Daddy goes over to my bed and pulls the cover back.
“Come on,” he says. “Jump in.”
I run and jump in the bed. Daddy pulls the cover up to my neck.
“Good night, Daddy.”
“Good night,” Daddy says.
“Good night, Mama.”
“Good night, Sonny,” Mama says.
I turn on my side and look at Daddy at the fireplace. Mama comes out of the kitchen and goes to the fireplace. Mama warms up good and goes to the bundle.
“Leave it alone,” Daddy says. “We’ll get up early tomorrow and get it.”
“I’m going to bed,” Mama says. “You coming now?”
“Uh-hunnnnn,” Daddy says.
Mama comes to my bed and tucks the cover under me good. She leans over and kisses me and tucks the cover some more. She goes over to the bundle and gets her nightgown, then she goes in the kitchen and puts it on. She comes back and puts her clothes she took off on a chair ’side the wall. Mama kneels down and says her prayers, then she gets in the bed and covers up. Daddy stands up and takes off his clothes. I see Daddy in his big old long white BVD’s. Daddy blows out the lamp, and I hear the spring when Daddy gets in the bed. Daddy never says his prayers.
“Sleepy?” Daddy says.
“Uh-uhnnn,” Mama says.
I hear Mama and Daddy talking low, but I don’t know what they saying. I go to sleep some, but I open my eyes again. It’s some dark in the room. I hear Mama and Daddy talking low. I like Mama and Daddy. I like Uncle Al, but I don’t like old Gran’mon too much. Gran’mon’s always talking bad about Daddy. I don’t like old Mr. Freddie Jackson, either. I like Mr. George Williams though. We went riding ’way up the road with Mr. George Williams. We got Daddy’s car and brought it all the way back here. Daddy and them turned the car over and Daddy poured some gas on it and set it on fire. Daddy ain’t got no more car now.... I know my lesson. I ain’t go’n wee-wee on myself no more. Daddy’s going to school with me tomorrow. I’m go’n show him I can beat Billy Joe Martin shooting marbles. I can shoot all over Billy Joe Martin. And I can beat him running, too. He thinks he can run fast. I’m go’n show Daddy I can beat him running.... I don’t know why I had to say, “God bless Madame Toussaint.” I don’t like her. And I don’t like old Rollo, either. Rollo can bark some loud. He made my head hurt with all that loud barking. Madame Toussaint’s old house don’t smell good. But us house smell good. I hear Mama and Daddy talking low. I get way under the cover. I go to sleep little bit, but I wake up. I hear Mama and Daddy talking. I like to hear Mama and Daddy talking when they talking good. I go to sleep some more. It’s some dark under here. It’s warm. I feel good way under here.
Author’s Note
I was born on a plantation like the one in this book, and I can still remember the people going out into the fields. A Long Day in November could have happened in the late 1930s or in the mid 1940s. There was a one-room schoolhouse on or near every plantation, and all classes were taught by one teacher. An older boy or an older girl would assist the teacher with her younger students. One of the bigger boys would build the fire in the heater and see that the schoolhouse stayed warm all day.
But since World War II the land and the schools have changed tremendously. The one-room schoolhouses are no longer there; school buses take the children to a larger school in town. Machinery now has taken over the cane cutting that the people used to do by hand. One cane-cutting machine operated by two or three men can cut as much cane as fifty men could cut by hand. So the people who used to go into the fields with their cane knives have had to seek work elsewhere. Many of them moved to small towns and to the cities looking for whatever kind of work was available. The houses where the people once lived have been torn down, and cane or some other crop has been planted there. About the only people still living on the plantations now are old people who are too tired and too burden-laden to pick up and start all over again. They live on welfare, they raise a few chickens, one or two pigs, and they raise a little garden beside or behind the house. Most of them have electricity and some of them even have gas heaters. Still, there are some who use fireplaces to heat their rooms and use a coal-oil lamp for light.
I want to include a few words about Madame Toussaint and say something about voodooism. In nineteenth-century Louisiana voodooism was as popular in some areas, especially around New Orleans, as is the belief in psychiatry today. Not only did illiterate black people believe in voodooism, but many of the educated, rich white people visited the voodoo queen for advice about love, money, politics, or anything else that was troubling them.
To this day voodoo queens are still with us. Of course we are more sophisticated and don’t go to them as much as people did a hundred years ago, but they still exist because some people still support them. The Madame Toussaints can be found in almost any large metropolitan area. But they are not called voodoo queens; today they are called healers.
As a final word I would like to say again that life as described in A Long Day in November is just about gone. Technology has destroyed it, and I think all for the best. The work on the plantation was hard and tedious. There was not much else to do but go into the fields and work, come home to rest, then go back to work again. Technology—the cane cutter, cotton picker, hay-bailing machines—took this work and forced the people off the land. In the cities the children were able to go to better schools and seek better jobs. Of course the computers are taking over many of these jobs today. So again the people will be forced to work elsewhere. But I have confidence that they will find it.
Ernest J. Gaines
San Francisco, 1971
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Copyright © 1964, 1968, 1971 by Ernest J. Gaines.
Illustrations Copyright © 1971 by Don Bolognese.
All rights reserved.
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Ernest J. Gaines, A Long Day in November
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