Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [361]
But it was prime—rich and loamy, thirty acres of it for every family, scattered on checkerboard plots from the outskirts of town all the way to the white-owned farms that already occupied the best land in Lauderdale County, on the banks of the Hatchie River six miles to the north. Many of the white farms were as large as all of their property put together, but thirty acres was thirty more than any of them had ever owned before, and they had their hands full with that.
Still living in their cramped wagons, the families began grubbing up stumps and clearing brush the next morning. Soon the furrows had been plowed and their first crops planted—mostly cotton, some corn, with plots for vegetables and a patch for flowers. As they set about the next task of sawing down trees and splitting logs to build their cabins, Chicken George circulated from one farm to another on his horse, volunteering his advice on construction and trumpeting how he had changed their lives. Even among Henning’s white settlers he boasted about how those he had brought with him were going to help the town grow and prosper, not failing to mention that his middle son Tom would soon be opening the area’s first blacksmith shop.
One day soon afterward, three white men rode up to Tom’s plot as he and his sons were mixing a load of mud with hog bristles to chink the walls of his half-built cabin.
“Which one of you is the blacksmith?” one called from his horse.
Sure that his first customers had arrived even before he could get set up for business, Tom stepped out proudly.
“We hear you’re figurin’ to open a blacksmith shop here in town,” one said.
“Yassuh. Been lookin’ fo’ de bes’ spot to build it. Was thinkin’ maybe dat empty lot nex’ to de sawmill if ’n nobody else got his eye on it.”
The three men exchanged glances. “Well, boy,” the second man went on, “no need of wasting time, we’ll get right to the point. You can blacksmith, that’s fine. But if you want to do it in this town, you’ll have to work for a white man that owns the shop. Had you figured on that?”
Such a rage flooded up in Tom that nearly a minute passed before he could trust himself to speak. “Nawsuh, I ain’t,” he said slowly. “Me an’ my family’s free peoples now, we’s jes’ lookin’ to make our livin’s like anybody else, by workin’ hard at what we knows to do.” He looked directly into the men’s eyes. “If I cain’t own what I do wid my own hands, den dis ain’t no place fo’ us.”
The third white man said, “If that’s the way you feel, I ’speck you’re going to be ridin’ a long way in this state, boy.”
“Well, we’s used to travelin’,” said Tom. “Ain’t wantin’ to cause no trouble nowhere, but I got to be a man. I just wisht I could o’ knowed how y’all felt here so my family wouldn’t of troubled y’all by stoppin’ atall.”
“Well, think about it, boy,” said the second white man. “It’s up to you.”
“You people got to learn not to let all this freedom talk go to your heads,” said the first man.
Turning their horses around without another word, they rode off.
When the news went flashing among the farm plots, the heads of each family came hurrying to see Tom.
“Son,” said Chicken George, “you’s knowed all yo’ life how white folks is. Cain’t you jes’ start out dey way? Den good as you blacksmiths, won’t take hardly no time to git ’em to turn roun’.”
“All dat travelin’ an’ now pack up an’ go again!” exclaimed Matilda. “Don’t do dat to yo’ fam’ly, son!”
Irene joined the chorus: “Tom, please! I’se jes’ tired! Tired!”
But Tom’s face was grim. “Things don’t never git better less’n you makes ’em better!” he said. “Ain’t stayin’ nowhere I can’t do what a free man got a right to do. Ain’t axin’ nobody else to go wid us, but we packin’ our wagon an’ leavin’ tomorrow.”
“I’m comin’, too!” said Ashford angrily.
That night Tom went out walking by himself, weighed down by guilt at the new hardship he was imposing upon his family. He played back in his mind the ordeal they had all endured in the wagons, rolling for weeks on end . . . and