Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [358]
“Soun’ like de Yankees ain’t leavin’ nothin’! Dem white mens swears dey’s burnin’ de fiel’s, de big houses, de barns! Dey’s killin’ de mules an’ cookin’ de cows an’ everythin’ else dey can eat! Whatever dey ain’t burnin’ an’ eatin’ dey’s jes’ ruinin’, plus stealin’ anythin’ dey can tote off! An’ dey says it’s niggers all out in de woods an’ roads thick as ants dat done lef ’ dey massas an’ plantations to follow dem Yankees ’til dat Gen’l Sherman hisself beggin’ ’em to go back where dey come fum!”
Then not long after the Yankees’ triumphal march had reached the sea, Tom breathlessly reported “Charleston done fell!” . . . and next “Gen’l Grant done took Richmon’!” . . . and finally in April of 1865, Gen’l Lee done surrendered de whole ’Federacy Army! De South done give up!”
The jubilance in the slave row was beyond any measure now as they poured out across the big-house front yard and up the entry lane to reach the big road to join the hundreds already there, milling about, leaping and springing up and down, whooping, shouting, singing, preaching, praying. “Free, Lawd, free!” . . . “Thank Gawd A’mighty, free at las’!”
But then within a few days the spirit of celebration plunged into deep grief and mourning with the shattering news of the assassination of President Lincoln. “Eeeeeeevil!” shrieked Matilda as the family wept around her, among the millions like them who had revered the fallen President as their Moses.
Then in May, as it was happening all across the defeated South, Massa Murray summoned all of his slaves into the front yard that faced the big house. When they were all assembled in a line, they found it hard to look levelly at the drawn, shocked faces of the massa, the weeping Missis Murray, and the Ol’ George Johnsons, who, too, were white. In an anguished voice then, Massa Murray read slowly from the paper in his hand that the South had lost the war. Finding it very hard not to choke up before the black family standing there on the earth before him, he said, “I guess it means y’all as free as us. You can go if you want to, stay on if you want, an’ whoever stays, we’ll try to pay you something—”
The black Murrays began leaping, singing, praying, screaming anew, “We’s free!” . . . “Free at las’!” ... “Thank you, Jesus!” The wild celebration’s sounds carried through the opened door of the small cabin where Lilly Sue’s son, Uriah, now eight years of age, had laid for weeks suffering a delirium of fever. “Freedom! Freedom!” Hearing it, Uriah came boiling up off his cot, his nightshirt flapping; he raced first for the pigpen shouting, “Ol’ pigs quit gruntin’, you’s free!” He coursed to the barn, “Ol’ cows, quit givin’ milk, you’s free!” The boy raced to the chickens next, “Ol’ hens quit layin’, you’s free!—and so’s ME!”
But that night, with their celebration having ended in their sheer exhaustion, Tom Murray assembled his large family within the barn to discuss what they should do now that this long-awaited “freedom” had arrived. “Freedom ain’t gwine feed us, it just let us ’cide what we wants to do to eat,” said Tom. “We ain’t got much money, and ’sides me blacksmithin’ an’ Mammy cookin’, de only workin’ we knows is in de fiel’s,” he appraised their dilemma.
Matilda reported that Massa Murray had asked her to urge them all to consider his offer to parcel out the plantation, and he would go halves with anyone interested in sharecropping. There was a heated debate. Several of the family’s adults wished to leave as quickly as possible. Matilda protested, “I wants dis family to stay togedder. Now ’bout dis talk o’ movin’, s’pose we did an’ y’all’s pappy Chicken George git back, an’ nobody couldn’t even tell him whichaway we’d gone!”
Quiet fell when Tom made it clear he wished to speak. “Gwine tell y’all how come we can’t leave yet—it’s