Ruth's Journey: The Authorized Novel of Mammy From Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind

by Donald McCaig

  Wilkeses comes from Virginia, which was higher’n comin’ from anywheres else, and Wilkeses got a rose garden and schoolin’. Master John Wilkes smilin’ and nice as a summer breeze but mostly he don’t say nothin’. Like he house: he big and quiet and got too much money ever talk ’bout it. He don’t chew no tobacco nor spit. He horses might jump a fence if he ask ’em but generally he don’t. He speak so soft other Masters drops they voices. When he tell a joke he doin’ everybody a favor.

  Master John got more deportment than arybody ’cept Miss Ellen. Other planters looks up to Master John and want to know how he do things. Even Master Gerald ask, though most times Master Gerald do what he was gonna do anyway. Mistress Eleanor Wilkes pretty but got fast nerves. ’Twere Miss Eleanor ’splained Up-country deportment. Up-country, Miss Eleanor tell Miss Ellen, is “vital,” meanin’, I ’spose, Miss Eleanor be apologizin’ for Up-country when she visit Boston or New York.

  Twelve Oaks got a room for books and nothin’ else in it!

  Young Master Ashley Wilkes already got near as much deportment as he father. Young Master Ashley go with Master John to cotton sales and racetrack and barbecues and Georgia legislature, but Young Master ain’t altogether present. Young Master Ashley more like spirit than young man! When them other boys huntin’ or fishin’ or ridin’ or fightin’, Ashley Wilkes readin’ he books. He findin’ everything he need in them books!

  Soon as Miss Ellen at Tara Plantation, Up-country folk calls to meet wife Master Gerald catched in Savannah. Pork serves ’em whiskey and I serves ’em tea or cool water or sassafras drink, but nobody get past front porch, which is where all visitin’ done. Miss Ellen don’t allow nobody set foot inside Tara House. Master Gerald peeved. I ’spect the first man and wife disagreement them two had was whether folks come inside Miss Ellen’s house afore she get it ready or whether Tara still Master Gerald’s house, where folks come in any old time they wants and don’t wipe they boots. Naturally Miss Ellen gets her way.

  Tara Plantation Master Gerald’s delight. He take Miss Ellen round showin’ her everything. He show red fields waitin’ be planted and he show her cotton press and ’splain how new screw he bought in Savannah be better’n old screw, and Master Gerald cuss Big Sam for not bein’ here yet, though Sam can’t hardly be ’count we come on the train and Big Sam comin’ with wagons. Master Gerald ’pologize for cussin’.

  Master Gerald show Miss Ellen cow barn and horse barn and milkhouse. He brag on Tara spring, which am “sweetest spring this side of Limerick,” which am in Ireland. Miss Ellen says, “How wonderful!” and “You have done so much in such a short time.” And Master Gerald swells like one of them hog bladders children blow up at Christmastime.

  Suppers is grits and burnt greens and fatback. Miss Ellen don’t say nothin’, but it don’t get past her.

  Miss Ellen perk up when Master Gerald takes her into little office off the hall. He point to heaps of papers, callin’ ’em “plantation records.” Miss Ellen itchin’ get her hands on them records I can tell.

  Overseer big boots come thumpin’ down the hall and he crowd into office without no by-your-leave. ’Cept for removin’ he hat, he take no notice of Miss Ellen.

  Overseer got field hands clearin’ a field in the woods beside Tarleton Plantation, and most stumps pulled out and burned up. He got hands readyin’ horse tack for plantin’, and didn’t Master Gerald buy new three-piece plow? How his ignorant field hands gonna understand new plow?

  Master Gerald laugh and say if he can understand it, anyone can. Overseer bite his lip and ask what was wrong with old plow and Mister Gerald ain’t so friendly as he been and he say how we all got to make changes for more cotton production and keep wire grass down, which he has seen greenin’ in some fields which wasn’t greenin’ afore he went Savannah. Master Gerald don’t say as how Overseer should have hoed wire grass, but that what he’s meanin’. Master Gerald like to laugh and act the fool and get red face ’bout what don’t matter a hill of beans, but when things do matter and Master Gerald get that Irish look in he eye, best jump.

  Overseer Wilkerson say he hoein’ wire grass and hoein’ be finished directly. He say a field hand, Prophet, too sick to work so he borrows Dilcey from Twelve Oaks. Dilcey give Prophet potions so he be workin’ tomorrow. Overseer Wilkerson catch Phillip stealin’ ham hocks out the meat house. Phillip pry up a board and put it back after he comes out, so no tellin’ how long he been stealin’, probably afore Master Gerald left for Savannah. Overseer would have whipped Phillip but Master Gerald home now.

  Master Gerald don’t want whip nobody, and Miss Ellen she lookin’ at him like he best not. Master Gerald ask why Phillip stealin’ from meat house if he got enough to eat.

  Overseer fidget and say all coloreds thieves. Can’t naturally help theyselves.

  I’m thinkin’ Overseer cut rations so he can sell what the coloreds ’sposed to eat. All overseers thieves. Just can’t help theyselves.

  Might be Master Gerald think so too ’cause he tell Overseer fix board in meat house and leave Phillip to him. Phillip got slow wits but he a good cowman. Cows come in like dogs when Phillip call.

  Overseer Wilkerson say he got bills discuss with Master Gerald, intendin’ Miss Ellen and me to leave. Master Gerald harrumph and tell him Mistress Ellen doin’ Tara accounts henceforth.

  Mistress Ellen smile and say Overseer bring bills and receipts to her. Henceforth.

  Overseer don’t favor that.

  Miss Ellen say she’s glad to take on some of Mr. O’Hara’s burden and how Overseer Wilkerson gonna find her easy to work with which we all knows ain’t gonna be so.

  So Miss Ellen, she Tara Mistress, and Overseer got no more to say. Henceforth.

  Miss Ellen, she ain’t lyin’ ’bout carryin’ her share. Three days her and me goes through that house top to bottom, pokin’ into nooks and crannies which rats know better’n Tara housemaids.

  It a fortnight and a day afore Big Sam gets house servants to Tara. Miss Ellen look ’em over good and is they well and do arybody teeth hurt? She take ’em to the little whitewashed cabins in the Quarters, where they gonna live, and ’splain they get their rations end of every day ’cept Sunday ’count they get two days’ rations Saturday night. Tara wagon leave for Leaksville Baptist Church Sundays at nine, and after they come home they can tend they own gardens and such. Miss Ellen say, “Mammy will answer your questions,” and make herself scarce.

  Them Savannah niggers distress. Roads rough, they didn’t like sleepin’ out, didn’t care for they food, and don’t like no Up-country, which ain’t civilize. Where our market? they ask. Coloreds got to have a church and a market. They ’feared of Indians and snakes and bears. I say I ain’t seen none. They say this ain’t Savannah, and I say any fool can see that. Two womens sold away from they husbands, so I say there’s nothin’ arybody do ’bout that. Get yourself ’nother husband you want one. Young gal starts cryin’, so I ask how foolishness make ary things better. Can’t undo what’s been done. They should be glad they at Tara, where Master Gerald don’t favor no bullwhip and Mistress Ellen got a kind heart. They get enough to eat and no work on Sundays ’lessn it’s plantin’ or harvestin’ time, and Master Gerald, he buy niggers but he ain’t never sold none. I asks, arybody have children sold south? Two women has. I says no childrens sold south here on Tara. One more thing, I says: ain’t no white man creep into the Quarters after dark for you or your daughters. Miss Ellen, she Catholic, and Catholics don’t hold with such goin’s-on. That’s what I told ’em. I told the truth.

  The scrubbin’ we done—weren’t no end to it! Miss Ellen and me and housemaids Teena and Belle starts in the attic, where there wasn’t nothin’ ’cept for leftover shingles, and through the trap into Master ’n’ Mistress bedroom, which we take every scrap of furniture out afore we scrubbin’ the walls, which is painted wood, not paper like Pink House. Girls beat that rag carpet
for an hour get dirt out, and Miss Ellen wash the windows sheownself. Bedroom got French windows onto a balcony so you can look over Tara lawn to the river. Miss Ellen say, “Oh, Mammy! It’s so beautiful!” I glad see her glad.

  Other bedrooms been used by visitin’ Masters who don’t go home after John Barleycorn invite ’em stay. We find stinking leather breeches stuffed under a chifforobe, a sweaty sock amongst dust balls under the bed, and a gold toothpick in a crack between floorboards. Master Gerald say: “Begorra, Hugh Calvert was lookin’ for that pick. Drunk as a lord Hugh was. Drunk as a lord.”

  Miss Ellen’s smile kill his.

  No furniture nor rugs or nothin’ in the middle bedroom except curly pine shavin’s nestin’ in the corners since Tara House built. “This will make a fine nursery,” Miss Ellen say.

  Cuffee done paint Tara horse barn, so Miss Ellen fetch Cuffee out the fields where he been pullin’ stumps. Cuffee glad for a change, but Overseer fuss to Master Gerald ’bout Miss Ellen interferin’ with field hands and Master Gerald tells him how bride got to be give she head and Overseer keeps on fussin’ but Master Gerald ain’t listenin’ no more.

  Miss Ellen ’struct Cuffee mash curds for milk paint, and he ask where am the colorin’, and she has brought pigments from Savannah: blue and green and gray and red. She want sky blue in the nursery with French gray moldings, and if Cuffee do good where callers ain’t gonna see it, he can paint downstairs after it cleaned. She ain’t decided every room, but the hall gonna be squash yellow.

  Master Gerald, he ridin’ his fields and overseein’ his overseer and he callin’ on his neighbors, and eventide, Master Gerald rides over Twelve Oaks to set on the veranda with Master John and drink whiskey. Master Gerald, he stretch out he boots and him and Master John, they talk ’bout which horse gonna win Saturday and cotton crop and whether federal government “annex” Texas to join Georgia and South Carolina and all them other United States. Then they drinks another whiskey.

  Sometime Master Gerald come home singing and Toby got to help him off his horse. One time he sleep in the stable ’count of he don’t want distress Miss Ellen. Come morning she pretend she don’t know he weren’t sleepin’ in their bed. “Dear Mister O’Hara,” she say to him, “you’re up so early. You must learn to take your ease now and again.”

  Master Gerald hang he head.

  Master Gerald, he don’t object ’bout nothin’ we doin’ to Tara House, and when arybody ask him he say, “Ask Miss Ellen . . .” like he glad have that off he hands.

  But he not glad come home and see his favorite old chair in wagon headin’ to the Quarters for Big Sam to set in it. He and Miss Ellen, they have words, him red in the face and her talkin’ quieter whilst he talkin’ louder.

  “Mr. O’Hara,” she says, “you’d usurp your Negro foreman’s chair. And sit in it?”

  Which settled that. Miss Ellen had new chair made for Master Gerald which wasn’t coming out at the seams and new chair had all four of its feets, but Master Gerald said it weren’t so comfortable as the old one.

  Miss Ellen, she send a young girl to study Wilkeses’ kitchen. Wilkeses’ cook know how to make them things fine white folks likes to eat, and Master Gerald’s cook is good enough for a bachelor, but folks be visitin’ now Tara got itself a Mistress.

  We get after Tara kitchen with scrub brushes and buckets and lye soap. Newfangled step stove am rusty where pots been sittin’, so Teena blacks it. In pantry, flour moldy, table salt rock hard, and tea leaves in tin so long time they crunch twixt fingers. Pantry ain’t got what Miss Ellen need, and most of what it got only fit for hogs.

  Miss Ellen smile bright. “I’ll inspect the meat house later.” She turn to Cook. “The key?”

  Cook give Miss Ellen that key like it her own baby child.

  Next morning, Miss Ellen puts on her hat and I puts on my Sunday kerchief and Big Sam drive us into Leaksville. We got to tie up behind Kennedy store, ’count they’s men layin’ track and sleepers down Main Street. Somebody done bought railroad and is layin’ track to Atlanta, where other railroads already am.

  Miss Ellen march right into Kennedy store, and I come behind.

  One nigger sweepin’, another layin’ out new flour sacks. Master Frank Kennedy, he fidget. He running he hand through he hair and pickin’ at he hand and he cheek. He so glad make Mrs. O’Hara’s acquaintance and arything he can do . . .

  But when she say she sign every store order here on out, he balk like a Carolina mule.

  “Overseer Wilkerson . . .”

  “Is in our employ.”

  “But he . . .”

  “Mr. Kennedy. You have so many of the goods we will require, I am reluctant to take our custom elsewhere.”

  It sinks in she mean what she say, and Master Frank smile big like he in love. He bows to Mistress. “Mrs. O’Hara, the Kennedy store is grateful for your continued custom. Will you need an invoice with every order?”

  “That would be best,” Miss Ellen says. “More businesslike, don’t you think?”

  Me, I never guessed Miss Solange’s shrewdness run in the blood.

  Leaksville ain’t Leaksville no more. It called Jonesboro today, but it same town it been.

  * * *

  Miss Ellen write Master Pierre: send Savannah wallpaper. Four of us scrub and sand and patch the drawing room walls, but paper get to Tara afore we finish. Miss Ellen, Teena, me, and Pork, we tote them rolls into the drawing room and unroll to see what Master Pierre and Nehemiah pick for us. Paper is tiny tangled red flowers on tan. Don’t look like no flowers I ever seed, but Miss Ellen approves it.

  Me and Miss Ellen ain’t hung no paper afore, but Pork has. Pork mix up wheat paste and lay up canvas atop the wood walls so seams don’t show. Miss Ellen got the surest hand, so she trim wallpaper strips afore me and Teena lay ’em up. It devilish gettin’ ’em neat round the fireplace and windows. When we got the whole room papered, we got some left, so Miss Ellen cuts a border like crown molding at Pink House. When Master Gerald allow into room, he right glad. He crowin’, “Even John Wilkes hasn’t anything so fine!”

  He hang he picture of a green Irish meadow over the mantel and say, “Now, Tara’s home!”

  By now it’s September and Miss Ellen startin’ to show. She want ask the neighbor ladies for tea. Master Gerald say teas be for Savannah, Up-country has barbecues and dancin’, but Miss Ellen say, “Mr. O’Hara, I need to pamper myself.”

  He swoop her up in he arms but set her down quick, sayin’, “What was I thinkin’. Faith, what was I thinkin’?”

  So Miss Ellen, she write notes to ladies invite them to Sunday tea, which nobody ever heard nothin’ about afore. Up-country planters ’customed to goin’ everywheres together. When aryone go to a barbecue, everybody go: childrens, babes, spinster aunts, grandmas, and they coloreds too. So when Miss Ellen invite ladies come get ’quainted, half the county come to Tara. Mistress Ellen greet ’em on front porch and invite ladies inside, but don’t invite no husbands nor childrens, and the coloreds wander round back to the Quarters.

  Master Gerald fuddled: all them white folks standin’ round with nothin’ for ’em. He decide mens go huntin’ while me and Dilcey watch the childrens.

  All the gentlemens gallops off, and Dilcey and me take our ease on the porch. Oldest childrens nine or ten, youngest still crawlin’ and tastin’ the dirt they gets on they hands. Boyd and Tom Tarleton make up games for boys to play, and Cathleen Calvert am queen of the girl children. Two-year-old Tarleton twins chasin’ little colored Jeems fast as they can toddle, and Joe and Alex Fontaine playin’ a game with sticks. When enough childrens together they make a government and take care of theyselves until they wearied and crossways.

  Dilcey got Indian blood. Her hair straight and so black it purple. She got sharp nose and tight mouth and sharp cheekbones. She calls sumac “qua lo ga,” but whatever
it called, it the tea what cure fevers. Voudou Catholic and Cherokee spirits different, but Cherokee get to be spirits when they dead same like voudou.

  After children wearies, we marches ’em to the kitchen for a sugar cookie. Then we lays ’em down in the nursery. Dilcey say she watch ’em, so I goes downstairs, see what the ladies up to.

  Them ladies in withdrawing room drinkin’ tea and eating Cook’s beaten biscuits with honey. Cook beat those biscuits forever! She roll ’em out and beat ’em until what can be squeezed out been squooze.

  They drinkin’ out Miss Solange’s blue cups. Mistress Ellen has the cup with broken handle sheownself.

  Teena wearin’ clean dress and white apron and standin’ with she hands gripped behind she back case ary lady be needin’ somethin’.

  Mistress Eleanor Wilkes been Savannah and Boston and New York. Her and Master Wilkes buy paintings and books. They been educated.

  Miss Ellen ain’t done of these things and ain’t got any of these things. She a young woman married to an Irishman and carrying Irishman’s baby. But ain’t so many ladies in the Up-country they can put on airs.