Roots: The Saga of an American Family

He nearly jumped from his skin. But it was Miss Malizy sitting on her log, unperturbed, quietly staring.

  “What massa say?” she asked vacantly.

  “I got to go, Miss Malizy!”

  “Well, reckon you better go ’head, den—”

  “Gwine tell ’Tilda an’ de chilluns you wishes ’em well—”

  “That be nice, boy... y’all take care—”

  “Yes’m—” swiftly moving, he embraced her tightly. Oughta run see de graves. Then thinking it better to remember his mammy Kizzy and Sister Sarah as he remembered them living, Chicken George swept a last look over the crumbling place where he was born and raised; unexpectedly blubbering, clutching the freedom paper, he went running, and vaulting onto his horse ahead of the two double saddle rolls containing his belongings, he went galloping back up through the high weeds of the lane, not looking back.

  CHAPTER 109

  Near the fencerow that flanked the main road, Irene was busily picking leaves to press into dry perfumes when she looked up, hearing the sound of a galloping horse’s hoofs. She gasped, seeing the horseman wearing a flowing green scarf and a black derby with a curving rooster tail feather jutting up from the hatband.

  Waving her arms wildly, she raced toward the road, crying out at the top of her lungs, “Chicken George! Chicken George!” The rider reined up just beyond the fence, his lathered horse heaving with relief.

  “Do I know you, gal?” he called, returning her smile.

  “Nawsuh! We ain’t never seen one ’nother, but Tom, Mammy,’Tilda, an’ de fam’ly talk ’bout you so much I knows what you look like.”

  He stared at her. “My Tom and ’Tilda?”

  “Yassuh! Yo’ wife an’ my husban’—my baby’s daddy!”

  It took him a few seconds to register it. “You an’ Tom got a chile?” She nodded, beaming and patting her protruding stomach. “It due ’nother month!” He shook his head. “Lawd God! Lawd God Armghty! What’s yo’ name?”

  “Irene, suh!”

  Telling him to ride on, she hurried clumsily as fast as she dared until she reached within vocal range of where Virgil, Ashford, L’il George, James, Lewis, L’il Kizzy, and Lilly Sue were planting in another section of the plantation. Her loud hallooing quickly brought a worried L’il Kizzy, who raced back to relay the incredible news. They all breathlessly reached the slave row, shouting and surging about their father, mother, and Tom, and all trying at once to embrace him, until a pummeled and disarrayed Chicken George was entirely overwhelmed with his reception.

  “Guess bes’ y’all hears de bad news firs’,” he told them, and then of the deaths of Gran’mammy Kizzy and Sister Sarah. “Ol’ Missis Lea, she gone, too—”

  When their griefs at their losses had abated somewhat, he described Miss Malizy’s condition, and then his experience with Massa Lea, finally resulting in the freedom paper that he triumphantly displayed. Supper was eaten and the night fell upon the family grouped raptly about him as he entered the topic of his nearly five years in England.

  “Gwine tell y’all de truth, reckon I’d need ’nother year tryin’ tell all I’se seed an’ done over ’way crost all dat water! My Lawd!” But he gave them now at least a few highlights of Sir C. Eric Russell’s great wealth and social prestige; of his long purebred lineage and consistently winning gameflock, and how as an expert black trainer from America he had proved fascinating to lovers of game-cocking in England, where fine ladies would go strolling leading their small African boys dressed in silks and velvet by golden chains about their necks.

  “Ain’t gwine lie, I’se glad I had all de ’speriences I is. But Lawd knows I’se missed y’all sump’n terrible!”

  “Sho’ don’ look it to me—stretchin’ two years out to mo’n fo’!” Matilda snapped.

  “Ol’ biddy ain’t changed a bit, is she?” observed Chicken George to his amused children.

  “Hmph! Who so ol’?” Matilda shot back. “Yo’ head done got to showin’ mo’ gray dan mine is!”

  He laughingly patted Matilda’s shoulder as she feigned great indignance. “T’wan’t me ain’t wanted to git back! I commence’mindin’ Lawd Russell soon’s dem two years done. But one day after a while he come an’ say I’se trainin’ his chickens so good, well as de young white feller was my helper dat he done ’cided sen’ nudder sum o’ money to Massa Lea, tellin’ ’im he need me one mo’ year—an’ I nearly had a fit! But what I’m gwine do? Done de bes’ I could—I got in ’is letter fo’ Massa Lea be sho’ an”splain to y’all what happen—”

  “He ain’t tol’ us nary word!’ exclaimed Matilda, and Tom spoke.

  “You know why? He’d done sol’ us off by dat time.”

  “Sho’ right! It’s why us ain’t heared!”

  “Umh-huh! Umh-huh! See? T’warn’t me!” Chicken George sounded pleased to be vindicated.

  After his bitter disappointment, he said he had extracted Sir Russell’s pledge that it would be the last year. “Den I went ’head an’ he’ped his chickens win dey bigges’ season ever—leas’ dat’s what he tol’ me. Den fin’ly he said he feel like I done teached de young white feller ’nough dat he could take over, an’ I jes’ ’bout lit up dat place carryin’ on, I was so happy!

  “Lemme tell y’all sump’n—it’s a mighty few niggers ever has two whole carriageloads of English folks ’companyin’ ’em like dey did me, to Souf ’hampton. Dat’s great big city by de water wid ain’t no tellin’ how many ships gwine in an’ out. Lawd Russell had’ranged for me ridin’ steerage in dis ship crost de ocean.

  “Lawd! De scardes’ I ever been! We ain’t got all dat far out dere fo’ commence to buckin’ an’ rearin’ like a wil’ hoss! Talk ’bout prayin’!”—he ignored Matilda’s “Hmph!”—“seem like de whole ocean gone crazy, tryin’ to wrench us to pieces! But den fin’ly it got ca’med down pretty fair an’ it was even restful by time we come in New Yawk where ever’body got off—”

  “New Yawk!” L’il Kizzy exclaimed. “What’cha do dere, Pappy?”

  “Gal, ain’t I tellin’ it fas’ as I can? Well, Lawd Russell had give one de ship officers money wid ’structions to put me on nudder ship dat’d git me to Richmon’. But de ship de officer made ’rangements wid weren’t leavin’ fo’ five, six days. So I jes’ walked up an’ down in dat New Yawk, lissenin’ an’ lookin’—”

  “Where you stay at?” asked Matilda.

  “Roomin’ house for colored—dat’s same as niggers, where you think? I had money. I got money, out in my saddlebags right now. Gwine show it to y’all in de mawnin’.” He glanced devilishly at Matilda. “Might even give you hundred dollars, y’act right!” As she snorted, he went on, “Dat Lawd Russell turnt out to be a real good man. Gimme dis pretty fair piece o’ money jes’ fo’ I lef ’. Say it strictly fo’ me, not even to mention it to Massa Lea, an’ you knows fo’ sho’ I ain’t.

  “Really main thing I done was talked wid plenty dem New Yawk free niggers. Seem like to me mos’ ’em tryin’ to keep from starvin’, worse off ’n we is. But it is like we’s heared. Some of ’em is livin’ good! Got different kinds dey own businesses, or nice-payin’ jobs. Few owns dey own homes, an’ more pays rents in sump’n dey calls’partments, an’ some de young’uns gittin’ some schoolin’, sich as dat.

  “But whatever nigger I talked to mad as yellowjackets ’bout is all dem ’migratin’ white folks ever’where you looks—” “Dem Abolitions?” yelped L’il Kizzy. “You tellin’ it or me? Naw! Sho’ ain’t! Way I unnerstan’, de Abolitions is pret’ much white folks what been in dis country leas’ long as niggers is. But dese I’se speakin’’bout is pilin’ off ’n ships into New Yawk, in fact all over de Nawth. Dey’s Irishers, mainly, you can’t unnerstan’ what dey’s sayin’, an’ lotta odder ’culiar kinds can’t even speak English. Fact, I heared dey steps off de ships an firs’ word dey learns is ‘nagur,’ den next thing deys claimin’ niggers takin’ dey jobs! Dey’s startin’ fights an’ riots all de time—dey’s wusser’n po’ crackers!”


  “Well, Lawd, I hope dey stays ’way from down here!” said Irene.

  “Look here, y’all, it’d take me ’nother week to tell half de goin’s on I seed an’ heared fo’ dat ship brung me to Richmon’—”

  “S’prise to me you even got on it!”

  “Woman, ain’t you gon’ never let me ’lone! Man gone fo’ years an’ you actin’ like I lef’ yestiddy!” The slightest suggestion of an edge was in Chicken George’s voice.

  Tom asked quickly, “You bought yo’ hoss in Richmon’?”

  “Dat’s right! Sebenty dollars! She a real fas’ speckle mare. I figgered free man gwine need a good hoss. I rid ’er hard as she could stan’ it to Massa Lea’s—”

  It being early April, everyone else was extremely busy. Most of the family were in the planting season’s height. Among cleaning, cooking, and serving in the big house, Matilda had very little available free time. Tom’s customers kept him going at his hardest from daylight into deepening dusk, and the nearly eight months’ pregnant Irene was scarely less occupied among her diverse tasks.

  No matter, across the next week, Chicken George visited with them all. But out in the fields, it soon was as uncomfortably clear to them as to himself that he and anything connected with field work were alien. Matilda and Irene’s faces made quick smiles when he came near, then they made equally quick apologies that they knew he understood that they had to get back to what they were doing. Several times, he dropped by to have some chat with Tom while he blacksmithed. But each time the atmosphere would grow tense. The slaves who were waiting grew visibly nervous on seeing whatever as yet unattended white customers abruptly quit their conversations, spit emphatically and shift their bodies about on the log benches, while eyeing the wearer of the green scarf and the black derby with obvious silent suspicion.

  Twice during these times, Tom happened to glance and see Massa Murray starting down toward the shop, then turn back, and Tom knew why. Matilda had said that when the Murrays first learned of Chicken George’s arrival, “dey seem happy fo’ us, but Tom, I worries, I knows dey’s since had dey heads togedder whole lot, den quits talkin’ soon’s I comes in.”

  What was going to be Chicken George’s “free” status there on the Murray plantation? What was he going to do? The questions hung like a cloud in the minds of every individual among them ... excepting Virgil’s and Lilly Sue’s four-year-old Uriah.

  “You’s my gran’pappy?” Uriah seized his chance to say something directly to the intriguing man who had seemed to occasion such a stir among all of the other adults ever since his arrival several days before.

  “What?”

  The startled Chicken George had just wandered back into the slave row, deeply rankled by his feeling of being rejected. He eyed the child who stared at him with large, curious eyes. “Well, reckon I is.” About to walk on, George turned. “What dey say yo’ name?”

  “Uriah, suh. Gran’pappy, wherebouts you work at?”

  “What you talkin’ ’bout?” He glared down at the boy. “Who tol’ you to ax me dat?”

  “Nobody. Jes’ ax you.”

  He decided that the boy told the truth. “Don’ work nowheres. I’se free.”

  The boy hesitated. “Gran’pappy, what free is?”

  Feeling ridiculous standing there being interrogated by a young’un, Chicken George started on, but then he thought of what Matilda had confided of the boy. “Seem like he tend to be sickly, even maybe a l’il quare in de head. Next time you roun’ ’im, notice how he apt to jes’ keep starin’ at somebody even after dey’s quit talkin’.” Turning about, Chicken George searched the face of Uriah, and he saw what Matilda meant. The boy did project an impression of physical weakness and, except for his blinking, the large eyes were as if they had fastened onto Chicken George, assessing his every utterance or movement. George felt uncomfortable. The boy repeated his question. “Suh, what free is?”

  “Free mean ain’t nobody own you no mo’.” He had a sense that he was speaking to the eyes. He started off again.

  “Mammy say you fights chickens. What you fight ’em wid?”

  Wheeling about, a retort on his tongue, Chicken George perceived the earnest, curious face of only a small boy. And it stirred something within him: gran’chile.

  Critically he studied Uriah, thinking that there must be something appropriate to say to him. And finally, “Yo’ mammy or anybody tol’ you where you comes from?”

  “Suh? Comes from where?” He had not been told, Chicken George saw, or if he had, not in a way that he remembered.

  “C’mon ’long wid me here, boy.”

  Also, it was something for him to do. Followed by Uriah, Chicken George led the way over to the cabin that he was sharing with Matilda. “Now set yo’self down in dat chair an’ don’t be axin’ no whole lotta questions. Jes’ set an’ lissen to what I tells you.”

  “Yassuh.”

  “Yo’ pappy born of me an’ yo’ Gran’mammy ’Tilda.” He eyed the boy. “You unnerstans dat?”

  “My pappy y’all young’un.”

  “Dat’s right. You ain’t dum’ as you looks. Den my mammy name Kizzy. So she yo’ great-gran’mammy. Gran’mammy Kizzy. Say dat.”

  “Yassuh. Gran’mammy Kizzy.”

  “Yeah. Den her mammy name Bell.”

  He looked at the boy.

  “Name Bell.”

  Chicken George grunted. “Awright. An’ Kizzy’s pappy name Kunta Kinte—”

  “Kunta Kinte.”

  “Dat’s right. Well, him an’ Bell yo’ great-great-gran’folks—”

  Nearly an hour later, when Matilda came hurrying nervously into the cabin, wondering what on earth had happed to Uriah, she found him dutifully repeating such sounds as “Kunta Kinte” and “ko” and “Kamby Bolongo.” And Matilda decided that she had the time to sit down, and beaming with satisfaction, she listened as Chicken George told their rapt grandson the story of how his African great-great-gran’daddy had said he was not far from his village, chopping some wood to make a drum, when he had been surprised, overwhelmed, and stolen into slavery by four men, “—den a ship brung’im crost de big water to a place call ’Naplis, an’ he was bought dere by a Massa John Waller what took ’im to his plantation dat was in Spotsylvania County, Virginia . . . ”

  The following Monday, Chicken George rode with Tom in the mulecart to buy supplies in the county-seat town of Graham. Little was said between them, each seeming mostly immersed in his own thoughts. As they went from one to another store, Chicken George keenly relished the quiet dignity with which his twenty-seven-year-old son dealt with the various white merchants. Then they went into a feed store that Tom said had recently been bought by a former county sheriff named J. D. Cates.

  The heavy-set Cates was seeming to ignore them as he moved about serving his few white customers. Some sense of warning rose within Tom; glancing, he saw Cates looking covertly at the green-scarfed, black-derbied Chicken George, who was stepping about in a cocky manner visually inspecting items of merchandise. Intuitively Tom was heading toward his father to accomplish a quick exit when Cates’ voice cut through the store: “Hey, boy, fetch me a dipper of water from that bucket over there!”

  Cates was gazing directly at Tom, the eyes taunting, menacing. Tom’s insides congealed as, under the threat of a white man’s direct order, he walked stony-faced to the bucket and returned with a dipper of water. Cates drank it at a gulp, his small eyes over the dipper’s rim now on Chicken George, who stood with his head slowly shaking. Cates thrust the dipper toward him. “I’m still thirsty!”

  Avoiding any quick moves, Chicken George drew from his pocket his carefully folded freedom paper and handed it to Cates. Cates unfolded it and read. “What’re you doin’ in our county?” he asked coldly.

  “He my pappy,” Tom put in quickly. Above all, he did not want his father attempting any defiant talk. “He jes’ been give his freedom.”

  “Livin’ with y’all now over at Mr. Murray’s pla
ce?”

  “Yassuh.”

  Glancing about at his white customers, Cates exclaimed, “Mr. Murray ought to know the laws of this state better’n that!”

  Uncertain what he meant, neither Tom nor George said anything.

  Suddenly Cates’ manner was almost affable. “Well, when y’all boys get home, be shore to tell Mr. Murray I’ll be out to talk with him ’fore long.” With the sound of white men’s laughter behind them, Tom and Chicken George quickly left the store.

  It was the next afternoon when Cates galloped down the driveway of the Murray big house. A few minutes later, Tom glanced up from his forge and saw Irene running toward the shop. Hurrying past his few waiting customers, he went to meet her.

  “Mammy ’Tilda say let you know massa an’ dat white man on de porch steady talkin’. Leas’ de man keep talkin’ an’ massa jes’ noddin’ an’ noddin’.”

  “Awright, honey,” said Tom. “Don’ be scairt. You git on back now.” Irene fled.

  Then, after about another half hour, she brought word that Cates had left, “an’ now massa an’ missis got dey heads togedder.”

  But nothing happened until Matilda was serving supper to Massa and Missis Murray, whom she saw were eating in a strained silence. Finally, when she brought their dessert and coffee, Massa Murray said, in a tight voice, “Matilda, tell your husband I want to see him out on the porch right away.”

  “Yassuh, Massa.”

  She found Chicken George with Tom down at the blacksmith shop. Chicken George forced a laugh when he got the message. “Reckon he might want to see if I git ’im some fightin’ roosters!”

  Adjusting his scarf and tilting his derby to a jauntier angle, he walked briskly toward the big house. Massa Murray was waiting there, seated in a rocker on the porch. Chicken George stopped in the yard at the foot of the stairs.

  “’Tilda say you wants to see me, suh.”

  “Yes, I do, George. I’ll come right to the point. Your family has brought Missis Murray and me much happiness here—”

  “Yassuh,” George put in, “an’ dey sho’ speaks de highes’ of y’all, too, Massa!”