Coming of Age in Mississippi Read online

  In the meantime, she got our Uncle Ed, whom we liked so much, to come over and look after us every day. Sometimes he would take us hunting. Then we wouldn’t have to sit on the porch and watch those snakes in that boiling hot summer sun. Ed made us a “niggershooter” each. This was a little slingshot made out of a piece of leather connected to a forked stick by a thin slab of rubber. We would take rocks and shoot them at birds and anything else we saw. Ed was the only one who ever killed anything. He always carried salt and matches in his pockets and whenever he’d kill a bird he’d pick and roast it right there in the woods. Sometimes Ed took us fishing too. He knew every creek in the whole area and we’d roam for miles. Whenever we caught fish we’d scrape and cook them right on the bank of the creek. On those days we didn’t have to eat that hard cold pone of bread Mama left for us.

  Sometimes Ed would keep us in the woods all day, and we wouldn’t hunt birds or fish or anything. We just walked, listening to the birds and watching the squirrels leap from tree to tree and the rabbits jumping behind the little stumps. Ed had a way of making you feel so much a part of everything about the woods. He used to point out all the trees to us, telling us which was an oak, and which was a pine and which bore fruit. He’d even give us quizzes to see if we could remember one tree from another. I thought he was the smartest person in the whole world.

  One day Ed was late coming and we had resigned ourselves to spending the whole day on the porch. We rocked for hours in the sun and finally fell asleep. Eventually Ed came. He locked the house up immediately and rushed us off the porch. He told us he was going to surprise us. I thought we were going to a new creek or something so I begged him to tell me. He saw that I was upset so finally he told me that he was taking us home with him.

  As we were walking down the rock road, it occurred to me that I had never been home with Ed and I was dying to see where he lived. I could only remember seeing Grandma Winnie once, when she came to our house just after Junior was born. Mama never visited Grandma because they didn’t get along that well. Grandma had talked Mama into marrying my daddy when Mama wanted to marry someone else. Now that Mama and Daddy had separated, she didn’t want anything to do with Grandma, especially when she learned that her old boyfriend was married and living in Chicago.

  Ed told us that he didn’t live very far from us, but walking barefooted on the rock road in the boiling hot sun, I began to wonder how far was “not very far.”

  “Ed, how much more longer we gotta go? These rocks is burning my foots,” I said.

  “Ain’t much further. Just right around that bend,” Ed yelled back at me. “Why didn’t you put them shoes on? I told you them rocks was hot.” He waited on me now. “Oughter make you go all the way back to that house and put them shoes on. You gonna be laggin’ behind comin’ back and we ain’t never gonna make it ’fore Toosweet get off o’ work!”

  “Mama told us we ain’t supposed to wear our shoes out round the house. You know we ain’t got but one pair and them my school shoes.”

  “Here it is, right here,” Ed said at last. “Essie Mae, run up front and open that gate.” By this time he was carrying Junior on his back and Adline half asleep on his hip.

  I ran to the gate and opened it and rode on it as it swung open. We entered a green pasture with lots of cows.

  “Is that where you stay?” I asked Ed as I pointed to an old wooden house on the side of a hill.

  “Is any more houses down there?” Ed said, laughing at me. “See that pond over there, Essie Mae!” he called as I ran down the hill. “I’m gonna bring y’all fishing over here one day. Boy, they got some big fishes in there! You shoulda seen what Sam and Walter caught yesterday.”

  I glanced at the pond but ran right past it. I didn’t have my mind on fishing at all. I was dying to see Grandma Winnie’s house and Sam and Walter, Ed’s younger brothers, and his sister Alberta whom I had never met. Ed had told me that George Lee was now living with his daddy and stepmother. I was glad because I didn’t want to run into him there.

  Alberta was standing in the yard at the side of the house feeding the big fire around the washpot with kindling. Two white boys about my size stood at her side. I looked around for Sam and Walter. But I didn’t see them.

  “Ed, what took you so long? I oughta made you tote that water fo’ you left here,” Alberta shouted at Ed as she turned and saw us.

  “I had to tote Adline and Junior all the way here. You must think um superman or something,” Ed answered angrily.

  “I ain’t asked you what you is! You just git that bucket and fill that rinse tub up fulla water!” Alberta shouted. “Sam, yo’n Essie Mae help Ed with that water. And, Walter, take Adline and Junior on that porch outta the way.”

  I stood dead in my tracks with my mouth wide open as the two white boys jumped when Alberta yelled Sam’s and Walter’s names. One boy ran to the wash bench against the house and got a bucket and the other picked up Junior, took Adline by the hand, and carried them on the porch.

  “Essie Mae! Didn’t I tell you to help Sam and Ed with that water?” Alberta yelled at me.

  “Where is Sam and Walter?” I asked with my eyes focused on the white boy on the porch with Adline and Junior.

  “Is you blind or somethin’? Get that bucket and help tote that water,” Alberta yelled.

  I turned my head to look for Ed. He was headed for the pond in front of the house with a bucket in his hand. “Ed!” I shouted, still in a state of shock. He turned and looked at me. I stood there looking from Ed to the white boys and back to Ed again, without saying anything. Ed opened his mouth to speak but no words came. A deep expression of hurt crossed his face. For a second he dropped his head to avoid my eyes. Then he walked toward me. He picked up another bucket and handed it to me. Then he took me by the hand and led me to the pond.

  As we walked toward the pond, one of the white boys ran ahead of us. He climbed through the barbed-wire fence right below the levee of the pond. Then he turned and pushed the bottom strand of the wire down to the ground with his foot and held the middle strand up with his hands, so Ed and I could walk through. I began to pull back from Ed but he clutched my hand even harder and led me toward the fence. As we ducked under, I brushed against the white boy. Jerking back, I caught my hair in the barbed-wire overhead.

  “Essie Mae, watch yo’ head ’fore you git cut! Wait, wait, you got your hair caught,” the white boy said as he quickly and gently untangled my hair from the wire. Then he picked up the bucket I had dropped and handed it to me. Ed didn’t say one word as he stood beside the fence watching us.

  The white boy caught me by the hand and attempted to pull me up the levee of the pond. I pulled back. Still holding my hand, he stopped and stared at me puzzled. “Come on, Essie Mae!” yelled Ed, giving me an “it’s O.K., stupid” look as he ran up the levee past us. Then the white boy and I followed Ed up the hill holding hands.

  As we toted water from the pond, I kept watching the white boys and listening to Alberta and Ed call them Sam and Walter. I noticed that they treated them just like they treated me, and the white boy called Sam was nice to me just like Ed. He kept telling me about the fish he and Walter had caught and that I should come and fish with them sometimes.

  After we finished toting the water, we went on the porch where Adline, Junior, and Walter sat. Adline had a funny look on her face. I could tell that she was thinking about Sam and Walter too. Before the evening was over, I finally realized that the two boys actually were Ed’s brothers. But how Ed got two white brothers worried me.

  On our way back home, Ed carried us through the woods. As we walked, he talked and talked about the birds, the trees, and everything else he could think of, without letting me say a word. I knew he didn’t want to talk about Sam and Walter, so I didn’t say anything. I just walked and listened.

  I thought about Sam and Walter so much that night, it gave me a headache. Then I finally asked Mama:

  “Mama, them two boys over at Winnie’s. Ed say they
is his brothers. Is they your brothers?”

  “What boys?” Mama asked.

  “Over at Winnie’s. They got two boys living with her about my size and they is the same color as Miss Cook.…”

  “What did y’all do over at Winnie’s today? Was Winnie home?” Mama asked as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “No, she was at work. Wasn’t nobody there but Alberta and those two boys.…”

  “What was Alberta doing?” Mama asked.

  “She was washing and we toted water from the pond for her. Them boys is some nice and they say they is kin to us. Ain’t they your brothers, Mama?”

  “Look, don’t you be so stupid! If they’s Winnie’s children and I’m Winnie’s too, don’t that make us sisters and brothers?” Mama shouted at me.

  “But how come they look like Miss Cook and Winnie ain’t that color and Alberta ain’t that color and you …”

  “ ’Cause us daddy ain’t that color! Now you shut up! Why you gotta know so much all the time? I told Ed not to take y’all to Winnie’s,” she shouted.

  Mama was so mad that I was scared if I asked her anything else she might hit me, so I shut up. But she hadn’t nearly satisfied my curiosity at all.

  While Mama was working at the café in town, she began to get fat. She often told us how much she could eat while she was working. So I didn’t think anything of her slowly growing “little pot.” But one day after taking a good look, I noticed it wasn’t a little pot anymore. And I knew she was going to have a baby. She cried just about every night, then she would get up sick every morning. She didn’t stop working until a week before the baby was born, and she was out of work only three weeks. She went right back to the café.

  Mama called the baby James. His daddy was a soldier. One day the soldier and his mother came to get him. They were real yellow people. The only Negro near their color I had ever seen was Florence, the lady my daddy was now living with. The soldier’s mother was a stout lady with long thin straight black hair and very thin lips. She looked like a slightly tanned white woman. Mama called her “Miss Pearl.” All the time they were in our house, Mama acted as though she was scared of them. She smiled a couple of times when they made general comments about the baby. But I could tell she didn’t mean it.

  Just before the soldier and Miss Pearl left, Miss Pearl turned to Mama and said, “You can’t work and feed them other children and keep this baby too.” I guess Mama did want to keep the little boy. She looked so sad I thought she was going to cry, but she didn’t say anything. Miss Pearl must have seen how Mama looked too. “You can stop in to see the baby when you are in town sometimes,” she said. Then she and the soldier took him and drove away in their car. Mama cried all night. And she kept saying bad things about some Raymond. I figured that was the name of the soldier who gave her the baby.

  At the end of that summer Mama found it necessary for us to move into town, in Centreville, where she worked. This time we moved into a two-room house that was twice the size of the other one. It was next to where a very poor white family lived in a large green frame house. It was also located on one of the main roads branching off Highway 24 running into Centreville. We were now a little less than a mile from the school that I was to attend, which was on the same road as our house. Here we had a sidewalk for the first time. It extended from town all the way to school where it ended. I was glad we lived on the sidewalk side of the road. Between the sidewalk and our house the top soil was sand about two feet deep. We were the only ones with clean white sand in our yard and it seemed beautiful and special. There was even more sand for us to play in in a large vacant lot on the other side of our house. The white people living next to us only had green grass in their yard just like everybody else.

  A few weeks after we moved there, I was in school again. I was now six years old and in the second grade. At first, it was like being in heaven to have less than a mile to walk to school. And having a sidewalk from our house all the way there made things even better.

  I was going to Willis High, the only Negro school in Centreville. It was named for Mr. C. H. Willis, its principal and founder, and had only been expanded into a high school the year before I started there. Before Mr. Willis came to town, the eighth grade had been the limit of schooling for Negro children in Centreville.

  For the first month that I was in school a Negro family across the street kept Adline and Junior. But after that Mama had them stay at home alone and, every hour or so until I came home, the lady across the street would come down and look in on them. One day when I came home from school, Adline and Junior were naked playing in the sand in front of our house. All the children who lived in town used that sidewalk that passed our house. When they saw Adline and Junior sitting in the sand naked they started laughing and making fun of them. I was ashamed to go in the house or recognize Adline and Junior as my little sister and brother. I had never felt that way before. I got mad at Mama because she had to work and couldn’t take care of Adline and Junior herself. Every day after that I hated the sand in front of the house.

  Before school was out we moved again and I was glad. It seemed as though we were always moving. Every time it was to a house on some white man’s place and every time it was a room and a kitchen. The new place was much smaller than the last one, but it was nicer. Here we had a large pasture to play in that was dry, flat, and always closely cropped because of the cattle. Mama still worked at the café. But now she had someone to keep Adline and Junior until I came home from school.

  One day shortly after Christmas, Junior set the house on fire. He was playing in the front room. We had a small round tin heater in there and Junior raked red-hot coals out of it onto the floor and pushed them against the wall. I was washing dishes in the kitchen when I looked up and saw flames leaping toward the ceiling. I ran to get Junior. The house had loose newspaper tacked to the walls and was built out of old dry lumber. It was burning fast.

  After I had carried Junior outside, I took him and Adline up on a hill a little distance away. The whole house was blazing now. I stood there with Junior on my hip and holding Adline by the hand and suddenly I thought about the new clothes Mama had bought us for Christmas. These were the first she had ever bought us. All our other clothes had been given to us. I had to get them. I left Adline and Junior on the hill and ran back to the house. I opened the kitchen door and was about to crawl into the flames and smoke when a neighbor grabbed me and jerked me out. Just as she pulled me away, the roof fell in. I stood there beside her with tears running down my face and watched the house burn to the ground. All our new Christmas clothes were gone, burned to ashes.

  We had only lived there for a few months and now we moved again to another two-room house off a long rock road. This time Mama quit the job at the café to do domestic work for a white family. We lived in their maid’s quarters. Since Mama made only five dollars a week, the white woman she worked for let us live in the house free. Mama’s job was now close to home and she could watch Adline and Junior herself.

  Sometimes Mama would bring us the white family’s leftovers. It was the best food I had ever eaten. That was when I discovered that white folks ate different from us. They had all kinds of different food with meat and all. We always had just beans and bread. One Saturday the white lady let Mama bring us to her house. We sat on the back porch until the white family finished eating. Then Mama brought us in the house and sat us at the table and we finished up the food. It was the first time I had seen the inside of a white family’s kitchen. That kitchen was pretty, all white and shiny. Mama had cooked that food we were eating too. “If Mama only had a kitchen like this of her own,” I thought, “she would cook better food for us.”

  Mama was still seeing Raymond, the soldier she had the baby for. Now we were living right up the road, about a mile from Miss Pearl. Raymond started coming to our house every weekend. Often he would bring us candy or something to eat when he came. Some Sundays, Mama would take us out to his house to see the baby, James, who was no
w two years old and looked a lot like his daddy. Mama seemed to like the baby very much. But she was always so uncomfortable around Miss Pearl and the rest of Raymond’s people. They didn’t like Mama at all. Sometimes when Mama was there she looked as if she would cry any minute. After we had come home from their place, she would cry and fuss all evening. She would say things like, “They can’t keep me from seeing my baby. They must be crazy. If I can’t go see him there I’ll bring him home.” But she only said those things. She knew she couldn’t possibly take the baby home and work and take care of the four of us. Once when we went out there to see the baby, he was filthy from head to toe. Mama gave him a bath and washed all of his clothes. Then every Sunday after that Mama would go there just to wash his clothes and bathe him.

  Raymond was going with a yellow woman at the same time he was going with Mama. All of his people wanted him to marry her. They didn’t want him to marry Mama, who wasn’t yellow and who was stuck with the three of us. Things began to get so tense when we would go to see the baby that we’d only stay long enough for Mama to give him a bath. Then one day Raymond went back to the service and that ended some of the tension. But Mama got scared to go to Miss Pearl’s without Raymond there, so she stopped going and we didn’t see the baby for a long time.

  Chapter

  THREE

  That white lady Mama was working for worked her so hard that she always came home griping about backaches. Every night she’d have to put a red rubber bottle filled with hot water under her back. It got so bad that she finally quit. The white lady was so mad she couldn’t get Mama to stay that the next day she told Mama to leave to make room for the new maid.

  This time we moved two miles up the same road. Mama had another domestic job. Now she worked from breakfast to supper and still made five dollars a week. But these people didn’t work Mama too hard and she wasn’t as tired as before when she came home. The people she worked for were nice to us. Mrs. Johnson was a schoolteacher. Mr. Johnson was a rancher who bought and sold cattle. Mr. Johnson’s mother, an old lady named Miss Ola, lived with them.