Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [348]
An increasing number of the blacks who delivered blacksmithing jobs to Tom told him that their massas and missies were becoming suspicious and secretive, lowering their voices and even spelling out words when even their oldest and closest servants entered a room.
“Is dey actin’ anyways ’culiar in de big house roun’ you, Mammy?” Tom asked Matilda.
“Not no whisperin’ or spellin’ or sich as dat,” she said. “But dey sho’ is done commence to shift off sudden to talkin’ ’bout crops or dinner parties jes’ soon’s I come in.”
“Bes’ thing for us all to do,” said Tom, “is act dumb as we can, like we ain’t even heard ’bout what gwine on.”
Matilda considered that—but decided against it. And one evening after she had served the Murrays their desserts, she came into the dining room and exclaimed, wringing her hands, “Lawd, Massa an’ Missy, y’all ’scuse me, jes’ got to say my chilluns an’ me is hearin’ all dis talk goin’ roun’, an’ we be’s mighty scared o’ dem Yankees, an we sho’ hopes you gwine take care of us if ’n dey’s trouble.” With satisfaction, she noted the swift expressions of approval and relief crossing their faces.
“Well, you’re right to be scared, for those Yankees are certainly no friends of yours!” said Missis Murray.
“But don’t you worry,” said the massa reassuringly, “there’s not going to be any trouble.”
Even Tom had to laugh when Matilda described the scene. And he shared with the family another laugh when he told them how he had heard that a stablehand in Melville Township had handled the ticklish matter. Asked by his massa whose side he’d be on if a war came, the stablehand had said, “You’s seed two dogs fightin’ over a bone, Massa? Well, us niggers be’s dat bone.”
Christmas, then New Year’s came and went with hardly any thought of festivity throughout Alamance County. Every few days Tom’s customers would arrive with news of secessions by still more among the southern states—first Mississippi, then Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana, all during the month of January 1861, and on the first day of February, Texas. And all of them proceeded to join a “Confederacy” of southern states headed by their own President, a man named Jefferson Davis.
“Dat Massa Davis an’ whole passels of other southern senators, congressmens, an’ high mens in de Army,” Tom reported to the family, “is resignin’ to come on back home.”
“Tom, it’s done got closer’n dat to us,” exclaimed Matilda. “A man come today an’ tol’ massa dat Ol’ Jedge Ruffin leavin’ Haw River tomorrow to ’tend a big peace conference in dat Washington, D.C.!”
But a few days later, Tom heard his blacksmithing customers saying that Judge Ruffin had returned sadly reporting the peace conference a failure, ending in explosive arguments between the younger delegates from the North and the South. A black buggy driver then told Tom that he had learned firsthand from the Alamance County courthouse janitor that a mass meeting of nearly fourteen hundred local white men had been held—with Massa Murray among them, Tom knew—and that Massa Holt, Irene’s former owner, and others as important, had shouted that war must be averted and pounded tables calling anyone who would join the Confederates “traitors.” The janitor also told him that a Massa Giles Mebane was elected to take to a state secession convention the four-to-one vote in Alamance County to remain within the Union.
It became hard for the family to keep up with all that was reported each night either by Tom or Matilda. On a single day in March, news came that President Lincoln had been sworn in, that a Confederate flag had been unveiled at a huge ceremony in Montgomery, Alabama, and that the Confederacy’s President, Jeff Davis, had declared the African slave trade abolished; feeling as they knew he did about slavery, the family couldn’t understand why. Only days later, tension rose to a fever pitch