The Third Generation (8 page)

Or they’d tag along behind their father and watch him wring the chickens’ necks for Sunday dinner and put the watermelon down into the well for cooling. Once he took them with him to the mill. They rode through the country in one of the small school wagons. Professor Taylor gave the miller a bushel of corn for a bushel of meal. He explained to them that a bushel of corn made more than a bushel of meal and that the miller kept the excess for his profit. But they were too interested in the water wheels to listen.

When the sugar cane ripened their pockets were always stuffed with dirty joints which they pretended were chewing tobacco. They’d take a bite and spit out the juice as they’d seen their father do. Tom brought home some bamboo canes and their father made them whistles and pea shooters. Tom was too busy with his own activities to give them much notice. He was either off fishing with the fellows or catching frogs and bringing home the skinned white legs for his mother to cook. As much as she detested them, she’d cook them for him.

One day Charles was bitten by a copperhead while playing in the back field. He cried, “I’m snake-bit,” and started running for the house. William sped alter him. Their father was at the shop. Mrs. Taylor had gone to the store. I didn’t know what to do. They ran through the house bawling for Lizzie. But she was out. The inch-long gash on Charles’s leg was open like painted purple lips. They ran out on the porch, screaming.

Luckily, an old Negro vagrant, known about the campus as Billy Goat, was passing in the street. He was barefooted and clad in ragged overalls, with long white kinky hair bushed atop his head and a nappy white beard stained brown with tobacco juice.

“I’m snake-bit,” Charles cried, and ran out in the street and clutched him by the leg.

Old Billy Goat looked down at the gash. “‘Tain’t nuddin, boy. Y’all jes cum on now an ole’ Billy Goat’ll fix it.”

He took Charles back to the porch and widened the gash with his rusty knife. Then he put his old tobacco-stained lips to the opening and sucked out the poison. He spat and bit a chew from his dirty plug and when his saliva was rich with the juice he spat into the wound and covered it with dirt.

“Gwine back tuh play, boy,” he said. “W’en y’all gits snake-bit agin jes holler fuh ole Billy Goat.” Cackling at his humor, he slapped Charles on the rump and wandered off.

The boys sat for a time and looked at the dirty wound. Then they got hoes from the tool shed and went looking for the snake to kill it. But the snake was gone. They didn’t tell their mother until suppertime.

Charles stuck out his leg as they were eating. “See that, Mama,” he said.

She looked at the dirty, runny sore and jumped from the table.

“That’s where I was snake-bit.”

“Oh, my God!” she wailed, almost fainting. “Run for the doctor,” she ordered Tom.

“Wait a minute,” his father said. He turned to Charles. “When were you snake-bit, son?”

“This afternoon.” Charles was enjoying the commotion.

“Ole Billy Goat sucked out the poison,” William said. “He cut Charles with his knife and then he sucked the blood.”

Mrs. Taylor slumped into her seat, too weak to move.

“When did all this happen?” their father wanted to know. ‘

“When Mama was to the store,” William said.

“We’d better get the doctor anyway,” Mrs. Taylor finally said.

“Now, honey, just wash it out with peroxide and tie it up.” He laughed indulgently. “If it was going to kill him he’d already be dead.”

But that was the end of their adventures. After that the only time they were permitted to leave the yard was Sunday morning. Professor Taylor always took the children to Sunday school, and afterwards Mrs. Taylor joined them for the church services. They took their baths Saturday afternoon. The children took theirs first. They’d place a tub of water out in the sun and a half hour later it would be hot enough to bathe in. The children bathed on the back porch. But Professor Taylor and his wife bathed in the kitchen.

On Sunday they had an early breakfast so Lizzie could go home and dress for church, and it gave Mrs. Taylor time to dress the children. At the first ringing of the bell the father and sons set forth. Twenty steps up the road their freshly shined shoes were covered with dust, and sweat was running in rivulets down their freshly scrubbed faces. Sunday school was held in the classrooms beneath the assembly hall. Professor Taylor taught a class of older students and the children sat with them. There was no class for tots their age, and Tom didn’t want them tagging along with him.

After Sunday school, Professor Taylor took the younger children home and returned to church with his wife. Most of the students were deeply religious. Young men and women ofttimes shouted as enthusiastically as did their elders, jumping from their seats and flapping wildly, as if to fly posthaste to heaven, when the spirit moved them. Frequently the spirit commanded them to beat the devil from their neighbor. There would ensue such bloody fights that the faculty members were hard put to protect the sinners from immediate doom. Mrs. Taylor was afraid her children might be called to their glory before time, so she never took them to church.

Tom went with an older group on Sundays. And he was out visiting most of the weekdays. The other campus children were in awe of him because he’d lived up north in Missouri. He lorded it over them in his strange northern clothes. But he was well liked and was always being invited to dinner by their parents. The popular game fol his group was hide-and-go-seek. It was an ideal game for the surroundings. The various trees and culverts and ravines and buildings made wonderful hiding places. In the early summer evening all but the very youngest children could be heard running and screaming and shouting as they played.

Their mother never let the little children out to play. Sometimes they would swing on the gate and listen wistfully. But it was pleasant on the porch in the cool of evening with the breeze stirring in the vines. Professor Taylor would be home for the day and dinner would be finished. He and Mrs. Taylor would sit quietly in the rocking chairs while the younger children swung recklessly on the porch swing. Other professors and their wives, out for an evening walk, would stop at the picket fence or come in and sit on the steps and chat.

The sun would set at the end of the long summer day, painting the sky with fantastic, brilliant colors; and then the fiery reds and yellows would deepen to a purple-orange. Twilight would come and the crickets would begin to chirp. Slowly the mosquitoes would come out, buzzing about their ears, and keep them slapping at their arms and legs. Charles would leave the swing and go sit on the bottom step and listen to the changing of the earth. He would feel so happy and joyous and excited that his heart would pound against his ribs. And yet it always made him sad. While he watched, the outlines of the buildings and the fence and road would change and grow vague in the deepening dusk. He would sit entranced as a phantom fairyland took shape and the elves and dragons and fairies came out. Twilight affected him with a passion so poignant he’d sit crying inside with ecstasy. Then the fireflies would come out and the spell would be broken. He and William would dash about the yard, shouting gleefully, and catch the lightning bugs. They’d rub their faces with the yellow, phosphorescent tails and pale yellow spots of light would shine where they had rubbed. Mrs. Taylor would watch them absent-mindedly, marveling at their growth. They’d stop for a moment to listen to the shouting of the older children playing tag. After a while they’d slip off by the gate and stand there silently, hoping their mother would forget that they were out. They dreaded the moment she would “It’s time to go to bed, children.”

6

T
HE OPENING OF THE
fall term was an exciting time. The male students met the first wagonload of women out at the entrance to the college, unhitched the team, and themselves hauled the wagon the remainder of the distance to the dormitory. There was always a circus of joshing and buffoonery and many of the faculty members took their families out to witness the event. It was something of a tradition and took place rain or shine.

It was a beautiful day and Professor Taylor stood in the crowd of men, holding the hands of his younger children, watching the wagon come down the dusty road. As soon as they came in sight the women stood and waved. A roar went up from the welcoming men. But none went beyond the old wooden arch that marked the entrance, for it was at this point that the ceremony took place.

When the wagon finally came into the college grounds, pandemonium broke loose. The men climbed aboard and kissed the women at random. Most of the women wore gingham dresses and had their carefully straightened hair tied in bright bandannas to protect it from the dust. Their black and yellow faces gleamed with sweat and their dark eyes sparkled as they put up their faces to be kissed. The big rough country men milled about the wagon, hanging on the sideboards and jumping to the hubs to get a kiss and see what girl was new. Professor Taylor’s children pulled at his arms, trying to get closer to see what was going on. The men and women laughed crazily, carrying on conversations that had begun the spring before, as if the summer hadn’t happened. The children didn’t understand it. But the excitement was contagious. They danced up and down.

“Johnny jump! Johnny jump! Johnny jump!” Charles screamed, adding to the din.

“Hush!” William cautioned. “Hush up! You don’t know what you’re talking ‘bout.”

Their father chuckled. Finally the students had the teams unhitched and a long, strong rope attached to the wagon tongue. Then they started running down the road, kicking up so much dust the wagon was enveloped.

In the excitement a woman fell and before the laughing, straining crew could be halted she was run over by the wagon. Charles was standing near enough to see her ribs flatten beneath the heavy iron-tired wheels, and the blood start surging from her mouth and nose. She wore a gray buttoned sweater over a calico dress and her body seemed thin and undernourished. He saw her face with stark clarity. She was a light-complexioned, homely girl with a longish pimply face and her hair was tied carefully in a blue bandanna. He saw her hands grope desperately for the spokes of the first wheel, and then fall limply, jerking spasmodically in the dust as the hurt came overwhelmingly into her bulging eyes. It seemed to come from her in such intensity as to be communicable. He felt her hurt down in his own throat and chest, and he felt as if his ribs were being crushed by the heavy wheels also. The sharp brackish sensation of ruptured blood vessels filled his head as if blood was spurting from his own mouth and nose. His mind could not contain it, and could not throw it off. He couldn’t cry or scream or breathe. He felt himself going down-down-down with the dying woman into the cool dark valley of death. He fell gasping to the ground, trembling in the dust. His father fought desperately to keep him from being trampled by the panic-stricken mob. The screams and the wails of the women came into his ears as if he heard them from the grave, and strangely his mind identified the sound of William crying hysterically, but nothing penetrated the incomprehending trance that held him paralyzed. Now, in the cool, dark deep, away from the shock and horror, it was no longer terrifying.

His father carried him home in his arms. His mother saw them coming down the road, her husband straining with the burden, William tagging along in the dust. Her hand flew to her hair. The acid bite of fear coursed through her flesh. She rushed forward and opened the gate, holding to it for support, and the prayer kept sounding in her mind, “
Please, God…please, God…please, dear God
…” When she saw her husband’s face, haggard from exhaustion, she cried out in anguish, “He’s dead, oh my little baby, he’s dead, I know he’s dead.”

“He’s just fainted; he’s just had a shock,” her husband gasped.

But her baby’s eyes were open and she knew that he was dead. “My baby, my baby,” she cried. “What have they done to you?”

They got him up to bed. His eyes held no intelligence, but he was breathing. She fell to her knees beside the bed and prayed.

“He’ll be all right, honey,” his father kept saying, helplessly. “He’ll be all right.”

Down below the front door slammed. “Hey, where is everybody?” Tom called. He came clattering up the stairs, frenzied with excitement. “A girl got run over—” he panted, then stopped. “What’s the matter with Chuckie?” he asked bewilderedly.

“Run get Dr. Wiley,” his father ordered.

“Lord, dear God, if You’ll just give me the strength I’ll take them out of this wilderness,” Mrs. Taylor sobbed.

“The boy’s not hurt, honey,” her husband soothed. “The boy’s not hurt. He’s just shocked; he just saw a girl get run over.”

“He saw her die?” she questioned.

“We don’t know whether she’s dead or not.”

She turned her gaze on him. “His soul is hurt,” she said condemningly.

The doctor came in out of breath and treated Charles for shock. He was preoccupied and didn’t take the matter seriously.

“That girl,” he said, shaking his head. “She died instantly, poor thing.”

Professor Taylor and the older boys followed him to the door. Mrs. Taylor stayed with Charles, sitting on the bed and smoothing his forehead with her hand. Slowly he came out of his trance.

“I was dead, Mama,” he said, looking at her with strange solemnity. “I was dead.”

She fell across him and smothered him with kisses. “My baby, my little baby.”

He clung to her, terrified again. “She was bleeding from the mouth and nose and her eyes…
Mama!
” he cried, feeling himself going down-down-down, away from the terror and hurt.

“Charles!” she cried, trying to hold him back. “My baby!” And then she screamed, “He’s fainted again!”

Professor Taylor came running up the stairs. “Let him alone, honey. Don’t frighten him anymore.”

“We must do something,” she sobbed. “You must send to Natchez and get a doctor.”

He tried to draw her from the room. “Now he’ll be all right. Just let him alone. Dr. Wiley’s one of the best doctors in the state.”