Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [319]
Massa Lea’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need you tellin’ me what to do, boy! Ain’t my fault you lost that money! I’m offerin’ to do too much for you anyhow, that’s the trouble with niggers! You better be careful of your mouth!” The massa’s face was reddening. “If it wasn’t for you bein’ all your life here, I’d just go ahead an’ sell your ass!”
George looked at him, then shook his head. “If all my life mean anythin’ to you, Massa, how come you’s jes’ messin’ it up mo’?”
The massa’s face set into hardness. “Pack whatever you intend to take with you! You leave for England Saturday.”
CHAPTER 104
With Chicken George gone, his luck gone, and perhaps his nerve gone as well, the fortunes of Massa Lea continued to decline. At first, he ordered L’il George into full-time daily care of the chickens, but toward the end of only a third day, the massa found some of the cockerel pens’ waterpans empty and the chubby, slow L’il George was sent fleeing with dire threats. The youngest boy, Lewis, nineteen, was next transferred from field work to take on the job. In preparation for the season’s several remaining game-cocking matches, Massa Lea now was forced to take over most of the prefight training and conditioning chores himself, since Lewis as yet simply did not know how. He accompanied the massa to the various local contests, and each of those days, the rest of the family gathering in the evenings awaited the return of Lewis to tell them whatever had happened.
The massa’s birds had lost more fights than they won, Lewis always said, and after a while that he had overheard men openly talking that Tom Lea was trying to borrow money to make bets. “Ain’t many seem like dey wants to talk wid massa. Dey jes’ speaks or waves quick an’ keeps goin’ like he got de plague.”
“Yeah, de plague o’ dem knowin’ now he po’,” said Matilda. “Po’ cracker’s all he ever been!” Sister Sarah snapped.
It became slave row’s common knowledge that Massa Lea had taken to drinking heavily, almost every day, between his shouting matches with Missis Lea.
“Dat ol’ man ain’t never been dis evil!” Miss Malizy told her grimly listening audience one night. “He hit de house actin’ jes’ like a snake, hollerin’ an’ cussin if’ n missy even look at ’im. An’ all day long when he gone, she in dere cryin’ she don’t even never want to hear no more ’bout no chickens!”
Matilda listened, emotionally drained from her own weeping and praying since her Chicken George had been gone. Briefly her glances reviewed their teen-aged daughters and six strong grown sons, three of them now with mates and children. Then her eyes came back to rest upon her blacksmith son, Tom, as if she wished he would say something. But who spoke instead was Lilly Sue, Virgil’s pregnant mate, who was briefly visiting from the nearby Curry plantation where she lived, and fear was thick in her tone. “I don’ know y’all’s massa good as you do, but I jes’ feels he gwine do somethin’ terrible, sho’s we born.” A silence fell among them, no one being willing to express their own guess, at least not aloud.
After the next morning’s breakfast, Miss Malizy waddled hurriedly from the kitchen down to the blacksmith shop. “Massa say tell you saddle his hoss and git it roun’ to de front porch, Tom,” she urged, her large eyes visibly moist. “Lawd, please hurry up, ’cause de things he been sayin’ to po’ ol’ missis jes’ ain’t hardly fittin’.” Without a word Tom soon tied the saddled horse to a gatepost, and he had just started back around the side of the big house when Massa Lea came lurching through the front door. Already red-faced from drinking, he struggled up onto the horse’s back and galloped away, weaving in the saddle.
Through a half-opened window, Tom could