Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [347]
Tom sat listening to the light conversation without comment—or even seeming to hear—and then, finally, during a lull, he leaned forward in his chair and spoke: “Y ’all ’member different times I’se said white mens talkin’ ’roun’ my shop done been cussin’ an’ carryin’ on ’bout dat Massa Lincoln? Well, wish y’all coulda heared’em today, ’cause he been ’lected Pres’dent. Dey claim now he gon’ be up dere in de White House ’gainst de South an’ anybody keepin’ slaves.”
“Well,” said Matilda, “I be primed to hear whatever Massa Murray got to say ’bout it. He sho’ been steady tellin’ missis gwine be big trouble less’n de North an’ South git dey differences settled, one way or ’nother.”
“Different things I’ve heared,” Tom went on, “whole lots mo’ folks dan we thinks is ’gainst slavin’. Ain’t all of ’em up Nawth, neither. I couldn’t hardly keep my min’ on what I was doin’ today, I been studyin’ on it so hard. Seem like too much to b’lieve, but it could come a day won’t be no mo’ slaves.”
“Well, we sho’ won’t live to see it,” said Ashford sourly.
“But maybe she will,” said Virgil, nodding toward Irene’s baby.
“Don’t seem likely,” said Irene, “much as I like to b’lieve it. You put together all de slaves in de South, wid even jes’ fiel’ hands bringin’ eight an’ nine hunnud dollars apiece, dat’s mo’ money’n God’s got! Plus dat, we does all de work.” She looked at Tom. “You know white folks ain’t gwine give dat up.”
“Not widdout a fight,” said Ashford. “An’ dey’s lot’s more dem dan us. So how we gwine win?”
“But if ’n you talkin’ ’bout de whole country,” said Tom, “it might be jes’ many folks ’gainst slavery as fo’ it.”
“Trouble is dem what’s ’gainst it ain’t here where we is,” Virgil said, and Ashford nodded, agreeing with someone for a change.
“Well, if ’n Ashford right ’bout a fight, all dat could change real fast,” said Tom.
In early December, soon after Massa and Missis Murray returned home in their buggy from dinner at a neighboring big house one night, Matilda hurried from the big house to Tom and Irene’s cabin. “What do ‘seceded’ mean?” she asked, and when they shrugged their shoulders, she went on. “Well, massa says dat’s what South Ca’liny jes’ done. Massa soun’ like it mean dey’s pullin’ out’n de Newnited States.”
“How dey gon’ pull out de country dey’s in?” Tom said.
“White folks do anythin’,” said Irene.
Tom hadn’t told them, but throughout the day, he had been listening to his white customers fuming that they would be “wadin’ knee deep in blood” before they’d give in to the North on something they called “states’ rights,” along with the right to own slaves.
“I ain’t wantin’ to scare y’all none,” he told Matilda and Irene, “but I really b’leeves it gon’ be a war.”
“Oh, my Lawd! Where’bouts it gon’ be, Tom?”
“Mammy, ain’t no special war grounds, like church or picnic grounds!”
“Well, I sho’ hope don’t be nowhere roun’ here!”
Irene scoffed at them both. “Don’t y’all ax me to b’lieve no white folks gwine git to killin’ one ’nother over niggers.”
But as the days passed, the things Tom overheard at his shop convinced him that he was right. Some of it he told his family about, but some not, for he didn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily, and he hadn’t decided himself whether he dreaded the events he saw coming—or hoped for them. But he could sense the family’s uneasiness increasing anyway, along with the traffic on the main road, as white riders and buggies raced back and forth past the plantation faster and faster and in ever-growing numbers. Almost every day someone would turn into the driveway and engage Massa Murray in conversation; Matilda employed every ruse to mop and dust where she could listen in. And slowly, over the next few weeks, in the