Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [368]
Their wedding in the New Hope CME Church in the summer of 1920 was Henning’s first social event attended by both black and white—not only since Will Palmer by now was among the town’s most prominent citizens, but also because in her own right the accomplished, irrepressible Bertha was someone whom all in Henning regarded with pride. The reception was held on the wide, sloping lawn of the Palmers’ brand-new home of ten rooms, including a music parlor and a library. A banquet of food was served; more presents were heaped than were normally seen at an average three weddings; there was even a recital by the full Lane College Choir—in whose ranks the ecstatic newlyweds had met—which had come in the bus that Will Palmer had chartered from Jackson.
Late that day, Henning’s little railroad depot was overrun as Simon and Bertha boarded the Illinois Central train that took them through the night to Chicago, where they changed onto another bound for somewhere called Ithaca, New York. Simon was going to study for his master’s degree in agriculture at some “Cornell University,” and Bertha would be enrolling at a nearby “Ithaca Conservatory of Music.”
For about nine months, Bertha wrote home regularly, reporting their exciting experiences so far away and telling how happy they were with each other. But then, in the early summer of 1921, Bertha’s letters began to arrive less and less often, until finally Cynthia and Will grew deeply concerned that something was wrong that Bertha wasn’t telling them about. Will gave Cynthia five hundred dollars to send to Bertha, telling Bertha to use it however they might need it, without mentioning it to Simon. But their daughter’s letters came even more seldom, until by late August, Cynthia told Will and their closest friends that she was going to New York herself to find out what was the matter.
Two days before Cynthia was due to leave, a midnight knocking at the front door awakened them in alarm. Cynthia was first out of bed, snatching on her robe, with Will close behind. At their bedroom’s doorway, she could see through the living room’s glasspaneled french doors the moonlit silhouettes of Bertha and Simon on the front porch. Cynthia went shrieking and bounding to snatch open the door.
Bertha said calmly, “Sorry we didn’t write. We wanted to bring you a surprise present—” She handed to Cynthia the blanketed bundle in her arms. Her heart pounding, and with Will gazing incredulously over her shoulder, Cynthia pulled back the blanket’s top fold—revealing a round brown face....
The baby boy, six weeks old, was me.
CHAPTER 118
I used to be told later by Dad, laughing in recalling that night of big surprise as he loved to do, “Seemed I’d nearly lost a son a little while there—” Dad declared Grandpa Will Palmer walked around and lifted me out of Grandma’s arms “and without a word took you out to the yard and around the rear of the house somewhere. Why, he must have stayed gone I believe as long as half an hour” before returning, “with Cynthia, Bertha, or me saying not a word to him of it, either, I guess for one reason just because he was Will Palmer, and the other thing was all of us knew how badly for many years he’d wanted to have a son to raise—I guess in your being Bertha’s boy, you’d become it.”
After a week or so, Dad went back alone to Ithaca, leaving Mama and me in Henning; they had decided it would be better while he finished pushing for his master’s degree. Grandpa and Grandma proceeded to just about adopt me as their own—especially Grandpa.
Even before I could talk, Grandma would say years later, he would carry me in his arms, down to the lumber company, where he built a crib to put me in while he took care of business. After I had learned to walk, we would go together downtown, me taking three steps to each of his, my small fist tightly grasped about his extended left forefinger. Looming over me like a black, tall, strong