Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [206]
There would always be a long, droning sermon between a lot of equally listless singing and praying, and when it was finally over, everybody would come trailing outside one by one and shake hands with the preacher, and Kunta would notice with amusement how both the “po’ crackers” and those of the massa’s class would smile and tip their hats at one another, acting as if their both being white made them both the same. But then when they would spread their picnic lunches under the trees, it was always with the two classes on opposite sides of the churchyard—as if they had just happened to sit apart.
While he was waiting and watching this solemn rite with the other drivers one Sunday, Roosby said under his breath, just loud enough for the others to hear, “Seem like white folks don’ ’joy dey eatin’ no more’n dey worshipin’.” Kunta thought to himself that in all the years he had known Bell, he had always managed to claim some urgent chore whenever the time came for one of her “Jesus” meetings in slave row, but all the way from the barn he had heard enough of the black ones’ caterwauling and carrying on to convince him that one of the few things about the toubob that he found worthy of admiration was their preference for quieter worship.
It was only a week or so later that Bell reminded Kunta about the “big camp meetin’” she planned to go to in late July. It had been the blacks’ big summer event every year since he’d come to the plantation, and since every previous year he had found an excuse not to go along, he was amazed that she would still have the nerve to ask him. He knew little about what went on at these huge gatherings, beyond that they had to do with Bell’s heathen religion, and he wanted no part of it. But Bell once more insisted. “I knows how bad you always wants to go,” she said in her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Jes’ thought I’d tell you far ’nough ahead so’s you can work it into yo’ plans.”
Kunta couldn’t think of a smart answer, and he didn’t want to start an argument anyway, so he just said, “I think about it,” though he had no intention of going.
By the day before the meeting, when he pulled up at the big-house front door after a trip to the county seat, the massa said, “I won’t be needing the buggy tomorrow, Toby. But I’ve given Bell and the other women permission to go to that camp meeting tomorrow, and I said it would be all right for you to drive them over in the wagon.”
Churning with anger, positive that Bell had plotted this, Kunta tied up the horses behind the barn and without taking the time to unhitch them, headed straight for the cabin. Bell took one look at him standing in the doorway and said, “Couldn’t think up no other way to git you dere when Kizzy git christened.”
“Git what?”
“Christened. Dat mean she jine de church.”
“What church? Dat ‘O Lawd’ religion o’ your’n?”
“Don’ let’s start dat again. Ain’t nothin’ to do wid me. Missy Anne done ax her folks to take Kizzy to dey meetin’house on Sundays an’ set in de back whilst dey prays up front. But she can’t go to no white folks’ church less’n she christened.”
“Den she ain’t gwine no church!”
“You still don’ unnerstan’, does you, African? It a priv’lege to be axed to dey church. You say no, de nex’ thing you an me both out pickin’ cotton.”
As they set out the next morning, Kunta sat rigidly staring straight ahead from his high driver’s seat, refusing to look back even at his laughing, excited daughter as she sat on her mother’s lap, between the other women and their picnic baskets. For a while, they simply chattered among themselves, then they began singing: “We-uh climbin’ Jacob’s ladder.... We-uh climbin’ Jacob’s ladder. . . . We-uh climbin’ Jacob’s ladder. . . . soldiers of de Cross. . . . ” Kunta was so disgusted