XXIX
Stella Cole loitered, fascinated by the glisten of the new Judson kitchen. She addressed the cook, with that shade of superiority family servants invariably feel to newcomers.
"Could you ask Miss' Mary to step heah a secon', Mahaly?"
The girl departed, sniffing superciliously at the old mountain woman who still had the monopoly of the Judson laundry.
The gaunt-cheeked negress faced her mistress with an elemental dignity. "Miss' Mary, kin you ask Mr. Judson a favor fo' me?"
"Surely, Stella. What is it?"
She traced the linoleum pattern slowly with the frowsy toe of a black slipper. "Hit's dis way, Miss' Mary. Ah'se movin'."
"Moving! From the mountain?"
"Yassum."
"It isn't——" she hesitated a moment. "It isn't—the strike?"
Mary Judson shivered as she spoke the word. The overtones to that word jangled horribly, summoning with their ghastly discord troops of disordered pictures, fragments of sorrows, jagged moments of agony. Around that word she grouped mentally Pelham's distressing breach with his father, the son's growth away from her, the dead-fingered protest of Duckworth's suicide, glimpses of red death staining the kindly mountain, the wilful burning of the house that had stored memories which, next to the Jackson childhood, were the most poignantly joyful life had given her. That word summoned the defacing of the mountain's beauty and harmony, and her present exile from it; as well as a spiritual exile, the cold-visioned knowledge of the chasm between her and Paul that had widened irrevocably in the hushed storms that were their quarrels born out of the strike.
The keen black eyes took in something of this, as it shadowed momentarily the lined, tortured face of the wife of Paul Judson. Mary Judson had grown old, older than the soft gray of her hair and the gray prints around her mouth indicated: old with the timeless age of torn illusions and murdered dreams: old with the age that the same three years had brought to Stella Cole.
"No'm, Miss' Mary.... Yassum, dat is.... Ah'se movin'."
A spasm of pity smoothed the mistress' drawn cheeks, as she felt gripped by the roughened brownish face, gnarled by its helpless acceptance of the death of hope. "Do you.... Have you found a house, Stella? Do you know where you're going?"
"Yessum. Ah knows whar Ah'se gwine."
"And you're going——"
"Home, Miss' Mary."
"Home?"
"Yessum...." Feeling that more was required, her face wrinkled with an old shy eagerness. "To Macon, Miss' Mary; Macon, Georgy. Whar me 'n' Tom comed f'um, afore we done moved to Atlanta.... Afore we done come here."
"We'll hate to lose you from the mountain, Stella."
"Yessum." She recrossed her hands uneasily, and straightened up from the table against which her hip had swayed for its solid rest.
Mary Judson studied the face of the mother before her with a hidden hunger, trying to read in its blackened lineaments the elusive recipe that had brought that flicker of happiness at the mention of home.
"Your boys.... You have Ed still, haven't you?"
"No'm." The rich tones grew gossipy, in a detached way. "Ah ain't got none of 'em. Jim he die fu'st, Miss' Mary; he die w'en de mine oxploded. De Lawd tuk him fu'st; he wuz a good chile. Den Babe. He wuz mah baby; dey shot him. Dat wuz two. Den Will an' Diana dey die, w'en de house burn down. Dey shoot dem too. Dey wuz good chillun too, Miss' Mary. Ah ain't ben 'specially a sinful 'ooman; Ah s'pose dey desu'ved it somehow, Ah caint figger out.... Dat makes ... yessum, dat makes fo'. Tom he die; he wuz ole, it wuz his time. Dat lef' Ed. De las' time dey bruk up dem strikers, dey shoot Ed." She gulped, closed her eyes a minute.
"I—I hadn't heard."
"No'm. Ed wuz diff'runt. Ed he kill a man. A white man. But de jedge tu'n him loose. Dey wuzn't nothin' wrong dar, de jedge he say. Dey made Ed a depity. Den dey kill him....
"Ah tole dem boys, Miss' Mary, Ah tole 'em a powerful time ago, hit wuzn't no nigger's business ter meddle in white folkses' fusses. Dey seed diff'runt. De Lawd done tuk 'em all, 'cep' me. Ah ain't got no business here, Miss' Mary. Ain't got no folkses here. Ah got two brudders in Macon, Georgy. So Ah'se movin'."
Mary bit her lips, to steady her words, to force back the tears that insistently crept down her own cheeks. "Anything that Mr. Judson can do for you, Stella——"
The negress dug around in the littered bulge of the handbag the mistress had given her, and brought up a greasy leather-covered book. "Dis here's Diana's bank book, what she save f'um her wu'k. Ah thought maybe Mr. Judson could git me de money. Dar's thuhty fo' dollars, she tole me. An' Ah got Tom's benefit money f'um de Galileum Fishermens, it comed in a letter." She discovered the creased check, and handed it over. "Den Ah'll have some money over w'en Ah gits to Macon; dey'll be gladder to see me; you know how it is, Miss' Mary. An' if Peter could drive me 'n' mah stuff to de depot, if he wuzn't too busy——"
"Of course I'll see that you have Peter. What day are you leaving?"
"Sad'day. De train goes at two erclock."
"I'll see that he gets there in plenty of time."
Stella's eyes roamed unconcernedly around the shining rows of aluminum pans; she sighed with satisfaction. "How's Miss Susie an' Miss Nell?"
"Both doing finely. Susie's living in Detroit, you know; and Nell is studying art in her neighborhood."
The old mammy leaned forward. "Ah seed Mistuh Hollis w'en he wuz heah las' monf. He do make a fine sojer, Miss' Mary."
"We are both proud of him. And now with Ned visiting in Jackson, there are only two of us here."
"Mistuh Pelham ain't come roun' much, is he? He doan't git along wid his paw, do he?... Dat's what mah boys dey say, in dat union...."
Mary breathed out heavily. "They do not agree on everything, Stella."
Stella's eyes rounded with satisfaction; with the intimate impertinence native to negroes who have grown old in confidential employ, she nodded her head proudly. "Mah boys dey got along finely wid deir paw, Miss' Mary. Thank you kin'ly, ma'am, fuh speakin' to Mr. Judson."
Finally the trunks and boxes were packed, with the help of neighbors from Lilydale. Brother Adams' boys got most of her sons' clothes, except the newest suits; these she folded into the bottom of the biggest trunk for future emergencies. Peter was on hand, at Mr. Judson's orders, to crate such of the furniture as she wished to take; although many of the extra things went to this friend and that.... There did not seem much use in taking everything.
Babe's cap with the new mining lamp, Diana's school books and framed diploma, the old family Bible, Ed's re-shined deputy's badge, were wrapped carefully together.
At length the last package was hoisted onto the wagon, and after laying the shoebox of lunch on the seat Peter was to occupy, and taking a final drink of spring water, she clambered carefully up to the driver's bench. Peter hopped up with gray-haired, cricket-like agility, clucked sharply, and the horses jogged off.
They drove behind the crest, on the circling road above Lilydale. Peter chuckled to himself.
"What you laughin' at?"
"Ah'se thinkin', sistuh Stella, dat you sho' buried a passel er people in dis place."
She nodded in complacency. "Six of 'em, Peter, six of 'em."
He chuckled on. "Dey gwineter plant you nex', sistuh Stella."
"Dey gotter kill me fu'st."
She looked back, as the road turned into the viaduct for Adamsville, and sighed heavily. She remembered the arrival in the city ... the wait in the office of the Galilean Fishermen, while the children ate up all the cold fish sandwiches and speckled bananas Tom had gotten for their lunch. All gone. All gone. Unbidden, fragmentary pictures of the romping, frolicking boys, sober Diana, came.... Jim crying, when the hatchet chopped his foot.... Babe's round face.... Ed's face, and the others, in their pine-wood coffins.... Tom's kindly smile. All gone. A weak tear welled from under each old eyelid.
She looked around cautiously to see if Peter was noticing. No, he was drowsing forward, letting the horses choose their own way.
She undid quietly the end of the box of lunch, and took out a sandwich. Real chicken breast! The sisters of the Zion Church certainly did do things up in style.