Professor Taylor was released on his own recognizance. But he refused to spend another night under the same roof with his wife and packed his valise and left. She didn’t know where he went, and she told herself she didn’t care.
Fearful of the story creating a scandal, reflecting on the college, the magistrate postponed the hearing. But the story leaked out and created a scandal after all.
Mrs. Taylor went about with a tight mouth and a strained frightening look in her eyes. The children were afraid of her. Tom was too ashamed to go to school. She let him stay home that day, but the next she packed him off.
Meanwhile she sent telegrams to her sisters and brothers in the South, asking them for money so she could leave her husband. But they were loath to interfere in a family quarrel. They didn’t want to be accused of encouraging her to leave her husband. Nor did they want the responsibility of her and the children. Had she shown up with the children they would have taken her in; but they wouldn’t send her money to leave. She had no money of her own. She felt trapped and abandoned. But her determination to make her husband suffer hardened all the more because of it.
Soon the scandal grew to such proportions the college president had to take a hand. He persuaded Mrs. Taylor to withdraw her charge, and advised Professor Taylor to return home. They worked out a truce. For the sake of the children she would live with him, but never again as his wife. He moved into the room with Tom. She spoke to him only when necessary. The atmosphere was charged with strife and dissension and the children lived in constant fear. She worried about them and tried to act natural when they were about. But she hated her husband with such deadly fury, more for the allusion to her parents than for his striking her, that she was always on edge. How dare he cast slurs on her parents, she thought. He wasn’t good enough to mention their names.
Again they became ostracized. There was no choice left Professor Taylor but to resign and seek another post. When the school term ended they prepared to leave. He hadn’t told her when they were going and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking. Rarely did she even look at him.
He left a week in advance to prepare their house. She engaged a crew of warehousemen and supervised the packing, all the while unaware of their destination. Not until she received his letter, containing the tickets and instructions for freighting the furniture, did she learn his position was in Mississippi. Had she possessed the means to support her children she would have refused to go. But she had no choice. Closing her mouth in a grim tight line, she prepared to leave. He had won this time, but her time would come. She would put up with him until she could get away. She wouldn’t let him have the children. Where the children went, she would go.
4
IT WAS DUSK OF A long spring day when they finally arrived at the railroad station where Professor Taylor was to meet them. The train pulled to a stop beside a dilapidated wooden platform. Mrs. Taylor and the children peered through the windows.
Across a level patch of yellow mud stood a false-fronted general store. In lieu of a porch there were two wooden benches on which sat several long-haired white men, clad in faded and patched blue denim overalls, leaning back against the wall. They sat slumped in an indolent mobility, their faces rock red in the strange yellow light, still eyes staring balefully at the resting train, like figures of a long forgotten race carved by a demented sculptor in bas-relief. Two rickety wagons with teams of bony mules, both mules and wagons caught, it seemed, in attitudes of utter lethargy, were hitched to the slanting posts. A single hack with a team of fat gray mules, incongruous with the surrounding scene, was tied to the station platform.
There was no sign of her husband. Her heart sank. At that moment she felt as close to defeat as she ever had. Slowly she began collecting their luggage.
The brakeman came into the Jim-Crow coach to hurry them. And suddenly Professor Taylor was there, smiling at the brakeman to soothe his feelings, and trying to quiet Mrs. Taylor’s alarms.
“Now, honey, now, honey, just let me handle things.”
The baby boys rushed up and hugged him about the legs.
“My boys, my boys,” he said, patting them fondly on their heads and lifting each in turn to kiss him. “My little boys.”
They had been frightened but now they were reassured.
The brakeman recognized him as one of the teachers from the Negro college by the fact he wore a suit with a collar and tie. “Thass all right, fess,” he said indulgently.
Professor Taylor shook hands with Tom, patting him on the shoulder. And then he turned after an instant of hesitation and kissed his wife. At that moment Mrs. Taylor wanted him to kiss her. She had been without sleep for two days and was exhausted and dispirited. If only for the moment, she had to put her trust in him; she couldn’t carry on without help any longer.
In a short time he had them off the train. Tom helped with the luggage. The brakeman waved. The train began to move. They piled the luggage in the hack. Across the street the row of lookers moved, leaned forward, but only the ears of the drooping mules flickered with brief life.
The hack contained three hard wooden seats, one behind the other, covered by a crude wooden top. Professor Taylor sat in the front seat, flanked by the two baby boys, while Mrs. Taylor and Tom sat behind. He picked up the reins and flipped them lightly across the dull gray backs of the mules. The team turned in the dirt square and headed away from town.
Beside the road were fields of corn already at full height, like rows of dark green sentinels in the soft dusk. No one spoke. They could hear the gentle rustle of the cornstalks in the faint breeze. Beyond a grove of white pines a purple-orange cloud hung in the darkening sky. It had rained recently and the hoofs of the mules made suction sounds in the muddy road. The iron-tired wheels swished faintly in the mud.
An atmosphere of serenity enveloped them. Mrs. Taylor dozed, too tired to take notice. Tom stared about him with bewilderment. He felt a vague sense of foreboding. William was soothed by the peaceful scene. But Charles was enthralled. The strange quiet beauty of the long green fields drew him into a state of enchantment. He loved each new sight passionately, the smell of the mud and the mules, the pine spires in the purple sky, the softly sighing corn. It was as tangible and friendly and as wonderful to him as his mother’s breast.
The road turned and crossed a stream, the iron tires rattling the loose boards. Then slowly, at first imperceptibly, the road began to sink. The countryside rose higher; corn gave way to green rows of cotton; the banks closed in and the road became narrower. Soon the bank was as high as their heads, and then it was over the top of the hack, cutting off the light. They moved like a boat down a shallow river of darkness beneath a narrow roof of fading twilight. As the road deepened, roots of huge trees sprang naked from the banks like horrible reptilian monsters. Now high overhead the narrow strip of purple sky turned slowly black, and it became black-dark in the deep sunken road.
The mules moved down the tunnel of darkness with sure-footed confidence as if they had eyes for the night. They knew the road home. Professor Taylor tied the reins to the dashboard and gave them their head. It was so dark he couldn’t see his hand before his eyes. The black sky was starless. As they moved along the old sunken road the dense odor of earth and stagnation and rotting underbrush and age reached out from the banks and smothered them. It was a lush, clogging odor compounded of rotten vegetation, horse manure, poisonous nightshades and unchanged years. Soldiers of the Confederacy had walked this road on such a night following the fall of Vicksburg, heading for the nearby canebrakes.
The little children huddled fearfully against their father. Even Mrs. Taylor was frightened by the unrelieved darkness. Nearby an owl hooted. She gave a start. She felt as if they were coming to the end of the earth. In the distance a hound howled, the long lonesome sound hanging endlessly in the thick night. The road was like a canyon deep in the bowels of the earth, away from all life.
Finally the little children went to sleep. Tom nodded besi
de his mother. Professor Taylor talked desultorily, but Mrs. Taylor did not reply. She held herself rigid against the surrounding phantoms. After what seemed an eternity the road came again to the surface of the countryside and the landscape stretched out in a faint visibility. But it yielded only vague silhouettes.
They arrived at the college in the dark. The children were sleeping. They stopped before a white picket fence. Beyond, in the shadows, stood the dim outline of a two-storied house. Professor Taylor lifted down the tots. They awakened and whimpered in the strange darkness. Tom jumped to the ground and helped his mother to alight. They went in a group up the uneven walk and entered the strange house.
A fire burned low in the front living room. Their own furniture had not arrived and the room looked huge with its few pieces of homemade furniture. Mrs. Taylor went into the kitchen to warm some food for the children. But the old wood-burning stove was cold. Professor Taylor offered to build a fire, but she declined.
He went after the luggage. And then he had to return the hack and team to the college stables and walk the mile home in the dark. In the meantime she gave the children cold milk and took them up to bed. There were four bedrooms upstairs, barrenly furnished with old iron be straw mattresses and crude pine stands, each holding a pitcher of water and a washbasin. It was a cheerless reception. She felt that Professor Taylor should have had someone there to look after things. Without waiting for him she selected a room and went to bed, trying to stave off thoughts of tomorrow. She knew it would take all of her resources to cope with this frightening wilderness.
Professor Taylor returned to the darkened house to find all of them in bed. He was disappointed. He had hoped for a moment to talk with his wife and reach some kind of reconciliation. For a long time he stood in the darkness of the living room before the dying fire. It was oppressively hot. He’d built it to add cheerfulness to the barren house, not because it was needed in the hot Mississippi night. But it had been the wrong thing. He should have built a kitchen fire. Finally he went upstairs and entered the empty room. His wife could have her own room if that was the way she wanted it. At least he had his sons.
In her own room down the hall she heard him moving about. She was frightened and lonely. Had he come to her then she would have welcomed him. She needed him then. Her spirit was at its lowest ebb. She needed a husband to give her strength.
But the bright sunshine of a new day streaming through the curtainless windows across her bed made quite a difference. Even at that early hour she felt its heat penetrating her skin like rays of energy. New life came into her weary bones; her spirits lifted. She heard the children yelling downstairs, and screeching excitedly in an orgy of discovery. She arose and washed in the basin. Then she dressed and went down to the primitive kitchen to prepare their breakfast. A fire was burning hotly and the grits were already cooking. A shy, young, very black girl was setting the table. At Mrs. Taylor’s entry she looked up and smiled. She had the long beautiful face with the full mouth, sloe eyes and classical symmetry of the pure African.
“Good mawnin’, Miz Taylor. Fess Taylor got me tuh come in an’ hep. Ah woulda been heah las’ night but Ah din know when y’all wuz comin’.” Her voice was soft and melodic, humming-like, almost as if she was singing the words. Her large, strong hands with the long, spatulate fingers moved slightly in a gesture of reassurance, as if she knew what the older woman was experiencing and wished to comfort her. “You jes tell me w’ut you want done. Mah name is Lizzie,” she added.
“Good morning, Lizzie,” Mrs. Taylor greeted in her light, precise voice, but it was warm with pleasure and she smiled gratefully. “I’m so happy you came.” She turned toward the stove. “What are you preparing?”
“Fess Taylor thought you mout lak some grits an’ bacon. He got some new cane ‘lasses he thought the boys mout lak.”
Mrs. Taylor looked at the huge, thick slabs of side meat just beginning to sizzle in the skillet. “Do we have any cereal and milk? The children have cereal with their breakfast. And it would be nice if we had some fruit.”
“Yessum, Ah forgot,” Lizzie said, getting down a large box of corn flakes and a pitcher of milk. “Fess Taylor bought these ‘specially for them.” And then she fetched a bowl of fresh strawberries from the storeroom on the back porch. “Ah picked these ‘specially for you,” she said shyly.
Tears brimmed in Mrs. Taylor’s eyes. She put her arms about the girl and hugged her spontaneously.
Although the windows and door were opened, the heat from the wood-burning stove was stifling. Mrs. Taylor stood for a moment in the window. Flies buzzed outside the screen, drawn by the smell of frying.
The backyard was a barren square of baked clay with here and there a thistle weed and tufts of Johnson grass. Beyond was a wire-enclosed chicken coop beside a row of wooden sheds. She recognized the outhouse by the half-moons in the doors. On the other side was a fieldstone circle of the top of a well with a bucket and pulley attached. She wondered if they got their water there. Several fat, lazy Plymouth Rock hens were busy burrowing dust holes in the hard, baked dirt.
Behind the yard was a field sloping down to a point some distance away where a tall tree stood. Later she was to learn it was a pecan tree from which pecks of the fat greasy nuts were gathered in the fall. A man was plowing in the field and her two younger children ran along behind him, barefooted in the turned furrow.
She withdrew from the window and stepped out onto the screened back porch. On the other side, she found a pump and cistern and breathed relief. While Lizzie was finishing breakfast she inspected the rest of the house. Across the front were two large, identical rooms, separated by the center hallway which led back to the kitchen, each containing a fireplace. The flues had openings in the above bedrooms for winter stoves.
A porch extended across the front of the house. Except for the entrance, it was completely enclosed by morning-glory and honeysuckle vines in full bloom. Rambling bushes ran along the eaves and wandered up and down the ceiling posts. Bees were at the flowers, making a droning sound, and several hummingbirds darted in and out. At one end of the porch was a low, wide swing. It was cool out there and very pleasant in the morning. She went over and sat in the swing and rocked gently back and forth.
The front lawn had been cut and the fence recently painted but already the sun was browning out the grass. Stunted rosebushes grew as wild as weeds. At the corner of the porch was a fig tree with branches up over the roof. Beside the brick walk was an umbrella tree.
The house sat on high brick pillars because of the uneven ground, but the vines screened the opening underneath. Tom and his father came from beneath the house. Mrs. Taylor was startled by their sudden appearance.
“Call the boys,” she directed Tom. “Breakfast is ready.”
He ran off toward the field.
Professor Taylor came up on the porch and sat down beside her in the swing. “Well, honey?” he asked tentatively.
She looked beyond the picket fence at the baked clay road down which a wagon drawn by two ancient mules came slowly into sight. “It’s a comedown,” she said.
“You haven’t seen it all yet, honey.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
There were freshly plowed fields on both sides, separating them from their nearest neighbors. “The boys’ll have more room to grow up in, honey. In a few years we can build a new house.”
She arose to go to breakfast, ‘it’s your choice,” she said unforgivingly. “I’ll make the best of it.”
But as she walked back through the empty house she knew she had her work cut out. He followed humbly, a little uncertainly. The children were already eating their cereal with relish, hurrying to be finished and away again. Their eyes were bright with excitement. She looked at their bare dusty feet and sighed.
5
THE COLLEGE HAD ORIGINALLY been built for white students. But some years past, through a political deal, it had been turned over to Negroes. Traces of its former charm still remained
.
The original buildings had formed a horseshoe about a spacious campus of shade trees dotting a level lawn. They were built of bricks and adorned by the tremendous, two-storied verandas supported by tall marble pillars which had become the architectural landmark of the old South.
At the curve of the horseshoe, overlooking the campus, stood College Hall with its thirty-three marble steps, then in bad decay, ascending to its pillared veranda. A beautifully designed wrought-iron railing, which had been imported from Italy, enclosed the staircase, and some of the original stained-glass windows still remained in the assembly hall, where now the church services were held.
To one side was the president’s residence, a large white colonial structure with landscaped lawn and flower garden. The architect who designed this house never dreamed that a Negro would once inherit it.
Beyond was a huge wooden building containing the girls’ dormitory and domestic science school, its latticed outhouse extending like a tail behind. Further on were two of the old brick buildings and then several residences for the faculty members. At the edge of the college grounds the dirt road diverged from the horseshoe, climbed a short steep hill, and meandered for fifteen miles through cotton fields and cane brakes to Port Gibson on the Mississippi River.
Across the campus from College Hall was the flat one-storied frame mess hall; and behind it the powerhouse, waterworks, icehouse and laundry.
To the other side of College Hall were four of the original old brick buildings, verandas and all, housing classrooms and the men’s dormitories. Then came a two-storied frame structure with blistered paint which served jointly as the hospital and science building. And beyond were the doctor’s residence and several small frame shacks incidental needs.
The Third Generation Page 5