Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [225]
“Well, African, you gwine say sump’n, or jes’ stan’ dere wid yo’ mouf’ open?”
“Don’t know what to say,” said Kunta.
“How ’bout ’gratulations?”
“Jes’ seem too good to be true.”
“It true awright. I done counted it a thousan’ times. Even got’nough extra to buy me a cardboard suitcase!”
Kunta just couldn’t believe it. The fiddler was really going to be free! It wasn’t just a dream. Kunta felt like laughing and crying—for himself as much as for his friend.
The fiddler knelt and began scooping up the money. “Look, you deaf’n dumb ’bout dis till tomorrow mawnin’, awright? Dat when I goes to see massa an’ tell ’im he seven hunnud dollars richer! You gwine be glad as he is to see me go?”
“Glad fo’ you. Not fo’ me,” said Kunta.
“If you tryin’ to make me feel so sorry for you, I buy you free, too, you gwine wait a spell! Done took me thutty-three years fiddlin’ to freedom!”
By the time Kunta got back to his own cabin, he had begun to miss the fiddler already, and Bell mistook his sadness for grief about Toussaint, so he didn’t have to hide—or explain—what he was feeling.
When he went by the fiddler’s cabin the next morning after feeding the horses, he found it empty, so he went to ask Bell if he was in with the massa.
“He lef’ an hour ago. Ack like he seen a ghost. What de matter wid ’im, an’ what he want wid massa anyways?”
“What he say when he come out?” asked Kunta.
“Don’ say nothin’. Tol’ you he went pas’ me like I wasn’t dere.”
Without another word, Kunta walked out the screen door and back toward slave row—with Bell shouting after him, “Now where you goin’?” And when he didn’t answer: “Dat right! Don’t tell me nothin’! I’se jes’ yo’ wife!” Kunta had disappeared.
After asking around, knocking at every cabin door, even peeking inside the privy and shouting “Fiddler!” in the barn, Kunta headed down along the fencerow. When he had gone a good way, he heard it—sad, slow strains of a song he had heard blacks at an “O Lawd” camp meeting singing once ... only this time it was being played on a fiddle. The fiddler’s music was always rollicking and happy; this sounded almost as if the fiddle were sobbing, drifting up along the fencerow.
Quickening his stride, Kunta came within sight of an oak tree spreading half over a brook down near the edge of Massa Waller’s property. Approaching closer, he saw the fiddler’s shoes extending from behind the tree. Just then, the music stopped—and so did Kunta, feeling suddenly like an intruder. He stood still, waiting for the fiddling to resume, but the drone of bees and the burble of the stream were the only sounds that broke the silence. At last, almost sheepishly, Kunta moved around the tree and faced the fiddler. One glance was all he needed to know what had happened—the light was gone from his friend’s face; the familiar sparkle in his eyes had been extinguished.
“You need some mattress stuffin’?” the fiddler’s voice was cracking. Kunta said nothing. Tears began to drip down along the fiddler’s cheeks; he brushed them furiously away as if they were acid, and the words came in a rush: “I tells ’im I finally got de money to buy me free—ev’y penny of it. He hem an’ haw a minute; an’ look at de ceilin’. Den he ’gratulate me on savin’ up so much. But den he tell me if I wants to, de seven hunnud could be a down payment,’cause in doin’ business he got to consider how de slave prices done gone way up since dat cotton gin come in. He say now he couldn’t ’cept no less’n fifteen hunnud at de leas’ fo’ a good money-makin’ fiddler like me, dat he could git twenty-five hunnud fo’ if he was to sell me to somebody else. He say he real sorry, but he hope I understand business is business, an he have to git fair return on his vestment.” The fiddler began openly sobbing now. “He say bein’ free ain’t all it cracked