The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

by Ernest J. Gaines

  That was my travel. That’s how I got over. And that’s what the church sang that night.

  Tone the bell

  Done got over

  Tone the bell

  Done got over

  Tone the bell

  Done got over

  Done got over at last.

  Plucked my soul from the gate of Hell

  Done got over

  From the gate of Hell

  Done got over

  From the gate of Hell

  Done got over

  Done got over at last.

  My Jesus glad, old Satan mad

  Done got over

  Old Satan mad

  Done got over

  Old Satan mad

  Done got over

  Done got over at last.

  Two Brothers of the South

  Timmy and Tee Bob was brothers—half brothers: Timmy was nigger, Tee Bob was white. Everybody on the plantation, everybody on the river, everybody in that house, including Tee Bob and Miss Amma Dean, knowed Timmy was Robert Samson’s boy. And Robert never tried to hide it, and couldn’t even if he wanted to, because Timmy was more like him than poor Tee Bob ever would be. When he was nothing but a child Timmy liked to ride and hunt just like Robert always did. Had all of Robert’s mischief ways. You stayed on your guard ’round either one of them. Robert didn’t care what he did to white or black. Timmy didn’t care what he did to men or women long as they was black. Built just like Robert, tall and skinny. But Robert was white—red—and Timmy was brown. Robert had brown hair and gray eyes; Timmy had reddish-brown hair and brown eyes. Nose hooked just alike. Now, Tee Bob was small and delicate all his life. The only reason they gived him the name little Robert, the doctor told Miss Amma Dean she couldn’t have any more children. But any other name would ’a’ fit Tee Bob better.

  When Tee Bob got big enough to ride, Robert came in the quarters and told Verda he wanted Timmy to ride with him. Called Verda to the gate, like coming to that house was something new to him. Like he hadn’t tied that horse at that gate a hundred times and walked in that house and stayed there till he himself got ready to leave.

  “I don’t want him up there,” Verda told him.

  “He’ll be treated right,” Robert said.

  “I don’t want him waiting on nobody’s table,” Verda said.

  “He’ll just ride with Tee Bob,” Robert said.

  “Tee Bob’s butler?” Verda said. “His brother’s butler?”

  “I expect him up there tomorrow,” Robert said.

  “Not if he go’n wait on table,” Verda said.

  “Tomorrow,” Robert said, and rode away.

  Timmy came up to the front to work. He was about twelve then, because he was six or seven years older than Tee Bob. When Tee Bob was at school, Timmy looked after the horses. When Tee Bob came home, Timmy saddled up the horses and they rode out in the field together. Tee Bob on his little Shetland pony, Johnnie; Timmy on that half-broke thing called Hurricane. Soon as they hit the field Tee Bob would come over where I was. No matter what I was doing—picking cotton, cutting cane—here he would come. If my sack was full he would take it to the end for me. If we was cutting cane and it was cold he would tell me to go stand by the fire. He took a liking to me soon as I came here. So when Aunt Hattie died—Unc Buddy wasn’t far behind—I was the one he told the people at the house to bring up there. I didn’t want go up there, I loved the outside too much. Then, even cold I didn’t mind. Then, I looked at cold and heat like everything else. But them at the house thought I was slowing up in the field and I could do better at the front. Paul Samson was the one who come out there and asked me what I knowed about cooking. (We was cutting cane. December. Almost freezing out there.) I said I had been doing it over sixty years. I hadn’t answered soon enough for him, and now he just sat there on that horse looking down at me. He said he meant cooking for white people. I said I ain’t poisoned none yet. He sat on that horse looking down at me awhile, then he said: “Be at that house six o’clock tomorrow. Show me if you can make biscuits smart as you can talk.” I said, “I like it right where I am, if you don’t mind.” He sat there looking down at me awhile, then he said: “You do?” (Real cold that day. Joe Ambrose way down the row, just cutting cane and singing.) Paul Samson said: “Maybe you ain’t heard it yet? On Samson you like what Paul Samson like. Or maybe you have heard it and you just don’t mind borrowing that wagon again. Well, which is it?”

  That’s how I got up there. But after I was up there awhile I didn’t mind it at all. I had other people to help me do the work, and I had all the free time I wanted to fish and work in my garden. Sometimes I would get Timmy to get Rags out of the pasture for me and I would ride out in the field. One day I was crazy enough to ride out there with Timmy and Tee Bob.

  I should ’a’ knowed Timmy had some rascality up his sleeves when I first got on that horse. Everything felt too good to be true. The saddle was just right—he had drawed up the stirrups so my feet could fit in them. He had put on a good bridle, good strong reins. The girt tied well—everything just right. I’m thinking: “Something he want me to do for him. He ain’t doing all this for nothing.” All the way back in the field I’m trying to figure out what Timmy wants. Probably money, I think. Then I try to figure what he wants the money for. I don’t ask him, I just look at him out the corner of my eyes. Looking at Timmy, you looking at nobody but Robert Samson himself. Them shoulders up, them elbows in, riding there just like Robert. That straw hat cocked a little over his eyes, just like Robert for the world. But them eyes wasn’t saying a thing, just looking straight ahead like nothing was going on. I looked down at Tee Bob. He ain’t saying nothing either. But him and Timmy had worked this all out together.

  When we got in the field we went over where Grace and the rest of the people was cutting cane. Grace looked at me and said—“Well, if it ain’t the high class.” “Just my little evening stroll,” I said. “That’s when you the high class,” Grace said. “Me, I got to work for a living.”

  I followed Grace down the cane field, just talking. All that time Tee Bob and Timmy wasn’t too far away. Then after I had been out there a while I began to feel chilly, and I told Grace I thought I’d be heading back to the front. Soon as I said that, Tee Bob went over a few rows and shot out for the headland. Little Johnnie was running so fast, his mouth almost touching the ground. “What’s the matter with him?” I said. “Gone crazy all a sudden?” Then Grace hollered: “Jane, hold on.” But Timmy had already hit Rags with the stalk of cane, and the horse almost shot out from under me.

  Now, it was nobody but me, Rags, and that cane field. I was holding pump, mane, and bridle. All over the field, people was hollering at me: “Hold him, Miss Jane, hold him. Hold him, Miss Jane, hold him.”

  Rags hit that headland and leaned way to the right like he might tip over, but he held to his feet. A few more strides he hit that back road and leaned way to the left, but he kept to his feet again. Now, it wasn’t nobody but me, Rags, and that back road, because I had passed Tee Bob way back there, and there wasn’t nothing ahead of me now and nothing likely to catch me till Rags got to that front gate and stopped. Of course, Timmy could have caught me on Hurricane. That time, Hurricane could beat any horse in the parish running, probably any horse in the state running. But Timmy never could leave Tee Bob behind him. No matter what happened Tee Bob rode ahead, if just by a nose, but not ever behind him. So I had nothing to stop Rags now but that gate at the front. Of course, I wanted to fall off, but fall where? It was grinding, and that ground hard as a rock, and I was in my sixties, and if I had hit that ground traveling a hundred miles an hour I would have busted open like a watermelon. So I didn’t fall; I held on tight.

  Unc Gilly and Aunt Sara was sitting out on the gallery, and Aunt Sara heard the horse running off. She said she knowed the horse was running off because a horse makes a different sound than he makes when he’s just running for the fun of it. His hooves make a louder sound and they don�
��t keep rhythm like they do when the horse is just racing. She said she had to holler at Unc Gilly three or four times before she could make him hear her. “Horse running off,” she said loud. “Horse. Jane. Gilly? Horse. Jane.” She said she knowed it was me because Timmy could handle Hurricane with ease, and Tee Bob’s horse Johnnie couldn’t make that kind of noise. “Horse. Jane,” she said loud. “Gilly? Gilly?” When he caught on to what she was trying to tell him he came out in the road with his walking stick. From way down the quarters I could see him waving the stick up and down. Not right and left like he should ’a’ been waving it, but up and down. The closer I got the faster Unc Gilly waved the stick. Now he was waving it with both hands and backing up at the same time. Waving and backing up, waving and backing up. Then I didn’t see him. When and how Rags went by Unc Gilly or over Unc Gilly I don’t know. I know one second I was seeing him waving that stick, the next second I was passing that churchhouse.

  When Rags came up to the big gate he stopped so quick I almost went over his head. Miss Amma Dean was already there with the spy glasses. She had watched the whole thing from the back gallery. In grinding, when most of the cane was down, you could see couple miles back in the field. She said she had seen Rags turn off the headland onto the back road, and she had seen him coming straight for the big house, straight toward her like a train on a railroad track. She said she could see Tee Bob, too, on Johnnie, his little elbows sticking way out, kicking Johnnie to make him go faster, like if kicking a horse the size of Johnnie could ever make him catch a whirlwind. She could see Timmy, too, riding a little behind Tee Bob. Both of them laughing. No, she couldn’t see their mouths with the spy glasses, just like she couldn’t see my eyes with the spy glasses, but she could see how tight I was holding on, and she could guess how scared I was; and seeing how loose and free Timmy and Tee Bob was riding, she could tell they was laughing even when she couldn’t see it. By the time Rags got to the gate she had closed up the spy glasses and run ’cross the yard. “It was Timmy?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “It might ’a’ been a wahs.”

  Rags was breathing hard. I was breathing hard. Both of us sweating. Almost freezing now, but both of us sweating.

  “Wahs?” Miss Amma Dean said, and looked at me a long time. She knowed it was Timmy, because Timmy was Robert’s son, and Robert would ’a’ done the same thing. No, not would ’a’, did it. To one of her cousins. Had put one of her own cousins on a half-broke horse, and the horse had throwed him ’cross the fence.

  Timmy and Tee Bob came up there still laughing. Little Johnnie was so tired his mouth hung about an inch off the ground.

  “Wahs?” Miss Amma Dean said, still looking at me with the spy glasses in her hand. Then she looked at Timmy. At first she was mad enough to hit him with the spy glasses, but the longer she looked at him the more she saw Robert. Robert would have done the same thing; no, he had done it. But Timmy wasn’t Robert, even if he was Robert’s son. He had to remember he was still a nigger.

  “Robert, you know better,” she told Tee Bob.

  “Jane can ride,” Tee Bob said.

  “Best I ever seen,” Timmy said.

  “Shut up,” Miss Amma Dean said. “Nobody told you to open your mouth.” She waited for him to say something else. He was Robert’s son, and Robert definitely would ’a’ answered back. “Mr. Robert will hear about his,” she said.

  He was looking ’cross the yard at the big house. From the way he was sitting in that saddle, not slumped over like a nigger ought to be, but with them shoulders up, with that straw hat cocked a little over his eyes, he was telling us Robert wasn’t go’n do him a thing. But he didn’t have to tell it to me. I knowed all the time Robert wouldn’t do him nothing. But Miss Amma Dean still didn’t know. Had been married to Robert ten, twelve years, and still didn’t know what he would do.

  “Take that hat off, Timmy,” she said.

  He took it off, but he still didn’t look at her.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, hardly loud enough even for me to hear him, and I was up there on the horse.

  When Robert came in that evening, Miss Amma Dean told him what had happened. Robert started laughing. He wished he had been there. He didn’t know Rags still had that spunk. Did my eyes get big and white, did they go up and down in my head? Could Miss Amma Dean hear my teeth hitting together through the spy glasses? He wasn’t ever at home when all the good things happened.

  “And Timmy?” Miss Amma Dean said.

  “Jane’s not hurt,” Robert said.

  “She could ’a’ been hurt.”

  “Well, she’s not.”

  “Well, he can take his hat off,” Miss Amma Dean said.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Robert said. “But I wish I had seen it. When you going for another ride, Jane?”

  “Not with them ever,” I said.

  “That’s too bad,” he said.

  He didn’t say a word to Timmy. He knowed Timmy respected Miss Amma Dean. He knowed Timmy had to respect Miss Amma Dean just like he had to respect every white lady or white man. The other thing didn’t matter.

  Not long after that happened Timmy had his run-in with Tom Joe and had to leave home. Timmy and Tee Bob was riding in the field when the horse throwed Tee Bob and broke his arm. Tom Joe was walking ’cross the yard when Timmy brought Tee Bob home. He carried Tee Bob in the house himself, then he came back outside and asked Timmy what had happened. Timmy told him; he knocked Timmy down.

  He hated Timmy with all his might. Timmy got away with too much from that house up there. He knowed that Timmy was Robert Samson’s boy, and he hated the Samson in Timmy much as he hated the nigger in him. More, because it was the Samson blood in Timmy that made him so uppity. No, he didn’t hit Timmy for what had happened to Tee Bob. He hated Tee Bob much as he hated the rest of the Samsons. He knocked Timmy down because he knowed no white man in his right mind would ’a’ said he had done the wrong thing.

  Albert Walker and Cleon Simon was picking moss in the yard, and they stopped to see what was happening. They said when Timmy got up he said, “That’s enough, Tom Joe.” Tom said, “Call me Mister, nigger.” Timmy said, “I wouldn’t call white trash Mister if I was dying.” Tom swung at him again, and Timmy moved back. Tom swung again, and Timmy moved back again, and now he was grinning at Tom Joe because Tom Joe couldn’t hit him. Tom ran on him to throw him down, but Timmy brushed him to the side, and Tom Joe was the one who fell. When he got up he grabbed the pole out of Albert’s hand. He didn’t have to grab it, Albert was so scared of Tom Joe he practically handed him the pole. The people used to get moss out the trees with these long poles they used for thrashing pecan trees. You would stick the pole in a pile of moss up in the tree, then wind it round good, then pull it down. Tom Joe grabbed the pole out of Albert’s hand and struck Timmy with it. Instead of Albert and Cleon trying to help Timmy, Cleon started hollering for Miss Amma Dean to come out there and stop Tom Joe. Miss Amma Dean left me in there to look after Tee Bob and she ran out in the yard. I could hear her screaming at Tom Joe the moment she came out on the back gallery. She would have him run off the place, she would have him put in jail, put in the pen even. But her screaming at Tom Joe, threatening Tom Joe meant no more than threatening a fence post. That hatred for Timmy was too deep in him to stop now. And what white man would put him in jail or keep him in jail after what Timmy had let happen to Tee Bob? By the time Miss Amma Dean got out in the yard Timmy was bloody and unconscious. Tom Joe throwed the pole to the side and walked away. Miss Amma Dean had Albert to bring Timmy inside. And when the doctor came there to see after Tee Bob he had to look after both of them.

  Robert came home later that night and Miss Amma Dean told him what had happened. Tom Joe ought to be run off the place; no, put in jail. Robert told her he wasn’t go’n do either. You pinned medals on a white man when he beat a nigger for drawing back his hand. “Even a half nigger?” Miss Amma Dean said. “
There ain’t no such thing as a half nigger,” Robert said.

  A few days later Robert called Timmy to the house to give him some money and send him away. Timmy wanted to see Tee Bob before he left. Robert said Tee Bob was asleep. Timmy asked could he come back when he woke up. Robert told him no.

  When Tee Bob was able to ride again they got Claudee Ferdinand to ride with him. But it wasn’t the same. Tee Bob wanted Timmy. Timmy was his brother, and he wanted his brother there with him. He used to come back there in that kitchen every day and talk about Timmy. He could understand why Timmy had to saddle his horse, he could understand why Timmy had to ride behind him; but he couldn’t understand why Timmy had to leave home after a white man had beat him with a stick. I told him Timmy had to leave for his own safety. But he didn’t understand what I was saying. I told Miss Amma Dean to try to explain it to him. Then his uncle Clarence tried. After Clarence, his parrain, Jules Raynard, in Bayonne, tried to explain it to him. All of us tried except Robert. Robert thought he didn’t have to tell Tee Bob about these things. They was part of life, like the sun and the rain was part of life, and Tee Bob would learn them for himself when he got older. But Tee Bob never did. He killed himself before he learned how he was supposed to live in this world.

  Of Men and Rivers

  Timmy left here when? Let me think now, let me think. 1925 or ’26—because he was gone before the high water, and the high water was in ’27.

  When did Long come in? Long came in when? After the high water—yes. Before the high water we didn’t have school here at Samson. The children went to school in the Bottom or at Ned’s school up the road. Long came in after the high water and gived us free books for the first time. And that’s when they started teaching in the church here on the place. They had just built the church. They hadn’t even painted it, yet.