Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [292]
Chicken George stopped chewing, merely swallowing what he had in his mouth. What did the two of them have plannned to plague him with this time?
Kizzy knocked and came in hugging Matilda, kissing, petting, and clucking over the three boys before glancing at her son. “How do? Ain’t seen you so long!”
“How you do, Mammy?” Though he was fuming, he tried to make a weak joke of it.
Settling in a chair and accepting the baby from Matilda, his mammy spoke almost conversationally. “George, yo’ chilluns been wantin’ to ax you sump’n—” She turned. “Ain’t you, Virgil?”
Chicken George saw the oldest boy hanging back. What had they primed him to say?
“Pappy,” he said finally in his piping voice, “you gwine tell us’bout our great-gran’daddy?”
Matilda’s eyes reached out to him.
“You’s a good man, George,” said Kizzy softly. “Don’t never let nobody tell you no different! An’ don’t never git to feelin’ we don’t love you. I b’lieves maybe you gits mixed up ’bout who you is, an’ sometime who we is. We’s yo’ blood, jes’ like dese chilluns’ great-gran’pappy.”
“It’s right in de Scriptures—” said Matilda. Seeing George’s apprehensive glance, she added, “Everything in de Bible ain’t sump’n hard. De Scriptures have plenty ’bout love.”
Overwhelmed with emotion, Chicken George moved his chair near the hearth. The three boys squatted down before him, their eyes glistened with anticipation, and Kizzy handed him the baby. Composing himself, he cleared his throat and began to tell his four sons their gran’mammy’s story of their great-gran’pappy.
“Pappy, I knows de story, too!” Virgil broke in. Making a face at his younger brothers, he went ahead and told it himself—including even the African words.
“He done heared it three times from you, and gran’mammy don’t cross de do’sill widout tellin’ it again!” said Matilda with a laugh. George thought: How long had it been since he last heard his wife laughing?
Trying to recapture the center of attention, Virgil jumped up and down. “Gran’mammy say de African make us know who we is!”
“He do dat!” said Gran’mammy Kizzy, beaming.
For the first time in a long time, Chicken George felt that his cabin was his home again.
CHAPTER 98
Four weeks late, the new wagon was ready to be picked up in Greensboro. How right the massa had been to have it built, Chicken George reflected as they drove there, for they must arrive in New Orleans not creaking and squeaking in this battered old heap, but in the finest wagon money could buy—looking the parts of a great gamecocker and his trainer. For the same reason, before they left Greensboro, he must borrow a dollar and a half from the massa to buy a new black derby, to go with the new green scarf that Matilda had almost finished knitting. He would also make sure that Matilda packed both his green and yellow suits, his wide-webbed best red suspenders, and plenty of shirts, drawers, socks, and handkerchiefs, for after the cockfighting, he knew he’d have to look right when they were out on the town.
Within moments after they arrived at the wagonmaker’s shop, as he waited outside, George began hearing snatches of loud argument behind the closed door. He’d known the massa long enough to expect that sort of thing, so he didn’t bother to listen; he was too busy sifting in his mind through the tasks he had to take care of at home before they left. The toughest one, he knew, would be the job of culling seven more birds from the nineteen magnificent specimens he had already trained to lethal keenness. There was room in the wagon for only a dozen, and selecting them would challenge not only his own judgment and the massa’s but also that of Uncle Mingo, who was once again up, out, and about, as vinegary and tart-tongued as ever.
Inside the shop, Massa Lea’s voice had risen to a shout: The inexcusable delay in finishing the wagon had cost him money, which should be deducted from the price. The wagonmaker was yelling back that he had rushed the job as fast as he could, and the price should really be higher because cost of materials had risen along with his free black workmen