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Authors: Susan Carol McCarthy
Tags: Fiction
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folks? Can you spare five bucks to help us fight the war against desegregation, CAST THE NIGGER-LOVERS OUT?”
Ruth Barrows watches as the many-legged beast roars its “YES! YES, WE CAN!” She draws a ragged breath as it reaches into its many pockets and wallets and waves many five-dollar bills high above its many heads.
Catalog-handsome, mitt-handed Billy Hathaway whips a cardboard box out from behind the speaker’s podium. And, with the help of blue-eyed Cassie carting baby Billy to the front, with Sheriff DeLuth and the two prosegregation school-board candidates, Billy Hathaway feeds the beast four, maybe five hundred little white membership cards, five bucks a head.
14
Sixteen miles south of the County Fairgrounds, in the hammock part of their property, Daniel drops to his knees beside his father. He watches Pap steady a short green stalk of root stock in one hand and, wielding a sharp knife in the other, make the small, smooth vertical cut. Flipping the blade horizontally, Pap cuts a second slit at the base of the first, creating the shape of an upside-down “T.”
Working quickly, Pap grabs a piece of loose budwood, expertly slices off a single bud shield, and slips it gently off the knife into the T-shaped slit. “That’ll do ’er,” he murmurs, picks up a strip of white muslin soaked in grafting wax, and wraps the graft with surgical precision.
“What’s it gonna be, Pap?”
“This whole batch’ll be the sweetest bunch of tangerines you ever tasted. We’ll plant ’em next to the house so we kin pick a fair apron-full whenever we take a mind to.”
The words “fair apron-full” were Mam’s favorite way of saying “plenty.” Many’s the time she’d sent Daniel out to the orchard for a fair apron-full of Winesaps, which, if measured, meant enough for three apple pies. A fair apron-full of eggs made eggnog for the whole hollow. And a fair apron-full of strawberries kept their family in jam for weeks. Now, the words hurt Daniel’s heart to hear them. And he drops his chin, hastily, so Pap won’t see.
Behind them, Daniel hears Uncle Will hammering split shingles onto the roof of the smaller cabin that will be theirs in a few weeks. On the rise above them, he hears the squeals and squawks of the girls—’Becca, bossy Minna, lisping Sara-Faye, and baby June—as they pick and poke their way through the pea cover in search of four-leaf clovers. In her garden, its rows as neat and tidy as Pap’s root-stock seedlings, Aunt Lu chops collards for their supper. Daniel can hardly wait to sop up the juice, pot-licker green, with a hunk of Aunt Lu’s skillet-baked cornbread.
He closes his eyes and, for the briefest moment, this strange flat land feels almost like home. But the picture won’t hold. The air’s too thick, the sky’s too close, the lacy gray moss that hangs off the live oak is too strange to hold it. Other strange things, too, push against his innards. And, without warning, as if a giant hand reached into his gut and ripped them out of his own private hollow, he hears his words flung into the space between them. “Pap,” he hears his own voice asking, “was Ol’ Granpap part Nigger?”
Pap, squatting, rocks back on his heels, turns his gray hawk eyes to get a bead on Daniel’s face. “I don’t rightly like that term,” he says. “It’s a mean word, nasty, sorta like the words ‘dumb hillbilly’; meant to make one fella feel less than ’nother. There’s folks that’d call ever’body ye know up home ‘a dumb hillbilly.’ And, I’m asking ye, are they? Do ye know any ‘dumb hillbillies’?”
In Daniel’s mind’s eye, he sees the face of ol’ Jack McKenna, which can turn plum silly on a jar full of ’shine. Most Saturdays, ol’ Jack’s a pure, blamed fool, but dumb? As a fox.
“No, sir.”
“I’d just asoon not hear either of those words outta yore mouth, ever again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But, ye got a question, son. And, considerin’ what ye been
Ruth Barrows watches as the many-legged beast roars its “YES! YES, WE CAN!” She draws a ragged breath as it reaches into its many pockets and wallets and waves many five-dollar bills high above its many heads.
Catalog-handsome, mitt-handed Billy Hathaway whips a cardboard box out from behind the speaker’s podium. And, with the help of blue-eyed Cassie carting baby Billy to the front, with Sheriff DeLuth and the two prosegregation school-board candidates, Billy Hathaway feeds the beast four, maybe five hundred little white membership cards, five bucks a head.
14
Sixteen miles south of the County Fairgrounds, in the hammock part of their property, Daniel drops to his knees beside his father. He watches Pap steady a short green stalk of root stock in one hand and, wielding a sharp knife in the other, make the small, smooth vertical cut. Flipping the blade horizontally, Pap cuts a second slit at the base of the first, creating the shape of an upside-down “T.”
Working quickly, Pap grabs a piece of loose budwood, expertly slices off a single bud shield, and slips it gently off the knife into the T-shaped slit. “That’ll do ’er,” he murmurs, picks up a strip of white muslin soaked in grafting wax, and wraps the graft with surgical precision.
“What’s it gonna be, Pap?”
“This whole batch’ll be the sweetest bunch of tangerines you ever tasted. We’ll plant ’em next to the house so we kin pick a fair apron-full whenever we take a mind to.”
The words “fair apron-full” were Mam’s favorite way of saying “plenty.” Many’s the time she’d sent Daniel out to the orchard for a fair apron-full of Winesaps, which, if measured, meant enough for three apple pies. A fair apron-full of eggs made eggnog for the whole hollow. And a fair apron-full of strawberries kept their family in jam for weeks. Now, the words hurt Daniel’s heart to hear them. And he drops his chin, hastily, so Pap won’t see.
Behind them, Daniel hears Uncle Will hammering split shingles onto the roof of the smaller cabin that will be theirs in a few weeks. On the rise above them, he hears the squeals and squawks of the girls—’Becca, bossy Minna, lisping Sara-Faye, and baby June—as they pick and poke their way through the pea cover in search of four-leaf clovers. In her garden, its rows as neat and tidy as Pap’s root-stock seedlings, Aunt Lu chops collards for their supper. Daniel can hardly wait to sop up the juice, pot-licker green, with a hunk of Aunt Lu’s skillet-baked cornbread.
He closes his eyes and, for the briefest moment, this strange flat land feels almost like home. But the picture won’t hold. The air’s too thick, the sky’s too close, the lacy gray moss that hangs off the live oak is too strange to hold it. Other strange things, too, push against his innards. And, without warning, as if a giant hand reached into his gut and ripped them out of his own private hollow, he hears his words flung into the space between them. “Pap,” he hears his own voice asking, “was Ol’ Granpap part Nigger?”
Pap, squatting, rocks back on his heels, turns his gray hawk eyes to get a bead on Daniel’s face. “I don’t rightly like that term,” he says. “It’s a mean word, nasty, sorta like the words ‘dumb hillbilly’; meant to make one fella feel less than ’nother. There’s folks that’d call ever’body ye know up home ‘a dumb hillbilly.’ And, I’m asking ye, are they? Do ye know any ‘dumb hillbillies’?”
In Daniel’s mind’s eye, he sees the face of ol’ Jack McKenna, which can turn plum silly on a jar full of ’shine. Most Saturdays, ol’ Jack’s a pure, blamed fool, but dumb? As a fox.
“No, sir.”
“I’d just asoon not hear either of those words outta yore mouth, ever again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But, ye got a question, son. And, considerin’ what ye been
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