Their Eyes Were Watching God

by the arm.

“Dat’s all right, Tea Cake, Ah ’preciate yo’ help, but leave ’em alone.”

“Naw suh, Mis’ Turner, Ah’m gointuh show ’em dey can’t come runnin’ over nice people and loud-talk no place whilst Ah’m around. Dey goin’ outa heah!”

By that time everybody in and around the place was taking sides. Somehow or other Mrs. Turner fell down and nobody knew she was down there under all the fighting, and broken dishes and crippled up tables and broken-off chair legs and window panes and such things. It got so that the floor was knee-deep with something no matter where you put your foot down. But Tea Cake kept right on until Coodemay told him, “Ah’m wrong. Ah’m wrong! Y’all tried tuh tell me right and Ah wouldn’t lissen. Ah ain’t mad wid nobody. Just tuh show y’all Ah ain’t mad, me and Sterrett gointuh buy everybody somethin’ tuh drink. Ole man Vickers got some good coondick over round Pahokee. Come on everybody. Let’s go git our knots charged.” Everybody got in a good humor and left.

Mrs. Turner got up off the floor hollering for the police. Look at her place! How come nobody didn’t call the police? Then she found out that one of her hands was all stepped on and her fingers were bleeding pretty peart. Two or three people who were not there during the fracas poked their heads in at the door to sympathize but that made Mrs. Turner madder. She told them where to go in a hurry. Then she saw her husband sitting over there in the corner with his long bony legs all crossed up smoking his pipe.

“What kinda man is you, Turner? You see dese no count niggers come in heah and break up mah place! How kin you set and see yo’ wife all trompled on? You ain’t no kinda man at all. You seen dat Tea Cake shove me down! Yes you did! You ain’t raised yo’ hand tuh do nothin’ about it.”

Turner removed his pipe and answered: “Yeah, and you see how Ah did swell up too, didn’t yuh? You tell Tea Cake he better be keerful Ah don’t swell up again.” At that Turner crossed his legs the other way and kept right on smoking his pipe.

Mrs. Turner hit at him the best she could with her hurt hand and then spoke her mind for half an hour.

“It’s a good thing mah brother wuzn’t round heah when it happened do he would uh kilt somebody. Mah son too. Dey got some manhood about ’em. We’se goin’ back tuh Miami where folks is civilized.”

Nobody told her right away that her son and brother were already on their way after pointed warnings outside the cafe. No time for fooling around. They were hurrying into Palm Beach. She’d find out about that later on.

Monday morning Coodemay and Sterrett stopped by and begged her pardon profusely and gave her five dollars apiece. Then Coodemay said, “Dey tell me Ah wuz drunk Sat’day night and clownin’ down. Ah don’t ’member uh thing ’bout it. But when Ah git tuh peepin’ through mah likker, dey tell me Ah’m uh mess.”

18

Since Tea Cake and Janie had friended with the Bahaman workers in the ’Glades, they, the “Saws,” had been gradually drawn into the American crowd. They quit hiding out to hold their dances when they found that their American friends didn’t laugh at them as they feared. Many of the Americans learned to jump and liked it as much as the “Saws.” So they began to hold dances night after night in the quarters, usually behind Tea Cake’s house. Often now, Tea Cake and Janie stayed up so late at the fire dances that Tea Cake would not let her go with him to the field. He wanted her to get her rest.

So she was home by herself one afternoon when she saw a band of Seminoles passing by. The men walking in front and the laden, stolid women following them like burros. She had seen Indians several times in the ’Glades, in twos and threes, but this was a large party. They were headed towards the Palm Beach road and kept moving steadily. About an hour later another party appeared and went the same way. Then another just before sundown. This time she asked where they were all going and at last one of the men answered her.

“Going to high ground. Saw-grass bloom. Hurricane coming.”

Everybody was talking about it that night. But nobody was worried. The fire dance kept up till nearly dawn. The next day, more Indians moved east, unhurried but steady. Still a blue sky and fair weather. Beans running fine and prices good, so the Indians could be, must be, wrong. You couldn’t have a hurricane when you’re making seven and eight dollars a day picking beans. Indians are dumb anyhow, always were. Another night of Stew Beef making dynamic subtleties with his drum and living, sculptural, grotesques in the dance. Next day, no Indians passed at all. It was hot and sultry and Janie left the field and went home.

Morning came without motion. The winds, to the tiniest, lisping baby breath had left the earth. Even before the sun gave light, dead day was creeping from bush to bush watching man.

Some rabbits scurried through the quarters going east. Some possums slunk by and their route was definite. One or two at a time, then more. By the time the people left the fields the procession was constant. Snakes, rattlesnakes began to cross the quarters. The men killed a few, but they could not be missed from the crawling horde. People stayed indoors until daylight. Several times during the night Janie heard the snort of big animals like deer. Once the muted voice of a panther. Going east and east. That night the palm and banana trees began that long distance talk with rain. Several people took fright and picked up and went in to Palm Beach anyway. A thousand buzzards held a flying meet and then went above the clouds and stayed.

One of the Bahaman boys stopped by Tea Cake’s house in a car and hollered. Tea Cake came out throwin’ laughter over his shoulder into the house.

“Hello Tea Cake.”

“Hello ’Lias. You leavin’, Ah see.”

“Yeah man. You and Janie wanta go? Ah wouldn’t give nobody else uh chawnce at uh seat till Ah found out if you all had anyway tuh go.”

“Thank yuh ever so much, Lias. But we ’bout decided tuh stay.”

“De crow gahn up, man.”

“Dat ain’t nothin’. You ain’t seen de bossman go up, is yuh? Well all right now. Man, de money’s too good on the muck. It’s liable tuh fair off by tuhmorrer. Ah wouldn’t leave if Ah wuz you.”

“Mah uncle come for me. He say hurricane warning out in Palm Beach. Not so bad dere, but man, dis muck is too low and dat big lake is liable tuh bust.”