Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [285]
“Dis is de Lawd’s day. We all got a soul to save an’ a heab’n’ to maintain,” Matilda might offer in her matter-of-fact way. “We needs to keep in our minds who it was made us, an’ dat was Gawd. Den who it was redeemed us, an’ dat was Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus teached us to be humble, an’ mindful, dat we can be reborn in de sperrit.”
“I loves Lawd Jesus good as anybody,” Kizzy testified humbly, “but y’all see, I jes’ ain’t never knowed dat much ’bout ’im ’til I was up some size, even though my mammy say she had me christened when I was jes’ a l’il thing, at one dem big camp meetin’s.”
“Seem like to me we does be bes’ if we’s been put next to Gawd when we’s young’uns,” said Sister Sarah. She gestured at Virgil in his gran’mammy’s lap. “’Cause dat way we starts out early soakin’ up some ’ligion an’ settin’ sto’ by it.”
Miss Malizy spoke to Uncle Pompey. “You don’t know, if you’d of started out early, you might of made a preacher. You even got de look of one as it is.”
“Preacher! How I’m gwine preach an’ cain’t even read!” he exclaimed.
“De Lawd put things to say in yo’ mouth if He call you to preach,” Matilda said.
“Dat husban’ of your’n call hisself preachin’ roun’ here once!” said Miss Malizy. “He ever tol’ you ’bout dat?” They all laughed and Kizzy said, “He sho’ could of made some kin’ o’ preacher! Much as he love to show off an’ run his mouth!”
“He’d o’ been one dem trickin’ an’ trancin’ preachers holdin’ big revivals!” said Sister Sarah.
They talked for a while about powerful preachers they had all either seen or heard about. Then Uncle Pompey told of his powerfully religious mother, whom he remembered from boyhood on the plantation where he was born. “She was big an’ fat an’ I reckon de shoutin’est woman anybody ever heared of.”
“Remind me of ol’ maid Sister Bessie on de plantation I was raised on,” said Miss Malizy. “She was ’nother one dem shoutin’ womens. She’d got ol’ widout no husban’ till it come one dem big camp meetins’. Well, she shouted till she went in a trance. She come out’n it sayin’ she jes’ had a talk wid de Lawd. She say He say her mission on de earth was to save ol’ Br’er Timmons from goin’ to hell by him jumpin’ de broom wid sich a Christian woman as her! Scared ’im so bad he jumped it, too!”
Though few of those he ran into on his trips would have guessed from the way he acted that Chicken George had jumped the broom—or ever would—he surprised the women on slave row at home with how warmly he took to marriage and how well he treated his wife and family. Never did he return from a cockfight—wearing his scarf and derby, which had become his costume, rain or shine, summer or winter—without winnings to put away. Most of the time, giving Matilda a few dollars, he didn’t have much money left after paying for the gifts he, of course, always brought along not only for Matilda and his mammy, but also for Miss Malizy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey as well as for young Virgil. He always came home, too, with at least an hour’s worth of news about whatever he had seen or heard about on his travels. As his slave-row family gathered around him, Kizzy would nearly always think how her African pappy had brought another slave row most of its news, and now it was her son.
Returning once from a long journey that had taken him to Charleston, Chicken George described “so many dem great big sailin’ ships dey poles look like a thicket! An’ niggers like