Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [147]
Just as it had been done in Africa, Kunta had also begun to keep track of the passing of time by dropping a small pebble into a gourd on the morning after each new moon. First he had dropped into the gourd 12 rounded, multicolored stones for the 12 moons he guessed he’d spent on the first toubob farm; then he had dropped in six more for the time he’d been here on this new farm; and then he had carefully counted out 204 stones for the 17 rains he’d reached when he was taken from Juffure, and dropped them into the gourd. Adding them all up, he figured that he was now into his nineteenth rain.
So as old as he felt, he was still a young man. Would he spend the rest of his life here, as the gardener had, watching hope and pride slip away along with the years, until there was nothing left to live for and time had finally run out? The thought filled him with dread—and determination not to end up the way the old man had, doddering around in his plot, uncertain which foot to put before the other. The poor man was worn out long before the midday meal, and through the afternoons he was only able to pretend that he was working at all, and Kunta had to shoulder almost all the load.
Every morning, as Kunta bent over his rows, Bell would come with her basket—Kunta had learned that she was the cook in the big house—to pick the vegetables she wanted to fix for the massa that day. But the whole time she was there, she never so much as looked at Kunta, even when she walked right past him. It puzzled and irritated him, remembering how she had attended him daily when he lay fighting to survive, and how she would nod at him during the evenings at the fiddler’s. He decided that he hated her, that the only reason she had acted as his nurse back then was because the massa had ordered her to do it. Kunta wished that he could hear whatever the fiddler might have to say about this matter, but he knew that his limited command of words wouldn’t allow him to express it right—apart from the fact that even asking would be too embarrassing.
One morning not long afterward, the old man didn’t come to the garden, and Kunta guessed that he must be sick. He had seemed even more feeble than usual for the past few days. Rather than going right away to the old man’s hut to check on him, Kunta went straight to work watering and weeding, for he knew that Bell was due at any moment, and he didn’t think it would be fitting for her to find no one there when she arrived.
A few minutes later she showed up and, still without looking at Kunta, went about her business, filling her basket with vegetables as Kunta stood holding his hoe and watching her. Then, as she started to leave, Bell hesitated, looked around, set the basket on the ground, and—throwing a quick, hard glance at Kunta—marched off. Her message was clear that he should bring her basket to the back door of the big house, as the old man had always done. Kunta all but exploded with rage, his mind flashing an image of dozens of Juffure women bearing their headloads in a line past the bantaba tree where Juffure’s men always rested. Slamming down his hoe, he was about to stamp away when he remembered how close she was to the massa. Gritting his teeth, he bent over, seized the basket, and followed silently after Bell. At the door, she turned around and took the basket as if she didn’t even see him. He returned to the garden seething.
From that day on, Kunta more or less became the gardener. The old man, who was very sick, came only now and then, whenever he was strong enough to