Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [281]
Bounding between the cabin and the well, he dashed three bucketfuls of water into the new galvanized tub in the cabin’s front room. Humming loudly as he scrubbed himself, he dried himself off briskly and then wrapped himself in the bleached-sacking towel to run into the bedroom. After climbing into his cotton long drawers, he slipped on his blue stiff-front shirt, red socks, yellow pants, and yellow belt-backed suitcoat, and finally his brand-new bright-orange shoes, all of which he had bought with hackfighting winnings, an item at a time, over the past few months while he and Massa Lea were traveling to various North Carolina cities. Squeaking in his stiff shoes over to the bedroom table and sitting down on Uncle Mingo’s wedding present, a carved stool with a seat of woven hickory strips, Chicken George smiled widely at himself in the long-handled mirror that was going to be one of his surprise presents for Matilda. With the mirror’s help, he carefully arranged around his neck the green woolen scarf Matilda had knitted for him. Lookin’ good, he had to admit. There remained only the crowning touch. Pulling a round cardboard box out from under the bed, he removed the top and with almost reverent gentleness lifted out the black derby hat that was his wedding present from Massa Lea. Turning it slowly around and around on stiff forefingers, he savored its stylish shape almost sensuously before returning to the mirror and positioning the derby at just the right rakish tilt over one eye.
“Git out’n dere! We been settin’ a hour in dis wagon!” His mammy Kizzy’s shout from just outside the window left no doubt that her rage was undiminished.
“Comin’, Mammy!” he hollered back. After one last appreciation of his ensemble in the mirror, he slipped a flat, small bottle of white lightning into his inside coat pocket and emerged from the new cabin as if expecting applause. He was going to flash his biggest smile and tip his hat until he got a look at the baleful glares of his mammy, Miss Malizy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey, all sitting frozenly in their Sunday best in the wagon. Averting his glance, and whistling as breezily as he could manage, he climbed up onto the driver’s seat—careful not to disturb a crease—slapped the reins against the backs of the two mules, and they were under way—only an hour late.
Along the road, Chicken George sneaked several fortifying nips from his bottle, and the wagon arrived at the MacGregor place shortly after two. Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Miss Malizy descended amid profuse apologies to the visibly worried and upset Matilda in her white gown. Uncle Pompey unloaded the food baskets they had brought, and after pecking at Matilda’s cheek, Chicken George went swaggering about slapping backs and breathing liquor in the faces of the guests as he introduced himself. Apart from those he already knew who lived in Matilda’s slave row, they were mostly prayer-meeting folk she had recruited from among the slaves of two nearby plantations and whom she had gotten permission to invite. She wanted them to meet her intended, and so did they. Though most of them had heard a lot about him from sources other than herself, their first actual sight of Chicken George evoked reactions ranging from muttering to open-mouthed astonishment. As he cut his swath through the wedding party, he gave a wide berth to Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Miss Malizy, whose dagger stares were being sharpened by every remark each was overhearing about the dubiousness of Matilda’s “catch.” Uncle Pompey had chosen simply