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By Root 1363 0

Long as I been knowin’ my mammy an’ Miss Malizy an’ Sister Sarah an’ Uncle Pompey an’ Uncle Mingo—ain’t dey been workin’ fo’ you hard as dey can?” And before the massa could reply, he tacked on something Sister Sarah had mentioned during his visit to slave row the previous Sunday. “Fact, Massa, ’ceptin for my mammy, ain’t none of ’em less’n fifty years ol’—” He stopped himself, not about to add Sister Sarah’s conclusion that the massa was simply too cheap to buy any younger slaves, apparently expecting to work the few he had until they dropped dead.

“You must not have been payin’ attention to all I’ve been tellin’ you, boy! Ain’t a nigger I got worked as hard as me! So don’t come tellin’ me how hard niggers work!”

“Yassuh.”

“‘Yassuh’ what?”

“Jes’ yassuh. You sho’ work hard, too, Massa.”

“Damn right! You think it’s easy being responsible for everything and everybody on my place? You think it’s easy keepin’ up a big flock of chickens?”

“Nawsuh, I know for sho’ dat’s hard on you, Massa.” George thought of Uncle Mingo’s having attended the gameflock every day for more than thirty years—not to mention his own seven. Then, as a ploy to emphasize Mingo’s decades of service, he asked innocently, “Massa, is you got any idea how ol’ is Uncle Mingo?”

Massa Lea paused, rubbing his chin. “Hell, I really don’t know. Let’s see, I once figured he’s around fifteen years older’n I am—that would put him somewhere up in his early sixties. And gettin’ older everyday. Seems like he’s gettin’ sick more and more every year. How does he seem to, you? You’re livin’ down there around him.”

Chicken George’s mind flashed to Uncle Mingo’s recent bout of coughing, the worst one he had ever yet suffered, as far as he knew. Remembering how Miss Malizy and Sister Sarah often declared that the massa viewed any claim of sickness on their part as sheer laziness, he said finally, “Well, Massa, mos’ de time seem like he feelin’ fine, but I b’lieves you really ought to know he do git real bad coughin’ spells sometimes—so bad I gits scared, ’cause he jes’ like a daddy to me.”

Catching himself too late, instantly he sensed a hostile reaction. A bump in the road set the cooped gamecocks clucking again, and for several moments the wagon rolled on before Massa Lea demanded, “What’s Mingo done so much for you? Was it him took you out of the fields and sent you down there with a shack for yourself?”

“Nawsuh, you done all dat, Massa.”

They rode on in silence for a while until the massa decided to speak again. “I hadn’t much thought about what you said there back a ways, but now that you mention it, I really got me a bunch of old niggers. Some of ’em bound to start breakin’ down on me anytime now, goddammit! Much as niggers cost nowadays, I’m goin’ to have to buy one or two younger field hands!” He turned as if accosting Chicken George. “You see what I’m talking about, the kind of things I have to worry about all the time?”

“Yassuh, Massa.”

“‘Yassuh, Massa!’ That’s the nigger answer to everything!”

“You sho’ wouldn’t want no nigger disagreein’ wid you, suh.”

“Well, can’t you find somethin’ to say besides ‘Yassuh, Massa’?”

“Nawsuh—I means, well, suh, leas’ you got some money to buy niggers wid, Massa. Dis season you winned so good in de cockfights.” Chicken George was hoping to move the conversation onto a safer subject. “Massa,” he asked guilelessly, “is it any gamecockers ain’t got no farm atall? I means don’t raise no crops, jes’ nothin’ but chickens?”

“Hmmmm. Not that I know of, unless it’s some of those city slickers, but I never heard of any of them with enough birds to be called serious gamecockers.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, it’s usually the more gamecocks, the bigger the farm—like that Mr. Jewett’s place where you’ve been tomcattin’.”

Chicken George could have kicked himself for handing the massa that kind of an opening, and he quickly sought to close it. “Ain’t been over dere no mo’, Massa.”

After a pause, Massa Lea said, “Found you another wench somewhere else, huh?”

Chicken George hesitated before replying. “I stays close now, Massa.