When we comes to Twelve Oaks, we gets greetin’s and greetin’s. Wilkeses’ stableboys hold our team while O’Haras descend into the fete. Frank Kennedy sparkin’ Suellen, so he help her down and ask can he fetch her somethin’ afore she can hardly draw breath. Master Gerald greetin’ Master John and Honey at she Poppa side actin’ lady of Twelve Oaks. O’Hara girls cooin’ and babblin’ like they do, ’cept Miss Scarlett be holdin’ back ’count she Miss Scarlett.
Twelve Oaks grandest house in the county. It got columns. It ain’t got front porch like Tara got, Twelve Oaks got “veranda.” Twelve Oaks even got curved staircase, though not so fine as Jehu’s. Rose smells from the garden mix with cookin’ from the barbecue out back.
Man half in shadow on the veranda. He apart. Ain’t from here. Black-haired man considerin’ Miss Scarlett. Not makin’ no move or nothin’, just considerin’! I don’t need ask is he dangerous. First time you hear canebrake rattler shake he tail you know he dangerous!
It like sun slip behind a cloud and our gaiety nothin’ but playactin’. Somebody steppin’ ’cross my grave.
Enough of that! I goes round back where coloreds cookin’ barbecue and fixin’s. Picnic tables set under shade trees, and Pork and Mose layin’ out silver. Big Sam, he sweatin’ at the barbecue pit. Big Sam notorious for barbecue.
Ain’t just Masters and Mistress got have deportment. Barbecue got have deportment too. Barbecue got be open air, no sittin’ in no stuffy dining room. Barbecue smoke get in ladies’ hair so they smell of it, and whiskey and wine hid behind boxwood hedge so Baptists can pretend they ain’t none. You got have too much barbecue so everybody eat more’n they should, beat biscuits, dandelion and poke greens for white folks, chitlins, hocks, and yams for coloreds. Colored tables far enough from white tables so coloreds ain’t overhearin’ but near enough to jump up when they called.
Able Wynder’s hams got deportment. Them hogs in the woods grazin’ on acorn till fall, when nights cold. When hogs killed they steamed and scraped, blood and liver sausages made that day, and chitlins scrubbed and brined. Hams take they cure for ten days afore they can enter smokehouse. They rotated every day so they don’t settle to one side or t’other, and fire never ’lowed get so hot you can’t pass your hand twixt fire and ham. Hams smoked not burnt. Two months they smoked. Then they hang in cool dark meat house to collect theyselves. We eatin’ hams smoked last fall, afore Lincoln was elected and South Carolina secede and Young Masters goin’ to war. These hams got history in ’em. These hams what am!
They’s birthday barbecues and baptism barbecues and funeral barbecues. Today was Ashley Wilkes birthday barbecue and he engagement barbecue. Melanie Hamilton engage to marry Ashley Wilkes. They sits a little apart. He perch on milkin’ stool at her feet. They smilin’ like they was Adam and Eve, onliest people in the world.
Sometimes I remember how that felt, but mostly I doesn’t. Some things is for young folks feel and old folks regret. Sometimes I wonder how I comes to be here. Sometimes I thinks I s’posed be somewheres else.
When white folks has all they wants, coloreds set down. Rosa and Toby has armchair for me at head of colored table. Mose on my right hand, Pork on my left, Big Sam aside him. Jeems sittin’ in the grass at our feets. We talkin’ ’bout this and that and I ask about black-haired man who is done ate and is smokin’ cigar with Master John.
Mose say man comes with Frank Kennedy. Dark-haired man doin’ business with Master Frank, buyin’ every bale cotton Frank Kennedy gots to sell. “Master Butler say we goin’ to war. Federals gonna blockade us. So what cotton gonna get sold to England best go while the gettin’ good.”
“Butler?” I whisper.
“Master Rhett Butler,” Pork say.
“Where he call home?”
Pork say, “Charleston. He family got plantation on the Ashley River.”
Sun go behind a cloud again and this time don’t come out. It like I been struck. Pork and Mose don’t pay no mind, but Jeems ask do I want some tea, some springwater?
Pork and Mose happy talk about black-haired man ’count he scandalous! He business shine a red lamp in front window and respectable men slip up the back stairs do their buyin’ and sellin’. Black-haired man been to Yankeeland so much it like he Yankee heownself. He got bastard son in New Orleans . . .
I lays down my fork. I drinks springwater. Swallowin’ hurt. Black-haired man, he stay out all night with a young girl, and when she brother challenge him, he shoot brother dead.
Everything spinnin’ round. Jeems ask is I all right.
“Course I is!”
Frank Kennedy know this scandal but do business with the man?
Pork say, “Master Kennedy telegram bank. Butler credit good.” Pork pause. “Might be he gentleman, but he ain’t no Savannah gentleman.”
Jeems say barbecue best he ever ate.
Mose say, “Same like always.”
Rhett Butler is that boy baby born with the caul in he fist. Smell of roastin’ meat so rich and thick it choke me. I gets up sudden and Pork ask whyfor, but I beeline to the necessary and lose all I ate.
When I comes out, Dilcey gives me damp rag, which I wipes my sweaty forehead. Dilcey and me gonna get along. I drinks water and spits and wipes my mouth too.
When I sets again I angles my chair so I can watch Butler, who am watchin’ Miss Scarlett, who am queen bee in a bee swarm, all them men and boys buzzin’ round her. I watchin’ Butler and he watchin’ Miss Scarlett and—I gots be mistook! Gots to be!—she can’t be watchin’ Master Ashley! But she am!
My head spinnin’. All my griefs alive and writhin’ in my head and Miss Scarlett peekin’ at Master Ashley and I been mistook ’bout that too. Mammy ain’t s’posed be mistook! Nobody noticin’ what Miss Scarlett up to but me and that Butler and might be Master Ashley, though he give no sign he payin’ mind to aryone ’ceptin’ Miss Melanie. Oh, he adorin’ her! And Miss Scarlett, she signalin’ she who he ought be adorin’ ’count, look! how many other mens at her feets!
I never knowed. I figured they like brother and sister, I never thought Miss Scarlett want Master Ashley. They unlike. They unlike as Up-country and Paris, France!
Butler, he feel my eye on him and he turn and smile and raise one of he eyebrows, like we in this together, like him and me only ones knows what goin’ on. He ain’t all high-and-mighty, no; he eyes laughin’. I drops my gaze.
After a time, white folks done eatin’ and men smokin’ they cigars. Master Wilkes take Miss Melanie plate. Miss Melanie feel my eye and smile at me like we is kin, which we ain’t. Coloreds stirrin’, pickin’ up plates, fetchin’ wine or whiskey to gentlemens and second desserts to them what wants ’em.
Somebody say somethin’ political, primin’ that pump. Womens groan and hurry up leavin’ while mens flock together like dogs wantin’ to fight. Pork keeps on tellin’ more’n I wants know ’bout Rhett Butler. How he daddy important man, how he daddy disown him. Oh, Pork, I know everything I got to know ’bout them Butlers!
Jeems pipes up, “Master Stuart don’t care for Master Rhett. Stuart say Master Rhett thinks too high of heself. Stuart thinkin’ to try him!”
I wearied to death of mens, all they struttin’ and paradin’! Who biggest! Who got more money! Who got big house! Who other men bows afore! I sick to death of mens!
Rhett Butler start talkin’, and I thinkin’ might be Stuart get he chance try him. Clayton County mens of one mind ’bout this war: they’s bound to fight and they’s bound to win. Them which had doubts done chewed ’em up and swallowed. Ain’t no doubts ’lowed here!
But this Rhett Butler, who ain’t got no good name and no friends nor Up-country kin, he sayin’ they gonna get whupped by Yankees and they’s too root-hog ignorant to know it!
Stuart ain’t the only one get his back up. They grumblin’ and murmurin’ and spittin’ they tobacc
o juice like ’twere into Butler eye.
Just need one more word. They beggin’ for that one word so’s this be affair of honor. They achin’ for it.
Butler stop short, one scant word short. That the cruelest thing he done that day. Master John goes to him, and they talk quiet like there ain’t a score of men bristlin’ and wantin’ kill somebody. Them two walk to the house like best of friends! So that be that. Nobody cross Master John at his son engagement party. Stuart say, loud enough others can hear, “I ’spect we’ll meet Mr. Butler again someday.” They’s nods agreein’ to that.
So menfolks leavin’ and coloreds cleanin’ up and women in the house restin’ for the dancin’ later in the evenin’.
Though I ought be up and doin’, I can’t raise out my chair. Coloreds movin’ round quiet, and the green day flickerin’ like when sunlight tickle Flint River. Under that bright river I sees Miss Scarlett and Rhett Butler; they’s standin’ front a coffin so small gots be a child. They side by side but ain’t together and ain’t holdin’ hands. Sun bounce that water, and he and she gallopin’ a buggy through city streets with houses and buildings and everything burnin’ round ’em. Dilcey sayin’, “Mammy . . . ?”
I sayin’, “I fine,” and squeeze my eyes so tight I squeezin’ them spirits right out of ’em. I does not want know! I does not. Le Bon Dieu help me!
Dilcey croonin’ and wipin’ my forehead like Momma with child, and almost I lets her do it, it been so long . . .
I opens my eyes. “I take a drink of water,” I say, and she bring it.
Benches stacked. Chairs atop each other, big pots and platters and long tongs washed and spread on grass to dry. What white folks do ’thout us? How they plant and hoe and pick they crops and have they kitchens and they barbecues ’thout they coloreds?
Folks restin’ up. The O’Haras in Honey Wilkes’s bedroom, girls’ ball gowns hangin’ on door of the chifforobe, Carreen and Suellen curled up on the floor and Master Gerald in the sleigh bed. He smile a question when I looks in, but I nod like I got important business needin’ done and he sink back into he pillow.
Miss Scarlett ain’t in yard nor veranda, and nobody in the kitchen but Wilkeses’ cook snorin’ in she chair. I rememberin’ Miss Katie on that Beelzebub, girl’s hair tuck under she cap, wantin’ so fierce to race, to beat all them mens, and I fears for her then and I fears for her now. I Miss Scarlett Mammy! I she Mammy!
I comin’ down hall when I hear Scarlett cry out mad and hurt. Cry raise hairs on my head.
Master Ashley fly out library like a man escapin’ jail. He don’t see me or nothin’ else. He still am where he just been.
The silence am so loud I hears sunlight tappin’ dust motes. Then there a nasty crash come from library like somethin’ broken. My heart comin’ out my breast. Devil been busy today. I hears two voices talkin’ but can’t make out what they sayin’.
Next, Scarlett burst out same like Master Ashley and her face white and ragin’. After her like dog after rabbit am a man’s mockin’ laughter. Scarlett so raged she pass by me without signifyin’, though I can touch her if I wants. Everything get still again. Hall clock deliverin’ it seconds and minutes and years.
I hears match scratch. Man hummin’ to heownself. I smells cigar.
Despite myself I drawn into that room.
All the walls am books. Books over windows and under ’em. Red books and black books and green books and blue. Books on tables aside the couch and chair where Rhett Butler smokin’ he cigar. Them what’s seen Lucifer say he beautiful. He hair black as moonless night, eyes laughin’ when he mouth not. Like a cat, he ripplin’ and sly. Like Beelzebub, he kill you afore he let ary man ride him.
I kneels to collect dish what broke. Rhett Butler considerin’ what he considerin’. I ain’t nothin’ to him: fat old colored servant pickin’ up the leavin’s.
I collect little broke pieces in the corner and behind the chair and along the baseboard. Ain’t never gonna be glued. Never be whole no more. All but one Miss Solange’s blue teacups broke too.
I brush broke pieces into my apron and gets on my feet and waits until he notice me.
He smile puzzled but ’tain’t unkind.
“Master Butler,” I says to him, “your Papa hanged my husband.”
That snatch him back from whatever he considerin’. He eyes harden and he see me like I ain’t often seed.
He hold my eyes fast, but I has told truth, so after a time he let air out in a little puff and say, “My father has fewer compunctions than most.”
Whatever a compunction am, Langston Butler surely ain’t got none.
I gots so much to say I can’t hardly speak. “I seed you.”
Master Butler say, “I can’t say I’m delighted. As a rule, I’d rather not be seen. As you may know, one thrives on underestimation.”
Once I puzzle that out, I nods. I sees him and he sees me. Lord, how I wants weep! I ain’t can’t do nothin’ with this man, no more’n with Miss Scarlett.
“I regret your loss,” he say like he means it.
He smile at me, like he don’t mean none of the harm he and Miss Scarlett gonna do ’count lovin’ each other. I don’t tell him what I knows am comin’.
I take the broken crockery out of Master John’s library to the yard to throw it away. I goin’ upstairs then, walkin’ slow like the old, fat nigger I has come to be.
Ki Kote Pitit-la?
HURRICANO DO WHAT it got to and goes out to sea. All them boys and girls wants to wed been wed and boys what goin’ to war gone.
Dice am throwed!
After Twelve Oaks barbecue, Master Charles Hamilton decide he don’t love Miss Honey Wilkes much as he love Miss Scarlett O’Hara, which ain’t no kind of news, but Miss Scarlett sayin’ yes make everybody jaw drop!
Most folks believin’ she marryin’ ’count young gentlemens goin’ to war so young girls hurry-up marryin’ ’em.
I don’t ’spose that so. Miss Scarlett don’t pretend she care ’bout no war or brave young gentlemen or ary that. She never once done arything ’less somethin’ in it for Miss Scarlett!
Same day as barbecue, same day I meets Master Rhett Butler, President Lincoln proclaim to them Southern states which ain’t seceded they got to provide troops to attack them states what has. Up-country folks got kin all through the South, and if they was havin’ trouble makin’ up their mind ’bout fightin’, they mind made up now.
War have found us. Roadsides bright with redbuds and locust bloomin’, cattle grazin’, hogs eatin’ they slops, milk cows mooin’ when need be milked, old folks complainin’, boys and girls fallin’ in love, but everything different now. War have found us.
Tara in a tizzy ’bout Miss Scarlett wed. Even Miss Ellen don’t know what to do. Confusion makes her forget what she tryin’ say, and she droppin’ things. Miss Scarlett wed wearin’ Miss Ellen wedding dress. When she come downstairs on her Papa arm, I sheds a tear. I ain’t Katie Scarlett O’Hara’s Mammy no more.
That night I helps her undress and I snuffs candles afore Charles comes in. I go downstairs feelin’ like Scarlett be sacrifice to what or who I doesn’t know.
Plain to see Master Charles happy and grateful he wedded husband, but Miss Scarlett dazed. Ain’t first time bride dazed discoverin’ why girls ride sidesaddle, so I don’t think much ’bout that.
Master Ashley and Miss Melanie marries too.
Them boys go to war figurin’ they be home afore summer’s out, and everybody at Jonesboro depot see ’em off. Twelve Oaks and Tara and Fairhill, everybody. So much mist minglin’ with smoke over young men train, I scarce can look at ’em.
After they gone, Scarlett mopes round the house for days and days. Miss Ellen thinks she miss Charles too much and all the time brewin’ her sassafras tea. I asks Miss Scarlett what she dreamin’ ’bout. She dream ’b
out fish mean she carryin’ Charles’s child.
Since Master Gerald dismiss Overseer, he overseein’ Tara heownself. Field hands don’t got work so hard but gets more done when Master Gerald oversee. Master Gerald gloomy ’count of the war and don’t put he work down till dark and never ride over to Twelve Oaks no more. Suellen and Carreen and Honey and India gets together to knit socks for soldiers.
Everybody holdin’ they breath. Old world gone, new world ain’t got here yet. Look to be a hard birthin’. Hot and damp for early in the summer and hard to catch breath. Birds quit singin’ afore dew off the grass, and hummingbirds trudgin’ from flower to flower.
I’m takin’ my ease on the porch with glass of water when Miss Ellen comes out. “Don’t leave, Mammy. Please.”
So I sits back down. Miss Ellen ask where the girls, and I say they off to Twelve Oaks. Miss Scarlett goin’ with ’em.
“It’s good Scarlett is getting out of the house. She seems so unhappy.”
“Yes’m.”
Miss Ellen sigh. “Poor child. Bride for just one week before his duty takes her husband away.”
I don’t got to say nothin’ ’count Rosa bring out a tray with a white teapot and Miss Ellen blue teacup. Miss Ellen keep blue cup in withdrawing room glass cabinet, and nobody ’cept her drinks from it.
“Scarlett is Mr. O’Hara’s favorite,” Miss Ellen say.
“Yes’m.”
“The last of my mother’s cups.” She hold it to the light. “I’d so hate to lose it.”
“You Momma had them cups in Saint-Domingue. She and Captain Fornier brought ’em from France.”
“How old were you?”
“I dunno. Didn’t have no birthdays on Saint-Domingue.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“Ki kote pitit-la?”
“French?”
“Creole. My mother played a game with me. I don’t speak no Creole no more.”
“Your mother . . .”
“Don’t remember her. Just that she played a game.”
Ruth’s Journey Page 34