Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [290]
Massa Lea had walked his horse over and tied a small rope from its halter onto the split-rail fence. Ambling back over near George, the massa scuffed the toe of his boot against a clump of grass and said, “Mighty funny, four boy young’uns, an’ you ain’t never named none after me.”
Chicken George was surprised, delighted—and embarrassed. “You sho’ right, Massa!” he exclaimed lamely. “Dat ’zactly what to name dat boy—Tom! Yassuh, Tom!”
The massa looked gratified. Then he glanced toward the small cabin beneath a tree, his expression serious. “How’s the old man?”
“Tell you de truth, Massa, middle of las’ night, he had a bad coughin’ spell. Dat was ’fo’ dey sent Uncle Pompey down here to git me up dere when ’Tilda havin’ de baby. But when I cooked ’im sump’n to eat dis mo’nin’, he set up an’ et it all, an’ swear he feel fine. He got mad when I tol’ ’im he got to stay in de bed till you say he can come out.”
“Well, let the old buzzard stay in there another day, anyhow,” said the massa. “Maybe I ought to get a doctor to come down here and look him over. That bad coughing off and on, for long as it’s been, it’s no good!”
“Nawsuh. But he sho’ don’ b’lieve in no doctors, Massa—”
“I don’t care what he believes! But we’ll see how he does the rest of the week—”
For the next hour, Massa Lea inspected the cockerels and the stags in their fence-row pens, and finally the magnificent birds that Chicken George was conditioning and training. Massa Lea was pleased with what he saw. Then, for a while, he talked about the forthcoming trip. It would take almost six weeks to reach New Orleans, he said, in the heavy new wagon he was having custom-built in Greensboro. It would have an extended bed with twelve fitted removable cock coops, a special padded workbench for daily exercising of birds during travel, along with special shelves, racks, and bins that Massa Lea had specified to hold all necessary items and supplies for any long trips carrying gamecocks. It would be ready in ten days.
When Massa Lea left, Chicken George immersed himself in the day’s remaining tasks. He was driving the gamecocks to the limit. The massa had given him the authority to use his own judgment in further culling out any birds in which he discovered the slightest flaw of any sort, as only the most comprehensively superb birds could stand a chance in the level of competition awaiting them in New Orleans. Working with the birds, he kept thinking about the music he had been told he was going to hear in New Orleans, including big brass bands marching in the streets. The black sailor he had met in Charleston had also said that early every Sunday afternoon, thousands of people would gather in a large public square called “Place Congo” to watch hundreds of slaves perform the dances of the African places and peoples they had come from. And the sailor had sworn that the New Orleans waterfront surpassed any other he had ever seen. And the women! An unending supply of them said the sailor, as exotic as they were willing, of every kind and color, known as “creoles,” “octoroons,” and “quadroons.” He could hardly wait to get there.
Late that afternoon, after having meant to do so several times before when some chore had detained him, George finally knocked, then stepped on inside the cluttered, musty cabin of Uncle Mingo.
“How you feelin’?” George asked. “Is it anything I can git you?” But he didn’t need to wait for an answer.
The old man was shockingly wan and weak—but as irritable as ever about his enforced inactivity.
“Git on out’n here! Go ax massa how I feels! He know better’n I does!” Since Uncle Mingo clearly wished to be left alone, Chicken George did leave, thinking that Mingo was getting to be like his leathery, pin-feathered old catchcocks—tough old veterans of many battles, but with age catching up and taking its toll, leaving mostly the instincts.
By the time the last