But now you’s hitched, gal, I’se gwine tell you straight what’s on my min’. I wants me some gran’chilluns!”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong wid dat, Miss Kizzy. ’Cause I wants me some young’uns, too, same as other womens haves.”

When Matilda announced two months later that she was in a family way, Kizzy was beside herself. Thinking about her son becoming a father made her think about
her
father—more than she had in many years—and one evening when Chicken George was away again, Kizzy asked, “Is he ever mentioned anything to you’bout his gran’pappy?”

“No’m, he ain’t.” Matilda looked puzzled.

“He
ain’t?”
Seeing the older woman’s disappointment, Matilda added quickly, “Reckon he jes’ ain’t got to it yet, Mammy Kizzy.”

Deciding that she’d better do it herself, since she remembered more than he did anyway, Kizzy began telling Matilda of her life at Massa Waller’s for sixteen years until her sale to Massa Lea, and most of what she had to say was about her African pappy and the many things he had told to her. “Tilda, how come I’se tellin’ you all dis, I jes’ wants you to understan’ how I wants dat chile in yo’ belly an’ any mo’ you has to know all ’bout ’im, too, on ’count of he’s dey great-gran’daddy.”

“I sho’ does understan’, Mammy Kizzy,” said Matilda, whereupon her mother-in-law told yet more of her memories, with both of them feeling their closeness growing throughout the rest of the evening.

Chicken George’s and Matilda’s baby boy was born during the spring of 1828, with Sister Sarah serving as the midwife, assisted by a nervous Kizzy. Her joy about having a grandchild at last tempered her anger that the boy’s father was yet again off somewhere for a week with Massa Lea. The following evening, when the new mother felt up to it, everyone on slave row gathered at the cabin to
celebrate the birth of the second baby that had been born there on the Lea plantation.

“You’s finally ‘Gran’mammy Kizzy’ now!” said Matilda, propped up in bed against some pillows, nestling the baby and weakly smiling at her visitors.

“Lawd, yes! Don’t it soun’ pretty!” exclaimed Kizzy, her whole face one big grin.

“Soun’ like to me Kizzy gittin’
ol ’
, dat’s what!” said Uncle Pompey with a twinkle in his eye.

“
Hmph!
Ain’t no woman here ol’ as some we knows!” snorted Sister Sarah.

Finally, Miss Malizy commanded, “Awright, time us all git out’n here an’ let ’em res’!” And they all did, except for Kizzy.

After being quietly thoughtful for a while, Matilda said, “Ma’am, I been thinkin’ ’bout what you tol’ me ’bout yo’ pappy. Since I never even got to see mine, I b’lieves George wouldn’t care if dis child have my pappy’s name. It was Virgil, my mammy say.”

The name instantly had Chicken George’s hearty approval when he returned, filled with such jubilance at the birth of a son that he could hardly contain himself. Black derby awry as his big hands swooped the infant up in the air, he exclaimed, “Mammy,’member what I tol’ you, I gwine tell my young’uns what you tol’ me?” His face alight, he made a little ceremony of seating himself before the fireplace with Virgil held upright in his lap as he spoke to him in grand tones. “Listen here, boy! Gwine tell you ’bout yo’ great-gran’daddy. He were a African dat say he name ‘Kunta Kinte.’ He call a guitar a
ko,
an’ a river ‘Kamby Bolongo,’ an’ lot mo’ things wid African names. He say he was choppin’ a tree to make his l’il brother a drum when it was fo’ mens come up an’ grabbed ’im from behin’. Den a big ship brung ’im crost de big water to a place call ’Naplis. An’ he had runned off fo’ times when he try to kill dem dat cotched ’im an’ dey cut half his foot off!”

Lifting the infant, he turned his face toward Kizzy. “An’ he jumped de broom wid de big-house cook name Miss Bell, an’ dey had a l’il ol’ gal—an’ dere she is, yo’ gran’mammy grinnin’ at you right dere!” Matilda was beaming her approval as widely as Kizzy, whose eyes were moist with love and pride.

With her husband away as much as he was, Matilda began spending more of her time in the evenings with Gran’mammy Kizzy, and after a while they were pooling their rations and eating their supper together. Always Matilda would say the grace as Kizzy sat quietly with her hands folded and her head bowed. Afterward Matilda would nurse the baby, and then Kizzy would sit proudly with little Virgil clasped against her body, rocking him back and forth, either humming or singing to him softly as the grandfather clock ticked and Matilda sat reading her worn Bible. Even though it wasn’t against the massa’s rules, Kizzy still disapproved of reading—but it
was
the Bible, so she guessed no harm could come of it. Usually, not too long after the baby was asleep, Kizzy’s head would begin bobbing, and often she would begin murmuring to herself as she dozed. When she leaned over to retrieve the sleeping Virgil from Kizzy’s arms, Matilda sometimes heard snatches of the things she was mumbling. They were always the same: “Mammy ... Pappy ... Don’t let ’em take me! ... My people’s los’.... Ain’t never see ’em no mo’ dis worl’.... ” Deeply touched, Matilda would whisper something like, “We’s yo’ people now, Gran’mammy Kizzy,” and after putting Virgil to bed, she would gently rouse the older woman—whom she was growing to love as she had her own mother—and after accompanying her to her own cabin, Matilda would often be wiping at her eyes on her way back.

On Sunday afternoons, only the three women attended Matilda’s prayer services at first—until Sister Sarah’s sharp tongue finally shamed Uncle Pompey into joining them. No one ever even
thought about inviting Chicken George, for even when he was at home, by Sunday noon he would have returned to the gamefowl area. With the little group of five seated solemnly on chairs brought from their cabins and placed in a half circle under the chinquapin tree, Matilda would read some biblical passages she had selected. Then, with her serious brown eyes searching each face, she would ask if any among them would care to lead in prayer, and seeing that none of them did, she would always say, “Well, den, will y’all jine me on bended knee?” As they all kneeled facing her, she would offer a moving, unpretentious prayer. And afterward she’d lead them in singing some spirited song; even Uncle Pompey’s cracked, raspy baritone joined in as they made slave row resound with such rousing spirituals as “Joshua fit de battle o’ Jericho! Jericho! Jericho! ... An’ de walls come a-tumblin’ down!” The meeting turned then into a group discussion on the general subject of faith.

“Dis is de Lawd’s day. We all got a soul to save an’ a heab’n’ to maintain,” Matilda might offer in her matter-of-fact way. “We needs to keep in our minds who it was made us, an’ dat was Gawd. Den who it was redeemed us, an’ dat was Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus teached us to be humble, an’ mindful, dat we can be reborn in de sperrit.”

“I loves Lawd Jesus good as anybody,” Kizzy testified humbly, “but y’all see, I jes’ ain’t never knowed dat much ’bout ’im ’til I was up some size, even though my mammy say she had me christened when I was jes’ a l’il thing, at one dem big camp meetin’s.”

“Seem like to me we does be bes’ if we’s been put next to Gawd when we’s young’uns,” said Sister Sarah. She gestured at Virgil in his gran’mammy’s lap. “’Cause dat way we starts out early soakin’ up some ’ligion an’ settin’ sto’ by it.”

Miss Malizy spoke to Uncle Pompey. “You don’t know, if you’d of started out early, you might of made a preacher. You even got de look of one as it is.”

“Preacher! How I’m gwine preach an’ cain’t even read!” he exclaimed.

“De Lawd put things to say in yo’ mouth if He call you to preach,” Matilda said.

“Dat husban’ of your’n call hisself preachin’ roun’ here once!” said Miss Malizy. “He ever tol’ you ’bout dat?” They all laughed and Kizzy said, “He sho’ could of made some kin’ o’ preacher! Much as he love to show off an’ run his mouth!”

“He’d o’ been one dem trickin’ an’ trancin’ preachers holdin’ big revivals!” said Sister Sarah.

They talked for a while about powerful preachers they had all either seen or heard about. Then Uncle Pompey told of his powerfully religious mother, whom he remembered from boyhood on the plantation where he was born. “She was big an’ fat an’ I reckon de shoutin’est woman anybody ever heared of.”

“Remind me of ol’ maid Sister Bessie on de plantation I was raised on,” said Miss Malizy. “She was ’nother one dem shoutin’ womens. She’d got ol’ widout no husban’ till it come one dem big camp meetins’. Well, she shouted till she went in a trance. She come out’n it sayin’ she jes’ had a talk wid de Lawd. She say He say her mission on de earth was to save ol’ Br’er Timmons from goin’ to hell by him jumpin’ de broom wid sich a Christian woman as her! Scared ’im so bad he jumped it, too!”

Though few of those he ran into on his trips would have guessed from the way he acted that Chicken George had jumped the broom—or ever would—he surprised the women on slave row at home with how warmly he took to marriage and how well he treated his wife and family. Never did he return from a cockfight—wearing his scarf and derby, which had become his costume, rain or shine, summer or winter—without winnings to put away. Most of the time, giving Matilda a few dollars, he didn’t have much money left after paying for the gifts he, of course, always
brought along not only for Matilda and his mammy, but also for Miss Malizy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey as well as for young Virgil. He always came home, too, with at least an hour’s worth of news about whatever he had seen or heard about on his travels. As his slave-row family gathered around him, Kizzy would nearly always think how her African pappy had brought another slave row most of its news, and now it was her son.

Returning once from a long journey that had taken him to Charleston, Chicken George described “so many dem great big sailin’ ships dey poles look like a thicket! An’ niggers like ants packin’ an’ polin’ out dem great big tobacco hogsheads an’ all kinds o’ other stuff to sail de water to dat England an’ different mo’ places. Look like wherever me an’ massa travels, nowdays, it’s niggers diggin’ canals, an’ layin’ dem gravel highways, an’ buildin’ railroads! Niggers jes’ buildin’ dis country wid dey muscles!”

Another time he had heard that “de white folks threatenin’ de Indians ’bout takin’ in so many niggers on dey reservations. Plenty dem Creeks and Seminoles done married niggers. It’s even some nigger Indian chiefs! But I hears dem Chocktaws, Chickasaws, an’ Cherokees hates niggers even worse’n white folks does.”

He would be asked far fewer questions than they really wanted to know the answers to, and soon, making polite excuses, Kizzy, Miss Malizy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey would disappear into their cabins to let him and Matilda be alone.

“Done tol’ myself you never gwine hear me wid no whole lot of complainin’, George,” she told him one such night as they lay in bed, “but I sho’ do feel like I ain’t hardly got no husban’ a lot o’ times.”