She start to help me put the food out on the table. Then she say, “I did lose weight,” like some crazy person ain just had a fit.
I don’t even look at ‘a. I know that’s a bad subject for women, to say anything bout how they looking. I usually say what my daddy would say, “You always look the same to me.” Then folks say to me, something like what they say to him. “You such a man, don’t notice nothing.” Mama and my sisters would always tell ’im, and for me they’d say, “You just like yo daddy, don’t notice nothing.”
“Did you know they built a Carnegie library in Beaumont, five miles away from Zion?”
“I heard about it.” I keep eating. I’m looking forward to getting out on the front porch and watching the sunset.
“Did you know that when I told Reverend Patrick about it the other day, he said it didn’t make Zion a bit of difference, because Negroes wouldn’t be allowed in there. It got me to thinking about what we need around here. Our books are outdated and I need help.
“I’m teaching all the children in town. I can’t focus on one grade. It takes me about two hours and a half to get them all started on their work. Now they’re cutting the day down to four hours. Then at lunch time they’ll go to the fields to eat with their own families. I only have four hours with them, which means they’ll only be working two hours, and that’s on the days they come. Reverend Patrick said some people won’t even bring their children during the planting or harvesting season.”
“You got a hard fight ahead of you. Some people don’t see the purpose in school once they kids learn to count and read. They don’t see the value in teaching them about the world, when they gone be right here in Zion.”
“That’s crazy. You can’t know where a man is going to end up by where, or how he’s born.”
“I’m living proof of that. I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d be where I’m at.” I think about the house and the store.
“I just can’t believe they’re cutting into their learning and studies for harvest and planting.”
“I can’t believe they gone have school during planting and harvesting now.”
“Are you saying they usually don’t?”
“Things changed so much since I was in school, what I know. When I was a girl, we didn’t have school during harvesting and planting. Prudence Beaumont got ‘a own farm to tend. She have to help ‘a own husband and family.”
“That’s horrible! How do you people learn? The books are outdated, and pages are missing. Then when I finally teach a child something or get one caught up on something, before they get enough practice to move forward, their folks are keeping them out of school to work. You know some of the boys barely come, if at all. How am I suppose to teach them anything under these circumstances?”
“I don’t know what to do about that. They folks need ’em to help out on they farms. They got to eat and make a living. It’s always been like that, I was raised helping my daddy nem on our land.” I hear the real reason she throwing fits. I hear how things run round Zion weighing heavy on ‘a soul.
“I think it’s crazy how people here put their children to work so young.”
“I don’t. It’s been that way long as I can remember.”
“Linny, you have to allow children to be children. You ever read about the coal miners children? They started working as young as five, and ended up dying from breathing in the air from the mines. There are child labor laws now, and I’m pretty sure they say children are to be in school learning. School should be a child’s first priority. They have their whole lives to work.”
“Kids learn everywhere they are. And ain’t no mines out here. Here they need to know bout crop schedules, moon tables for planting, and how to take care of animals. And kids gone be kids no matter what you want them to be, causeit’s they time to be what they is.
“Shoot, me and my sisters and brothers, and all our cousins was glad to be working in the fields together. Them was some of the best days. Usually it be some big kids kinda watching us, and we be running together singing songs and working. Didn’t never feel like work.
“All us kids liked to make our parents proud. We be working to see who can get the most cotton, strawberries, berries, plums, pecans or whatever we was picking. Most of our bags be light cause we been eating more than we packing. Then our arms be all scraped up and ashy, but we be toting our lil loads of cotton. Our parents be making a big deal bout who got the most.” All while I’m talking, I’m smiling and remembering, and Coley she smiling, too.
“I can’t imagine my whole family working on anything together,” she say amazed. “Did you ever work with your father?”
“Of course, as far back as I can remember.” Then I’m there again, in the fields with my cousins, and my spirit smiling, too. “When I was real small, my daddy use to take me on his horse with ’im. Or I’d be out there in the fields behind ’im while he was running mules, plowing the fields.
“Every day I’d wake up, get dressed, and be gone with ’im all day. Use to watch ’im make things, fix things, feed and take care of the animals. When I was small, it what’n nothing like spreading some feed and having the chickens jump up all round you squawking. Or to give a horse some carrots or a apple, and feel like you done made a new friend.”
“My family and I barely speak when we’re all together,” Coley share sadly, frowning, look like she somewhere, too. “My daddy has a big job, we couldn’t work with him. When he’s on speaking tours Mama doesn’t even go.
I mean, Daddy loves us all, but he doesn’t really talk to us. He just provides for us. Sometimes he might ask about something if Mama put him up to it, but mostly he spends his time with my brother, Coleman Jr. He was always grooming his Jr. how to be just like him.”
“That might be a man thing. My daddy didn’t really talk to my sisters neither. He more like watched out for ’em. He left the talking and teaching them up to Mama.”
“Your mama didn’t teach you, too?”
“She did, but I was with my daddy more for some reason. Seem like he was teaching me to be more like him. I was right there with him and all my brothers. As far back as I can remember. Iain never get no dolls or nothing like that, I was always getting tools.
“Then one day when, I was about 9 or 10 years old he got me my own horse. A filly named Anastasia. She was mine to take care of and feed. Ain’t none of my sisters never had or wanted they own horse.
“You should have seen me. I was so happy, I could barely sleep them first few nights. Shoot, I couldn’t sleep them first few weeks I was so worried bout Anastasia and the rest of the yearlings. I wanted to sleep out there with my horse. I was always wondering what Anastasia was doing, if she was warm, if she had enough to eat. Use to get up fore the rooster crow to take care of the colts and fillies.”
“Colts and fillies?”
“Most folks say yearlings. We talking bout baby horses, colts are boys and fillies are girls. Our horses must have had a busy winter cause that summer they was pushing ’em out. I had to take the yearlings out and walk them around, cause they needed to be exercised, and they was too weak to be rode or worked. I loved it. Didn’t seem like no chore at all.”
***
“Linny? How does it feel being different?” Coley ask thoughtfully, while we walking back to the stables to get us a horse to ride to the big fields. This ‘a first day working outside with other people, and I can tell she nervous.
I’m full as a tic, cause I done got up early and made us a big breakfast. I hate to eat heavy fore I go to work, it wears you down and make you feel something awful. Then we gone be late getting there this morning, not that I even got to go. But everybody do what they can do, cause it’s a few who cain’t do much. It’s the way Zion works.
Finally I say, “Ion know, Iain never been under the impression everybody the same, I guess.”
“Humph.” She smile at me and make a face I don’t quite recognize. I’m too tired to pry or get too deep so I ask something else.
“How chicken yo favorite food but you ain’t never seen one kilt?”
“Where I’m from we buy our food from markets. Meat is just meat, I’ve never thought about how it use to be a living thing. Except, when I was younger, my father sometimes would tell stories about when he was a boy, and how Granddaddy use to kill a turkey for Thanksgiving.”
I walk on curious about being from a place where they don’t kill they own food. “So you ain’t never picked ya own fruit or vegetables? Don’t know what the ground look like it growed out of?”
“Well,” she smiles looking a little embarrassed, “there was this family that use to live next door to us before we moved in the city. They had plum and berry trees, but other than that, no.”
We keep on for a while, then she say, “You know it’s a good thing you know where your food comes from. Lots of folks use to die of food poisoning. Before they passed all these laws on how they have to treat and store food. My family never had that problem. My mother use to have my father take her to open market, where she’d buy most of our food from the Amish.”
“The Amish? Who they is? That’s a family name?”
“No.” She laughs like everybody knows who they is and then she say, “They’re white people, but different from other whites. They’re hard to explain. All the men look like Abraham Lincoln. They seem to like doing things the hard way. They’re some kind of religious cult, or something.”
"Cult?” I repeat the new word for clarity, to feel it in my mouth, see if saying it give it any meaning. When nothing comes to me, I look at ‘a to explain.
“Cult. It’s like any group of people with extreme beliefs. You know, people who are not Christian.”
I laugh at ‘a answer, and wonder what she woulda thought about Miemay. I think about what she say, and how folks in Zion probly think the same way. Then again, the Klan claim to be Christian, but I think they pretty extreme. So I say, “Like the Klan?”
“No, they don’t hate anybody. As a matter of fact, they’re pacifist,” Coley say thoughtfully, then continue, “In fact, they never held slaves. I think Mama said they were even against it, and helped slaves escape.”
I choose my words carefully trying to get at what makes their views extreme if they ain’t like the Klan, cause not being Christian don’t seem extreme to me. And not having slaves seem to be the most right thing I can think of. Fact is, I’m starting to think being Christian kinda extreme, but I know better than to say that out loud. So I say, “What make them like a cult then, cause a cult sound bad?”
“Well, they just have their own communities away from everybody else. They don’t vote, by choice, or participate in America. You can’t just go there and live. You’ve got to be born Amish and maybe…” she stop like she considering what else she bout to say, “You could marry into it.”
“Niggas can?”
“I’ve never seen an Amish Negro, but they aren’t racist like other whites. They just don’t like anyone except their own.”
“Well, that don’t make them a cult. Sound like Zion to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
ZION FIELD DAY
I’m glad for Coley arms round me, when we arrive on Anastasia at the big fields. Folks already in they task groups. You can hear the low talking, and the pace of they feet over the earth. I look for Jasper, the man who usually separate us and give us our tasks, before tying Anastasia up.
I’m feeling some kind of way, cause it’s been a while since I been to the big fields, since I been around everybody. This common for me to be here, but I’m feeling like things done changed. I feel like a stranger.
Iain got to be here, Mrs. Clara ain’t here, Reverend Patrick and his wife ain’t here neither. Ain’t no other business owners here, cept for Amos from the Barber shop. Zion got a way of deciding who people spose to be and how they spose to act. People got a way of acting like some folks better than others, and even if them folks feel the same they treating them different. They putting them on a pedestal, bowing down and acting like they cain’t be they selves. Sometimes I feel like Iain myself cause of how different I’m treated, and how they acting.
Folks been treating me different every since I moved out of Daddy’s house. Them knowing Iain tricked Miemay ain’t changed nothing, or maybe they still feeling like I did. All I know is, when I go in town they ain calling me Linny no more, it’s Ms. Remington, or Miss, or Ms. Linny.
The first time Mr. Dallas, this man over twice my age, called me Misses, I bout laughed before correcting him. Then I realized he was serious, and that made me sad. Zay say it’s cause I hired people to work for me, and that change things.
Things really changed, when word got around I’d submitted a proposal to the council for my own filling station. After it got approved, and the white man who specialized in building petro stations came to see the store and draw up plans for the addition, even Uncle Victor and Ernest were different.
Before they were standoffish, but they pretended to be kind. Once I hired more men to have it built on, they stopped speaking. Whenever I’d go to check onit’s progress, they started to make little smart comments in the place where there had been silence, or fake conversation.
People started to treat me like Iain grow up right here in Zion. They started to treat me like I was more than I feel I am. It started to feel wrong doing what I would normally do, work in my fields, and help out round town. It’s nice to have Coley to worry about, to speak for, and introduce to folks so Ion have to think about how out of place I feel.
Soon as we get down off the horse people stop to look at us. A little bit of me mad at Coley, cause I feel like she making me look bad. Coley ain’t done none of what I asked ‘a to do this morning. She the main reason we late. She went back to sleep after I woke ‘a up. Then she took all morning getting dressed, and then we had to fight about what she was wearing. I told ‘a to get some work boots from the store, I even offered to give ’em to ‘a, cause I knew she was gone need ’em.
This morning when we started towards the front door I could hear them heels, and how she was planting ‘a foot was all wrong. So I pulled ‘a dress up to see the boots she put on for work. When I grabbed ‘a dress I felt all that extra stuff she had on under. I almost had to beg ‘a to take some of it off, it’s gone be too hot for all that I explained. Then she threw a fit, but she changed. Then she came back down stairs saying she took some of it off, and she did put on a different dress, one where the material wasn’t so heavy, and what’n gone be soaking up heat.
Still, she had that little dress hat pinned on ‘a head, like she was going visiting. I offered her a straw field hat, but she turned ‘a nose up at it like it stank, said it was dirty, ugly and didn’t match. Then she folded ‘a arms and refused to put it on ‘a head.
It was already too late to be going back and forth. Now she looking like she don’t belong, and I’m feeling like somehow it’s saying I don’t neither.
“What she is?” Jasper tilt his head in Coley direction then take ‘a in from head to toe, looking at ‘a shiny black boots.
Coley ain’t paying him no attention, she looking around, cupping ‘a eyes, and looking off into the sky like we ain even talking bout ‘a. Wouldn’t need to cup ‘a eyes if she took the field hat I offered. Now she be the only one out here with a dress hat pinned on ‘a head that ain’t blocking no sun. The way Jasper looking at ‘a make me feel some kind of way, like maybe Iain prepare her.
“She a quarter hand, if that,” I answer Jasper honestly.
He grin at Coley like he waiting for ‘a to get mad, and say or do something. Coley don’t challenge what I’m saying, she don’t even realize she being insulted, even though that ain’t what I’m trying to do. I just don’t wont ’im to assign ‘a to nothing over ‘a head.
See, a man be a whole hand, and women cain’t be but 75 to 90 percent of a hand at best, cause it’s some things they won’t allow women to do. Still some women be saying, they 100 if need be. Mostly child
ren be a quarter hand, and teenagers be between 50 and 75. Every boy working to get everyone to acknowledge he a full hand.
My daddy use to say I was a whole hand. Funny how things change. Now he wishing I was more lady like, and he hate how strong willed I am.
I spect Coley will do better tomorrow after the sun get ‘a real hot, and the sweat start running down a face, and all that grease she been putting in ‘a head get to frying ‘a like bacon. I spect when all that oil be in ‘a eyes stinging ’em, she’ll be glad to get a hat, and maybe even a scarf, too. Shoot, she’ll probly be dressed like one of them olden time slave mammies, like the ones be cooking food for the white folks at the fair.
I can tell it’s gone be a hot day, by the way the heat already kissing my spine, promising this shirt be soaked, and sticking to me fore noon.
“What’s so funny,” Coley turn ‘a nose up at me making this face like something stink.
That’s when I realize I’m smiling, thinking bout how she bout to learn a real good lesson. Cause Coley mad she acting stubborn, she wont everybody to know how upset she is about working out here, or anywhere else outside, even if it’s ‘a own home. So she doing ‘a own self a disservice by not coming out here dressed to work.
“Ms. Graham! Ms. Graham!” some of Coley’s big students call excited. The people start to gather round, everything done stopped. It’s something for ‘a to be out here, but Coley don’t really notice how folks taking ‘a in.
Most of the women looking at ‘a and comparing ‘a to they own selves. Some of them touching the material of they own dresses and finding it better for the field, but still wishing they was better dressed. Coley too dressed up for the field, even though she thinking she dressed down. Still, this the worse she would leave the house, and what she wearing some women would wear to church. They judging ‘a, but Coley smile like a candidate on the back of a automobile passing through, full of herself.
Descendants of Hagar Page 20