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By Root 1538 0

since his first helper had developed with the massa a relationship closer than his own. Only recently, in his bitterness about not being allowed to come along with them to New Orleans, Mingo had snapped, “You an’ massa figger y’all can trust me to feed de chickens while you’s gone?” George wished that Uncle Mingo would realize that he had nothing to do with the massa’s decisions. At the same time, he wondered why the old man wouldn’t simply face the fact that at seventy-odd years of age, he just wasn’t in any kind of shape to travel for six weeks in either direction; almost surely he would fall sick somewhere, with all of the extra problems that would present to him and the massa. George wished hard that he knew some way to make Uncle Mingo feel better about the whole thing or at least that Uncle Mingo would stop blaming him for everything.

Finally the two wagons turned off the big road and were rolling down the driveway. They were almost halfway to the big house when, to his amazement, he saw Missis Lea come onto the front porch and down the steps. A moment later, out the back door, came Miss Malizy. Then, hurrying from their cabins, he saw Matilda and their boys, Mammy Kizzy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey. What are they all doing here Thursday afternoon, wondered George, when they should be out in the fields? Were they so anxious to see the fine new wagon that they had risked the massa’s anger? Then he saw their faces, and he knew that none of them cared anything about any new wagon.

When Missis Lea kept walking on to meet the massa’s wagon, George reined to a halt and leaned far over from his high driver’s seat to hear better what she said to the massa. George saw the massa’s body jerk upright as the missis fled back toward the house. Dumbfounded, George watched as Massa Lea clambered down from the new wagon and walked slowly, heavily back toward him. He saw the face, pale with shock—and suddenly he knew! The massa’s words reached him as if from a distance: “Mingo’s dead.”

Slumping sideways against the wagonseat, George was bawling as he never had before. He hardly felt the massa and Uncle Pompey half wrestling him onto the ground. Then Pompey on one side and Matilda on the other were guiding him toward slave row with others around them weeping afresh at seeing his grief. Matilda helped him to lurch inside their cabin, followed by Kizzy with the baby.

When he had recovered himself, they told him what had happened. “Y’all left Monday mornin’,” said Matilda, “an’ dat night nobody here slept no good. Seem like Tuesday morning we all got up feelin’ like we’d heared whole lots’a hoot owls an’ barkin’ dogs. Den we heared de screamin’—”

“Was Malizy!” exclaimed Kizzy. “Lawd, she hollered! Us all jes’ flew out dere where she’d done gone to slop de hogs. An’ dere he was. Po’ ol’ soul layin’ out on de road, look like some pile o’ rags!”

He was still alive, said Matilda, but “was jes’ one side o’ his mouth movin’. I got right down close on my knees an’ could jes’ barely make out he was whisperin’. ‘B’lieve I done had a stroke,’ he say. ‘He’p me wid de chickens ... I ain’t able—’”

“Lawd have mercy, none us knowed what to do!” said Kizzy, but Uncle Pompey tried to lift the limp, heavy form. When he failed, their combined efforts finally succeeded in lugging Uncle Mingo back to slave row and onto Pompey’s bed.

“George, he stunk so bad, wid dat sick smell on ’im!” said Matilda. “We commence fannin’ his face, an’ he kept whisperin’, ‘de chickens ... got to git back—’”

“Miss Malizy done run an’ tol’ missis by den,” said Kizzy, “an’ she come a-wringin’ her hands an’ cryin’ an’ carryin’ on! But not’bout Br’er Mingo! Naw! First thing she hollerin’ was somebody better git to dem chickens less’n massa have a fit! So Matilda called Virgil—”

“I sho’ didn’t want to!” said Matilda. “You know how I feels’bout dat. One of us ’nough down wid dem chickens. ’Sides, I done heared you talkin’ ’bout stray dogs an’ foxes, even wildcats be’s roun’ tryin’ to eat dem birds! But bless de chile’s heart! His eyes was bucked scairt, but he say, ‘Mammy,