第84章

WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny;the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits whispering -- spirits that's been dead ever so many years -- and you always think they're talking about YOU.As a general thing it makes a body wish HE was dead, too, and done with it all.

Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they all look alike.A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks -- hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smokehouse back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ashhopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd;hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods.

I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and started for the kitchen.When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead -- for that IS the lonesomest sound in the whole world.

I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone.

When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still.And such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say -- spokes made out of dogs -- circle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.

A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her hand, singing out, "Begone YOU Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me.There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.

And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they always do.And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers was going.She was smiling all over so she could hardly stand -- and says:

"It's YOU, at last! -- AIN'T it?"

I out with a "Yes'm" before I thought.

She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over;and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, "You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, Idon't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom! -- tell him howdy."But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her.So she run on:

"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away -- or did you get your breakfast on the boat?"I said I had got it on the boat.So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after.When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:

"Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and, laws-ame, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more.What kep' you? --boat get aground?"

"Yes'm -- she --"

"Don't say yes'm -- say Aunt Sally.Where'd she get aground?"I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down.But I go a good deal on instinct;and my instinct said she would be coming up -- from down towards Orleans.

That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names of bars down that way.I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on -- or -- Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:

"It warn't the grounding -- that didn't keep us back but a little.We blowed out a cylinder-head.""Good gracious! anybody hurt?"

"No'm.Killed a nigger."