Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [363]
So many people attended the service that first Sunday—just about every black person within twenty miles who could walk or be carried—that the crowd spilled out the doors and windows and across the lawn surrounding it. But nobody had any trouble hearing every word of the ringing sermon delivered by the Reverend Sylus Henning, a former slave of Dr. D. C. Henning, an Illinois Central Railroad executive with extensive land holdings around town. In the course of his oration, L’il George whispered to Virgil that the Reverend seemed to be under the impression that he was Dr. Henning, but no one within earshot would have dared to question the fervor of his preaching.
After the last heartrending chorus of “The Old Rugged Cross,” again—led by Matilda, looking more radiant than Chicken George had ever seen her—the congregation dried their eyes and filed out past the preacher, pumping his hand and slapping him on the back. Retrieving their picnic baskets on the porch, they spread sheets on the lawn and proceeded to relish the fried chicken, pork chop sandwiches, deviled eggs, potato salad, cole slaw, pickles, cornbread, lemonade, and so many cakes and pickles that even L’il George was gasping for breath when he finished the last slice.
As they all sat chatting, or strolled around—the men and boys in coat and tie, the older women all in white, the girls in bright-colored dresses with a ribbon at the waist—Matilda watched misty-eyed as her brood of grandchildren ran about tirelessly playing tag and catch. Turning finally to her husband and putting her hand on his, gnarled and scarred with gamecock scratches, she said quietly, “I won’t never forget dis day, George. We done come a long way since you first come courtin’ me wid dat derby hat o’ yours. Our fam’ly done growed up an’ had chilluns of dey own, an’ de Lawd seen fit to keep us all togedder. De onliest thing I wish is you Mammy Kizzy could be here to see it wid us.”
Eyes brimming, Chicken George looked back at her. “She lookin’, baby. She sho’ is!”
CHAPTER 115
Promptly at the noon hour on Monday, during their break from the fields, the children started filing into church for their first day of school indoors. For the past two years, ever since she came to town after being one among the first graduating class from Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, Sister Carrie White had been teaching out under the bush arbors, and this use of the church was a great occasion. The New Hope CME stewards—Chicken George, Tom, and his brothers—had contributed the money to buy pencils, tablets, and primers on “readin’, writin’, an’ ’rithmetic.” Since she taught all the children of school age at the same time, in her six grades Sister Carrie had pupils ranging from five to fifteen, including Tom’s oldest five: Maria Jane, who was twelve; Ellen; Viney; L’il Matilda; and Elizabeth, who was six. Young Tom, next in line, began the year after that, and then Cynthia, the youngest.
By the time Cynthia was graduated in 1883, Maria Jane had dropped out, gotten married, and given birth to her first child; and Elizabeth, who was the best student in the family, had taught their father Tom Murray how to write his name and had even become his blacksmithing bookkeeper. He needed one, for by this time he had become so successful with his rolling blacksmith shop that he had also built a stationary one—without a murmur of objection—and was among the more prosperous men in town.
About a year after Elizabeth went to work for her father, she fell in love with John Toland, a newcomer to Henning who had gone to work sharecropping on the six-hundred-acre farm of a white family out near the Hatchie River. She had met him in town one day at the general store and been impressed, she told her mother Irene, not only by his good looks and muscular build but also by his dignified manner and obvious intelligence. He could even write a little, she noticed, when he signed for a receipt. Over the next several weeks, during the walks she’d take with him in the woods once or twice each week,