The Land (10 page)

“Now, that little money I saved, it's right in here.” My mama patted the lid of the box. “Another thing in here is a big old watch and chain your daddy gave me long time ago, before the war. He taught me to tell time on it, same while he was teaching me to read and write and figure. Paul, I want that for you. There's a gold locket he gave me, and that's for you, Cassie. Got some other bits and ends in here, things my sweet mama, Emmaline, made me, things not worth anything 'cept to me—little straw bag, a handkerchief she sewed me, a seed bracelet Old Josh made for me when I was little—that sort of thing.”

She rubbed her hand across the box. “You know, I never knew my own daddy, 'cause he wasn't bound to nobody like my mama was. He was from the Nation, and he went off with his people. But anyway, Old Josh was pretty much my daddy, and, like I said, he made this box for me. He painted the flowers on it, even put the lock on. He made it for me soon after I came into my womanhood and your daddy started coming around. He told me not to cry about it and to lock my thoughts and my tears and my treasures inside this box. I've done that ever since.”

My mama looked at us then, and her voice was soft. “You know I've always wanted both of you to have something of your own. Cassie, you've got your husband, and soon there'll be babies on the way. You've got the beginnings of a good life with Howard and your store and all. I don't worry about you. Paul, you still got your deciding what you want. There's time enough. But whatever you decide on, I want you to have something of your own. That's important. You gotta have something of your own.” She rubbed her hand across the box once more, then rose and took it away without ever opening it.

When the fall came, my daddy, true to his word, sent both Robert and me off to school. He sent Robert to the boys' school in Savannah and me to Macon, where I could go to a colored school and study furniture making. He took me himself. On the journey my daddy said to me, “This man I'm taking you to, he's a decent man, but don't expect him to treat you the same as I do. He's already told me he'll keep you as long as you do the work and don't cause any trouble. He said too he doesn't want you around his family. He's got three girls, and I know that's what's on his mind, so you stay clear of them. Worst thing you could ever do is to go eyeing a white girl.”

I looked at my daddy, thinking he had done just the opposite to my mama.

“You understand me, Paul?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“You'll be able to go to school and learn a trade as long as you follow his rules, so you make sure you do. It might not be the best living conditions for you, but you'll learn plenty from this man. He's a man of few words, but you listen to everything he says.”

My daddy was right. Josiah Pinter was a man of few words, but every word he uttered was direct and to the point. “I know about you,” he said when my daddy was gone. “I know about you and your daddy. He never spoke it to me, but folks know, and if a man wants to do that sort of thing, that's his business long as it doesn't get in the way of mine. I've done a lot of business with your daddy, but you lay one eye on any one of my girls, I'll have your hide, your daddy notwithstanding. That understood?”

I looked him straight in the eyes. “It's understood.”

He nodded. “You smart as I hear you are, we ought to get along just fine.” Then he put me to work.

Now, my daddy was right about another thing: Josiah Pinter certainly did know his trade, and he wasn't stingy in teaching it to me. I put in my morning hours of school each day, and the rest of the daylight hours I studied under Josiah Pinter. He worked me hard and he worked me long, and my school studying had to wait until the late hours after Josiah Pinter had retired for the night. I slept in the shed behind his house and I ate alone; but the man treated me fair. He was one of the best furniture makers around, and I learned what I was sent to learn. I figured I didn't need to sit at his table.

I was a quick study, and I soon was making lamp tables and other small pieces of furniture. In fact, before I left Josiah Pinter's tutorage, I could make just about anything. I had a knack for looking at something and figuring out how to put it together, whether I had been taught how to do it or not. I was still considered an apprentice, but folks said my work was of journeyman quality, and some even said it was more than that. I did well in my school studies too, even though I wasn't decided on how I was going to put all my book learning to use. I was told I could teach or I could go into some kind of colored business, but the truth about the thing was that I wasn't sure what I really wanted. I still had to figure that out.

Though my sleep was little with all the studying and work I had to do, I had no complaints about that; I didn't need that much sleep and I was learning much, both in school and with the carpentry. What bothered me, though, was one of Josiah Pinter's daughters—his middle daughter, girl called by the name of Jessie—and the way she was always looking at me and following me around when her daddy wasn't near. Now, I was coming into my teenage years and this girl Jessie was doing the same, and even though her daddy had told her I was a colored boy, she seemed not to care.

“Doesn't make sense to me,” she said. “You're a person, I'm a person. Why can't we be friends?”

I said nothing to that. I didn't want to take the time to tell her.

When I went back home and Robert was there, I told him about Jessie and how she was always trying to talk to me, even though her daddy had said she shouldn't.

“You think she's trying to get you in trouble?” Robert asked. “You know, some girls do that.”

“No. No, I don't think that,” I answered.

“Well, then, you just got to tell her what'll happen to you if she doesn't stop it,” advised Robert. “Tell her exactly what her daddy told you. That he'll have your hide.”

I nodded but didn't say anything.

Robert studied me. “Or maybe you like her talking to you?'

“She's been the only friend I've made there.”

“Believe me,” said Robert, “last thing you need is a white female friend. Why, I've heard stories at school that'd make you puke. Some of those fellas love to talk about what their families have done to Negroes like they were talking about going fishing. One of those boys told me about how his daddy and kin caught a Negro near the outhouse when a white woman was in there. The Negro, he said he was just passing through the field, but the woman came out and said he was peeping at her through the boards, and you know they strung him up right then and there! That's what they'll do, Paul. You looking white won't stop that, they know you got colored in you. That white boy, he bragged on hanging that man and he laughed about it too. That's what they'll do, all right, so, Paul, you be careful with that girl.”

I nodded. Robert was quiet a few moments, then said, “You know, I told you Christian and Percy Waverly go to school up there with me. They go along with the rest of those boys' talk about colored folks.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, they got their stories too.”

“Not surprised.”

“Well, me neither. . . . Thing is, though . . . they know about you . . . and sometimes they give me a hard time about it.”

“What they do?”

“Mainly they talk about our daddy and say how our whole family cotton to Negroes.” Robert moved away from me then, and though I hated to admit it, he seemed embarrassed.

“You let them just talk about our daddy?” I questioned.

Robert turned quickly. “Course not! Gotten into more than one fight 'cause of what they said!”

Now it was I who studied him. “You tell our daddy?”

“What for? He'd figure for me to take care of the Waverlys myself, just like you had to do that time about Mitchell and those other boys. Thing is, though, that school is hard enough as it is, and it just makes things worse for them to go around spreading their stories the way they do.”

“I suppose things aren't all that good for either one of us right now,” I said.

Robert agreed. “Wish we could've both just stayed here.”

“I know. But, Robert . . . I don't figure that'll ever be again.”

I took Robert's advice about Jessie Pinter, and when I went back to Macon, I told her the story Robert had told me. I told her stories too that I hadn't heard from Robert, but were stories that were spoken in low voices in the fields and around late-night fires. I told that girl Jessie that if she thought of me as her friend, then she needed just to leave me alone. I was there to study and learn, not there to be friends with anybody. She listened to me and turned away, and made a point from then on of speaking to me only when necessary.

During this time I was staying in Macon, I got to go home about once every couple of months. My daddy, George, or Hammond, if they were home, or sometimes a field hand who worked my daddy's land, would come to get me. That first year I was away, I was always looking forward to going home because I was so homesick. My daddy always tried to arrange for Robert and me to come home at the same time, and when we saw each other, we would talk the night away, filling each other in on all that was happening in our lives. When the summertime came after the first year, Robert got to spend the whole summer at home, but I could only stay a few days at a time because of my apprenticing. But then there came a long string of weeks that I couldn't go home at all. Josiah Pinter said there was too much work to be done, and he needed me. He wrote my daddy and said he'd bring me down himself as soon as the work let up. Well, Josiah Pinter did take me home, but by the time he did, Robert had gone back to school, and I didn't hear from him regular like I had the school year before. He wrote only once, a short letter, and said his schoolwork kept him busy. When I finally did see Robert again, he filled me in on the Waverlys. “You know they lost their mama a month or so back.”

“Yeah?”

“They were out of school for a few weeks.”

“Well, you weren't writing, so I didn't know. Were they any better when they came back?”

“'Bout the same.”

“Then they're still giving you a hard time.”

“Oh, they're not so bad,” said Robert.

“What do you mean, not so bad? What's not so bad about them?”

“Well . . . I mean they just regular fellas.”

“Regular fellas?” I stared at my brother, then murmured, “Uh-huh,” in a way we both understood. Robert looked at me too and turned away. We said no more about the Waverlys.

The next time I got to go home, it was Christmas Eve and Josiah Pinter again took me. My daddy wasn't on the place when I arrived, but would be coming soon. Cassie and Howard were expected, and George and Hammond too. It was going to be a grand Christmas. I was told Robert was already home. “Well, where is he?” I asked my mama.

My mama looked at me as if she wasn't too happy about my asking about Robert. “He went off with them Waverly boys.”

“Waverly?” I questioned. “Percy and Christian?”

“They the ones. Came home from school with Robert two days ago.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Ain't Robert told you they were coming?”

I shook my head. “I haven't heard from him for a spell.”

My mama sighed. “Well, anyways, they here.”

I was puzzled. “Now, why would he bring them home? He doesn't even like those boys.”

“Well . . . things change,” said my mama. “Robert wanted to invite them here, and your daddy thinking on them losing their mama this year, he gone ahead and invited their daddy and that younger boy too. Gonna be a lotta menfolks round here this Christmas.” She looked pointedly at me. “Hope Robert can find time for you.”

“Now, what you mean by that?”

My mama started to speak, then turned away to busy herself with something. “Go on and look for him if you want. That's what's on your mind.”

That
was
what was on my mind, so I left my mama straightaway and went to find Robert. I ended up running into Mitchell instead. “Heard you was comin' home,” he said.

“Just got back. How you doing?”

“Same as always. How long you here for?”

“Through the New Year.”

“Well, that's probably longer than me.”

“What you mean?”

“I'm finished with this place. I'm movin' on.”

“Yeah?” I said, somewhat surprised. No matter what Mitchell's and my differences, no matter how my thinking had begun to change over the years, I still figured this land was home to both of us. “So, where you going?”

Mitchell shrugged. “Don't know yet. Just figure t' go.” At that point Mitchell turned, looking a ways off, and I noticed there was a swelling on the side of his face.

“You been fighting again?” I said, not fearing to speak my mind to Mitchell any longer.

Mitchell looked back at me. “Could say that.”

I grinned. “Other fella look worse, I expect.”

“Naw,” said Mitchell. “I ain't even hit him.”

I didn't say anything to that. Mitchell looked at me in an understanding. It was no secret Willie Thomas, too often to my figuring, took a whip to Mitchell. He was known to put a whip to his other seven children as well, and even to his wife. Though I had no love for Mitchell, I had asked my daddy once if he could put a stop to Willie's beatings, but my daddy said no. “That's their business,” he said. “Before the war, maybe I would've gotten into it, but now I figure I've got no place in a man's private affairs. Willie's a good worker and I've got no quarrel with him. He runs his family and I run mine.”