Roots (98 page)

The following Monday, Chicken George rode with Tom in the mulecart to buy supplies in the county-seat town of Graham. Little was said between them, each seeming mostly immersed in his own thoughts. As they went from one to another store, Chicken George keenly relished the quiet dignity with which his twenty-seven-year-old son dealt with the various white merchants. Then they went into a feed store that Tom said had recently been bought by a former county sheriff named J. D. Cates.

The heavy-set Cates was seeming to ignore them as he moved about serving his few white customers. Some sense of warning rose within Tom; glancing, he saw Cates looking covertly at the green-scarfed, black-derbied Chicken George, who was stepping about in a cocky manner visually inspecting items of merchandise. Intuitively Tom was heading toward his father to accomplish a quick exit when Cates’ voice cut through the store: “Hey, boy, fetch me a dipper of water from that bucket over there!”

Cates was gazing directly at Tom, the eyes taunting, menacing. Tom’s insides congealed as, under the threat of a white man’s direct order, he walked stony-faced to the bucket and returned with a dipper of water. Cates drank it at a gulp, his small eyes over the dipper’s rim now on Chicken George, who stood with his head slowly shaking. Cates thrust the dipper toward him. “I’m still thirsty!”

Avoiding any quick moves, Chicken George drew from his pocket his carefully folded freedom paper and handed it to Cates. Cates unfolded it and read. “What’re you doin’ in our county?” he asked coldly.

“He my pappy,” Tom put in quickly. Above all, he did not want his father attempting any defiant talk. “He jes’ been give his freedom.”

“Livin’ with y’all now over at Mr. Murray’s place?”

“Yassuh.”

Glancing about at his white customers, Cates exclaimed, “Mr. Murray ought to know the laws of this state better’n that!”

Uncertain what he meant, neither Tom nor George said anything.

Suddenly Cates’ manner was almost affable. “Well, when y’all boys get home, be shore to tell Mr. Murray I’ll be out to talk with him ’fore long.” With the sound of white men’s laughter behind them, Tom and Chicken George quickly left the store.

It was the next afternoon when Cates galloped down the driveway of the Murray big house. A few minutes later, Tom glanced up from his forge and saw Irene running toward the shop. Hurrying past his few waiting customers, he went to meet her.

“Mammy ’Tilda say let you know massa an’ dat white man on de porch steady talkin’. Leas’ de man keep talkin’ an’ massa jes’ noddin’ an’ noddin’.”

“Awright, honey,” said Tom. “Don’ be scairt. You git on back now.” Irene fled.

Then, after about another half hour, she brought word that Cates had left, “an’ now massa an’ missis got dey heads togedder.”

But nothing happened until Matilda was serving supper to Massa and Missis Murray, whom she saw were eating in a strained silence. Finally, when she brought their dessert and coffee, Massa Murray said, in a tight voice, “Matilda, tell your husband I want to see him out on the porch right away.”

“Yassuh, Massa.”

She found Chicken George with Tom down at the blacksmith shop. Chicken George forced a laugh when he got the message. “Reckon he might want to see if I git ’im some fightin’ roosters!”

Adjusting his scarf and tilting his derby to a jauntier angle, he walked briskly toward the big house. Massa Murray was waiting there, seated in a rocker on the porch. Chicken George stopped in the yard at the foot of the stairs.

“’Tilda say you wants to see me, suh.”

“Yes, I do, George. I’ll come right to the point. Your family has brought Missis Murray and me much happiness here—”

“Yassuh,” George put in, “an’ dey sho’ speaks de highes’ of y’all, too, Massa!”

The massa firmed his voice. “But I’m afraid we’re going to have to solve a problem—concerning you.” He paused. “I understand that in Burlington yesterday you met Mr. J. D. Cates, our former county sheriff—”

“Yassa, reckon could say I met ’im, yassa.”

“Well, you probably know Mr. Cates has visited me today. He brought to my attention a North Carolina law that forbids any freed black from staying within the state for more than sixty days, or he must be re-enslaved.”

It took a moment to sink in. Chicken George stared disbelievingly at Massa Murray. He couldn’t speak.

“I’m really sorry, boy. I know it don’t seem fair to you.”

“Do it seem fair to you, Massa Murray?”

The massa hesitated. “No, to tell you the truth. But the law is the law.” He paused. “But if you would want to choose to stay here, I’ll guarantee you’ll be treated well. You have my word on that.”

“Yo’ word, Massa Murray?” George’s eyes were impassive.

That night George and Matilda lay under their quilt, hands touching, both staring up at the ceiling. “ ’Tilda,” he said after a long while, “guess ain’t nothin’ to do but stay. Seem like runnin’s all I ever done.”

“Naw, George.” She shook her head slowly back and forth. “’Cause you de firs’ one us ever free. You got to
stay
free, so us have somebody free in dis family. You jes’ can’t go back to bein’ a slave!”

Chicken George began to cry. And Matilda was weeping with him. Two evenings later, she was not feeling well enough to join him in having supper with Tom and Irene in their small cabin. The conversation turned to their child, which was due within two weeks, and Chicken George grew solemn.

“Be sho’ y’all tells dat chile ’bout our fam’ly, y’all hear me?”

“Pappy, ain’t none my chilluns gon’ grow up widdout knowin’.” Tom strained a smile. “I reckon if I don’ tell ’em, Gran’mammy Kizzy come back to set me straight.”

There was silence for a while as the three of them sat staring at the fire.

Finally Chicken George spoke again.

“Me an’ ’Tilda was countin’ I got forty more days fo’ I has to leave, ’cordin’ to what de law say. But I been thinkin’ ain’t no good time to go. Ain’t no point keep jes’ puttin’ off—”

He sprang up from his chair, fiercely embracing Tom and Irene. “I be back!” he rasped brokenly. “Take care one ’nother!” He bolted through the door.

I
t was early in November of 1860, and Tom was hurrying to finish his last blacksmithing task before darkness fell. He made it. Then, banking the fire in his forge, he trudged wearily home to have supper with Irene, who was nursing their baby girl, Maria, now half a year old. But they ate wordlessly, because Irene elected not to interrupt his thoughtful silence. And afterward they joined the rest of the family crowded into Matilda’s cabin, cracking and shelling hickory nuts that she and Irene—who was again pregnant—had been collecting for use in the special cakes and pies they planned to bake for Christmas and New Year’s.

Tom sat listening to the light conversation without comment—or even seeming to hear—and then, finally, during a lull, he leaned forward in his chair and spoke: “Y ’all ’member different times I’se said white mens talkin’ ’roun’ my shop done been cussin’ an’ carryin’ on ’bout dat Massa Lincoln? Well, wish y’all coulda heared’em today, ’cause he been ’lected Pres’dent. Dey claim now he gon’ be up dere in de White House ’gainst de South an’ anybody keepin’ slaves.”

“Well,” said Matilda, “I be primed to hear whatever Massa Murray got to say ’bout it. He sho’ been steady tellin’ missis gwine be big trouble less’n de North an’ South git dey differences settled, one way or ’nother.”

“Different things I’ve heared,” Tom went on, “whole lots mo’ folks dan we thinks is ’gainst slavin’. Ain’t all of ’em up Nawth, neither. I couldn’t hardly keep my min’ on what I was doin’ today, I been studyin’ on it so hard. Seem like too much to b’lieve, but it could come a day won’t
be
no mo’ slaves.”

“Well,
we
sho’ won’t live to see it,” said Ashford sourly.

“But maybe
she
will,” said Virgil, nodding toward Irene’s baby.

“Don’t seem likely,” said Irene, “much as I like to b’lieve it. You put together all de slaves in de South, wid even jes’ fiel’ hands bringin’ eight an’ nine hunnud dollars apiece, dat’s mo’ money’n God’s got! Plus dat, we does all de work.” She looked at Tom. “You know white folks ain’t gwine give dat up.”

“Not widdout a fight,” said Ashford. “An’ dey’s lot’s more dem dan us. So how we gwine win?”

“But if ’n you talkin’ ’bout de whole country,” said Tom, “it might be jes’ many folks ’gainst slavery as fo’ it.”

“Trouble is dem what’s ’gainst it ain’t here where we is,” Virgil said, and Ashford nodded, agreeing with someone for a change.

“Well, if ’n Ashford right ’bout a fight, all dat could change real fast,” said Tom.

In early December, soon after Massa and Missis Murray returned home in their buggy from dinner at a neighboring big house one night, Matilda hurried from the big house to Tom and Irene’s cabin. “What do ‘seceded’ mean?” she asked, and when they shrugged their shoulders, she went on. “Well, massa says dat’s what South Ca’liny jes’ done. Massa soun’ like it mean dey’s pullin’ out’n de Newnited States.”

“How dey gon’ pull out de country dey’s in?” Tom said.

“White folks do anythin’,” said Irene.

Tom hadn’t told them, but throughout the day, he had been listening to his white customers fuming that they would be “wadin’ knee deep in blood” before they’d give in to the North on
something they called “states’ rights,” along with the right to own slaves.

“I ain’t wantin’ to scare y’all none,” he told Matilda and Irene, “but I really b’leeves it gon’ be a war.”

“Oh, my Lawd! Where’bouts it gon’ be, Tom?”

“Mammy, ain’t no special war grounds, like church or picnic grounds!”

“Well, I sho’ hope don’t be nowhere roun’ here!”

Irene scoffed at them both. “Don’t y’all ax me to b’lieve no white folks gwine git to killin’ one ’nother over niggers.”

But as the days passed, the things Tom overheard at his shop convinced him that he was right. Some of it he told his family about, but some not, for he didn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily, and he hadn’t decided himself whether he dreaded the events he saw coming—or hoped for them. But he could sense the family’s uneasiness increasing anyway, along with the traffic on the main road, as white riders and buggies raced back and forth past the plantation faster and faster and in ever-growing numbers. Almost every day someone would turn into the driveway and engage Massa Murray in conversation; Matilda employed every ruse to mop and dust where she could listen in. And slowly, over the next few weeks, in the nightly family exchanges, the white people’s frightened, angry talk gradually encouraged all of them to dare to believe that if there
was
a war—and the “Yankees” won—it was just possible that they might really be set free.

An increasing number of the blacks who delivered blacksmithing jobs to Tom told him that their massas and missies were becoming suspicious and secretive, lowering their voices and even spelling out words when even their oldest and closest servants entered a room.

“Is dey actin’ anyways ’culiar in de big house roun’ you, Mammy?” Tom asked Matilda.

“Not no whisperin’ or spellin’ or sich as dat,” she said. “But dey sho’ is done commence to shift off sudden to talkin’ ’bout crops or dinner parties jes’ soon’s I come in.”

“Bes’ thing for us all to do,” said Tom, “is act dumb as we can, like we ain’t even heard ’bout what gwine on.”

Matilda considered that—but decided against it. And one evening after she had served the Murrays their desserts, she came into the dining room and exclaimed, wringing her hands, “Lawd, Massa an’ Missy, y’all ’scuse me, jes’ got to say my chilluns an’ me is hearin’ all dis talk goin’ roun’, an’ we be’s mighty scared o’ dem Yankees, an we sho’ hopes you gwine take care of us if ’n dey’s trouble.” With satisfaction, she noted the swift expressions of approval and relief crossing their faces.

“Well, you’re right to be scared, for those Yankees are certainly no friends of yours!” said Missis Murray.

“But don’t you worry,” said the massa reassuringly, “there’s not going to be any trouble.”

Even Tom had to laugh when Matilda described the scene. And he shared with the family another laugh when he told them how he had heard that a stablehand in Melville Township had handled the ticklish matter. Asked by his massa whose side he’d be on if a war came, the stablehand had said, “You’s seed two dogs fightin’ over a bone, Massa? Well, us niggers be’s dat bone.”

Christmas, then New Year’s came and went with hardly any thought of festivity throughout Alamance County. Every few days Tom’s customers would arrive with news of secessions by still more among the southern states—first Mississippi, then Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana, all during the month of January 1861, and on the first day of February, Texas. And all of them proceeded to join a “Confederacy” of southern states headed by their own President, a man named Jefferson Davis.

“Dat Massa Davis an’ whole passels of other southern senators, congressmens, an’ high mens in de Army,” Tom reported to the family, “is resignin’ to come on back home.”

“Tom, it’s done got closer’n dat to us,” exclaimed Matilda. “A man come today an’ tol’ massa dat Ol’ Jedge Ruffin leavin’ Haw River tomorrow to ’tend a big peace conference in dat Washington, D.C.!”

But a few days later, Tom heard his blacksmithing customers saying that Judge Ruffin had returned sadly reporting the peace conference a failure, ending in explosive arguments between the younger delegates from the North and the South. A black buggy driver then told Tom that he had learned firsthand from the Alamance County courthouse janitor that a mass meeting of nearly fourteen hundred local white men had been held—with Massa Murray among them, Tom knew—and that Massa Holt, Irene’s former owner, and others as important, had shouted that war must be averted and pounded tables calling anyone who would join the Confederates “traitors.” The janitor also told him that a Massa Giles Mebane was elected to take to a state secession convention the four-to-one vote in Alamance County to remain within the Union.