Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [255]
The massa and Mingo would go walking around, inspecting the pens of gamefowl, with Mingo always keeping exactly one step behind, close enough to hear and respond to whatever the massa said between the crowings of the scarred old catchcock roosters. George noticed that the massa spoke almost companionably with Uncle Mingo, in sharp contrast to his brusque and cold manner with Uncle Pompey, Sister Sarah, and his mammy, who were only field hands. Sometimes when their inspection tour brought them close enough to wherever George was working, he would then overhear what they were saying. “I figure to fight thirty cocks this season, Mingo, so we’ve got to bring in around sixty or more from the rangewalk,” said the massa one day.
“Yassuh, Massa. By de time we culls ’em out, we oughta have a good forty birds dat’ll train good.”
George’s head became more and more filled with questions every day, but he had the feeling it would be best not to ask Uncle Mingo anything he didn’t have to. Mingo scored it as a point in the boy’s favor that he could keep from talking too much, since wise gamecockers kept many secrets to themselves. Mingo’s small, quick, deeply squinting eyes, meanwhile, missed no detail of how George performed his work. Deliberately he gave his orders briefly and then quickly walked away, to test how quickly and well the boy would grasp and remember instructions ; Mingo was pleased that George seemed to need to be told most things only once.
After a while, Mingo told Massa Lea that he approved of George’s care and attention to the gamefowl—but he carefully qualified himself: “Leas’ways far as I been able to tell in jes’ dis little bit o’ time, Massa.”
Mingo was totally unprepared for Massa Lea’s reply: “I’ve been thinking you need that boy down here all the time. Your cabin’s not big enough, so you and him put up a shack somewhere so he’ll be handy to you all the time.” Mingo was appalled at the prospect of anyone’s sudden and total invasion of the privacy that only he and the gamefowl had shared for over twenty years, but he wasn’t about to voice openly any disagreement.
After the massa had left, he spoke to George in a sour tone. “Massa say I needs you down here all de time. I reckon he must know sump’n I don’t.”
“Yassuh,” said George, struggling to keep his expression blank. “But where I gwine stay at, Uncle Mingo?”
“We got to buil’ you a shack.”
As much as he enjoyed the gamecocks and Uncle Mingo, George knew this would mean the end of his enjoyable times in the big house, waving the peacock plumes and preaching for the massa and the missis and their guests. Even Missis Lea had just begun to show that she’d taken a liking to him. And he thought of the good things he wouldn’t get to eat from Miss Malizy in the kitchen anymore. But the worst part about leaving slave row was going to be breaking the news to his mammy.
Kizzy was soaking her tired feet in a washpan full of hot water when George came in, his face unusually somber. “Mammy, sump’n I got to tell you.”
“Well, tired as I is, choppin’ all day long, I don’t want to hear no mo’ ’bout dem chickens, tell you dat!”
“Well, ain’t zackly dat.” He took a deep breath. “Mammy, massa done tol’ me an’ Uncle Mingo to buil’ a shack an’ move me down dere.”
Kizzy sent some of the water splattering out of the pan as she leaped up, seemingly ready to spring on George. “Move you fo’ what? What you can’t do stayin’ up here where you always been?”
“Weren’t my doin’, Mammy! It was massa!” He stepped back from the fury on her face, voice rising to a high-pitched cry, “I ain’t wantin’ to leave you, Mammy!”
“You ain’t ol’ enough to be movin’ nowhere! I bet it’s dat ol’ Mingo nigger put massa up to it!”
“No’m, he didn’t Mammy! ’Cause I can tell he don’t like it neither! He don’t like nobody roun’ him all de time. He done tol’ me he ruther be by hisself.” George wished he could think of something to say that would calm her down. “Massa feel like he bein’ good