Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [276]
Chicken George’s lulled mind had sprung to keen alertness. “Dey might, den again some might not, Massa,” he said carefully. “It all depen’.”
“There you go with that round-the-mulberry-bush talk. Depend on what?”
Still parrying until he got a better idea of what the massa was up to, Chicken George offered yet another meringue of words. “Well, suh, I means like it depen’ on what white folks you talkin’ to, Massa, leas’ways dat’s what I gits de impression.”
Massa Lea spat disgustedly over the side of the wagon. “Feed and clothe a nigger, put a roof over his head, give him everything else he needs in this world, and that nigger’ll never give you one straight answer!”
Chicken George risked a guess that the massa had simply decided upon impulse to open some sort of conversation with him, hoping to enliven what had become a boring and seemingly endless wagon ride.
In order to stop irritating Massa Lea, he tested the water by saying, “You wants de straight, up-an’-down truth, Massa, I b’lieves mos’ niggers figger dey’s bein’ smart to act maybe dumber’n dey really is, ’cause mos’ niggers is scairt o’ white folks.”
“Scared!” exclaimed Massa Lea. “Niggers slick as eels, that’s what! I guess it’s scared niggers plottin’ uprisings to kill us every time we turn around! Poisonin’ white people’s food, even killin’ babies! Anything you can name against white people, niggers doin’ it all the time, and when white people act to protect themselves, niggers hollerin’ they so scared!”
Chicken George thought it would be wise to stop fiddling with the massa’s hairtrigger temper. “Don’t b’lieve none on yo’ place ever done nothin’ like dat, Massa,” he said quietly.
“You niggers know I’d kill you if you did!” A gamecock crowed loudly in its coop behind them, and some others clucked in response.
George said nothing. They were passing a large plantation, and he glanced across at a group of slaves beating down the dead cornstalks in preparation for plowing before the next planting.
Massa Lea spoke again. “It makes me sick to think how tough niggers can make it for a man that’s worked hard all his life tryin’ to build up somethin’.”
The wagon rolled on in silence for a while, but Chicken George could feel the massa’s anger rising. Finally the massa exclaimed, “Boy, let me tell you somethin’! You been all your life on my place with your belly full. You don’t know nothin’ about what it’s like to grow up scufflin’ and half starvin’ with ten brothers and sisters and your mama and papa all sleeping in two hot, leaky rooms!”
Chicken George was astonished at such an admission from the massa, who went on heatedly as if he had to get the painful memories out of his system. “Boy, I can’t remember when my mama’s belly wasn’t big with another baby. And my papa chawin’ his tobacco and half drunk forever hollerin’ and cussin’ that none of us was workin’ hard enough to suit him on ten rocky acres that I wouldn’t give fifty cents an acre for, where he called himself a farmer!” Glaring at Chicken George, he said angrily, “You want to know what changed my life?”
“Yassuh,” said George.
“This big faith-healer came. Everybody was runnin’ around excited about his big tent bein’ put up. The openin’ night everybody who could walk, even those who needed to be carried, were overflowin’ that tent. Later on, people said there had never been such a hellfire sermon and such miracle cures in Caswell County. I never will forget the sight of those hundreds of white people leapin’, screamin’, shoutin’, and testifyin’. People fallin’ out in one ’nother’s arms, moanin’ and twitchin’ and havin’ the jerks. Worse than you’ll see at any nigger camp meetin’. But midst all that ruckus and hoorah, there was one thing that somehow or ’nother really hit me.” Massa Lea looked at Chicken George. “You know anything about the Bible?”
“Not—well, nawsuh, not to speak of.”
“Bet you wouldn’t of thought I know nothin’ about it, either! It was from the Psalms. I’ve got that place marked in my own Bible. It says, “I have been young