“Come’yuh, gal, en’ lemme look ’puntop yo’ foot. W’en I call you, yo’ foot hebby ez i’on, en’ w’en I tu’n you loose, ’e light ez uh fedduh. Wuh ’smattuh? Yo’ two foot’ mus’ be tie togedduh, enty? Befo’ de Lawd, you stan’ same lukkuh yo’ maamy en’ yo’ gran’maamy alltwo. You is tarrypin w’en time come fuh wu’k, en’ bu’d w’en time come fuh play!”
Old Carolina Manigo sat on a three-legged stool at the door of his cabin, as he thus addressed his grand-daughter, Lucinda, a scrawny negress of twelve or thirteen years. With reluctant feet, the girl, a pitiful object, approached him. Her dress and appearance were in keeping with the wretched poverty of her grandfather and all his surroundings, and evidenced the utter incapacity of the average negro, thrown by “freedom” upon his own resources, to care decently for his family. The frowzy wool on her unkempt head had been plaited weeks before into little pigtails that bristled all over her crown like black caterpillars. Her face was gray with dirt, around her thick lips lingered the encrusted remnants of her sweet-potato dinner of the day before, while down her cheeks lay, like the rills of resinous gum that streak the bark of the pine tree “boxed” for turpentine, the tracks of recent tears. Through the rifts in the ragged cotton dress that constituted her sole attire, her scraggy limbs showed as she walked, or limped, rather, toward her grandfather. Around her left foot was wrapped a piece of burlap bagging, and, whenever she stepped upon it, her pinched face contracted with pain.
“’Smattuh, gal, snake bite you, enty? Dis house mus’be hab sin, ’cause dis mek de two time Gawd, een ’e mussy, sen’ mis’ry en’ water-moccasin een dis fambly. Las’ week dem ’stroy’d Hol’fas’ (w’ich him wuz de bes’ rokkoon dog ebbuh git ’pun a trail) en’ now, please de Mastuh, de snake gone en’ structid dis chillun gal, en’ ’e gwine to dead on my han’, en’ ’e know berry well ’e ma gone town, en’, ef ’e yiz dead befo’ ’e ma git back frum town, him will lef’ me bidout a Gawd’ somebody fuh min’ bu’d out de cawnfiel’, en’ I nebbuh see, sence I bawn, shishuh hebby gang uh woodpeckuh’, crow’ en’ all kind’uh annimel lukkuh dis same Augus’ munt’. Gal! You ent gots no eye een yo’ head ’scusin’ fuh look fuh blackberry, enty? You walk duh paat’ en’ tu’n yo’ gaze ’puntop de sky, ’stead’uh quizzit de groun’ weh you duh walk! W’en you dead, who gwine keep jaybu’d’ out’n dis fiel’? I good min’ to lick you!”
“Gran’puh,” whimpered ’Cindy, “I nebbuh step ’puntop no snake, suh, ’tis briah w’at ’cratch me foot.”
“Briah!” laughed old Ca’lina, derisively. “Briah! Who’ebbuh yerry ’bout shishuh t’ing! Briah! I sway to Gawd, gal, you mos’ mek me laugh! Weh de debble you ebbuh know briah kin ’cratch nigguh’ foot? You mus’ be t’ink you is buckruh, enty? You binnuh walk een briah en’ t’ing ebbuh sence you bawn, ’tell de bottom uh yo’ foot haa’d same lukkuh alligettuh’ back, en’ you gots de impedin’ to come’yuh en’ tell yo’ gran’puh dat briah ’cratch yo’ foot! Step fas’, gal. Slow walkin’ mek quick lickin’, en’ fus t’ing you know briah will ’cratch you ’puntop yo’ back ’stead’uh ’pun yo’ lef’ han’ feet. Mek’ace, gal, en’ come’yuh. Ent you ’membuh dat, een de ’Postle Paul’ ’Pistle to de ’Feeshun’, him resplain de wu’d dat ’long talk ketch run’way nigguh?’ Ent you know dat dey ent uh Chryce’ hom’ny een de house fuh eat? De las’ fr’en’ I got een dis wull’ wuz ole Hol’fas’, en’ snake gone en’ structid dat dog en’ kill’um, en’ ebbuh sence ’e dead, de waa’ment en’ t’ing come en’ ’stroy’d eb’ry Gawd’ fowl on de place, en’ las’ night wil’cat come en’ ketch de frizzle hen wat binnuh set onduhneet’ de cedar bush een de fench cawnuh, en’ de hen ’low de cat fuh ketch’um, en’ t’ree uh de aig’ is duck aig’ en’ two uh de odduh’res’ is tuckrey aig’, en’ you bettuh tek de aig’ to Mistuh Ram’ sto’ to de Cross Road’, en’ chaa’ge’um seb’npunce fuh de aig’, ’cause I don’t t’ink de aig’ kin specify berry well, ’cause de hen w’at bin seddown ’puntop de aig’ git ketch by de wil’cat en’ de aig’ binnuh seddown een de jew en’ t’ing, but ef de buckruh ’tarrygate you en’ quizzit you too ondeestunt ’bout de aig’, you kin tell’um dat de aig’ kin specify, ’cause de frizzle hen w’at de wil’cat ketch ent binnuh seddown ’puntop dem aig’ mo’n t’ree week, en’ you kin tell’um dat wehreas de hen aig’ oughtuh hatch’out een t’ree week’ de duck aig’ en’ de tuckrey aig’ ent jue fuh hatch’out ’tell de fo’ week done out, en’ tell’um dat wehreas de hen aig’ en’ de duck aig’ en’ de tuckrey aig’ all binnuh keep one’nudduh cump’ny, de hen aig’ is too mannusubble fuh hatch’out befo’ de odduh’res’ aig’, so de hen aig’ keep ’e cyarrictuh f’um spile, ’tell all ’e cump’ny done hatch’out.”
AN INTERRUPTED OFFERTORY
Out at the edge of the woods that fringed a sea-island cotton field in the lower part of Colleton County, stood a little bush church—a primitive affair, constructed by setting four ten-foot stakes at the corners of a square, laying ridgepoles in their forked tops, and covering the whole with green boughs of the sweetgum. Humble as it was, this summer sanctuary of the Rev. Nepchun Kinlaw’s congregation was as dear to them as was ever minareted mosque to Moslem, or cloister to Monk. Here, during the warm weather, when the more pretentious clapboard church became unbearably hot, they assembled two or three times a week to receive the pearls of theological thought that, clothed in the Gullah dialect of the Carolina coast, fell from the thick lips of their beloved “locus pastuh.” Here, sheltered from sunshine and shower, they sat, like roosting chickens, on pine poles that, upholstered only with the bark that covered them, rested upon upright stakes sawed square at the top and driven into the ground. When these “pews” were filled to the ends, the overflow found lodgment on the stumps and logs that lay within sound of the preacher’s voice in the environing forest.
On a night in the early summer, an unusually large congregation had gathered at this trysting place of the faithful, for the news had spread that “Pa Kinlaw” was going to say something sensational on the subject of pastoral ways and means. The night was dark, the sky overcast, and now and then the low rumble of distant thunder and a fitful gust of wind from the south-east, that soughed through the tops of the pines for a moment and then died away, betokened the coming storm. Around the place of worship, two or three pine-knot fires blazed brightly, furnishing, at once, light for the comfort of the congregation, and smoke for the discomfiture of the gnats and sandflies that swarmed about the church. Around and between the fires, the negroes, men and women, moved, avoiding the smoke and sparks that the wind, from time to time, sent among them, the firelight falling on their dark faces recalling the “hot-pot” scene in Rider Haggard’s “She.” While they awaited the advent of their preacher, they discussed their daily pleasures, trials, hopes and fears—the reduced cost of bacon or calico at the country store, the demand for labor, and the increased price therefor, at the rice plantations along the river, the destruction of the early corn by the cutworms and the crows, etc.
“I yerry,” said one old woman to another, “I yerry dat Mistuh FitzSimmun done tek de sprout flow off ’e rice, en’ ’e gwine hoe’um nex’ week, T’ursday.”
“Dat so?” said her companion. “Den, I gwine dey sho’ ez Gawd lemme go. Ef my juntlemun kin git uh hawss, eeduhso uh oxin, fuh knock de middle out’n ’e crap, I will mek she go ’long too, alldo’ ’e gots de mis’ry een ’e back ’tell ’e cyan’ specify wid ’e hoe lukkuh ’e nyuse to do.”