Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [186]
When it seemed as if the very effort of reading had fatigued her, she went thumbing through the inside pages, pointing out to Kunta one after another identical small figures that were recognizable as men carrying a bundle at the end of a stick over their shoulders, and with her finger on the block of print under one of these figures, she said, “Dat’s always ’scribin’ dese runaway niggers—like it was one ’bout you de las’ time you run off. It tell what color dey is, what marks dey got on dey faces or arms or legs or backs from bein’ beat or branded. An’ it tell what dey was wearin’ when dey run off, an’ sich as dat. An’ den it tell who dey belongst to, and what reward bein’ offered to whoever catch dem and bring dem back. I seen it be much as five hunnud, an’ I seen it be where de nigger done run so much dat he massa so mad he advertise ten dollars fo’ de live nigger back an’ fi’teen fo’ jes’ his head.”
Finally she set the paper down with a sigh, seemingly fatigued by the effort of reading. “Now you knows how I foun’ out ’bout dat nigger doctor. Same way de massa did.”
Kunta asked if she didn’t think she might be taking chances reading the massa’s paper like that.
“I’se real careful,” she said. “But I tell you one time I got scared to death wid massa,” Bell added. “One day he jes’ walked in on me when I s’posed to be dustin’ in de livin’ room, but what I was doin’ was looking in one a dem books a his’n. Lawd, I like to froze. Massa jes’ stood dere a minute lookin’ at me. But he never said nothin’. He jes’ walked out, an’ from de next day to dis day it’s been a lock on his bookcase.”
When Bell put away the newspaper back under the bed, she was quiet for a while, and Kunta knew her well enough by now to know that she still had something on her mind. They were about ready to go to bed when she abruptly seated herself at the table, as if she had just made up her mind about something, and with an expression both furtive and proud on her face, drew from her apron pocket a pencil and a folded piece of paper. Smoothing out the paper, she began to print some letters very carefully.
“You know what dat is?” she asked, and before Kunta could say no, answered, “Well, dat’s my name. B-e-l-l.” Kunta stared at the penciled characters, remembering of how for years he had shrunk away from any closeness to toubob writing, thinking it contained some toubob greegrees that might bring him harm—but he still wasn’t too sure that was so farfetched. Bell now printed some more letters. “Dat’s your name, K-u-n-t-a.” She beamed up at him. Despite himself, Kunta couldn’t resist bending a little closer to study the strange markings. But then Bell got up, crumpled the paper, and threw it onto the dying embers in the fireplace. “Ain’t never gone git caught wid no writin’.”
Several weeks had passed before Kunta finally decided to do something about an irritation that had been eating at him ever since Bell showed him so proudly that she could read and write. Like their white massas, these plantation-born blacks seemed to take it for granted that those who had come from Africa had just climbed down from the trees, let alone had any experience whatever with education.
So very casually one evening after supper, he knelt down before the cabin’s fireplace and raked a pile of ashes out onto the hearth, then used his hands to flatten and smooth them out. With Bell watching curiously, he then took a slender whittled stick from his pocket and proceeded to scratch into the ashes his name in Arabic characters.
Bell wouldn’t let him finish, demanding, “What dat?” Kunta told her. Then, having made his point, he swept the ashes back into the fireplace, sat down in the rocking chair, and waited for her to ask him how he’d learned to write. He didn’t have long to wait, and for the rest of the evening he talked, and Bell listened for a change. In his halting speech, Kunta told her how all the children in his village were taught to write, with pens made of hollowed dried