Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [357]
“Well, tell him I got to see him first chance,” said Ol’ George Johnson to Matilda.
Leaving nothing to chance, Matilda first informed Missis Murray, somewhat dramatizing the situation. “Missy, I know he a oberseer an’ all dat, but him an’ dat po’ l’il wife o’ his’n jes’ scairt to death massa gwine make ’em leave ’cause he hadn’t mentioned no wife befo’ an’ times is so hard an’ all. An’ her time ain’t far off, neither.”
“Well, of course I can’t make my husband’s decisions, but I’m sure he’ll not put them out—”
“Yes’m, I knowed y’all wouldn’t, ’specially bein’s how I ’speck she ain’t no mo’n thirteen or fo’teen years ol’, Missis, an’ lookin’ ready to have dat baby any minute, an done jes’ got here an’ don’t know nobody ’ceptin’ us—an’ y’all.”
Missis Murray said, “Well, as I say, it’s not my affair, it’s Mr. Murray’s decision. But I do feel certain they can stay on.”
Returning to the slave row, Matilda told a grateful Ol’ George Johnson not to worry, that Missis Murray had expressed certainty there would be no problem. Then she hurried to Irene’s cabin, where after quick consultation, the two of them ambled over to the converted small shed behind the barn where the Ol’ George Johnsons were.
Irene knocked, and when Ol’ George Johnson came to the door, she said, “We worried ’bout yo’ wife. Tell ’er we do y’alls cookin’ an’ washin’, ’cause she got to save up what strength she got fo’ her to have y’all’s baby.”
“She sleep now. Sho’ ’preciate it,” he said. “’Cause she been throwin’ up a lot ever since we got here.”
“Ain’t no wonder. She don’t look to have hardly de strength of a bird,” said Irene. “You ain’t had no business bringin’ her all dat long way right dis time nohow,” Matilda added severely.
“Tried my best to tell ’er that when I went back. But she wouldn’t have it no other way.”
“S’pose sump’n would o’ happened. You don’t know nothin’ in de worl’ ’bout ’liverin’ no baby!” exclaimed Matilda.
He said, “I can’t hardly believe I’m gon’ be no daddy nohow.”
“Well, you sho’ ’bout to!” Irene nearly laughed at Ol’ George’s worried expression, then she and Matilda turned and headed back to their cabins.
She and Matilda worried privately. “De po’ gal don’ look noways right to me,” Matilda muttered in confidence. “Can nigh see her bones. An’ speck it ’way too late to git her built up right.”
“Feel like she gwine have a mighty hard time,” Irene prophesied. “Lawd! I sho’ ain’t never thought I’d end up likin’ no po’ white folks!”
Less than two more weeks had passed when one midday Martha’s pains began. The whole slave-row family heard her agony from within the shed, as Matilda and Irene labored with her on through the night until shortly before the next noon. Finally when Irene emerged, her face told the haggard Ol’ George Johnson even before her mouth could form the words. “B’leeve Miss Martha gon’ pull through. Yo’ baby was a gal—but she dead.”
CHAPTER 113
The late afternoon of the 1863 New Year’s Day, Matilda came almost flying into the slave row. “Y’all seen dat white man jes’ rid in here? Y’all ain’t gon’ b’leeve! He in dere cussin’ to massa it jes’ come over de railroad telegraph wire Pres’dent Lincoln done signed ’Mancipation Proclamation dat set us free!”
The galvanizing news thrust the black Murrays among the millions more like them exulting wildly within the privacy of their cabins ... but with each passing week the joyous awaiting of the freedom dwindled, diminished, and finally receded into a new despair the more it became clear that within the steadily more bloodied, ravaged Confederacy the presidential order had activated nothing but even more bitter despising of President Lincoln.
So deep was the despair in the Murray slave row that despite Tom’s intermittent reports of the Yankees winning major battles, including even the capture of Atlanta, they refused to build up their freedom hopes anymore until toward the end of 1864, when they had not seen Tom so excited for almost two years. He said that his white customers were describing how untold thousands of murderous, pillaging