“You’re a good Christian, Adele,” the preacher said. He glanced over his shoulder at my old man on the back porch, then he looked at me. “Keep up the good work, young man.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I nodded my head. He came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, then he walked out of the house, very straight and tall and looking directly ahead.
“Go take off your suit, Max,” Mrs. Adele said. “I want to talk to your father.”
I went back to the room and took off the suit and folded the trousers and hung it on a clothes hanger. I put on my blue shirt and my dirty overalls, and Mrs. Adele came back into the room and said, “Surprise for you, Max.”
“Ma’am?”
“You can take your suit home with you.”
“Pa said so?”
“Uh-huh.”
I felt like running out to the back porch and kissing my old man, but he might’ve still been mad at that preacher and took a poke at me. So I didn’t go out there where he was, but got the box that I had brought the suit to Mrs. Adele’s house in. Mrs. Adele took the suit off the hanger for me and folded it neatly and put it in the box. When she closed the box she sat on the bed and looked at me.
“Max?”
“Ma’am?”
“I want you to do something for me.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I want you to always remember that I want to be your—your stepmother, hear?”
I looked down at the floor. “Yes, ma’am.”
She took me by the hand and brought me closer to her.
“You want me to be, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She put her hand under my chin and raised my head.
“If you wish hard enough it still might happen,” she said, trying to look in my eyes, and me trying not to look in hers, because all the time I was afraid I might start crying again.
“Max,” my old man called.
“Coming, Pa.”
Mrs. Adele was still holding my hand.
“And I want you to keep saying your prayers, hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And who are you going to pray for?” she said, a little jollylike.
“For you and for Pa—and for everybody.”
“But your father more.”
I nodded.
Then she hugged me real hard, and when she released me she pushed the box toward me, but all the time keeping her head turned away from me so I couldn’t see that she was crying.
“ ’Bye, Mrs. Adele,” I said at the door.
But she didn’t look at me, and when my old man heard me coming he walked down the steps, and me, with the double-breasted suit tucked under my arms, I followed him.
MARY LOUISE
I
The sun hadn’t rised yet, but I wasn’t going to sleep no more, and I thought the best thing for me to do was to get up. I pushed the sheet back and sat on the side of the bed a minute. Then I said to myself, Sitting here ain’t going to get the work done. And I got up and put on a dress and went back in the kitchen. It didn’t have any water in the pail, and I got it and carried it on to the pump. Across the stream it was red ’cause the sun was just getting ready to come up. The morning was still a little cool, and the grass was still wet from the dew last night. Over ’cross the fence I saw Mr. Richard coming out of his kitchen with a bucket of slop, and I could hear the hogs running ’cross the lot to meet him.
Farther on up the nook I could hear Mrs. Olive Jarreau calling her chickens to feed ’em, and the next second I could hear her hollering at St. John’s dog. She was telling the dog she couldn’t even feed her chickens in peace if he wasn’t ’round there swallowing up everything fast as it hit the ground. She was telling the dog he was more trifling than his master, and one day his old trifling master was going to come there and find his old trifling dog stretched out on his gallery dead as a doornail. She hollered at the dog again, and then she must’ve picked up something and throwed it at him ’cause I heard the dog running ’cross the yard howling.
I took the pail of water in the house and poured up some in the washbasin. After I had washed, I put some corncobs in the stove and lit the fire. By the time Dad come back in the kitchen I had already gone to my room and made up my bed and swept the floor, and had come back in the kitchen to start the breakfast. When I heard him coming back there I pulled the skillet over the front burner to fry the two pieces of salt meat I already had in there. Dad went in the back awhile, and then he came inside to wash up. After he got through he sat at the table, and I brought him his food. When everything was on the table I went to my room to stay there till he was gone. I knowed if I had stayed back there he was going to say something ’bout Jackson again, and God knows I didn’t want to hear no more of his squabbling.
I got my little hand mirror and my comb and went over to the window. I passed the comb through my hair a long time, just to while away the time. Then when I heard him leaving the house I put the things up and went back in the kitchen to cook my own breakfast.
II
Aunt Vivian had told me anytime I wanted to come to the city she would help me to find some kind of job. Right then I couldn’t make up my mind to go or to stay. I wanted to go, and I didn’t want to go. If I went and left him there I was sure to lose, then. But if I stayed, there was always a chance. The reason was I just couldn’t see Jackson loving Lillian. She was pretty and all that, yes, but I couldn’t see him loving her. There wasn’t a thing to her. Nothing but face and hair, and I didn’t think Jackson was that kind. I didn’t think he was that kind, and I didn’t care what they said, I wasn’t going to ever think it. If he had told me himself he loved her, then I would think it. But till then I wasn’t going to. I saw him going over there, but that didn’t mean nothing. He could’ve been just going over there to talk to Mrs. Della or Catherine. I didn’t see him and Lillian walking together like Emmy said they had been doing. I knowed Emmy was jealous of him. Even from the first day he was back there she started putting all that stuff on her face to make him look at her. Then when he didn’t pay her no mind she tried to get something up on him. I knowed her too well to go ’round believing everything she said.
Because even when he was small he used to go over there. Lillian wasn’t there then, but he used to go over there. I used to tell on him. Sometimes I wouldn’t, but sometimes I’d tell soon’s I seen him running ’cross that pasture. And what Miss Charlotte used to put on him nothing could take it off. Remember the time she whipped both me and him for going up in that loft. That was the worst whipping I ever got in my life. It was in this same house. Right there in Dad’s room. Me, him, Brother, Nancy—a bunch of us here that day. Then Nancy, she wanted to do something else ’sides just playing jacks. She wanted to play Mama and Papa. I knowed all the time what she was getting next to, and I kept on saying over and over, “No, Nancy, that’s a sin. We can’t do that.”
And her, “That ain’t no sin. You just trying to be nicey-nicey, you.”
And I said, “It’s a sin. That’s what they say.”
And she said, “I don’t care what they say. It ain’t no sin.”
“It is,” I said.
“It ain’t,” she said.
“It is,” I said.
“All right, Miss Nicey-Nicey,” she said, “if it’s a sin for you it ain’t none for me and I’m going to do it much as I want.”
“If you do it with Jackson I’ll tell, too,” I said. “You see if I don’t tell, too.”
And she said, “You do and I never stop beating you, too. You just do and see if I ever stop beating on you.”
And him and Brother and the rest of ’em was playing out in the yard. What was they playing? Must’ve been playing marbles. It had to be marbles, ’cause they was always playing marbles. And she went out there where they was and asked ’em if they wanted to play hiding in the house, and they came on in and they went hiding and I couldn’t find ’em for nothing.
I found Brother and the other children right away, but couldn’t find him and Skinny Nancy for nothing. I gave up and told ’em to come out ’cause I couldn’t find ’em, but they didn’t come out. Then after a long time both of ’em came creeping out from where they was. Then Skinny Nancy had to look for us, and I seen him going up the loft and I followed him up the loft, and he thought I was Brother. I still remember him saying, “That you, Brother?”
“That’s me,” I said.
“What you doing up here?” he said.
“I’m hiding up here.”
“Well, you don’t make no noise,” he said. “You know how you like to make noise.”
“I ain’t going to make none,” I said.
And I crawled over where he was, and he was breathing hard, and I was breathing hard, too, ’cause I was tired from climbing up the wall in the loft.
“How come I couldn’t find y’all?” I said.
“Shhhh,” he said.
“Hanh, how come?” I said.
“Shhhh,” he said.
And I started crying.
“How come?” I said. “How come I couldn’t find y’all?”
“They going to hear you, you keep that noise up,” he said.
“How come? What y’all was doing, Jackson?” I said.
“Shhhh,” he said. “Don’t make no noise.”
“What y’all was doing?” I said.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Yeah, y’all was doing something,” I said. “Y’all was sinning. That’s what y’all was doing.”
“We wasn’t sinning,” he said.
“Yes, y’all was,” I said. “Y’all was sinning.”
“No, we wasn’t,” he said. “She wanted to make me sin but I didn’t. She held me down and tried to make me sin with her but I wouldn’t.”
“How come you didn’t holler, then?” I said.
“How can you holler with somebody laying on top your mouth, hanh?”
“You didn’t sin with her none?” I said.
“I told you I didn’t, didn’t I?” he said.
And I stopped crying and just sat there looking at him. “How come?” I said.
He didn’t answer.
“Hanh?”
He still didn’t answer me.
“Hanh, Jackson?” I said.
“I don’t like old Skinny Nancy, that’s why I didn’t sin with her,” he said. “Now, you stop bothering me.”
And I felt good and we was quiet and I heard him breathing ’cause he was still tired and I was breathing hard ’cause I had climbed up that wall and I was tired and it was dark in there and it was hot in there and I heard him breathing ’cause I was right up against him.
“Jackson?” I said.
“Hanh?” he said.
And I didn’t say nothing ’cause I was scared, and a little bit later I said, “You want to sin with me?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
We was quiet again. And I said, “Jackson?”
“What this time?” he said.
“You ever seen anybody sinning?”
“Yeah,” he said. “One time I seen Joe and Veta.”
I always remember he said Joe and Veta, ’cause Joe and Veta got married when they growed up; and I always remember he said Joe and Veta. Just like that he said Joe and Veta. Right under that same house Joe and ’em used to live in.
“What they was doing?” I said.
“Sinning,” he said.
“I mean how,” I said.
“He was laying on top of her,” he said.
“Oh, that’s all sinning is?”
“I reckon so,” he said. “I don’t know.”
We was quiet and we listened, but we didn’t bear nobody coming.
“They never find us up here,” he said. And we was quiet again.
“You want to sin?” he said.
“I don’t know.”
And we was quiet a long time and we listened and we didn’t hear nobody coming.
“You think it’ll be all right?” I said. “Nobody’ll come up here and catch us?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I want if you want,” I said.
“You want to?” he said.
“If you want to,” I said.
“First you got to lay back on your back then,” he said. I did and I stretched out my legs and I felt him.
“Wait,” he said.
“Hanh?” I said.
“We got to do this,” he said. “Hold still.”
We didn’t a bit more know what we was doing ’an a man in the moon. And once there I opened my eyes and looked at him and he was looking at me like he was thinking the same thing. Then he laid down ’side me and then every few minutes he passed his tongue over my face, and every time he did it to me I did it back to him. Over and over and over.
“Like me to do that?” he said.
“Uh-huh. You like me to do it to you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Let’s come up here and do it all the time,” I said.
“Sinning, too?” he said.
“You like to sin?” I said.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
And he passed his tongue over my face and under my neck and I started laughing, and I quit and did him that and he started laughing. Then he quit laughing and did it to me, and I laughed again. And then the trapdoor shot up and they said, “There they is. Just like Skinny Nancy said.”
“Bring ’em down here,” Miss Charlotte said. “And Jackson better not run. I mean he better not run. Bring ’em down here.”
They grabbed us by the ankles and dragged us to that trapdoor and started dropping us to the floor like we was sacks of potatoes. Somebody was there to catch me, but nobody caught him and he hit the floor. She grabbed my ear and grabbed him and started up the road with us, with a big drove of ’em following behind and more coming out on the gallery to watch us go by. And me hollering there like I was crazy, and him not hollering at all but just doing all his might to get loose. She had a good grip on both of us—but that still didn’t keep him from trying, or keep me from hollering, “I got a splinter in my tail, I got a splinter in my tail, I got a splinter in my tail, I want that splinter out my tail.” And just hollering:
“I want that splinter out, I want that splinter out, I want that splinter out my tail.” But her never saying a word—just carrying us by our ears. And me just a-hollering, and him over there still trying to break loose. Jerking and jerking and jerking, and me just hollering. When she got to the house, she made three of ’em hold him ’cause two couldn’t, ’cause he kept hitting and kicking every time they got close. Then three of ’em jumped on him and held him down.
“All right, miss,” she said. “Come on and get yours first.”
I started hollering louder: “You going to whip me and I got a splinter in my tail, I want that splinter out my tail.”
“All right,” she said. “Where it at, and there better be one, and a good one, too, if you know what’s good for you. Point to it. Touch the spot.”
“It hurt if I touch it,” I said.
“Point then,” she said.
“Right there,” I said, pointing. “See it?”
“All right,” she said. “It’s a little one, but I’ll get it out. One of y’all standing ’round there find me a needle. Heaten it and bring it back here when it’s cold so I can get the splinter out. But that ain’t going to keep the strop off your tail, miss. I’m going to give you something today you going to remember the rest of your life. Ain’t big enough to wipe your nose and you laying up in the loft. I fix you. If y’all knowed what y’all was doing it’d be something else. But you don’t know. Hurry up and bring me that needle. I want give ’em their medicine ’fore they forget what they getting it for.”
That was the worst whipping I ever got in my life, and his was worser ’cause he wouldn’t cry. And that was one thing ’bout them old people: if you didn’t cry they beat you till the sun went down. And if it was already down they beat you till it come up again. They made you cry, all right. After a while you was glad to cry.
The thing me and him done gone through when we was small can’t be changed by something like Lillian. I ain’t going to believe he love Lillian till he tell me he love her. When he do, I’ll believe him. But if he don’t, I’ll never believe it. They can say just what they want to say. I don’t care.
III
I got the broom and went outside to sweep the gallery off. I didn’t have to go up to the big house till I got ready, and I thought after I had swept off the gallery I’d go up to Dora till I got ready to go to work. When I came outside I saw Jackson coming down the road. I thought he was going to Madame Bayonne’s house, but when he passed it I figured him and Brother had somewhere to go and he was going down there to see if Brother was ready. Then when he got in front of our house he turned and came up the walk. He hadn’t seen me yet and I ran inside and stuck the broom in a corner and pulled off the apron I was wearing. But I had to be doing something when he came in. I got a dishrag and took a stack of plates out of the safe and started wiping ’em out. I heard him come up on the gallery and knock on the door, and I told him to come in.
“Hi, what you know?” he said, coming back in the kitchen.
“Nothing,” I said.
“I see you’re busy,” he said.
“Just thought I’d clean up some,” I said. “Can I get you a chair to sit down?”
“No, I’d rather stand,” he said, and went to the back door, where it was more cooler. “It’s going to be hot again today.”