Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [300]
After the massa attended the next Caswell County landholders’ meeting, Chicken George came back with still more news about the Indians. “Hear tell it’s a Gen’l Winfield Scott done warned ’em dat white folks bein’ Christians ain’t wantin’ to shed no mo’ Indians’ blood, so dem wid any sense best to hurry up an’ git to movin’! Hear tell if a Indian even look like he wanted to fight, de sojers shot ’im in ’is tracks! An’ den de Army commence drivin’ jes’ thousan’s dem Indians toward somewheres called Oklahoma. Say ain’t no tellin’ how many ’long de way was kilt or took sick an’ died—”
“Jes’ evil, evil!” exclaimed Matilda.
But there was some good news, too—only this time it was waiting for him when he got home from one of his trips in 1837: His sixth son in a row was born. Matilda named him Lewis, but after finding out where she got the name for James, Chicken George decided not even to inquire why. Less exuberant than she’d been at the birth of each previous grandchild, Kizzy said, “Look like to me y’all ain’t gwine never have nothin’ but boys!”
“Mammy Kizzy, bad as I’se layin’ up here hurtin’ an’ you soundin’ disappointed!” cried Matilda from the bed.
“Ain’t neither! I loves my gran’boys an’ y’all knows it. But jes’ seem like y’all could have one gal!”
Chicken George laughed. “We git right to work on a gal for you, Mammy!”
“You git out’n here!” exclaimed Matilda.
But only a few months passed before a look at Matilda made it clear that George intended to be a man of his word.
“Hmph! Sho’ can tell when dat man been spendin’ reg’lar time home!” commented Sister Sarah. “Seem like he wuss’n dem roosters!” Miss Malizy agreed.
When her pains of labor came once again, the waiting, pacing George heard—amid his wife’s anguished moans and cries—his mother’s yelps of “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!,” and he needed no further advisement that at last he had fathered a girl.
Even before the baby was cleaned off, Matilda told her mother-in-law that she and George had agreed years before that their first girl would be named Kizzy.
“Ain’t done lived in vain!” Gran’mammy cried at intervals throughout the rest of the day. Nothing would do for her then but that the following afternoon Chicken George would come up from the gamefowl area and tell once again about the African great-gran’pappy Kunta Kinte for the six boys and the infant Kizzy in his lap.
One night about two months later, with all of the children finally asleep, George asked, “’Tilda, how much money is we got saved up?”
She looked at him, surprised. “L’il over a hunnud dollars.”
“Dat all?”
“Dat all! It’s a wonder it’s dat much! Ain’t I been tellin’ you all dese years de way you spends ain’t hardly no point even do no talkin’ ’bout no savin’!”
“Awright, awright,” he said guiltily.
But Matilda pursued the point. “Not countin’ what you winned an’ spent what I ain’t never seed, which was yo’ business, you want to guess ’bout how much you done give me to save since we been married, den you borrowin’ back?”
“Awright, how much?”
Matilda paused for effect. “Twixt three-fo’ thousan’ dollars.”
“Wheeeew!” he whistled. “I is?”
Watching his expression change, she sensed that she had never observed him grow more serious in all their twelve years together. “Off down yonder by myself so much,” he said finally, “I been thinkin’ ’bout whole heap o’ things—” He paused. She thought he seemed almost embarrassed by whatever he was about to say. “One thing I been thinkin’, if’n us could save ’nough dese nex’ comin’ years, maybe us could buy ourselves free.”
Matilda was too astounded to speak.
He gestured impatiently. “I wish you git yo’ pencil to figger some, an’ quit buckin’ yo’ eyes at me like you ain’t got no sense!”
Still stunned, Matilda got her pencil and a piece of paper and sat back down at the table.
“Trouble to start wid,” he said, “jes’ can’t do nothin’ but guess roun’ what massa’d ax for us all. Me an’ you an’ de passel o’ young’uns. Start wid you. Roun’ de county seat, I knows men fiel’ han’s is bringin’’bout a thousan’ dollars apiece. Wimmins is worth less, so