Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [291]
It was Matilda who spoke first, her words flat and noncommittal, “Well, I reckon lotsa Toms in dis worl’.”
His mammy looked as if she had just had to chew a bar of soap. “I ’speck me an’ ’Tilda feelin’ de same thing, an’ she ruther spare yo’ feelings ’bout yo’ precious massa. Ain’t nothin’ wrong wid de name Tom. Jes’ sho’ wish it was some other Tom dis po’ chile git named after—” She hesitated, then added quickly, “’Cose, dat’s jes’ my’pinion—ain’t my young’un, or my business!”
“Well, it’s de Lawd’s business!” snapped Matilda, stepping across to get her Bible. “Fo’ de chile was born, I was huntin’ in de Scriptures to see what it say ’bout names.” Hurriedly she thumbed pages, finding the section, page, and verse she sought, and read it aloud: “De mem’ry of de jes’ is blessed; but de name of de wicked shall rot!”
“Have mercy!” exclaimed Gran’mammy Kizzy.
Chicken George rose, incensed. “Awright den! Which one y’all gwine tell massa we ain’t?” He stood glaring at them. He was getting sick of so many goadings when he came in his own house! And he was fed up past the limit with Matilda’s never-ending damnation from the Bible. He raked his mind for something he once heard, then it came. “Y’all call ’im for Tom de Baptis’, den!” He shouted it so loudly that the faces of his three sons appeared in the bedroom doorway, and the day-old infant began crying as Chicken George stomped out.
At that very moment, at the living room writing desk in the big house, Massa Lea dipped his pen, then scrawled carefully inside his Bible’s front cover a fifth date-and-birth line below the four names already recorded there—Chicken George and his first three sons: “September 20, 1833 ... boy born to Matilda ... name Tom Lea.”
Returning angrily down the road, George fumed that it wasn’t that he didn’t care for Matilda. She was the finest, most loyal woman he ever had met. A fine wife, however, was not necessarily one who piously chastized her husband every time he turned around just for being human. A man had a right now and then to enjoy the company of the kind of women who wanted only to enjoy laughter, liquor, wit, and the body’s urgencies. And from their past year’s travels together, he knew that Massa Lea felt the same. After fighting their gamecocks near any sizable town, they always stayed on an extra day, with the mules in a stable and some local gamecocker’s helper paid well to care for the cooped birds, while he and Massa Lea went their separate ways. Meeting at the stable early the next morning, they would collect their gamecocks and ride on homeward, each nursing hangovers, and neither one saying a word about the fact that he knew the other one had been tomcattin’.
It was five days before Chicken George’s exasperation had diminished enough for him to think about returning home. Ready to forgive them, he strode up the road to slave row and opened the cabin door.
“Lawd! Is dat you, George?” said Matilda. “De chilluns be so glad to see dey pappy again! ’Specially dis one—his eyes wasn’t open yet when you was here las’!”
Instantly furious, he was about to stalk right back outside when his glance fell upon his older three sons—aged five, three, and two—huddled awkwardly together, staring at him almost fearfully. He felt an urge to grab them and hug them close. Soon he wouldn’t be seeing them for three months when he went to New Orleans; he must bring them some really nice presents.
Reluctantly, he sat down at the table when Matilda laid out a meal for him and sat down to bless the food. Then, standing back up, she said, “Virgil, go ax Gran’mammy to come over here.