Eudora could hear the other youngsters already reciting their multiplication tables in different groups. There was a canonic crescendo to the simple task, which luckily muffled her curses at her situation, her husband, her cousin’s ever-so-sweet smiling face masking disdain and the Lord only knew what.
“I’m so sorry we’re late again, Francina, things just got to be a bit much at the farm today. Run along in, Lizzie. Catch up with the others. Say good mornin’ to Cousin Francina.” Lizzie gladly nodded her wild-eyed head and rushed to her classmates.
“Go along now like your mama told you.” Francina spoke without noticing Lizzie was gone already. “Besides, I’m used to your family’s tendency to tardiness.”
“Well, Francina, I did have to complete all my own work on I don’t even know how many dresses, do farm chores, get this child ready to go, and get myself some free time for Elma’s return. You know, she’s comin’ home tomorrow. I can’t wait to talk to her. From all her letters, she most surely has her hands full of suitors. I am certain she’s to marry soon.”
Self-consciously assuming Eudora was remarking on her own status as an unmarried woman of means, Francina snapped, “Well, don’t stay up making wedding plans for your youngest one over there. She is totally lacking in couth, she lies, fights, put a junebug down that lovely Emerald Grieson’s dress. I truly believe she was actually out back with the boys smoking a cigarette. For your sake, I try not to make too much of her, uh, ‘activities.’ I know how much you value the family’s reputation.”
Taken aback but not cowed, Eudora gasped, “Are you really discussin’ my baby? If what you say is true, and I’ve no cause to doubt you, Francina, don’t you be afraid to use the rod whenever necessary.”
“I appreciate your understanding, cousin, but even belts and the paddle don’t work on children born in a stormy house. I must tell you, everyone in town is talkin’ ’bout your husband, Win . . .” Francina slurred the name with obvious relish at her cousin’s discomfort.
“You mean Tom. His name is Tom.”
“Yes, that’s right, Tom. Well, his constant carousin’ and gamblin’ when he doesn’t have a . . . oh my.”
“Yes, Francina, the crop is not a good one this season,” Eudora slowly explained.
“That’s true, Eudora, but I must tell you what I myself truly believe.”
“What could that be, cousin?”
“I think, uh, Tom is, uh . . . how can I say . . .”
“Francina, why don’t you not say another thing. Only one I ever hear talkin’ is you. I don’t have time for idle tongues who’ve not a thing better to do than bad-mouth decent folks.”
“Eudora, I was just trying to—”
“I understand, Francina. Why don’t you try to come hear Elma sing at the church this Sunday? She just gave a performance at Fisk. She sent me the program. I’ll bring it to you Sunday. You’ll be so proud of her. The whole family will be, I’m sure.”
Just then Lizzie poked her head out the door. “You still here, Mama?”
“Lizzie, see to your lessons,” Francina snapped sternly.
“I saw my mama and I wanted to say good-bye, is all.” For this once, in spite of herself, Eudora reached out for Lizzie and held her close.
“You be good today, Lizzie, for me, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lizzie hugged Eudora so hard that Eudora’s eyes widened and she thought, My Lord, this child’s strong.
The little schoolhouse was spick-and-span, but stark and tight. Next to the American flag, Booker T. Washington’s face loomed over the children, and Francina kept a smaller portrait of DuBois on her desk near the piano, which is exactly where Lizzie headed, her heart pounding and her feet itching with excitement. There was music in there, in the piano, her piano, if she could get to it. She pushed her way through the class, focused on the black and white keys grinning at her. She didn’t notice who fell over or shouted, “Watch where you’re goin’!” and “Don’t put your hands on me, gal.” Lizzie heard none of that. She heard the music even before her fingers graced the keys with a sassy touch, pulling a syncopated lyric from the lonely instrument usually restricted to spirituals and patriotic songs. The other children forgot how peeved she’d made them and began to clap their hands. A couple even hooted and hollered from the joy and raunchiness of Lizzie’s playing, her body moving with the music like she was part of the melody, the rhythm. Annie Louise, the class monitor, began to get nervous. Francina Diggs didn’t take to disorder. “Lizzie, stop cuttin’ up. You got everybody actin’ a fool. What if Miss Diggs comes in? Lizzie, please?”
“Young lady, get away from that piano with that nasty music comin’ out of your fingers,” rasped Miss Diggs as she glared at the children from the doorway.
Annie Louise piped in with, “I tol’ her to stop, Miss Diggs, I did. I knew you wouldn’t like it.”
“Tattletale!” Lizzie hollered.
Francina was overwhelmed by the chaos Lizzie had started. “Everyone shut up! Lizzie, my days in this room are so much more civilized when you’re not here.”
The next moment Lizzie was in her seat in a beatific state. Music of any kind, no matter how low-down, was sacred in her eyes, brought out what was holy in her, eased her mind, and set her soul aglow. Francina turned away, exasperated, murmuring something about what the race was coming to. Lizzie, on the other hand, was motioning to Annie Louise that she was going to black her eyes good. Annie stuck her tongue out. The others, her classmates who’d had such a good time, were in her corner: “Miss Diggs, she was just lettin’ us have some fun.” “Lizzie didn’t do no wrong, Miss Diggs.”
Lizzie was sent to the cloakroom as punishment. She sat still for a minute, then spied the open window just above the coat hooks and climbed right on out into the freedom of the early morning air. “Woo-wee!” Lizzie exclaimed as quietly as she could. She’d fallen a whole eight feet to the ground and landed right on her behind. She looked back up at the window, dustin’ her backside at the same time. As she realized from whence she had come, her head started weavin’ and bobbin’ to an as-yet unwritten tune. “Yeah, that’s right, ‘She can fall from the top of a tall oak tree, dust herself off, and come on home to me.’ Yep, I’m gointa sing that to Pa, see if that’s got the feel of the blues for real. Pa’ll know right off. Then we could work on it together. I think Pa’ll like that. An original Winrow tune. Maybe even with our faces on the sheet music. We could forget about the damned crops and sing an’ be rich as them other relatives, and won’t nobody have to die, either.” Laughing and humming new words to her song, Lizzie dashed into the woods. Trumpeter Tommy Winrow and His Amazin’ Singin’ Dancin’ Daughter!
Of course, Tom had no thoughts of Lizzie communin’ with the low-down spirit of the blues as he passed by the schoolhouse on his way to town in his buckboard empty of produce, a strange sight for that time of year. The load so light the horses were free to prance along almost as if they were loose from bridles and reins. Tom felt their relief and envied them. He glanced back at the wagon, feeling powerless and pitiful, while the animals moved forward with élan. “Boll weevil where did you come from, Boll weevil . . .” He didn’t even wanna sing about it. He was tired, the normal energy he was used to sucked up by this life he was livin’. This lie. How a man so good at readin’ a card-playin’ stranger cross the table could be so bad at seein’ the woman who shares his bed. “The woman I love,” he sneared. Did love. My Dora. The very thing that made his heart dance just at seeing her now made him recoil, her passion a simmering rage, her ambition turned desperate, leaving no room for a partner, no tolerance for failure. Eyes, those beautiful strange eyes, a wonder and surprise, lookin’ like they didn’t belong there, if they looked his way at all lately, were unblinking, uncaring, blamin’ him—even for the weather. It had gotten so he couldn’t talk to her straight, but had taken to regarding her askance, squinting as if in the glare of the sun.
He daren’t curse the land for fear it would turn on him some more. I
t had broken his folks and now it was breaking him. All morning he had pressed Mr. Lee into one more day of belligerent service, turning over the sandy red earth to reveal even more dry dirt, him workin’ harder than the mule to coax the plow through another barren row. Nothin’ to do but turn it over. He chuckled to himself, sweat streaming down his brow. Funny, when he hadn’t cared nothin’ ’bout it, the land just seemed to blossom for him, a fancy girl trying to make herself pretty, doll herself up with berries, peaches, wildflowers, a garland of grapes in her hair. Now that he depended upon her, she shrank from his touch, her red purple flowers falling early, the green bolls that would burst white with new cotton, crawling with hairy pincered bugs, poking their long snouts at him, birthing their white wrinkled larvae, yield after yield. He bent over the reins as a shard of pain coursed through his torso. “Damn, cain’t even drink no moah.”
The contradiction left an ache in his arms. He wanted to punish the horses, Willie and Sue, for being so gall-darned free of his dilemma. He had to have something to carry to market, and soon. He had to pile that buckboard with hay, potatoes, cotton, beans, anything that would force the horses to trudge slowly down the road, weighed down by the bounty of his fields. Tom burst into a fierce sweat on top of the light layer of perspiration that had already left his back and underarms ringed and soiled-looking. But he didn’t look nearly as unkempt as this white man on the side of the road waving his hand in the air, like a body wouldn’t see a lone white man right away. Sometimes Tom actually believed he could sense white folks near him, so he was a bit put off by the agitated gyrations of this figure who couldn’t possibly be a Carolinian. White Carolinians assumed black folks’ lives revolved around them, that their needs were to be catered to anywhere, anytime, even by the side of the road in the heat of the day, even if they were dirty and close to trash as rotting hog entrails. Whoever this white man was, he wasn’t local.
But Tom was local and knew better than to just ride on by. He pulled the reins hard on Willie and Sue, finally getting back at them for being so carefree. The white man was white enough to hop up next to him before Tom could get a “Good day, sir” out of his mouth. Not wanting to be too familiar, even with a white man whose suit was frayed and torn, face unshaven and bruised, Tom moved over as far as he could. Give the man some space.
“Which way you headed, sir?” Tom asked in a mild voice, though his passenger’s eyes darted wildly in all directions, not unlike a wounded animal.
“Well, brother, I’m trying to get to Charleston. Is that on your way?” The white man tried to sound more relaxed than he was, which set Tom on edge.
“If you say so, Sir.”
“Brother, don’t take it that way. I really didn’t mean to sound like you had to go there. Name’s Marcus Singleton,” he said with a quick nasal speech that was decidedly not Southern. “Where I come from we don’t force the colored to do what’s not on their minds to do. So if you’re not headed for Charleston, I’ll just jump right off your wagon, and you can go on about your day as you planned, although I do wish I had some time to talk with you about my business in these parts. I’ve got some very interesting opportunities for a man like you, uh . . . what did you say your name was, again?”
Tom took a deep breath and raised his eyes a little, looking as far away from this crazy white man as he could manage. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you, sir—”
“Brother, drop all that sir business. We’re just workers together like anybody else. Color makes no nevermind where I come from.”
“Well, it does down here, sir. I could get myself in a heap of a mess if anybody else was to hear me talkin’ to a white man out of my place, so please, I’ma keep on callin’ you sir. Name’s Winrow, most everbody call me Win.”
“Win? I like that.”
“Wish it was true,” he chuckled, “and I am on my natural way to Charleston, though I can’t ’xactly say what for—ain’t got nothin’ to take to market.”
“Well, Mr. Win, I think I can help on both those counts.” Marcus Singleton thought he’d found a hook to reel in another fish. He was a former carnie barker, the pitch rolled off his tongue. “If you take heed to what I have to say, you won’t have to concern yourself with talking low to any old white person or worry about a good crop coming in.”
“I like my life here just fine, sir. Traditions are traditions and they don’t bother them what’s used to ’em, plus worryin’ ’bout a crop comin’ in is just about as much a part of a farmer’s life as breathin’, which you should be real glad you doin’.” Tom looked cynically at the bruises and scabs on the white man, whose shredded clothes rivaled those of any po’ niggah he’d ever seen. “So they gave you a good enough welcome, I see.”
Singleton hesitantly and quietly admitted, “Yes, brother, I did have some trouble in Wheeler. There’s a fear of workers thinkin’ for themselves up there that I wasn’t prepared for. Seems to me a man ought to be able to work where he wants and demand to be paid adequately for his labor. Now that’s what I think, but I couldn’t get that idea through to anyone ’round there. All I got was their idea, which seems to be beatin’ the livin’ hell outta anyone who isn’t one of them, even if they don’t have a pot to piss in.
“It’s fear, brother. I don’t hold nothin’ against them. The notions I was introducin’ scared them more than the pitiful way they’re forced to live, makin’ a quota of a crop for somebody else, bein’ forced to feed other folks ’fore they feed themselves, and always fearin’ they’ll lose their land or the plot they’re workin’ for somebody who doesn’t give one damn whether they live or die.”
Singleton had Tom’s interest now. He was thinkin’ how much he feared losin’ his land just like this white man was talkin’ ’bout.
“Say, what’s a quota?” Tom asked tentatively, which was all Singleton needed to launch his agenda of taking black workers away from farmin’ and sharecroppin’ to luring them to the mountain regions of West Virginia to work in the mines. The owners of the Consolidated Coal Company had sent him south in search of scab labor to break the back of the fledgling United Mine Workers Union. By persuasion or otherwise, he had a quota he had to meet. So many niggahs for so many dollars.
Tom didn’t know this. All he wanted to know was what a quota was.
“Hold on heah a minute, would you? I got my mind a bit confused. What’d ya say we was workin’ for? A quota? What’s that there? What’s it got to do with me? I got my own land!”
Singleton was getting excited. “Brother, that’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about. You don’t have your land. The banks have got your land. And if you don’t bring in a certain kinda harvest, they’ll take that land right from under your feet and sell anythin’ that ain’t nailed down before you can blink your eyes. And I know you could tell that’s the truth way down in your soul. Look at the state of the farms ’round here. No rain. Scrawny corn. Little bits of cotton. Weevils eatin’ at that. You know how close you are to bein’ out of your land as I do!”
“Winrows always had they land,” is all Tom had to say. “I’ll find some way to deal with the bank.”
“Brother, if you listen to me, you could pay off that note in less than a year, I bet.”
Tom chuckled. “How’s that, brothah?”
“Well, fellas I got jobs for up my way are makin’ a dollar fifty a day, sending it homeward. Next thing they know, they’ve paid for their land, or some even bought new land right there! I’ll tell yuh, most take to livin’ up north so keen they send for their families and leave the dangers of livin’ down here to the colored willin’ to put up with it.”
“You’re right about that,” Tom said, dead serious. “The two of us just ridin’ in this buckboard together is enough to get us killt. Ya bettah keep yourself out the backcountry or might be nobody’ll ever see ya again. You was really lucky this time, they left ya livin’. That ain’t always the case. But stop this nonsense talk about a dollar ’n a half a day; a hardworking man down here might make th
at in a whole week. What, ya thought I was born yesterday?”
“Naw, brother, I’m sayin’ you can be born again, a new man. Where I hail from, a man can live with some respect, not talk low to a livin’ soul, and give his family more than white folks down in these parts dream about for themselves. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
Tom felt his stomach churning; his throat was dry. What this white man was sayin’ was the answer to alla his problems with Eudora and her dreams, his dreams for Lizzie, Miz Bette’s care, and a future for the Winrow clan. Keep the land and still be free of Carolinian white fools in they white sheets and burnin’ crosses, their crooked liens, take it or leave it. Tom didn’t let on, but he took Singleton’s suggestions earnestly. Decision-makin’ time is comin’ was what he thought. New hand, change the rhythm of the game. He relaxed a bit as they approached Charleston proper. “You best be gettin’ on now, mista,” he murmured. “I cain’t ride up into the city with you, but you best get yourself to Miz Bette in Lil Mexico. She got a basket down there, sellin’ herbs and what-not. She’ll work some hoodoo on them bruises and won’t nobody know for lookin’ how dangerous could be talkin’ with you. Dollah fifty a day you say, huh?” Tom asked, squinting his eyes, still leery. “Listen, for my family’s sake, don’t come lookin’ for me. I’ll find you if I got a mind to. Don’t know right now. Just try to keep a little to yourself for a few days. Don’t want to find you dead out in the swamp somewhere cause you tol’ us colored we didn’t haveta be slaves to no bank quota! Dollah fifty?” Tom laughed deep in his belly as if just told a good joke and clicked his teeth to get his horses goin’ again.
Singleton was a bit dismayed he hadn’t snapped Tom up immediately, but his body hurt so much from the beating and weakness from hunger, all he could manage to call out to Tom was, “Where is this Miz Bette?”