Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [216]
“Dat my name—Kun-ta Kin-te,” he said, tracing the characters slowly with his finger.
She stared, fascinated. “Pappy, now do my name.” He did. She laughed. “Dat say Kizzy?” He nodded. “Would you learn me to write like you does?” Kizzy asked.
“Wouldn’t be fittin’,” said Kunta sternly.
“Why not?” She sounded hurt.
“In Africa, only boys learns how to read an’ write. Girls ain’t got no use fer it—over here, neither.”
“How come mammy can read an’ write, den?”
Sternly, he said, “Don’t you be talkin’ dat! You hear me? Ain’t nobody’s business! White folks don’ like none us doin’ no readin’ or writin’!”
“How come?”
“’Cause dey figgers less we knows, less trouble we makes.”
“I wouldn’t make no trouble,” she said, pouting.
“If’n we don’ hurry up an’ git back to de cabin, yo’ mammy gon’ make trouble fo’ us both.”
Kunta got up and started walking, then stopped and turned, realizing that Kizzy was not behind him. She was still by the bank of the stream, gazing at a pebble she had seen.
“Come on now, it’s time to go.” She looked up at him, and he walked over and reached out his hand. “Tell you what,” he said. “You pick up dat pebble an’ bring it ’long an’ hide it somewheres safe, an’ if’n you keeps yo’ mouth shet ’bout it, nex’ new moon mornin’ I let you drop it in my gourd.”
“Oh, Pappy!” She was beaming.
CHAPTER 77
It was almost time for Kizzy to drop another pebble into Kunta’s gourd—about a year later, in the summer of 1800—when the massa told Bell he was going to Fredericksburg for about a week on business, and it was arranged that his brother would be coming over “to look after things” while he was away. When Kunta heard the news, he was even more upset than the rest of slave row, for he hated leaving Bell and Kizzy exposed to his former owner even more than he disliked having to be away from them for so long. Of course, he said nothing about these concerns, but on the morning of departure, as he left the cabin to hitch up the horses, he was taken aback that it seemed almost as if Bell had read his mind. She said, “Massa John sho’ ain’t like his brother, but I knows how to deal wid his kin’. An’ it ain’t but a week. So don’t you worry none. We be fine.”
“I ain’t worryin’,” said Kunta, hoping she couldn’t tell he was lying.
Kneeling to kiss Kizzy, he whispered in her ear, “Don’t forgit dat new moon pebble, now,” and she winked conspiratorially as Bell pretended not to have heard, although she had known what they were doing for almost nine months now.
For the next two days of the massa’s absence, everything went on pretty much as usual, although Bell was mildly annoyed at nearly everything Massa John said or did. She particularly disliked how he sat up late in the study at night, drinking his brother’s best whiskey from the bottle, smoking his own big black, smelly cigars and flicking the ashes on the carpet. Still, Massa John didn’t interfere too much with Bell’s normal routine, and he stayed mostly to himself.
But the midmorning of the third day, Bell was out sweeping off the front porch when a white man on a lathered horse came galloping up and leaped off, demanding to see the massa.
Ten minutes later, the man left as hurriedly as he had come. Massa John barked down the hallway for Bell to come into the study. He looked deeply shaken, and it flashed in Bell’s mind that something terrible had happened to Kunta and the massa. She was sure of it when he brusquely ordered her to assemble all the slaves in the backyard. They all gathered, standing in a line, tense with fear, as he flung open the back screen door and stalked out toward them; he had a revolver conspicuous in his belt.
Coldly scanning their faces, he said, “I just got word of some Richmond niggers’ plot to kidnap the governor, massacre the Richmond white people, and burn the city.” The slaves gawked at one another in astonishment as he went on. “Thanks to God—an’ a few smart niggers who found out and told their massas just in time—the plot’s been crushed, and most of the niggers that started it already caught. Armed patrols