Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [274]
The massa’s unexpected arrival prompted hasty nudges and whispers among both the white and black hackfighters. Seeing even Uncle Mingo and George nervous and uncertain, Massa Lea began to feel misgivings that he had come. Then, realizing that any initiative must be his own, he began grinning and waving at one of the older poor whites. “Hi, Jim.” Then to another: “Hey there, Pete!” They grinned back, astounded that he even remembered their names. “Hey, Dave!” he went on. “See your wife kicked out the rest of your teeth—or was it that bad whiskey?” Amid uproarious laughter, the hackfight seemed nearly forgotten as they crowded around the man who had started out as poor as any of them and then became a legend for them.
Bursting with pride, George cradled his bird under one arm, and astonishing Uncle Mingo as well as Massa Lea, he was suddenly strutting around the edges of the cockpit. “All right! All right!” he cried out loudly, “any y’all got any money, git it on de line! Don’t care what you bets, if I can’t cover it, my massa sho’ can, rich as he is!” Seeing the massa smiling, George grew yet louder. “Dis here jes’ his cull bird I’s fightin’, an’ he beat anything out here! C’mon!”
An hour later, after ballyhooing a second winning fight, George had won twenty-two dollars and Massa Lea nearly forty from accepting side bets pressed upon him. He really hated to take the money from men whom he knew to be as dirt poor as he once had been, but he knew they would go the rest of the year boastfully lying how they had lost ten times as much as they had in betting against Tom Lea.
The cocky, self-proclaiming George was missed when he didn’t show up at four of Caswell County’s next hackfights, for Uncle Mingo was suffering from another siege of severe coughing spells. George saw how they came on him suddenly, without warning, and then persisted, and he felt he shouldn’t leave his old teacher alone with the gamefowl, nor did he wish to go by himself. But even when Mingo had improved somewhat, he said he still didn’t feel quite up to walking all the way to the next hackfight—but he demanded that George go anyway.
“You ain’t no baby! You sho’ be gone quick enough if it was some gals dere!”
So George went alone, carrying in each hand a bulging bag containing a gamecock cull. As he came into view of the gamecockers who had been missing his recently colorful presence, one of them cried loudly, “Look out! Here come dat ‘Chicken George’!” There was a burst of laughter from them all, and he heartily joined in.
The more he thought of it on his way home—with still more winnings in his pocket—the better he liked the sound of that name. It had a certain flair.
“Betcha none y’all can’t guess what dey done name me at de hackfight!” he said the moment he arrived on slave row.
“Naw, what?”
“Chicken George!”
“Do Lawd!” exclaimed Sister Sarah.
Kizzy’s love and pride shone from her eyes. “Well,” she said, “it’s sho’ ’bout close as anybody gwine git to ’scribin’ you nowdays!”
The nickname even amused Massa Lea when he was told it by Uncle Mingo, who added wryly, “Wonder to me dey ain’t callin’ im ‘Cryin George,’ de way he still bust out cryin’ anytime a bird he fightin’ git kilt. Much as he winnin’ nowdays, don’t make no difference! Jes’ let a killin’ gaff hit his rooster an’ he gushin’ and blubberin’ an’ huggin’ dat bird like it his own chile. Is you ever heared or seed de like of dat befo’, Massa?”
Massa Lea laughed. “Well, plenty times I’ve felt like crying myself when I’d bet a lot more’n I ought to and my bird caught a gaff! But, no, I guess he’s the only one I’ve heard of takin’ on like you say. I think he just gets too attached to chickens.”
Not long afterward, at the biggest “main” of the year, the massa was returning to the wagon, carrying his bird, which had just won in the final contest, when he heard someone shout, “Oh, Mr. Lea!” Turning, he was astonished to see the gamecocker aristocrat George Jewett striding toward him, smiling.
Massa Lea managed to make himself sound casual. “Oh, yes, Mr. Jewett!