XV
The youth who lay dead on the track was Babe Cole, the youngest of Tom Cole's four sons.
Three years before Paul Judson left Jackson, in answer to that wordless message of the mountain that he interpreted as promising all success to him, Tom Cole had received a call to Shiloh African Baptist Church, the tall white church at the corner of Pine and Gammon streets, at one end of Atlanta's sprawling negro section. He had not succeeded in making farming in Fulton County pay.
"Nigguh caint make money grow nohow," he would complain to neighbors who had come to the crossroads church to hear his sermon, and stayed for the inevitable discussion of crops and stock and any other topic wandering minds might bring up. "Ah kin make cawn grow, an' peas grow, an' string-beans grow, wid de good Lawd's blessin'; Ah kin make pigs grow, an' chickens grow——"
"You eats 'em anyhow, Brudder Cole; ain't sayin' whar you gits 'em," chuckled Peter Bibb, the oldest elder.
The pastor joined in the laugh against himself. "Sounds lak you'se tryin' to establish an allerbi, Uncle Peter. Mebbe you ain't never heard dat our hens, de Plymouth Rocks Aunt Stella tends herse'f, is de fattes' in fo'teen miles." He grinned easily, bringing out the mesh of bronzed wrinkles beneath the knotty kinks of wire-black hair, powdered with uneven gray around the edges. "But Ah gotter go, breddren. Caint make no money here nohow; Ah's done preached de gospel six years now in dis chu'ch, an Ah reckons Ah done 'zausted mah message."
The urban congregation was proud of "Brudder Tom" from the start. "Ah wuz bawn in slavery," was his favorite beginning, "in bodily slavery; de good Lawd done riz me to freedom. Ah wuz bawn in slavery, in spir'chual slavery; de good Lawd done riz me to freedom. De Lawd sont me to bring grace erboundin' an' everlastin' to you sinnuhs; come unto de fol', oh brudders, let de Lawd's baptizin' wash you free f'um sin an' de ol' Debble's tracks on yo' soul——" They rose to his eloquent appeal; his open air "baptizin's" up Peachtree Creek were scenes of pervasive religious ecstasy.
Preaching was pleasant, but not profitable. Tom gradually secured a number of customers who called him in for day work, keeping lawns in order, hedge-clipping, and some regular gardening. The house he got at two dollars a week, from a white land-owner interested in the church; and there was a succession of invitations to dinner from the members of his congregation, whether well-to-do or not; "feeding the minister" was an acknowledged duty of all good African Baptists. But there were Stella Cole and the five hungry little Coles to be considered; these were not included in the invitation.
Stella finally, through the aid of her sister Caroline, maid to a family on Washington Street, got work as cook in one of the big houses on Pryor Avenue. It was much the most "hifalutin'" section of the city, she assured Tom, and Judge Land certainly looked the most important jurist in all Atlanta, when he walked stiffly down the front steps, beneath the lofty ante-bellum pillars, and let "Miss' Kate" deftly badge him with a lilac spray, before opening the low-swung gate and passing into the changing world without.
Stella figured that the two dollars a week, added to the panful of cornpone and scraps of left-over meat and dessert, which she was expected to take home every evening, raised the family to a position of positive prosperity.
One afternoon Tom Cole sat lounging upon a bed in his back room, talking over with a committee the "chitterling supper" to raise organ money—an entertainment in which the church members gave the food, then bought it back, the money going to the church. He was rounding up an easy third year at Shiloh Church, and looked forward to many more.
The front door snapped open with a peculiar sharpness. The committeemen sat up, surprised and puzzled. Stella's voice came to them, high-strung, weeping. "Tom! Lawd hab mercy! Tom——"
From behind her, through the closing door, they heard an unusual hubbub in the street.
"Stella—here Ah is——"
She stood before them, leaning against the door jamb, one hand behind her back. "Oh, Tom! They'se killed Cah'line—they'se killin' all the nigguhs——"
Tom drew nearer, his eyes open in alarmed fascination, his face washed with a dusky pallor. "Killed Cah'line——"
"Get mah babies, Tom. We gonter leave dis place, now."
"What's all dis, Miss' Cole?" one of the men hurled at her, jumping to his feet.
"Lawsy, you po' chile! What's de matter wid yu' han'?"
She brought it out from behind her, bleeding, crushed, pulpy. "Rock hit me," she said, straightly. "Git de babies, Tom. We gotter go."
"Whar we gwine?"
"Gawd knows. Dey's all over town by now. Hung two nigguhs on Capitol Avernoo; a man he hit Cah'line wid a rock, an' dey stomped all over her. Listen to 'em!" She shrieked this, half turning to the front. "Whar's Ed 'n' Will? Whar's de baby?"
Tom snatched at his hat; the committeemen reached for theirs. "Let's go out de back way. Diana's mindin' de babies, all de boys 'cep' Ed's dar; he's out in de alley. Can we go to de chu'ch?"
"Dey's burnin' de Meth'dis' chu'ch down de street."
"Police?"
"Won't he'p none."
One of the men spoke up. "Mah boss, Mistus Rylan, he tole me ef trouble ever come, to git in his cellar an' he'd pertec' me. We kin go 'cross lot. You all go on; I'm gwine to go by for Mamie an' de folks upstairs."
Stella rounded up the four larger children, took "Babe" on her arm, and steered Tom and two others of the committee across back fences, and obliquely through hot July fields of sturdy smartweed and brown-dusted grass. As they came out of an alley, just a block away from the Rylan back gate, they saw a moving flood of figures down the street two blocks away. The thinned tumult reached them. They sneaked across, running; Stella waved her bruised hand spasmodically. "Lawd, Lawd!"
Mrs. Rylan came at once in answer to her cook's excited message. "Gracie will show you the way to the cellar. I hope you'll be safe there. My husband phoned me that the rioting was serious."
In the underground dimness Stella appropriated for her sobered flock a garden bench, its back broken, standing on end in one corner. Tom's coat, spread in a barred chicken crate, made a pallet for "Babe."
"Keep mah place fuh me, Diany," she whispered fiercely. She helped the new arrivals get fixed on barrel tops, soap boxes, a rickety wheelbarrow, even an old set of bed springs tucked away in the darkest corner.
"Maw, will dey git us heah?" the children repeated in panicky insistence.
Stella smelled again the acrid liniment which had come through the crude bandage. "Ain' yo' pappy heah? Ain' he said de Lawd gwineter pertec' us? An' ain' de white man sont us heah? You shet up 'n' go ter sleep."
There were more than twenty in the big cellar finally; but the bacon and greens held out, and the ominous rioting only once howled through the street just outside.
Long after the uproar had quieted, Tom rose reverently from his cramped knees, stained by the lime on the floor. "Dar now! Ain't de Lawd done shelter' his own?"
"Amen, brudder! Amen!"
The third morning, Gracie came down with a lamp, followed by Mr. Rylan. "It's safe now," he announced. "The police are at last keeping order.... You can go home."
"De Lawd bless you, suh, an' yo' chillun an' all yo' folkses. De Lawd pertec' you——"
He brushed aside their tearful gratitude. "I was only too glad I had the chance," he said simply.
They stumbled into the sunlight, squinting with weakened eyes.
"I thought I'd die in dat place," one young woman chattered.
"You'd a died ef you wuzn't dar," an older one corrected her.
They started back across the parched fields. One by one they separated, until only the Coles and another family were left. When they came to their block, a hopeless depression gripped them. The packed row of houses across the street was a gray patch of ashes, where an occasional smoke-mist still climbed. Their own house was half-wrecked: panes broken, furniture hacked wantonly, the house torn and trampled as if a cyclone had driven through it. Tom's favorite new Bible, given by his congregation, his few gift books, were wrenched apart and scattered about the yard. The china and pans had been smashed. On the sidewalk was a charred pile of clothes; Ed's new suit, Babe's little pink shoes, one end of a sheet Miss' Land had given Stella last Christmas.... Nothing was as it had been.
On the top kitchen shelf, hidden in hoarded newspapers, Tom discovered the tattered old family Bible he had bought from an agent just after the marriage. God had protected His word....
There were no negroes to be seen on the street. Babe gooed uncertainly, Diana, who was only ten, cried her tears into the gingham slip of the baby she was holding. The boys looked on in simple wonder, unable to comprehend how things could change so.
An old negro hobbled by on a stick. "Whar's everybody, Brudder Jinkins?"
"Mos'ly driv' away. Some done lef' town fer good. Reckon Ah'se goin' back to Memphis. Dey doan' have no riots dar."
"When you gwine?"
"Mawnin' train, de ten-ten."
"We'se gwine too."
Stella listened without comment. There was no reason to stay here.
Tom talked to the two police at the next block. "They started to run away all the niggers, Uncle. Then they got better sense. Who in hell would do the work, if the niggers left? You don't have to go now."
Tom thanked them, and went on over to Judge Land's. Stella's week's wages were unpaid. The courteous Judge, upset at this conflict between the lower elements of both races, did his best to change Tom's mind. "Ah gotter go, Jedge. Dey's wu'thless nigguhs an' po' white trash ev'rywhere; but dey don't have trouble lak dis ev'rywhere."
He withdrew from the bank all his savings, which were deposited with the church's money, careful not to disturb the congregation's balance.
They reached the station early. The Jenkins family was already there; they had been drowsing since sun-up in the colored waiting-room. Tom went to buy the tickets. Here was a hitch. The money would not stretch to cover fares for all of them to Memphis, even with half-fares for the three oldest, and Babe and little Will free.
"You can get tickets for Adamsville, and have two dollars left over," said the uninterested agent. He knew the peculiarities of negro finance.
"Aw' right."
On the train, the little Coles and Stella were squeezed into one seat; elder Jenkins, Tom, and two other traveling negroes found a compartment together. The fugitive preacher was at once at home; he expounded the Africanized doctrines of the Baptist faith interminably. "Hit's only grace what kin save," he repeated. "Does de Lawd's grace dwell in yo' heart? Is you been bawn agin?"
Finally one of the strange negroes, who was highly impressed with the insistent doctrine, drew out from Tom the vague state of his plans. "Ah'll fin' somethin' to do," the black tongue of God concluded.
"An' you doan't know nobody in Adamsville? Doan't you belong to no lodge, or nothin'? Ain't you a Risin' Star, or a Sunshiner?"
Tom rubbed a shiny mahogany ear in earnest reflection. "Ah does belong to de Sons an' Daughters of Ancient Galilean Fishermen, for a fack."
"Dar now! Now, nigguh, I knows Adamsville, forrards an' back'ards. You git off at de Union Depot, den walk down to Avenoo C, an' go east twill you gits to de lodge. 'Bout Thuhty-fo'th Street. Dey'll fix you up."
They reached the lodge; its chairs furnished a place for the younger Coles to munch cold fish sandwiches and cram overripe bananas, while Tom went househunting. "Jus' you walk out to Joneses' Hill, in West Adamsville. You kin find a house, an' maybe a job with it." The business agent was full of suggestions.
At the first corner, the old negro considered carefully. West?... One horizon appeared an endless level; the other ended in a gentle hill climbing high above the houses at its base. "Dat mus' be dis Joneses' Hill."
He walked due east. On and on he plodded, on the lookout for the railroad yards that ran just below the hill; but there were no tracks to be seen. At last he struck Highland Boulevard, and then the slope to the mountain. The railroad must lie beyond it. He ambled aimlessly up the long dummy line to the breezy gap, then followed the curving road to the south. There were no houses here, only a sleepy July woodland.
Jays jawed at him from towering blackgums and bluegums, tiny hedge birds, flushed by his approach, whirred noisily into leafy coverts. He feasted on plump blackberries pocketed in a moist hollow, disturbing two quarrelsome chipmunks, who continued to scold after he had passed them. A homeless cur sidled cautiously, sniffed, was satisfied, joined his train.
He found a good stick, and walked on. Must be a railroad somewhere.
He stopped at last before a vacant house, old and decrepit, with sagging front porch, broken panes stuffed with weathered brown newspapers, a general air of run-downness. Maybe he had gone the wrong way. He decided to knock and ask. He knocked at the front door. No answer. He peered through the dusty, fly-scarred windows. Nothing inside, except one broken-down bed and piles of dusty yellowed papers on the floor. He walked laboriously around the house, looking in at each window. No one within. There was a good table in the kitchen, a rusted stove, an old clothes basket hanging on the wall beside a broken lantern, a dilapidated splint-bottomed chair. He came around to the front again.
The shade of the lonely spreading oak before the front porch was attractive. He sat down upon some cushioning chigger-weed. The July afternoon wore on; he slept.
He woke at the sound of feet sending the gravel flying. A white man approached.
"Hey, nigger, what you doing there?"
He got to his feet, his hat off. "Ah'm lookin' for Joneses' Hill, suh. Done los' mah way."
"I reckon you have! Jones' Hill is in West Adamsville, six miles from here. Live there?"
"Aimin' to."
"Where do you live now?"
"Ah jus' come to town, suh. Ain't picked out mah house yit."
Nathaniel Guild considered him. Looked like a respectable negro. "You married?"
"Yes, suh. Me 'n' mah ole 'ooman got five chillun, fo' boys an' one girl."
The white man looked abstractedly into his face. "I'm looking for a tenant for this house—someone who can keep an eye on the place, and do a little day work now and then."
There now! Tom had never doubted for a moment that the Lord would provide. His tone was persuasively eager. "Lawdy, boss, Ah's jes' de man you's lookin' for! Ah does all kin's of wu'k, an' mah ole 'ooman is sho' a powerful cook."
"I'll tell you what I'll do. You can come in, for three dollars a month rent. The house can be fixed up, and I'll see that you get more than enough work to pay it off. We may have work for you every day soon. If your wife's a good cook, Tom, you send her over to that new house you see yonder, to Mr. Judson; say Mr. Guild sent you." He walked back through the gate. "There's an excellent spring just at the bottom here; and if you can find any garden truck behind the house, you're welcome to it. There are some tomatoes, I know, and some turnips. If you want some seeds, Mr. Judson will let you have them.... Oh, by the way, here's your key."
When these suggestions had become realities, Stella was vehement in her praise of the Judson place. "Dat Miss' Mary, now, she's a sho' 'nuff lady! She order me 'roun' jes' lak Miss' Land useter. Dis is one gran' place, Tom."
The children scattered over the mountain, like the hedge rabbits they soon became acquainted with, and grew sturdy and strong from the pioneering. Old Tom learned the countryside, and particularly the negro settlement two miles back through the trees. Lilydale had a thriving Baptist Church, the First Zion, which competed vigorously for converts with the Nebo Methodist congregation, two hilly blocks away. Tom soon became an elder, and on the loss of the pastor, who was indicted as a murder suspect, the Georgia preacher naturally succeeded to his place. On weekdays Tom found himself in daily demand, as Hillcrest Subdivision expanded and developed. Even Ed, the oldest of his boys, found work for his strong sixteen-year muscles in the road-making. Jim and Will went to the city school, while Diana tended Babe, to let Stella cook for the Judsons.
Tom's keen instinct soon located the isolated hen roosts in the valley, and the more unprotected ones at the foot of the mountain. Surely the Lord's anointed deserved chicken.
With the knowledge that a chicken dinner awaited him on his return, his Sunday sermons gained unction and elegance. He was regarded as the most powerful disputer in this section of the valley, and his exhortations always secured a big turnout for the baptizing in Shadow Creek.
He felt welded to the mountain. He was caretaker of the whole estate, and lord of his half of it. He felt superior to the mere Lilydale negroes, even those who owned their own homes; it was more to be good enough to live near Mister Judson. As for the Adamsville negroes, his scorn for them boiled over weekly in his sermon. "Them crap-shootin', rum-soppin' Scratch-Ankle nigguhs——" The self-righteous congregation shivered delightedly as he pictured the sure hell-fire for the modern "Sodom-'n'-Gomorry."
Life had evidently provided a firm and pleasant routine for this wandering apostle of the Lord.