Part 3 (1/2)

Bill rubbed his feet against each other and didn't answer.

Anger made beads of sweat come out on her forehead.

Her voice was hoa.r.s.e. 'It's not even a bad violin. It's only a cross between a mandolin and a ukulele. And I hate them. I hate them--' Bill turned around.

'It's all turned out wrong. It won't do. It's no good. 'Pipe down,' said Bill. 'Are you just carrying on about that old broken ukulele you've been fooling with? I could have told you at first it was crazy to think you could make any violin. That's one thing you don't sit down and make--you got to buy them. I thought anybody would know a thing like that. But I figured it wouldn't hurt yon if you found out for yourself.'

Sometimes she hated Bill more than anyone else in the world.

He was different entirely from what he used to be. She started to slam the violin down on the floor and stomp on it, but instead she put it back roughly into the hatbox. The tears were hot in her eyes as fire. She gave the box a kick and ran from the room without looking at Bill.

As she was dodging through the hall to get to the back yard she ran into her Mama.

'What's the matter with you? What have you been into now?'

Mick tried to jerk loose, but her Mama held on to her arm.

Sullenly she wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. Her Mama had been in the kitchen and she wore her ap.r.o.n and house-shoes. As usual she looked as though she had a lot on her mind and didn't have time to ask her any more questions.

'Mr. Jackson has brought his two sisters to dinner and there won't be but just enough chairs, so today you're to eat in the kitchen with Bubber.'

'That's hunky-dory with me,' Mick said.

Her Mama let her go and went to take off her ap.r.o.n. From the dining-room there came the sound of the dinner bell and a sudden glad outbreak of talking. She could hear her Dad saying how much he had lost by not keeping up his accident insurance until the time he broke his hip. That was one thing her Dad could never get off his mind--ways he could have made money and didn't. There was a clatter of dishes, and after a while the talking stopped.

Mick leaned on the banisters of the stairs. The sudden crying had started her with the hiccups. It seemed to her as she thought back over the last month that she had never really believed in her mind that the violin would work. But in her heart she had kept making herself believe. And even now it was hard not to believe a little. She was tired out. Bill wasn't ever a help with anything now. She used to think Bill was the grandest person in the world. She used to follow after him every place he went out--fis.h.i.+ng in the woods, to the clubhouses he built with other boys, to the slot machine in the back of Mr. Brannon's restaurant--everywhere. Maybe he hadn't meant to let her down like this. But anyway they could never be good buddies again.

In the hall there was the smell of cigarettes and Sunday dinner. Mick took a deep breath and walked back toward the kitchen. The dinner began to smell good and she was hungry.

She could hear Portia's voice as she talked to Bubber, and it was like she was half-singing something or telling him a story.

'And that is the various reason why I'm a whole lot more fortunate than most colored girls,' Portia said as she opened the door. 'Why?' asked Mick.

Portia and Bubber were sitting at the kitchen table eating their dinner. Portia's green print dress was cool-looking against her dark brown skin. She had on green earrings and her hair was combed very tight and neat.

'You all time pounce in on the very tail of what somebody say and then want to know all about it,' Portia said. She got up and stood over the hot stove, putting dinner on Mick's plate.

'Bubber and me was just talking about my Grandpapa's home out on the Old Sardis Road. I was telling Bubber how he and my uncles owns the whole place themself. Fifteen and a half acre. They always plants four of them in cotton, some years swapping back to peas to keep the dirt rich, and one acre on a hill is just for peaches. They haves a mule and a breed sow and all the time from twenty to twenty-five laying hens and fryers. They haves a vegetable patch and two pecan trees and plenty figs and plums and berries. This here is the truth. Not many white farms has done with their land good as my Grandpapa.'

Mick put her elbows on the table and leaned over her plate.

Portia had always rather talk about the farm than anything else, except about her husband and brother. To hear her tell it you would think that colored farm was the very White House itself.

'The home started with just one little room. And through the years they done built on until there's s.p.a.ce for my Grandpapa, his four sons and their wives and childrens, and my brother Hamilton. In the parlor they haves a real organ and a gramophone. And on the wall they haves a large picture of my Grandpapa taken in his lodge uniform. They cans all the fruit and vegetables and no matter how cold and rainy the winter turns they pretty near always haves plenty to eat.'

'How come you don't go live with them, then?' Mick asked.

Portia stopped peeling her potatoes and her long, brown fingers tapped on the table in time to her words. 'This here the way it is. See--each person done built on his room for his family. They all done worked hard during all these years. And of course times is hard for everbody now. But see--I lived with my Grandpapa when I were a little girl. But I haven't never done any work out there since. Any time, though, if me and Willie and Highboy gets in bad trouble us can always go back.'

'Didn't your Father build on a room? ' Portia stopped chewing. 'Whose Father? You mean my Father?'

'Sure,' said Mick. 'You know good and well my Father is a colored doctor right here in town.' Mick had heard Portia say that before, but she had thought it was a tale. How could a colored man be a doctor? .This here the way it is. Before the tune my Mama married my Father she had never known anything but real kindness. My Grandpa is Mister Kind hisself. But my Father is different from him as day is from night.'

'Mean?'asked Mick.

'No, he not a mean man,' Portia said slowly. 'It just that something is the matter. My Father not like other colored mens. This here is hard to explain. My Father all the time studying by hisself. And a long time ago he taken up all these notions about how a fambly ought to be. He bossed over ever little thing in the house and at night he tried to teach us children lessons.'

'That don't sound so bad to me,' said Mick.

'listen here. You see most of the time he were very quiet. But then some nights he would break out hi a kind of fit. He could get madder than any man I ever seen. Everbody who know my Father say that he was a sure enough crazy man. He done wild, crazy things and our Mama quit him. I were ten years old at the time. Our Mama taken us children with her to Grandpapa's farm and us were raised out there. Our Father all the time wanted us to come back. But even when our Mama died us children never did go home to live. And now my Father stay all by hisself.'

Mick went to the stove and filled her plate a second time.

Portia's voice was going up and down like a song, and nothing could stop her now.

'I doesn't see my Father much--maybe once a week--but I done a lot of thinking about him. I feels sorrier for him than anybody I knows. I expect he done read more books than any white man in this town. He done read more books and he done worried about more things. He full of books and worrying. He done lost G.o.d and turned his back to religion. All his troubles come down just to that.'

Portia was excited. Whenever she got to talking about G.o.d--or Willie, her brother, or Highboy, her husband--she got excited.

'Now, I not a big shouter. I belongs to the Presbyterian Church and us don't hold with all this rolling on the floor and talking in tongues. Us don't get sanctified ever week and wallow around together. In our church we sings and lets the preacher do the preaching. And tell you the truth I don't think a little singing and a little preaching would hurt you, Mick. You ought to take your little brother to the Sunday School and also you plenty big enough to sit in church. From the biggity way you been acting lately it seem to me like you already got one toe in the pit.'

'Nuts,' Mick said.

'Now Highboy he were Holiness boy before us were married.

He loved to get the spirit ever Sunday and shout and sanctify hisself. But after us were married I got him to join with me, and although it kind of hard to keep him quiet sometime I think he doing right well.'

'I don't believe in G.o.d any more than I do Santa Oaus,' Mick said.

'You wait a minute! That's why it sometime seem to me you favor my Father more than any person I ever knowed.'

'Me? You say I favor him?'

'I don't mean in the face or in any kind of looks. I was speaking about the shape and color of your souls.'

Bubber sat looking from one to the other. His napkin was tied around his neck and in his hand he still held his empty spoon.

'What all does G.o.d eat?' he asked.

Mick got up from the table and stood in the doorway, ready to leave. Sometimes it was fun to devil Portia. She started on the same tune and said the same thing over and over--like that was all she knew.

'Folks like you and my Father who don't attend the church can't never have nair peace at all. Now take me here--I believe and I haves peace. And Bubber, he haves his peace too. And my Highboy and my Willie likewise. And it seem to me just from looking at him this here Mr. Singer haves peace too. I done felt that the first time I seen him.'

'Have it your own way,' Mick said. 'You're crazier than any father of yours could ever be.'

'But you haven't never loved G.o.d nor even nair person. You hard and tough as cowhide. But just the same I knows you.

This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don't love and don't have peace. And then some day you going to bust loose and be ruined. Won't nothing help you then.'

'What, Portia?' Bubber asked. 'What kind of things does He eat?'