and the kids at the colored school. Sometimes I’d turn and see him and Mary Ella talking quiet to each other, and I’d remind myself that my sister, for all her strangeness, could be a real nice girl. Anyway, Mary Ella’s mind wasn’t on the song. It was out there in the field, I was sure of it. All us gals, we was watching the field. Watching our men—Henry Allen, Eli, Devil, and the day laborers—as they walked through the rows of tall tobacco, disappearing as they bent over to snap the leaves from the stalks and pile them in the sled.
Some days the gossip came even before the singing. Other times, we’d complain about the heat or maybe worry out loud about how the machines was taking over on some of the farms. It was mostly Lita worried about that, since her boys worked the field and machines could work it much quicker. No way a machine could do what we girls was doing, though, looping the tobacco to the long sticks.
The colored day laborers liked working for Mr. Gardiner. He paid them the same as white folks and he sometimes brung all of us Desiree’s pimiento cheese sandwiches for a snack in the middle of every morning. At dinnertime, we’d go home, scrub off the tar, and eat like there was no tomorrow. The Jordans went home, too. They lived in a house just like ours, but clear at the other end of the tobacco field. Their house was right out in the open. This time of year, I thought we was the lucky ones, with all the shade around us. In the winter, though, that sun warmed their place right up while we near froze to death. I liked being in their house because of the cooking smells. Didn’t matter if I just ate dinner myself, I walked in that house and my mouth started watering. You could tell there was a mama living there. You could tell someone was taking care of everybody. My house never smelled like the Jordans’, even if we was cooking something good.
The rest of the colored help ate dinner at tables outside the Gardiners’ house. Every once in a while, Mr. Gardiner’d ask me and Nonnie and Mary Ella to eat inside with him and Henry Allen. Me and Henry Allen always acted like we hardly knew each other when we ate together. We was careful not to look straight at each other’s eyes, afraid we’d start laughing. It was the same when I hitched a ride to church with them on Sunday morning. Nonnie and Mary Ella was too shamed to go to church ever since Baby William came along, but the Gardiners took me with them, and me and Henry Allen sat in the backseat of their old Ford as far apart as we could get, acting like we didn’t know each other’s name. I liked that nobody knew I understood that boy inside and out. Mr. Gardiner wouldn’t take kindly to that news. I was a tenant on his land. Nothing more than that.
“Pay attention to your work, now,” Lita said to me, quiet so Nonnie wouldn’t hear and start yelling at me. I’d slowed down on my looping because I was too busy watching Mary Ella, making sure her eyes didn’t light on any particular boy—or man—out in the field and give her ideas.
Then Lita started singing “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” and we joined in. Nonnie liked this one and she sung it out as loud as she could, though she didn’t have much of a singing voice left. I could remember when I was little, I loved listening to her. She’d sing her hymns around the house. That was before everything went wrong and she was happy and didn’t have the sugar and the rheumatism and Mama and Daddy was still with us and harvesttime was me and Mary Ella running around with Henry Allen and the Jordan kids, throwing the hornworms at each other and feeling important as we made our few pennies picking up any leaves that had dropped. All of us was playmates and workmates. White and colored, didn’t make no difference. But one day when I was about ten, we was at the Gardiners’ store when Eli brung in a package for Mrs. Gardiner. I asked him, “You want to fish in the crick later?” in
Some days the gossip came even before the singing. Other times, we’d complain about the heat or maybe worry out loud about how the machines was taking over on some of the farms. It was mostly Lita worried about that, since her boys worked the field and machines could work it much quicker. No way a machine could do what we girls was doing, though, looping the tobacco to the long sticks.
The colored day laborers liked working for Mr. Gardiner. He paid them the same as white folks and he sometimes brung all of us Desiree’s pimiento cheese sandwiches for a snack in the middle of every morning. At dinnertime, we’d go home, scrub off the tar, and eat like there was no tomorrow. The Jordans went home, too. They lived in a house just like ours, but clear at the other end of the tobacco field. Their house was right out in the open. This time of year, I thought we was the lucky ones, with all the shade around us. In the winter, though, that sun warmed their place right up while we near froze to death. I liked being in their house because of the cooking smells. Didn’t matter if I just ate dinner myself, I walked in that house and my mouth started watering. You could tell there was a mama living there. You could tell someone was taking care of everybody. My house never smelled like the Jordans’, even if we was cooking something good.
The rest of the colored help ate dinner at tables outside the Gardiners’ house. Every once in a while, Mr. Gardiner’d ask me and Nonnie and Mary Ella to eat inside with him and Henry Allen. Me and Henry Allen always acted like we hardly knew each other when we ate together. We was careful not to look straight at each other’s eyes, afraid we’d start laughing. It was the same when I hitched a ride to church with them on Sunday morning. Nonnie and Mary Ella was too shamed to go to church ever since Baby William came along, but the Gardiners took me with them, and me and Henry Allen sat in the backseat of their old Ford as far apart as we could get, acting like we didn’t know each other’s name. I liked that nobody knew I understood that boy inside and out. Mr. Gardiner wouldn’t take kindly to that news. I was a tenant on his land. Nothing more than that.
“Pay attention to your work, now,” Lita said to me, quiet so Nonnie wouldn’t hear and start yelling at me. I’d slowed down on my looping because I was too busy watching Mary Ella, making sure her eyes didn’t light on any particular boy—or man—out in the field and give her ideas.
Then Lita started singing “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” and we joined in. Nonnie liked this one and she sung it out as loud as she could, though she didn’t have much of a singing voice left. I could remember when I was little, I loved listening to her. She’d sing her hymns around the house. That was before everything went wrong and she was happy and didn’t have the sugar and the rheumatism and Mama and Daddy was still with us and harvesttime was me and Mary Ella running around with Henry Allen and the Jordan kids, throwing the hornworms at each other and feeling important as we made our few pennies picking up any leaves that had dropped. All of us was playmates and workmates. White and colored, didn’t make no difference. But one day when I was about ten, we was at the Gardiners’ store when Eli brung in a package for Mrs. Gardiner. I asked him, “You want to fish in the crick later?” in
Similar Books
