With his mouth puckered. A number of scarecrows laughed.
And then they heard the echo of their own cheer
Flung back at them, it seemed, in a high, shrill wail
With that tongue of metal pulsing its feebleness.
But it did not end like an echo, it gathered and rose,
It was the Confederate sick on the other side,
Cheering their own. The two weak crowd-voices met
In one piping, gull-like cry. Then the boats began
To take the weak men on board. Jack Ellyat walked
To his boat on stuffless legs. “Keep quiet,” he thought,
“You’re not through yet—you won’t be through till you land.
They can jerk you back, even now, if you look too pleased.
Look like a soldier, damn you, and show them how.”
The thought was childish but it stiffened his back
And got him into the boat. In the midst of the stream
They passed a boat with Confederate prisoners
So near they could yell at each other. “Hello there, Yank.”
“Hello Reb” … “You look pretty sick—don’t we feed you good?” …
“You don’t look so damn pretty, yourself” … “My, ain’t that a shame!” …
“You’ll look a lot sicker when Hooker gets after you.” …
“Hell, old Jack’ll take Hooker apart like a coffee-pot” …
“Well, goodbye, Yank” … “Goodbye, Reb” … “Get fat if you kin.”
So might meet and pass, perhaps, on a weedier stream
Other boats, no more heavily charged, to a wet, black oar.
Bailey watched the boat move away with its sick grey men
Still yelling stingless insults through tired lips.
He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Oh—” he roared,
Then he sank back, coughing. “They look pretty bad,” he said,
“They look glad to get back. They ain’t such bad Rebs at that.”
The boat’s nose touched the wharf. It swung and was held.
They got out. They didn’t move toward the camp at first.
They looked back at the river first and the other side,
Without saying words. They stood there thus for a space
Like a row of tattered cranes at the edge of a stream,
Blinking at something.
“All right, you men,” said an officer. “Come along.”
Jack Ellyat’s heart made a sudden lump in his chest.
It was a blue officer. They were back in their lines,
Back out of prison. Bailey whirled out his arm
In a great wheel gesture. “Hell,” he said in a low,
Moved voice, thumbed his nose across at the Stars and Bars
And burst into horrible tears. Jack Ellyat held him.
“Captain, when do we eat?” said the Jew in a wail.
Book VI
Cudjo breathed on the silver urn
And rubbed till his hand began to burn,
With his hoarded scrap of chamois-skin.
The metal glittered like bright new tin
And yet, as he labored, his mouth was sad—
“Times is gettin’ almighty bad.
Christmas a-comin’, sure and swif’,
But no use hollerin’ ‘Christmas Gif!’
No use keepin’ the silver fittin’,
No use doin’ nothin’ but sittin’.
Old Marse Billy stayin’ away,
Yankees shootin’ at Young Marse Clay,
Grey hairs in Miss Mary’s brush,
And a-whooin’ wind in de berry-bush,
Dat young red setter done eat her pups,
We was washin’ de tea set an’ bust two cups,
Just come apart in Liza’s han’—
Christmas, where has you gwine to, man?
Won’t you never come back again?
I feels like a cat in de outdoors rain.”
Christmas used to come without fail,
A big old man with a raccoan tail,
So fine and bushy it brushed the ground
And made folks sneeze when he waltzed around.
He was rolling river and lucky sun
And a laugh like a double-barrelled gun,
And the chip-straw hat on his round, bald head
Was full of money and gingerbread.
“Come in, Christmas, and have a cheer!
But, if he’s comin’, he won’t stop here,
He likes folks cheerful and dinners smokin’
And famblies shootin’ off caps and jokin’,
But he won’t find nothin’ on dis plantation,
But a lot of grievin’ conversation.
Dey’s tooken de carpets and window-weights
To go and shoot at de Yankee States,
Dey’s tooken Nelly, de cross-eye mule,
And whoever took her was one big fool;
Dey’s tooken dis an’ dey’s tooken dat,
Till I kain’t make out what dey’s drivin’ at.
But if Ole Marse Billy could see dis place
He’d cuss all Georgia blue in de face.
To see me wuhkin with dis ole shammy
Like a field-hand-nigger fum Alabammy,
And Ole Miss wearin’ a cornhusk hat,
Dippin’ ole close in de dyein’ vat,
Scrapin’ her petticoats up for lint
An’ bilin’ her tea out of julep-mint.
Young Marse Clay he’d feel mighty sad
If he’d seed de weddin’ his sisters had.
De grooms was tall and de brides was fine,
But dey drunk de health in blackberry wine,
And supper was thu at half-past-nine.
Weddin’s ust to last for a week,
But now we’s rowin’ up Hard Times Creek.
Somethin’s conjured dis white-folks’ South,
Somethin’ big with a hongry mouth,
Eatin’ an’ eatin’—I done my bes’,
Scattered de fedders and burnt de nes’,
Filled de bottle an’ made de hand
An’ buried de trick in Baptis’ land,
An’ dat trick’s so strong, I was skeered all night,
But, somehow or udder, it don’ wuhk right.
Ef I got me a piece of squinch-owl’s tail
An’ some dead-folks’ yearth fum de county jail,
It mout wuhk better—but I ain’t sho’,
And de wind keeps scrabblin’ under de do’,
Scratchin’ and scratchin’ his buzzard-claws,
Won’t nuthin’ feed you, hungry jaws?
Field hands keeps on hoein’ de corn,
Stupidest niggers ever born,
All dey’s good for is gravy-lickin’,
Ram-buttin’ and cotton-pickin’;
Dey don’t hear de wind in de slew,
But dat wind’s blowin’ over ’em too,
An’ dat wind’s res’less an’ dat wind’s wile,
An’ dat wind aches like a motherless chile,
Won’t nuthin’ feed you, achin’ wind?”
The hand stopped rubbing. The spoons were shined.
He put them back in the flannel bag
And stared at his scrap of chamois-rag.
War was a throat that swallowed things
And you couldn’t cure it with conjurings.
Sally Dupré watched over her dyeing-pots,
Evening was setting in with a light slow rain
That marched like a fairy army—there being nothing
From the white fog on the hill to the soaked door-stone
But a moving grey and silver hurry of lances,
Distinct yet crowded, thin as the edge of the moon,
Carried in no fleshed hand. She thought to herself,
“I have stained my arms with new colors, doing this work,
The red is pokeberry-juice, the grey is green myrtle,
The deep black is queen’s delight. If he saw me now
With my hands so parti-colored he would not know them.
He likes girls’ hands that nothing has stained but lotions,
This is too fast
