Roots: The Saga of an American Family

  “Massa—” Chicken George hesitated “’Fo’ I met her, I is been catchin’ jes’ much tail as you says—but dog if she ain’t got me to feelin’ mo’ to it dan jes’ tail. Man git to thinkin’ ’bout jumpin’ de broom wid a good woman—”

  Chicken George was astounded at himself. “Dat is, if she have me,” he said in a weak voice. Then even more weakly, “An’ if ’n you wouldn’t make no objections—”

  They rode on quite a way amid the wagon’s squeakings and the gamecocks’ cluckings before Massa Lea spoke again. “Does Mr. MacGregor know you’ve been courtin’ this gal of his?”

  “Well, she bein’ a field han’, don’t ’magine she never say nothin’ to him directly, nawsuh. But de big-house niggers knows, I speck some dem done tol’ it.”

  After another lull, Massa Lea asked, “How many niggers has Mr. MacGregor got?”

  “He got pretty big place, Massa. Seem like from de size his slave row, I’d reckon twenty or mo’ niggers, Massa.” George was confused by the questions.

  “Been thinking,” said the massa after another silence. “Since you were born, you never give me any real trouble—in fact, you’ve helped me around the place a lot, and I’m goin’ to do somethin’ for you. You just heard me sayin’ a while back I need some younger field-hand niggers. Well, if that gal’s big enough fool to jump the broom with somebody loves runnin’ tail as much as I expect you won’t never quit doin’, then I’ll ride over and talk with Mr. MacGregor. If he’s got as many niggers as you say, he ought not to miss one field gal all that much—if we can come to a decent price. Then you could move that gal—what’s her name?”

  “’Tilda—Matilda, Massa,” breathed Chicken George, unsure if he was hearing right.

  “Then you could move her over to my place, build y’all a cabin—”

  George’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. Finally he blurted, “Nothin’ but high-class massa do dat!”

  Massa Lea grunted. He gestured. “Long as you understand your first place remains down with Mingo!”

  “’Cose, suh!”

  Mustering a scowl, Massa Lea directed a stabbing forefinger at his driver. “After you get hitched, I’m takin’ back that travelin’ pass! Help that what’s her name, Matilda, keep your black ass home where it belongs!”

  Chicken George was beyond words.

  CHAPTER 94

  When the sun rose on the morning of Chicken George’s wedding in August of 1827, the groom was frantically fastening iron hinges onto the cured-oak doorjamb of his still uncompleted two-room cabin. Loping to the barn when that was done, he hurried back carrying over his head the new door that Uncle Pompey had carved and stained with the juice of crushed black walnut hulls, and mounted it in place. Then, casting a worried glance at the rising sun, he stopped long enough to wolf down the sausage and biscuit sandwich that had been practically thrown at him by his mammy late the previous evening in her fury at his long succession of put-offs, excuses, interruptions, and excursions. He had waited so long, and worked so slowly, that she had finally commanded everyone else not only to stop helping him anymore, but also even to stop offering him any encouragement.

  Chicken George next quickly filled a large keg with slaked lime and water, stirred it vigorously, and—as fast as he could—dipped his large brush into the mess and began slathering whitewash over the outside of the rough-sawn planking. It was about ten o’clock when he finally backed away, almost as whitened as the cabin, to survey the completed job. There was plenty of time to spare, he told himself. All he had to do was bathe and dress, then take the two-hour wagon ride to the MacGregor plantation, where the wedding was due to start at one.

  Bounding between the cabin and the well, he dashed three bucketfuls of water into the new galvanized tub in the cabin’s front room. Humming loudly as he scrubbed himself, he dried himself off briskly and then wrapped himself in the bleached-sacking towel to run into the bedroom. After climbing into his cotton long drawers, he slipped on his blue stiff-front shirt, red socks, yellow pants, and yellow belt-backed suitcoat, and finally his brand-new bright-orange shoes, all of which he had bought with hackfighting winnings, an item at a time, over the past few months while he and Massa Lea were traveling to various North Carolina cities. Squeaking in his stiff shoes over to the bedroom table and sitting down on Uncle Mingo’s wedding present, a carved stool with a seat of woven hickory strips, Chicken George smiled widely at himself in the long-handled mirror that was going to be one of his surprise presents for Matilda. With the mirror’s help, he carefully arranged around his neck the green woolen scarf Matilda had knitted for him. Lookin’ good, he had to admit. There remained only the crowning touch. Pulling a round cardboard box out from under the bed, he removed the top and with almost reverent gentleness lifted out the black derby hat that was his wedding present from Massa Lea. Turning it slowly around and around on stiff forefingers, he savored its stylish shape almost sensuously before returning to the mirror and positioning the derby at just the right rakish tilt over one eye.

  “Git out’n dere! We been settin’ a hour in dis wagon!” His mammy Kizzy’s shout from just outside the window left no doubt that her rage was undiminished.

  “Comin’, Mammy!” he hollered back. After one last appreciation of his ensemble in the mirror, he slipped a flat, small bottle of white lightning into his inside coat pocket and emerged from the new cabin as if expecting applause. He was going to flash his biggest smile and tip his hat until he got a look at the baleful glares of his mammy, Miss Malizy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey, all sitting frozenly in their Sunday best in the wagon. Averting his glance, and whistling as breezily as he could manage, he climbed up onto the driver’s seat—careful not to disturb a crease—slapped the reins against the backs of the two mules, and they were under way—only an hour late.

  Along the road, Chicken George sneaked several fortifying nips from his bottle, and the wagon arrived at the MacGregor place shortly after two. Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Miss Malizy descended amid profuse apologies to the visibly worried and upset Matilda in her white gown. Uncle Pompey unloaded the food baskets they had brought, and after pecking at Matilda’s cheek, Chicken George went swaggering about slapping backs and breathing liquor in the faces of the guests as he introduced himself. Apart from those he already knew who lived in Matilda’s slave row, they were mostly prayer-meeting folk she had recruited from among the slaves of two nearby plantations and whom she had gotten permission to invite. She wanted them to meet her intended, and so did they. Though most of them had heard a lot about him from sources other than herself, their first actual sight of Chicken George evoked reactions ranging from muttering to open-mouthed astonishment. As he cut his swath through the wedding party, he gave a wide berth to Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Miss Malizy, whose dagger stares were being sharpened by every remark each was overhearing about the dubiousness of Matilda’s “catch.” Uncle Pompey had chosen simply to merge with the other guests as if he were unaware of who the bridegroom was.

  Finally, the hired white preacher came out of the big house, followed by the massas and Missis MacGregor and Lea. They stopped in the backyard, the preacher clutching his Bible like a shield, and the suddenly quiet crowd of black people grouped stiffly a respectful distance away. As Matilda’s missis had planned it, the wedding would combine some of the white Christian wedding service with jumping the broom afterward. Guiding her rapidly sobering groom by one yellow sleeve, Matilda positioned them before the preacher, who cleared his throat and proceeded to read a few solemn passages from his Bible. Then he asked, “Matilda and George, do you solemnly swear to take each other, for better or worse, the rest of your lives?”

  “I does,” said Matilda softly.

  “Yassuh!” said Chicken George, much too loudly.

  Flinching, the preacher paused and then said, “I pronounce you man and wife!”

  Among the black guests, someone sobbed.

  “Now you may kiss the bride!”

  Seizing
Matilda, Chicken George crushed her in his arms and gave her a resounding smack. Amid the ensuing gasps and tongue-clucking, it occurred to him that he might not be making the best impression, and while they locked arms and jumped the broom, he racked his brains for something to say that would lend some dignity to the occasion, something that would placate his slave-row family and win over the rest of those Bible toters. He had it!

  “De Lawd is my shepherd!” he proclaimed. “He done give me what I wants!”

  When he saw the stares and glares that greeted this announcement, he decided to give up on them, and the first chance he got, he slipped the bottle from his pocket and drained it dry. The rest of the festivities—a wedding feast and reception—passed in a blur, and it was Uncle Pompey who drove the Lea plantation’s wagon homeward through the sunset. Grim and mortified, Mammy Kizzy, Miss Malizy, and Sister Sarah cast malevolent glances at the spectacle behind them: the bridegroom snoring soundly with his head in the lap of his tearful bride, his green scarf askew and most of his face concealed under his black derby.

  Chicken George snorted awake when the wagon jerked to a stop alongside their new cabin. Sensing groggily that he should beg everyone’s forgiveness, he began to try, but the doors of three cabins slammed like gunshots. But he wouldn’t be denied a last courtly gesture. Picking up his bride, he pushed open the door with one foot and somehow maneuvered both of them inside without injury—only to stumble with her over the tub of bathwater that still stood in the middle of the room. It was the final humiliation—but all was forgotten and forgiven when Matilda, with a shriek of joy, caught sight of her special wedding present: the highly lacquered, eight-day-winding grandfather clock, as tall as herself, that Chicken George had purchased with the last of his hackfight savings and hauled in the back of the wagon all the way from Greensboro.

  As he sat bleary-eyed on the floor where he’d fallen, bathwater soaking his brand-new orange shoes, Matilda went over to him and reached out her hand to help him up.

  “You come wid me now, George. I’m gwine put you to bed.”

  CHAPTER 95

  By daybreak, Chicken George was gone back down the road to his gamefowl. Then, about an hour after breakfast, Miss Malizy heard someone calling her name and, going to the kitchen door, she was startled to see the new bride, whom she greeted and invited inside.

  “No’m, thank you,” said Matilda. “I jes’ wanted to ax whichaway is de fiel’ dey’s workin’ in today, an’ wherebouts can I fin’ me a hoe?”

  A few minutes later, Matilda simply appeared and joined Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey in the day’s field work. Late that evening they all gathered about her in slave row, keeping her company until her husband got home. In the course of conversation, Matilda asked if any slave-row prayer meetings were held regularly, and when she was told that none were, proposed that one be made a part of each Sunday afternoon.

  “Tell you de truth, I’se shame to say I ain’t done nowhere near de prayin’ I ought to,” said Kizzy.

  “Me neither,” confessed Sister Sarah.

  “Jes’ ain’t never seem to me no ’mount of prayin’ is did nothin’ to change white folks,” said Uncle Pompey.

  “De Bible say Joseph was sol’ a slave to de Egyptians, but de Lawd was wid Joseph, an’ de Lawd blessed de Egyptians’ house for Joseph’s sake,” Matilda said in a matter-of-fact manner.

  Three glances, quickly exchanged, expressed their steadily mounting respect for the young woman.

  “Dat George tol’ us yo’ first massa a preacher,” said Sister Sarah. “You soun’ like a preacher yo’se’f!”

  “I’se a servant o’ de Lawd, dat’s all,” replied Matilda.

  Her prayer meetings began the following Sunday, two days after Chicken George and Massa Lea had gone off in the wagon with twelve gamecocks.

  “Massa say he finally got de right birds to go fight where de big money is,” he explained, saying that this time the Lea birds would be competing in an important “main” somewhere near Goldsboro.

  One morning when they were out in the field, carefully employing a gentle tone that suggested the sympathy of a forty-seven-year-old woman for a new bride of eighteen, Sister Sarah said, “Lawdy, honey, I ’spect yo’ married life gwine be split up twixt you an’ dem chickens.”

  Matilda looked at her squarely. “What I done always heared, an’ b’lieved, is anybody’s marriage jes’ what dey makes it. An’ I reckon he know what kin’ he want our’n to be.”

  But having established her stand about marriage, Matilda would readily share in any conversation about, her colorful husband, whether it was humorous or serious in nature.

  “He done had itchy foots since he was a crawlin’ baby,” Kizzy told her one night, visiting in the new cabin.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Matilda, “I figgered dat when he come a-courtin’. He wouldn’t talk ’bout hardly nothin’ ’cept rooster fightin’ an’ him an’ de massa travelin’ somewheres.” Hesitating, she then added in her frank way, “But when he foun’ out weren’t no man gwine have his way wid me ’fo’ we’d jumped a broom, Lawd, he had a fit! Fact, one time I give up on seein’ ’im again. Don’t know what hit ’im, but I like to fell out de night he come a-rushin’ in an’ say, ‘Look, let’s us git hitched!”

  “Well, I’se sho’ glad he had de sense!” said Kizzy. “But now you’s hitched, gal, I’se gwine tell you straight what’s on my min’. I wants me some gran’chilluns!”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong wid dat, Miss Kizzy. ’Cause I wants me some young’uns, too, same as other womens haves.”

  When Matilda announced two months later that she was in a family way, Kizzy was beside herself. Thinking about her son becoming a father made her think about her father—more than she had in many years—and one evening when Chicken George was away again, Kizzy asked, “Is he ever mentioned anything to you’bout his gran’pappy?”

  “No’m, he ain’t.” Matilda looked puzzled.

  “He ain’t?” Seeing the older woman’s disappointment, Matilda added quickly, “Reckon he jes’ ain’t got to it yet, Mammy Kizzy.”

  Deciding that she’d better do it herself, since she remembered more than he did anyway, Kizzy began telling Matilda of her life at Massa Waller’s for sixteen years until her sale to Massa Lea, and most of what she had to say was about her African pappy and the many things he had told to her. “Tilda, how come I’se tellin’ you all dis, I jes’ wants you to understan’ how I wants dat chile in yo’ belly an’ any mo’ you has to know all ’bout ’im, too, on ’count of he’s dey great-gran’daddy.”

  “I sho’ does understan’, Mammy Kizzy,” said Matilda, whereupon her mother-in-law told yet more of her memories, with both of them feeling their closeness growing throughout the rest of the evening.

  Chicken George’s and Matilda’s baby boy was born during the spring of 1828, with Sister Sarah serving as the midwife, assisted by a nervous Kizzy. Her joy about having a grandchild at last tempered her anger that the boy’s father was yet again off somewhere for a week with Massa Lea. The following evening, when the new mother felt up to it, everyone on slave row gathered at the cabin to celebrate the birth of the second baby that had been born there on the Lea plantation.

  “You’s finally ‘Gran’mammy Kizzy’ now!” said Matilda, propped up in bed against some pillows, nestling the baby and weakly smiling at her visitors.

  “Lawd, yes! Don’t it soun’ pretty!” exclaimed Kizzy, her whole face one big grin.

  “Soun’ like to me Kizzy gittin’ ol ’, dat’s what!” said Uncle Pompey with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Hmph! Ain’t no woman here ol’ as some we knows!” snorted Sister Sarah.

  Finally, Miss Malizy commanded, “Awright, time us all git out’n here an’ let ’em res’!” And they all did, except for Kizzy.

  After being quietly thoughtful for a while, Matilda said, “Ma’am, I been thinkin’ ’bout what you tol’ me ’bout yo’ pappy. Since I never even got to see mine, I b’
lieves George wouldn’t care if dis child have my pappy’s name. It was Virgil, my mammy say.”

  The name instantly had Chicken George’s hearty approval when he returned, filled with such jubilance at the birth of a son that he could hardly contain himself. Black derby awry as his big hands swooped the infant up in the air, he exclaimed, “Mammy,’member what I tol’ you, I gwine tell my young’uns what you tol’ me?” His face alight, he made a little ceremony of seating himself before the fireplace with Virgil held upright in his lap as he spoke to him in grand tones. “Listen here, boy! Gwine tell you ’bout yo’ great-gran’daddy. He were a African dat say he name ‘Kunta Kinte.’ He call a guitar a ko, an’ a river ‘Kamby Bolongo,’ an’ lot mo’ things wid African names. He say he was choppin’ a tree to make his l’il brother a drum when it was fo’ mens come up an’ grabbed ’im from behin’. Den a big ship brung ’im crost de big water to a place call ’Naplis. An’ he had runned off fo’ times when he try to kill dem dat cotched ’im an’ dey cut half his foot off!”

  Lifting the infant, he turned his face toward Kizzy. “An’ he jumped de broom wid de big-house cook name Miss Bell, an’ dey had a l’il ol’ gal—an’ dere she is, yo’ gran’mammy grinnin’ at you right dere!” Matilda was beaming her approval as widely as Kizzy, whose eyes were moist with love and pride.

  With her husband away as much as he was, Matilda began spending more of her time in the evenings with Gran’mammy Kizzy, and after a while they were pooling their rations and eating their supper together. Always Matilda would say the grace as Kizzy sat quietly with her hands folded and her head bowed. Afterward Matilda would nurse the baby, and then Kizzy would sit proudly with little Virgil clasped against her body, rocking him back and forth, either humming or singing to him softly as the grandfather clock ticked and Matilda sat reading her worn Bible. Even though it wasn’t against the massa’s rules, Kizzy still disapproved of reading—but it was the Bible, so she guessed no harm could come of it. Usually, not too long after the baby was asleep, Kizzy’s head would begin bobbing, and often she would begin murmuring to herself as she dozed. When she leaned over to retrieve the sleeping Virgil from Kizzy’s arms, Matilda sometimes heard snatches of the things she was mumbling. They were always the same: “Mammy ... Pappy ... Don’t let ’em take me! ... My people’s los’.... Ain’t never see ’em no mo’ dis worl’.... ” Deeply touched, Matilda would whisper something like, “We’s yo’ people now, Gran’mammy Kizzy,” and after putting Virgil to bed, she would gently rouse the older woman—whom she was growing to love as she had her own mother—and after accompanying her to her own cabin, Matilda would often be wiping at her eyes on her way back.