The hens had quit laying and spent the summer panting air in and out of wide-open mouths, with their wings away off from their bodies, trying to get cool. The old sow had quit rooting and stayed in the mud-hole wallowing, until the mud baked into squares like an alligator’s hide. She had no milk for her pigs, and those that didn’t starve turned into runts.
Winter was coming. Not a leaf of collards was growing, the few nubbins of corn left wouldn’t make bread to last until Christmas. God only knew how she’d feed the children.
When she leaned down to wipe her eyes on her skirt, baby Sonny raised up his hard little head and jerked it down on her breast with a hungry butt, and Breeze forgot again and snickered out. Not that he would ever make sport of Sonny. Never in the world. He loved every crinkly tuft of wool on the baby’s head, every tiny finger and toe. Even if he didn’t grow a bit, his lightness made him easy to hold. Breeze loved him better than all the other children put together because he was small and weak.
Big Sue broke into a bright smile. “Son, I’m sho’ glad you love to laugh. I love to laugh my own self.” Her narrow eyes sparkled through her gold-rimmed spectacles, and her wide loose lips spread across her face. “De people on Blue Brook is almost quit laughin’ since de boll-evils come. But boll-evils don’ fret me. I cooks at de Big House. An’ no matter if de buckra is at Blue Brook or up-North whe’ dey stays most o’ de time, I has all de victuals an’ money I wants. I has more’n I kin use. It’s de Gawd’s truth. You’ll sho’ have sin, if you don’ give me dat boy to raise. Po’ as you is, much mouths as you got to fill, you ought to be glad to git shet o’ one. You better listen good at all I say. I’ll train em good. I’ll fatten em up. I’ll learn em to have manners. Dis same boy might git to be foreman at Blue Brook yet. E comes from dat foreman breed. You sho’ ought not to stand in his way. No, ma’am.”
If she wanted a boy-child to raise why didn’t Cousin Big Sue choose one of the others? Maybe she didn’t like the way their shirts were unbuttoned, with their naked bodies showing down to their waists. Their ragged breeches were not only dirty but ripped open.
Breeze’s heart fluttered like a trapped bird’s. Fright had him paralyzed so he couldn’t run off and hide. His mother looked shrunken, withered. A few tears fell from her eyes as they stared out of the door.
“I bet you ain’t got decent victuals for supper right now. I got plenty, yonder home.”
Cousin Big Sue’s eyes were riveted on Breeze, as she declared he’d be far better off with her than here with his mother, and a house full of starved-out children, growing up in ignorance and rags. She’d teach him and train him and raise him to be a fine man, to know how to do all kinds of work, to make money and wear shoes and fine clothes like her Lijah.
“April”—she peeped sidewise at the mother when she spoke the name—“April’s de foreman at Blue Brook, an’ e’ll help me raise Breeze. E tol’ me so las’ night.”
The mother listened and looked at Sis. Sis slowly nodded back, yes. Breeze burst out crying. He begged them not to give him away. He didn’t want to leave home. He wanted to stay right there and be hungry and ragged. He liked to grow up in ignorance and sin.