AT THE CROSS ROADS STORE
For many years after freedom came to the negroes of the low-country, they were cruelly and ignobly cheated by the tradespeople who set up little Cross Roads stores in every community. Many of these were German corner-shopkeepers from the cities. Others were wandering Jews, whose predatory instincts took them wherever there were pickings to be had. Yet others, to their shame, were certain low-class South Carolinians that did not scruple to take advantage of the ignorant freedmen who, a wasteful and improvident people, whose needs had all been supplied under slavery, squandered the money they were unaccustomed to handling and unable to compute.
Imitative as monkeys, however, it is to the credit of their intelligence, if not of their morality, that they soon learned to retaliate, and many a brick and rusty plowshare was weighed in their bags of seed cotton and paid for by the tricky shopkeeper who, knowing that in many cases the cotton was stolen from the planter for whom the negro worked, and brought stealthily by night to the sophisticated merchant, did not scan his purchase too closely, and many an ancient nest egg, too, was sold to the shopkeeper as a new-laid “yaa’d aig” and shipped away to city customers.
The marks upon the brass beams of the counter-scales with which the negroes’ purchases were weighed, were so obscured and tarnished that they could not be deciphered, even by customers who could read, but the wily shopman knew exactly where to put his weight to give a twelve-ounce pound, which is what the negro usually got. Always suspecting “de buckruh” of cheating him, and being unable to do even the smallest addition, the negro soon learned to protect himself, if not from short weights, at least from short change, and it was interesting to observe a shopper making her week’s purchases on Saturday nights at one of these neighborhood stores. The women, commonly more alert, and always more suspicious, than the men, were usually charged with the buying. If a customer had a dollar to spend, she would first price the various commodities under consideration.
“Hummuch you ax fuh sugar?”
“Ten cents a pound.”
“Ten cent’ uh poun’?”
“Yes.”
“Hummuch fuh fibe cent’?”
“Half a pound.”
“Gimme fibe cent’ wut.”
The short-weight sugar wrapped up and handed out, the customer would draw it to her bosom and, leaning on the counter, put her protecting arms around it. The dollar, ceremonially unwrapped from a corner of her apron, would be handed over, and ninety-five cents in change returned, which she would count over carefully before proceeding with her next purchase.
“You got any bakin’?”
“Yes.”
“Wuh kind’uh bakin’?”
“Side meat and shoulder meat.”
“Hummuch fuh him?”
“Ten cents for the shoulders and twelve and a half cents for the sides.”
“Gimme ten cent’ wut uh side meat.”
When that was delivered, ten cents would be slowly taken from the little pile and paid over.
“Wuh kinduh clawt’ you got?”
“Homespun, gingham, calico. What kind you want?”
“Lemme shum.”
Bolts of each would be placed before her.
“Hummuch da’ speckly kin’?” (pointing to the gingham).
“Ten cents a yard.”
“Gimme ten cent’ wut.”
A thirty-three-inch yard would be torn off.
“You got any salt?”
“Yes.”
“Hummuch fuh him?”
“Five cents a quart.”
“Gimme t’ree cent’ wut.”
“You got any flour?”
“Yes.”
“Hummuch you ax fuh him?”
“Five cents a pound.”
“Gimme ten cent’ wut.”
The flour and the salt would come within the encircling arms, fifteen cents be counted out, and all transactions suspended until the two cents change was returned to her.
“Wuh kinduh tubackuh you got?”
Two or three samples of plug tobacco, the only sort in common use, would be offered for inspection, and perhaps the advice of a colored sister asked before deciding upon a selection.
By the time the dollar was expended, the clerk had walked a hundred yards or so, had used up lots of brown paper and paper twine and had had his patience sorely tried, but he charged liberally for his time and trouble, and the poor darkey got far less than she paid for.
In the funny columns of Northern periodicals, and in the immemorial minstrel jokes and songs, the negro not only steals chickens, but eats them. The low-country negroes, however, while all of them keep chickens, seldom, if ever, eat them, the coarsest fat bacon being far more to the negro’s taste than the juiciest broiler. Then, too, eggs and chickens are currency in most negro communities and can always be converted into cash at the country store or at the back door of the nearest white family.
The country negroes on the coast still speak of “fo’punce” chickens and “seb’npunce” chickens, meaning the sizes that were sold for four pence and seven pence respectively before the Revolution, when British coinage was the currency of the country.
“Gal, ketch da’ seb’npunce chickin en’ dem t’ree fo’punce chickin’ en tek dese’yuh six aig’, en’ tek’um to de Cross Road’, en’ buy de six aig’ wut’uh tubackuh en’ de seb’npunce chickin wut’uh flour, en’ one de fo’punce chickin’ wut’uh sugar, en’ norruh one uh de fo’punce chickin’ wut’uh side meat, en’ de todduh fo’punce chickin wut’uh muhlassis, en’ tek dish’yuh bucket fuh fetch’um een, en’ don’ ’low de buckruh fuh cheat you, en’ tie de aig’ een yo’ hengkitchuh, en’ tie all fo’ de fowl’ foot so dem cyan’ git’way, en’ hol’um een yo’ ap’un, en’ don’ stay duh sto’ too long, en’ w’en you tek de chickin’ out de ap’un, hol’um by ’e two foot fuh mek ’e head heng down, so ’e wing’ kin ’pread out fuh mek’um look big so de buckruh t’ink suh de fo’punce chickin’ duh seb’npunce chickin’, en’ w’en de buckruh po’ out de muhlassis, mek’um fuh po’rum ’tell de muhlassis stop run out de medjuh, ’cause ef you ent watch’um ’e sho’ fuh lef’ some een de quawt cup, en’ w’en you come back duh night’time, walk middle’uh de paat’, ’cause ’e rain’ teday en’ toadfrog does jump ’bout w’en de ground en’ t’ing wet, en’ moccasin does folluhr’um fuh ketch’um, en’ uh yent wan’ you fuh git ’structed by no snake duh paat’.”
The little girl leaned on the counter, slowly unrolled an old bandanna handkerchief, and spread the six eggs before her, carefully keeping the unhappy chickens concealed in her apron.
“Ebenin’, suh. Ma tell me fuh git uh plug’uh tubackuh wid dese aig’.”
“You can get only half a plug for half a dozen eggs. Eggs are ten cents a dozen!”
“Yaas’suh, but Ma tell me fuh git’uh whole plug,” said the shrewd little trader. “Ma tell me fuh ax you ef you ent g’em uh whole plug uh tubackuh fuh de six aig’, please, suh, fuh gimme uh gunjuh—tengky, suh,” as the obliging clerk handed her a big scalloped molasses cake and short-cut the plug of tobacco enough to pay for it.
The tobacco trade consummated, the girl fumbled furtively in her apron, and, feeling about deftly, located and drew forth the “seb’npunce” chicken. That adolescent fowl, a rooster whose voice was changing, alternately peeped and squawked, as the seller with outstretched arm dangled him by the legs high over the counter, his outspread wings making him look a full size larger, but the shopkeeper was country-bred, and felt the rooster’s breastbone. “Fifteen cents,” he said.
“Ma tell me fuh git twenty-fibe cent’ wut uh flour ’long dish’yuh one,” she fibbed.
“I’ll give you twenty cents’ worth,” he countered, and, as she nodded in acquiescence, jubilant at the thought of having outwitted him, he plunged his scoop into a barrel and weighed out twelve cents’ worth of flour. When this had been wrapped and delivered, the clerk, knowing by her expectant look that further commercial transactions were imminent, stood at attention, while the girl abstracted the first of the three “fo’punce” chickens from her apron and held the noisy fledgling, naked and unashamed, at arm’s length above the counter. “Ma tell me fuh git dis seb’npunce chickin wut uh side meat,” she ventured, craftily watching the face of the Caucasian whom she sought to overreach.
“Why, that’s a fo’punce chicken. He ain’t half the size of the other one.”
“Yaas’suh, alltwo come out de same nes’ en’ alltwo hatch out de same time. Da’ todduh one duh dish’yuh one bubbuh, en’ dish’yuh one duh da’ todduh one tittie. Him look big mo’nuh dish’yuh one ’cause him duh roostuh en’ him hab comb, en’ dish’yuh one duh pullet en’ him ent hab no comb, en’ de roostuh greedy mo’nuh de pullet, en’ him nyam de mor’is’ bittle, en’ dat mek ’e stan’ so,” she prevaricated unblushingly. These earnest asseverations had no effect on the purchaser, however, and, appraising the gallinaceous juveniles at ten cents each, he stood pat, and one by one they were withdrawn from the apron and exchanged for bacon, sugar and molasses. Upon the pouring of the latter commodity, however, Aryan and African again locked horns. The weather was warm, and as even the thick “blackstrap” molasses flowed freely, the careless shopman very nearly gave his customer the full quart for which she had paid—an inadvertence which, it should be said in justice to his commercial acumen, he very seldom committed. Realizing too late that nearly all the molasses had run into the tin bucket out of the quart measure (false-bottomed as it was) he gave it a quick upward flirt to save what he could, and started back to the barrel, but was checked by the girl’s scream of protest. “Ma tell’ me fuh tell you ’sponsubble fuh mek you fuh po’rum out ’tell eb’ry drop done dreen een de bucket,” she cried excitedly, and, in shame-faced compliance, he let her hold the measure till the uttermost drop had been “dreened” out. With a sideswipe of a very questionable finger, she garnered the dulcet drops that clung to the curved lip of the cup and, sucking the sweetened digit greedily, she grinned with satisfaction. And now, with the packages carefully tied up in the bandanna in one hand, and the covered tin bucket in the other, she dropped a curtsy, for she was a polite little darkey, and went her ways homeward, sweetened in soul and saliva.
The night was dark, and the path traversed a small bay, where the sweetgums spread their limbs above the track, and their heavy foliage hid the stars and deepened the shadows along the way. Along the edge of the bay, in the sodden soil, grew lush water-grasses, and they were very sweet to a vagabond ox, as he cropped them, undisturbed by flies, in the cool night air. But the peaceful ox, playing truant, poor wretch, from his negro master, was full of tragedy, for the ox was white, and no solitary negro in the low-country, where the forests are full of little negro graveyards, can bear the sight of anything white in the woods at night. The fear of ghosts is always with them, and a white cow, grazing in or near a graveyard, will often stampede a road full of worshipers returning from a prayer-meeting.
As she reached the shadowy places along the way, the child heard a rustling sound in the bushes that suggested snakes. She instinctively jumped to the other side of the path, at the same time looking over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. One glance was enough! The pallid ox loomed gigantic in her affrighted eyes, and, with a scream of terror, she fled homeward and was soon, wide-eyed and trembling, before her mother. Faithful to her trust, she had held on to bundle and tin bucket, but the molasses was spattered liberally over her bare legs and had soaked her homespun skirt and apron.
“Wuh ’smattuh, gal? You done t’row’way half de muhlassis! Wuh de debble mek you duh trimble?”
“Ma, w’en uh binnuh walk t’ru de branch, een da’ daa’k t’icket onduhneet’ dem gum tree, uh yeddy sump’nurruh duh shake de bush, en’ uh t’ink ’e duh snake, en’ uh jump en’ look ’roun’, en’ uh see uh sperrit, one big w’ite sump’n’ high mo’nuh dis house, en’ de t’ing groan’ at me, en’ uh dat ’f’aid’um, uh run’way, en’ ’e nebbuh ketch me, en’ uh mek de buckruh gimme twenty cent’ wut uh flour fuh de seb’npunce chickin, en’ ’e gimme uh gunjuh!”
“Tell yo’ bubbuh fuh git da’ hom’ny spoon en’ ’crape da’ muhlassis off yo’ two knee, en’ pit’um een da’ pan, en’ tek off yo’ ap’un, en’ you en’ yo’ bubbuh alltwo kin chaw’um, so de muhlassis ent fuh t’rowway.”