Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [295]
With no way to reach him and the massa, and Sister Sarah’s telling them that she feared Uncle Mingo was beyond what her roots could cure, and not even the missis knowing how to contact any doctor, “weren’t nothin’ else us could do ’cept jes’ wait on y’all—” they told him. Matilda began weeping, and George reached out to hold her hand.
“She cryin’ ’cause when we got back in Pompey’s cabin after talkin’ to the missis, Mingo gone,” said Kizzy. “Lawd! Knowed it jes’ to look at ’im!” She began sobbing herself. “Po’ ol’ soul done died all by hisself.”
When Missis Lea was told, said Matilda, “she commence hollerin’ she jes’ don’t know what to do wid dead peoples, ’cept she done heared massa say dey starts to rottin’ if dey’s kept out mo’n a day. She say be ’way past dat fo’ y’all git back, so us gwine have to dig a hole—”
“Lawd!” exclaimed Kizzy. “Below de willow grove de groun’ kin’ o’ sof. We took de shovel, Pompey an’ us wimmins dug an’ dug, one at de time, ’til we had a hole enough to put ’im in. We come back, den Pompey bathed ’im up.”
“He rubbed some glycerin on ’im Miss Malizy got from missy,” said Matilda, “den sprinkled on some dat perfume you brung me las’ year.”
“Weren’t no decent clothes to put ’im in,” continued Kizzy. “De ones he had on stunk too bad, an’ what l’il Pompey have was ’way too tight, so jes’ rolled ’im up in two sheets.” She said Uncle Pompey then had cut two straight green limbs while the women found old planks, and they had fashioned a litter. “Have to say for missis dat when she seen us all bearin’ ’im over to de hole,” said Matilda, “she did come a-runnin’ wid dey Bible. When we got ’im dere, she read some Scripture, from de Psalms, an’ den I prayed, axin’ de Lawd to please res’ an’ keep Mr. Mingo’s soul—” Then they had put the body in the grave and covered it.
“We done ’im de bes’ we could! Don’t care if you’s mad,” Matilda burst out, misreading the anguish on her husband’s face.
Grabbing her and squeezing her fiercely, he rasped, “Nobody mad—” too stifled by his emotions to convey in words his anger with himself and the massa for not being there that morning. There might have been something they could have done to save him.
A little later, he left his cabin thinking about what concern, care, even love had been shown to Uncle Mingo by those who had always claimed to dislike him so. Seeing Uncle Pompey, he walked over and wrung his hands, and they talked a little while. Nearly as old as Uncle Mingo had been, Pompey said he had just come up from the gamefowl area, leaving Virgil watching the chickens. “Dat a good boy y’all got, he sho’ is!” Then he said, “When you goes down dere, since it ain’t been no rain, you can still see in de dus’ o’ de road de crooked trail where Br’er Mingo dragged hisself all de way up here in de night.”
George didn’t want to see that. Leaving Uncle Pompey, he walked slowly to below the willow grove. Awhile passed before he could look directly at the freshly mounded earth. Moving about as if in a daze, picking up some rocks, he arranged them in a design around the grave. He felt unworthy.
In order to avoid Mingo’s dust trail in the road, he cut through a field of broken cornstalks to reach the gamefowl area.
“You done a good job, boy. Now you better go on back up to your mammy,” he said, patting Virgil roughly on the head, thrilling the boy with his first compliment. After he was gone, George sat down and stared at nothing, his mind tumbling with scenes from the past fifteen years, listening to echoes of his teacher, his friend, his nearest to a father he ever had known. He could almost hear the cracked voice barking orders, speaking more gently of gamecocking; complaining bitterly about being cast aside: “You an’ massa figger y’all can trust me to feed de chickens whilst y’all’s gone?” George felt himself drowning in remorse.
Questions came to him: Where was Uncle Mingo from before Massa Lea bought him?