When Mary went to get Seraphine, the baby lay quiet in Budda Ben’s arms, her small head close against his heart. Maum Hannah had some butter and brown sugar and was tying it into a cloth, making a sugar rag for Seraphine to suck. One of the baby’s hands clutched the end of the red kerchief tie around Budda’s neck, and the other was closed fast around his thumb.
“You tink you is smart, enty?” he asked Mary savagely. “You counted on havin some sport out o me. Well, you can go on home by yousef. Me an’ Ma can take care o dis baby.” His under lip was thrust out and his voice was grim, but Mary’s heart sang for joy for the trick she played on him had worked.
Disregarding his struggles to pull away from her, Mary knelt down and squeezed his arm.
“Budda, Budda,” she whispered, “please don’ be vexed wid me no more. It’s Christmas. I gi you a nice Christmas gift, enty? I wasn’ makin sport o you. No. I want you to love me an’ po lil Seraphine too. Budda, I missed you too bad. I know I done wrong, but I ain’ gwine never do wrong, not no more. Not long as I live, Budda.”
“You is a low-down gal, May-e. Low-down as you only can be. If it wasn’ fo dis po lil stray baby, I wouldn’ never speak to you again, long as I live. Dat’s de Gawd’s truth.” In spite of his contempt which burned her clear through, Mary felt a smile tugging at her lips.
“Now, Budda—”
“I mean it.” His tone was harsh, and his eyes were blazing. Yet she caught a glimmer of the old kindliness she had known all her life.
“Budda—smile at me one time, just by it’s Christmas Day.” Budda turned his face away and gazed into the fire that glowed scarlet as her sin. But from that minute on when nobody else could hush Seraphine’s crying, Budda could.
XVIII
Fifteen years passed and although everything on the plantation looked much the same, many changes had crept in. The pots on Mary’s hearth were always full, the pigpen always kept a shoat fattening on the scraps of food that were left; a flock of hens with red ripe combs clucked and cackled around her door and greens kept her vegetable garden lively; food was plentiful and everybody in her house had plenty to eat. But the old house itself needed help, and June was not there to fix it. The old rock pillars were crumbling and they let the solid weight of the building’s square body lean to one side. The front door sagged and scraped on the floor; the board window-blinds drooped on their hinges, one-sided and out of shape. Thank God, the old clay chimney was still firm on its foundations, able to breathe out smoke day after day; and the green moss on the roof held the frayed shingles together from the warped ridgepole to the edge of the rotting eaves.
Food was plentiful but money was scarce, for the cotton-fields which had always provided enough for outside needs were cursed with the most terrible pest the plantation had ever known. The cotton stalks grew taller than they ever had done, their leaves stayed green through the worst droughts, but they made no fruit for they fed multitudes of boll-weevils from the first warm days of the spring until a killing frost came. Then the moss on the old oak trees made warm pleasant beds to keep the pests safe through the winter.
Some people called the creatures boll-weevils, others called them boll-evils, some people thought God made them to turn the thought of people to Him, others thought Satan had sent them; but no matter who was right, the wicked things destroyed every lock of cotton year after year and no man or charm or conjure could rule them.
The white landowners sent poison machines to scatter poison dust over the fields. Night after night the strange things droned and whined spreading their poison clouds, but the rain always came and washed the fields clean and fresh again. It must have been that the weevils could eat poison and thrive. The stuff that was meant to kill them seemed to make them grow fatter and stronger than ever. Cotton’s time was out. In the fall, competition had always been keen and people had asked each other, “How many bales did you make this year?” They now sighed and asked, “Where will we get seed enough to plant a crop next year?”
In the spring they no longer asked, “Is your cotton up to a stand yet?” but, “Is your field as thick with boll-weevils as mine?”
For a few years June struggled on trying to fight weevils and make a crop but fall after fall came and found him with nothing to show for his whole year’s work. He got discouraged and gave up and went away to find something else to do. He could not write so no letter ever came to tell Mary where he went or what he was doing.
Unex had grown up tall like July. His eyes glittered with the same boldness and his white teeth pierced the blackness of his face when he boasted that he knew how to work, that his back would never bend under a load. But at last he gave up too and left to find better work and easier money somewhere out in the world. He went with a laugh in his mouth, he took nothing but a little bundle of clothes and his father’s old battered guitar (they were all he wanted in the world); but he had never learned to write and no word ever came from him. Only God knew if he was alive or not. Mary had reared every child she had brought into the world, for she knew how to start them off right. Her house was full of them,
