The Handsome Road (3 page)

“Good thing you got plenty, ma,” said Lemmy, bringing up a scoop of collards on the blade of his knife. “Me and George, we’ll be needing a big supper tonight. Got to go to work first thing in the morning.”

“Good job?” she asked eagerly.

“Oh fair, fair,” said the boys nonchalantly, their tone implying that such excellent workers as themselves were besieged with good jobs and had only to select the one most worthy their talents.

“That’s fine,” said old man Upjohn.

The boys grinned with their mouths full. They regarded their father tolerantly, grumbling about his laziness but secretly proud that he could spout all those big words and awe the neighbors.

“Y’all’s good boys,” said Mrs. Upjohn. “I wish I’d been spared more like you, praise the Lord.” She sighed. She had had so many. But it was hard to raise babies down here below the docks. The little things just took on and died.

Lemmy and George started talking together about the job, but George yielded to Lemmy, who was older. “We’s gonta cut cypress down in a swamp between here and New Orleans,” said Lemmy. “Seems like the swamp belongs to that Mr. Denis Larne that lives out at Ardeith Plantation. And we gets highclass wages.” He paused impressively. “Seventy-five cents a day.”

“Seventy-five cents a day!” The echo went around the table.

The boys nodded. “Right fair wages, huh?”

“That Mr. Larne must be a fine fellow,” Budge observed. “Don’t work his men to bones like some.”

“Y’all better look out,” said old man Upjohn. “Them swamps is full of fever this time of year.”

“Shucks,” said George, annoyed that pa had tried to dampen their news. “Ain’t no swamp-fever ever touched me and Lemmy. I expect we’s built too tough for the fevers. Thank you for the ’lasses, Corrie May?”

Corrie May passed the molasses silently. Somehow all she had been thinking of before supper had lessened her pleasure in having found a job for the boys.

“Besides,” said Lemmy, “I’ll tell you somp’n, pa. Some of the men got ideas about the swamp-fever. And Mr. Larne said sho, he knowed they had some fever sometimes in the cypress. Said he wasn’t no hard one making men go where they might get sick. Said his swamp was healthy, but if any man took on with the fever and died he’d pay insurance to his folks—fifty dollars.” He spoke the last phrase slowly to let it sink in.

“
Fif-ty—dol-lars!
”
They repeated the words in awestruck voices.

“Sho’s you’re born,” said Lemmy and George together, and George added, “I reckon that shows how much Mr. Larne expects there to be fever, don’t it?”

Supper was a jolly meal. The boys went to bed early so as to be up and ready next morning. Budge wanted Corrie May to go strolling on the wharfs after supper, but Corrie May said she didn’t feel so peart. Her mother wasn’t much pleased at that, but Corrie May wanted to think. Budge went off, and she washed the supper dishes. There really wasn’t very much to think about. Budge was a fine man, she couldn’t do finer. But she felt within herself a resentment against everything she had been born to, rising stubbornly in spite of her telling herself to be sensible and not want things she couldn’t possibly have.

She got into bed in the little cubbyhole behind the kitchen. She could hear her father snoring, and her mother too, the breath whistling softly through the place where her teeth were out. Corrie May turned over and buried her face.

Chapter Two

1

F
our Saturdays came around, and everything was going well. It was lucky the boys were working for a gentleman like Mr. Larne. Mr. Larne didn’t manage things all sloppy like some men. Every Saturday there was, a fellow from the logging camp made the rounds of the loggers’ dwellings, bringing half of each man’s wages to his family. Half for the family, and half written down in the book to be paid the man when the job was done.

Corrie May was thinking gratefully of Mr. Larne while she got dinner. Today was Thursday, and Saturday the wage-man would be around again. It sure was comfortable to have money coming in regularly this way.

She made corn-pone and cooked a pot of collards with rice. Her father liked collards. Corrie May didn’t like them. Her opinion was that they tasted like blotting-paper soaked in grease, but she was used to them and then as her mother said, did she think she was a rich man’s daughter that could have green peas and asparagus on the table? Funny though, Corrie May thought as the pot simmered. Rich people out on the plantations raised collards, but they wouldn’t eat them. They raised them in big patches, clusters of coarse leaves so dark green they were nearly black, and fed them to the niggers and sent the surplus to market to be sold cheap to poor folks. But no use breaking your head bothering, Corrie May decided as she put the heads on a plate and began cutting up the leaves. No reason to bother now, with things being so smooth.

When she had finished cutting up the collard-leaves she went to the front to call her parents. Old man Upjohn sat on a box smoking his pipe and haranguing, though there was nobody to listen but Mrs. Upjohn, who was used to him and didn’t hear what he said half the time. Let him talk, she said, she could do her sewing just the same and he didn’t bother her.

“Dinner’s on table, ma,” said Corrie May.

“Fine,” said her mother. “Be right in soon’s I knot my thread.”

“You’s a big help to your ma, Corrie May,” said old man Upjohn, rising and brushing off his pants.

Corrie May shrugged. That was more than he was. That man could think up more miseries when there was a job to do—

There was a sharp thin wail from down the alley. Corrie May started.

“Say, what’s ailing Mrs. Gambrell?”

“Lord, don’t know,” said Mrs. Upjohn, looking down the alley with concern.

Mrs. Gambrell was out on her stoop. A man stood there with her. Evidently he had told her something. Mrs. Gambrell threw her apron over her head and began to rock back and forth on her heels, wailing.

“Oh my God! Oh, Lord have mercy! Oh, have mercy, ohhhh—”

Corrie May ran down the alley. Two or three other women joined to ask the trouble. Corrie May got there first and grabbed Mrs. Gambrell’s shoulder.

“What’s the matter? Ain’t no bad news I hope?”

Mrs. Gambrell rocked and wailed. Her neighbors’ voices mingled into her cries with eager sympathy.

“Heaven help us. Heaven help us all!” Mrs. Gambrell’s apron fell off her head and waved from around her waist. “They done killed him. My man. In the swamp with the fever. Lord have pity on my young uns. I told him he hadn’t ought to go. Oh Lord, oh blessed Lord.”

Corrie May drew back. The other women who had clustered around Mrs. Gambrell drew back too, their eyes wide in their weathered faces. There was an instant of shocked stillness, for now they were becoming aware of Mrs. Gambrell’s visitor, and they recognized him as the man who came around so promptly every Saturday to bring their men’s wages. They sprang upon him, all of them demanding to be told what had happened to their men, while other women came running up from everywhere with children who didn’t catch what was going on but knew it was something exciting and wanted to hear it. The stranger regarded them with compassionate impatience, but pulled back to keep the sleeves from being torn out of his coat.

“Now just a minute, ladies. Just a minute, please. I’ll tell you everything in good time if you’ll just be patient. Please give me a minute to talk, ladies, if you’ll be so kind. Yes ma’am, we had a little fever in the camp. Not so bad, no ma’am, not half so bad as you all think. Lots of the men ain’t got it at all but is just as healthy as you ever saw ’em. Just give me a little room, ladies, won’t you now please?”

He spoke from Mrs. Gambrell’s stoop, a little way above them as they stood huddled around.

“That fever!” cried one of the women. “Dragging them down to a swamp in the depth of summer!”

“Now now, ma’am, you ain’t got no right to say that. Nobody was drug down to the swamp. Every man that went to cut cypress went of his own free will and accord, now you know that just same as I do. Now just be a little calmer, ladies.” He patted the air with his hand as though giving them collectively a pat on the head. “I’ll read you the names of them that took sick and died,” he went on soothingly. “But before I read anybody’s name I want to remind you all that they was working for as highclass a gentleman as ever hired labor. Didn’t Mr. Larne write out insurance for every man in case he took on with the fever? And he meant it too, let me tell you that. Any lady among you that’s lost a man from her family can go right down to the Ardeith office on the wharfs and get fifty dollars in cash, besides all the wages that was owing him when he died. Now be a mite quieter and I’ll read you out the names.”

He took a paper out of his pocket. Corrie May stood so stiffly the backs of her knees began to hurt. She found herself putting an arm around her mother, who had huddled up close to her. Her father stood a little way behind. The man on the stoop began to read.

“John Gambrell. Felipe de Sola. Joshua Horton.” Each name was greeted by a scream from the group. Poor Mrs. de Sola went down on her knees in the dust and began a sobbing Spanish prayer, bowing her head to her knees and raising it up again in rhythm with the syllables. The others patted her shoulder vaguely, hardly looking at her while they listened to the list of names.

“Peter Creel. Yvon Picot. Jean Lapeyroux. Hernando Grima. Henry Wales. George Upjohn. Lemmy Upjohn.”

Corrie May heard a long choking cry from her mother’s throat. She tightened her arm around her mother, not hearing any more names and only mistily aware of the other women’s grief around them, except to wonder why they should scream like that when it didn’t do any good.

“We better get indoors, ma,” she said slowly.

She guided her mother into the kitchen. There on the table was the hot corn-pone, with the dish of rice and collards steaming. Her father was already there. He sat in a chair by the stove, his head down on his chest and his hands swinging between his knees.

But as they came in he got up, groggily, as though he had just had a knock on the head, and he said to Mrs. Upjohn, “You better sit yourself down here, honey.”

Watching them, Corrie May thought she could understand for the first time why it was her mother had always loved him and been so patient with his trifling ways. He was so tender with her, rubbing her hands between his own and getting down on his knees so he could lift her apron and dry her tears. He talked to her softly, in the tone one would use to a child. His words were beautiful, some of them lines like music out of Scripture, about how her children had been washed in the blood of the Lamb and walked the golden streets by the river of God.

Corrie May walked out and sat on the stoop, for he knew better what to do than she did. Presently the house was full of neighbors, for those who had no loss of their own came eagerly to comfort the rest. Corrie May was glad she had victuals on the table. Though her mother could eat only a little, for all their urgings that she must keep her strength up, the others were glad to take refreshment when it was offered.

Budge came over the next morning. He had gone to live in his cabin on his piece of ground and had only just heard the news. He asked if he could help. Corrie May was glad to see him, for she had realized that anything that had to be done she would have to do. Her mother was too stricken, and nobody but old man Upjohn was any comfort to her.

Well, said Budge, he was glad he had come. He’d go down and pick out the bodies and bring them home so the boys could have a good funeral.

“I’ll go with you,” said Corrie May.

“Now say, honey, you don’t have to.”

“I reckon I’d better.”

“It ain’t no business for a girl,” Budge urged protectively.

“I expect,” said Corrie May, “I thought more of my brothers than to let a stranger go look out for their corpses.”

“I ain’t no stranger,” Budge protested. “Besides, sugar, that air spell of fever might not be over, you know.”

“Supposing it ain’t,” she flared. “Ain’t it better to be dead and gone to heaven than worrying along seeing men kill theirselves when they’s just trying to make a living?”

Budge ceased arguing with her. He let her get into the wagon with him and they rode out of town, down the road, and turned on the bumpy trail that led to the swamp. The cypresses grew thick, with the frantic way things had of growing in the warm damp air when they were not checked by the hands of men. The trees were so close that the swamp lay in perpetual twilight. It was quiet in the swamp, a quietness that lulled not only the ears but the eyes—gray water, silver trees, moss like rags on the branches, dull green cypress leaves, lavender bayou-hyacinths—and in the hot swimming air the landscape looked thin as though it had but two dimensions. Down here the heat was strange, not like the heat higher up where the town was, but wet and thick, so that sweat didn’t dry on you but ran down your back and between your legs and over your forehead to drip from your eyes like tears.

The bodies were in a tent near the road. Far away the rest of the loggers were cutting at the white trunks that stood out in the gray-green dimness. The man in charge was very polite, and told them it was too bad the young fellows had died. There hadn’t been very much fever. Just a little, but too bad it had to be at all. He asked Corrie May if she was related to the dead men, and when she said she was their sister he gave her a paper. “Give that to your ma and pa,” he said, “and tell them to take it to the office on the wharf. They’ll pay a hundred dollars, fifty dollars apiece insurance.”

Corrie May put the paper into her pocket. Give it to ma, huh. Ma in her sorrow would lose it. And as for pa, he’d get the money, but he’d spend it for flowers and wine and something fancy for ma to wear, to cheer her up. She’d take care of it herself and see it was used to live on.

They put the bodies into the wagon and covered them up with a sheet. Corrie May cried a little bit on the way home. Budge was very sweet, putting his arm around her and telling her how sorry he was.

The boys had a fine funeral. Mr. Upjohn preached the sermon and folks came from all around. They said it was the finest funeral anybody had had since they could remember, and Mr. Upjohn was sure a mighty preacher.

2

The day after the funeral Budge brought his wagon for Corrie May again and took her down to the office to get the insurance money. He agreed with her she shouldn’t give it to her parents.

As they rode to the wharf she asked Budge if it wasn’t hard on him, leaving his cotton so much to help her out. Budge was surprised that she should ask.

“Why say, honey, you know I think more of you than my cotton. You see—well—”

“What?” asked Corrie May.

Budge cleared his throat. “Well, this ain’t no time to be telling you with black still tied to the doorknob and all, but I reckon you know how I been loving you all this time.” His face reddened awkwardly. “You don’t need to tell me nothing till you’s got over grieving, but I’d sho be proud to think you and me could get married before cold weather.”

Corrie May bit her lip and hesitated. But she felt something warm inside her, something gentle and comforting. “I—I don’t know,” she returned. “I ain’t thought much about getting married.”

“But you can marry me, sugar,” said Budge. “I’ll look out for you, honest. I got a right nice little place to live in now, and the crops pay the rent, and we could raise all we’d eat. And I sho am crazy about you, honey girl.”

His voice was urgent. Corrie May fiddled with her bonnet-strings. She had been so sunk with loneliness, and scared. She found herself beginning to choke with tears, and was ashamed.

“I reckon it would be all right,” said Corrie May faintly.

“Oh honey lamb, you mean it?” Budge kissed her right there in the wagon. “You sho make me a happy man, Corrie May.”

She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, and smiled. He was so warm and secure. “You make me right happy too, Budge. There ain’t many girls can get a fine man like you.”

“Then—before cold weather?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her lovingly, as if he was going to kiss her again, but she moved shyly along the wagon-seat. “Not here. People’ll notice.”

But she felt better, better than she had felt since the boys died. Budge would take care of her. Maybe it wouldn’t be wrong to use some of the insurance money to get a dress and some shoes to be married in. She’d like to show people she took some pride about getting married, not standing up before the preacher barefooted like a nigger.

When she went into the office on the wharf she was so happy she felt sinful, because it was the insurance money for her dead brothers she had come to get. The man at the desk looked up at her and smiled, and she thought he must think she was a pretty heartless girl, looking happy on an errand like this. His eyes shifted from her to Budge, and he smiled at Budge too.

“Upjohn,” he said, taking the paper from her hand and consulting a ledger. “Yes, that’s right. You related to them, mister?” he asked Budge.

“I’m engaged to be married to this young lady,” said Budge, and Corrie May looked down bashfully. “She’s their sister.”

“Money to be paid only to a member of the family.” He shook his head.

“I’m their sister,” Corrie May reminded him.

He looked at her doubtfully, and his brows drew together. “You ain’t of age, are you?” he asked. “How old are you?”

“Going on fifteen.”

“Sorry, miss, but that’s my instructions. Insurance to be paid only to a member of the family who’s of legal age. Ain’t you got a mother that could come for this?”