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By Root 1494 0

crackers dey started out! Fact, massa claim he savin’ up for de day he buil’ dat fine house. Hmph! Might, for all I know. I know he too tight even to have a stableboy, let alone a nigger to drive ’im places like near ’bout all massas has. He hitch up his own buggy an’ wagon both, saddle his own hoss, an’ he drive hisself. Honey, de only reason I ain’t out in de fiel’ is missis can’t hardly cook water, an’ he love to eat. ’Sides dat, he likes de looks of havin’ a house servin’ nigger for when dey guests come. When he git to drinkin’ out somewhere, he love ’vitin’ in guests for dinner, tryin’ to put on de dog, an’ ’specially if he been winnin’ pretty good, bettin’ on his roosters at dem cockfights. But anyhow, he finally had to see wasn’t no way jes’ Uncle Pompey an’ Sister Sarah could farm much as he like to plant, an’ he had to git somebody else. Dat’s how come he bought you—” Miss Malizy paused. “You know how much you cost?”

Kizzy said weakly, “No’m.”

“Well, I reckon six to seb’n hundred dollars, considerin’ de prices I’se heard him say niggers costin’ nowdays, an’ you bein’ strong an young, lookin’ like a good breeder, too, dat’ll bring ’im free pickaninnies.”

With Kizzy again speechless, Miss Malizy moved closer to the door and stopped. “Fact, I wouldn’t o’ been surprised if massa stuck you in wid one dem stud niggers some rich massas keeps on dey places an’ hires out. But it look like to me he figgerin’ on breedin’ you hisself.”

CHAPTER 85

The conversation was short.

“Massa, I gwine have a baby.”

“Well, what you expectin’ me to do about it? I know you better not start playin’ sick, tryin’ to get out of workin’!”

But he did start coming to Kizzy’s cabin less often as her belly began to grow. Slaving out under the hot sun, Kizzy went through dizzy spells as well as morning sickness in the course of her painful initiation to fieldwork. Torturous blisters on both her palms would burst, fill with fluid again, then burst again from their steady friction against the rough, heavy handle of her hoe. Chopping along, trying to keep not too far behind the experienced, short, stout, black Uncle Pompey, and the wiry, light-brown-skinned Sister Sarah—both of whom she felt were still deciding what to think of her—she would strain to recall everything she had ever heard her mammy say about the having of young’uns. She felt she’d give anything if Bell could be here beside her now. Despite her humiliation at being great with child and having to face her mammy—who had warned repeatedly of the disgrace that could befall her “if’n you keeps messin’ roun’ wid dat Noah an’ winds up too close”—Kizzy knew she’d understand that it hadn’t been her fault, and she’d let her know the things she needed to know.

She could almost hear Bell’s voice telling her sadly, as she had so often, what she believed had caused the tragic deaths of both the wife and baby of Massa Waller: “Po’ l’il thing was jes’ built too small to birth, dat great big baby!” Was she herself built big enough? Kizzy wondered frantically. Was there any way to tell? She remembered once when she and Missy Anne had stood goggle-eyed, watching a cow deliver a calf, then their whispering that despite what grown-ups told them about storks bringing babies, maybe mothers had to squeeze them out through their privates in the same gruesome way.

The older women, Miss Malizy and Sister Sarah, seemed to take hardly any notice of her steadily enlarging belly—and breasts—so Kizzy decided angrily that it would be as big a waste of time to confide her fears to them as it would to Massa Lea. Certainly he couldn’t have been less concerned as he rode around the plantation on his horse, yelling threats at anyone he felt wasn’t working fast enough.

When the baby came—in the winter of 1806—Sister Sarah served as the midwife. After what seemed an eternity of moaning, screaming, feeling as if she were ripping apart, Kizzy lay bathed in sweat, staring in wonder at the wriggling infant grinning Sister Sarah was holding up. It was a boy—but his skin seemed to be almost high-yaller.

Seeing Kizzy