to,” he said. “But I be dawg ef it look like anything. Dese folks fixing to pizen you.”
He tipped the glass and sipped gingerly, and lowered the glass, blinking.
“I didn’t drink any of it,” Weddel said. He set the slipper down.
“You better hadn’t,” the Negro said. “When here I done been fo years trying to take care of you en git you back home like whut Mistis tole me to do, and here you sleeping in folks’ barns at night like a tramp, like a pater- roller nigger.”
He put the glass to his lips, tilting it and his head in a single jerk. He lowered the glass, empty; his eyes were closed; he said, “Whuf!” shaking his head with a violent, shuddering motion. “It smells right, and it act right. But I be dawg ef it look right. I reckon you better let it alone, like you started out. When dey try to make you drink it you send um to me. I done already stood so much I reckon I can stand a little mo fer Mistis’ sake.”
He took up the shoe and the cloth again. Weddel stooped above the rucksack. “I want my pistol,” he said.
Again the Negro ceased, the shoe and the cloth poised.
“Whut fer?” He leaned and looked up the muddy slope toward the cabin. “Is dese folks Yankees?” he said in a whisper.
“No,” Weddel said, digging in the rucksack with his left hand. The Negro did not seem to hear him.
“In Tennessee? You tole me we was in Tennessee, where Memphis is, even if you never tole me it was all disyer up-and-down land in de Memphis country. I know I never seed none of um when I went to Memphis wid yo paw dat time. But you says so. And now you telling me dem Memphis folks is Yankees?”
“Where is the pistol?” Weddel said.
“I done tole you,” the Negro said. “Acting like you does. Letting dese folks see you come walking up de road, leading Caesar caze you think he tired; making me ride whilst you walks when I can outwalk you any day you ever lived and you knows it, even if I is fawty en you twenty-eight. I gwy tell yo maw. I gwy tell um.”
Weddel rose, in his hand a heavy cap-and-ball revolver.
He chuckled it in his single hand, drawing the hammer back, letting it down again. The Negro watched him, crouched like an ape in the blue Union army overcoat. “You put dat thing back,” he said. “De war done wid now. Dey tole us back dar at Ferginny it was done wid. You don’t need no pistol now. You put it back, you hear me?”
“I’m going to bathe,” Weddel said. “Is my shirt…”
“Bathe where? In whut? Dese folks ain’t never seed a bathtub.”
“Bathe at the well. Is my shirt ready?”
“Whut dey is of it… You put dat pistol back, Marse Soshay. I gwy tell yo maw on you. I gwy tell um. I just wish Marster was here.”
“Go to the kitchen,” Weddel said. “Tell them I wish to bathe in the well house. Ask them to draw the curtain on that window there.” The pistol had vanished beneath the grey cloak. He went to the stall where the thoroughbred was.
The horse nuzzled at him, its eyes rolling soft and wild. He patted its nose with his left hand. It whickered, not loud, its breath sweet and warm.
IV
THE NEGRO entered the kitchen from the rear. He had removed the oilcloth tent and he now wore a blue forage cap which, like the overcoat, was much too large for him, resting upon the top of his head in such a way that the unsupported brim oscillated faintly when he moved as though with a life of its own. He was completely invisible save for his face between cap and collar like a dried Dyak trophy and almost as small and dusted lightly over as with a thin pallor of wood ashes by the cold. The older woman was at the stove on which frying food now hissed and sputtered; she did not look up when the Negro entered. The girl was standing in the middle of the room, doing nothing at all. She looked at the Negro, watching him with a slow, grave, secret, unwinking gaze as he crossed the kitchen with that air of swaggering caricatured assurance, and up-ended a block of wood beside the stove and sat upon it.
“If disyer is de kind of weather yawl has up here all de time,” he said, “I don’t care ef de Yankees does has dis country.” He opened the overcoat, revealing his legs and feet as being wrapped, shapeless and huge, in some muddy and anonymous substance resembling fur, giving them the appearance of two muddy beasts the size of halfgrown dogs lying on the floor; moving a little nearer the girl, the girl thought quietly His fur. He taken and cut up a fur coat to wrap his feet in “Yes, suh,” the Negro said. “Just yawl let me git home again, en de Yankees kin have all de rest of it.”
“Where do you-uns live?” the girl said.
The Negro looked at her. “In Miss’ippi. On de Domain. Ain’t you never hyeard tell of Countymaison?”
“Countymaison?”
“Dat’s it. His grandpappy named it Countymaison caze it’s bigger den a county to ride over. You can’t ride across it on a mule betwixt sunup and sundown. Dat’s how come.” He rubbed his hands slowly on his thighs. His face was now turned toward the stove; he snuffed loudly. Already the ashy overlay on his skin had disappeared, leaving his face dead black, wizened, his mouth a little loose, as though the muscles had become slack with usage, like rubber bands: not the eating muscles, the talking ones. “I reckon we is gittin nigh home, after all. Leastways dat hawg meat smell like it do down whar folks lives.”
“Countymaison,” the girl said in a rapt, bemused tone, looking at the Negro with her grave, unwinking regard.
Then she turned her head and looked at the wall, her face perfectly serene, perfectly inscrutable, without haste, with a profound and absorbed deliberation.
“Dat’s it,” the Negro said. “Even Yankees is heard tell of Weddel’s Countymaison en erbout Marster Francis Weddel. Maybe yawl seed um pass in de carriage dat time he went to Washn’ton to tell yawl’s president how he ain’t like de way yawl’s president wuz treating de people. He rid all de way to Washn’ton in de carriage, wid two niggers to drive en to heat de bricks to kept he foots warm, en de man done gone on ahead wid de wagon en de fresh hawses. He carried yawl’s president two whole dressed bears en eight sides of smoked deer venison. He must a passed right out dar in front yawl’s house. I reckon yo pappy or maybe his pappy seed um pass.”
He talked on, voluble, in soporific singsong, his face beginning to glisten, to shine a little with the rich warmth, while the mother bent over the stove and the girl, motionless, static, her bare feet cupped smooth and close to the rough puncheons, her big, smooth, young body cupped soft and richly mammalian to the rough garment, watching the Negro with her ineffable and unwinking gaze, her mouth open a little.
The Negro talked on, his eyes closed, his voice interminable, boastful, his air lazily intolerant, as if he were still at home and there had been no war and no harsh rumors of freedom and of change, and he (a stableman, in the domestic hierarchy a man of horses) were spending the evening in the quarters among field hands, until the older woman dished the food and left the room, closing the door behind her. He opened his eyes at the sound and looked toward the door and then back to the girl. She was looking at the wall, at the closed door through which her mother had vanished. “Don’t dey lets you eat at de table wid um?” he said.
The girl looked at the Negro, unwinking. “Countymaison,” she said. “Vatch says he is a nigra too.”
“Who? Him? A nigger? Marse Soshay Weddel? Which un is Vatch?” The girl looked at him. “It’s caze yawl ain’t never been nowhere. Ain’t never seed nothing. Living up here on a nekkid hill whar you can’t even see smoke. Him a nigger? I wish his maw could hear you say dat.” He looked about the kitchen, wizened, his eyeballs rolling white, ceaseless, this way and that. The girl watched him.
“Do the girls there wear shoes all the time?” she said.
The Negro looked about the kitchen, “Where does yawl keep dat ere Tennessee spring water? Back here somewhere?”
“Spring water?”
The Negro blinked slowly. “Dat ere light-drinking kahysene.”
“Kahysene?”
“Dat ere light colored lamp oil whut yawl drinks. Ain’t you got a little of it hid back here somewhere?”
