Right then, the gristles in April’s feet got hard. Hard as a rock! God only knew if they’d ever go back to their rightful softness.
Uncle Isaac made Joy take the bag off to the woods and bury it at the foot of a locust tree, but April got worse and worse. His feet were numb and hard and dry. Joy wanted to send for a white doctor. They might get one to come on the boat from town, and with the crop so promising they’d have money to pay him next fall. But April wouldn’t have it. He said Maum Hannah knew more than any white doctor.
Big Sue kept shaking her head and grunting shamelessly until Uncle Bill got up painfully to go. Something in his sad face must have moved her, for all of a sudden she scrambled to her feet, letting her scraps fall on the floor. “I made some nice little sweetened breads dis mawnin’. Take some to April. I sho’ am sorry ’bout his feets. You tell em so. I’m gwine broil em a fat pullet, too.”
“Ev’y man has to manage his own dueness, but how ’bout gwine along wid me, to see April, Miss Big Sue? You done chastise Joy long enough. De gal’s in trouble.”
“I can’ go, not so well, right now, Uncle Bill, but Breeze kin go if e’ll thread me two or three needles first.” She started to say more, but she changed her mind and kept silent, her eyes cast down on her sewing. When she did speak it was to say Joy had been mighty shut-mouthed about April. Joy had funny ways.
Breeze and Uncle Bill found April with a quilt around him, sitting alone by the fire, looking at his feet. Looking and looking. His heavy black brows overshadowed his sad eyes as they lifted and hovered over Breeze, then Uncle Bill. But as soon as he shook hands and said “thank you” for the food, they fell, and settled on his feet, which were bare and on the hearth very close to the fire.
The weather had turned off cool in the night, but there was no reason for April to keep his feet so close to the fire. Uncle Bill told him he’d scorch them, but April shook his head and said they felt no heat at all. Not a bit. They had gone to sleep or something. They felt like blocks of wood. And he moved them stiffly, as if they were.
He complained that he had no appetite. He was tired too. Sitting still was the hardest work he had ever done in his life. If he could read, or if he had somebody to talk to, if he had something pleasant to think about, it would help pass the time. But he couldn’t read, and he didn’t want anybody to stay at home out of the field. Cotton needs fast hoeing during these warm wet days. He wished he could stop off thinking. Stop short off. He’d like to go to sleep and never wake up any more. He’d go crazy if he had to stay still and look at his feet much longer. What in God’s name ailed them! Nobody seemed to know!
Uncle Bill tried to tell him the plantation news, but April’s eyes stayed on his feet. Uncle Bill offered to teach him to read if he wanted to learn. Now would be a good time for April to learn how to write. He ought to learn to write his name if no more. Every man ought to know how to write his name. But April said he never had much faith in books and reading. Black people were better off without it. It takes their mind off their work. It makes them think about things they can’t have. They’re better off without knowing how. Uncle Bill didn’t argue.
All of a sudden a coal popped out of the hearth with a sharp explosion. It fell right between April’s feet, as if it could see and did it on purpose. It lay there, red, bright, like a dare. April opened his tired eyes wide, and leaned forward and looked at it, for instead of dying out it burned freer. April carefully raised one long black bony foot and placed its heel on the coal. He waited a moment; then he lifted it up and stared at Uncle Bill. His scared eyes told what had happened. Breeze knew too.