Gritny people

To be looked upon as a favored “member” of Aunt Susan Smiley’s cook shop, all the requisites one need have were the ability to appreciate her gumbo and sweet potato pies, coupled with a talent for telling a good story.

The gumbo and pies were not only a pride to Aunt Susan, but were things of great marvel to the whole colored population the full length of the river “coast.” Of course the pies were best when yams were in season. But with a little “sweet milk” and a dash of vanilla extract, she was able to work wonders with the commoner variety of sweet potato, and few of her patrons knew the difference; unless they had some knowledge of truck gardening and were “well-posted ’bout potato-time.”

Like all good cooks, Aunt Susan was careful not to reveal to her dusky sisters the secret of her original recipes. And if any white person asked her to tell how she prepared some of her dainty concoctions, she never went beyond saying: “Honey, de firs’ thing you gotta have is a black han’.”

The telling of stories was a thing Aunt Susan looked to with the discrimination of a true judge of oral literature. Her patrons were free to pass the whole night in her shop, sitting before the cheerful fire on the hearth, provided they had a good story to tell or a good song to sing, whatever the model might be; it being understood that pies and gumbo were available for the growing appetite, and drip coffee could be furnished when needed to soothe the husky throats of the indefatigable singers. If the season happened to be summer, bountiful pitchers of lemonade with raspberry syrup took the place of black coffee; and every one could “lap up limonade an’ spread joy to a comfut.”

Alcoholic drinks were taboo. Not because Aunt Susan had any religious scruples; for she frankly admitted she was “no licentage Chrishtun;” but because she felt that “a nigger in licker ain’ no fittin’ comp’ny for nobody decen’, Chrishtun or w’atsomeever.”

It mattered little if a “member” hadn’t any money. If he could tell an interesting story, his credit was good until the end of the week, at which time he was expected to pay. Failing in this, he was declared “on-finanshul,” and was denied the privilege of the house until he reinstated himself.

A black space on the side wall carried the various accounts marked up in chalk; a stroke for each pie or plate of gumbo, in one column; and a like marking for the drinks in another column. As each mark stood for a nickel, it was an easy matter to reckon when the time came for settling up.

Although unable to read, Aunt Susan’s manner of counting and making change had the accuracy of a primitive Chinese abacus-Pythagoricus. On the mantelshelf she kept a blue bowl half-filled with grains of corn. If a dollar bill were given in settlement of an account, grains of corn equalling the amount of the bill were counted out on the table. Then the strokes on the wall were counted, and as many grains of corn were taken from the whole; the remaining grains representing the change to be returned. Fortunately, the patrons seldom presented her with anything higher than a two dollar bill. However slow the process, the method was sure; and even though she had to change a five dollar note now and then, no one ever complained of wrong count.

Aunt Susan was a kindly, soft-voiced, full-bosomed woman, about sixty years old. She had no family of her own; but living with her, as a sort of charge, was a blind man named Tom Lakes, some twenty years her junior. She had known Tom from his early childhood, and had always taken a motherly interest in him; mending his clothes, cooking his meals, and taking care of his money for him, long before he married and met with the horrible accident which caused his blindness.

Tom married a young woman who came to the village a stranger,—“some wile Georgia nigger out de wilderness,” as she was called by Tom’s friends, few of whom had any regard for her because of her arrogance and “scawnful ways.”

After his marriage, Tom continued to pay his daily visits to Aunt Susan; helping her peel potatoes, clean crabs for the gumbo, chop wood, and redden the floor with brick-dust; just as he had always done. These little attentions awakened a feeling of resentment in the suspicious mind of the scornful Georgia lady. Tom was kind to her and provided for every humble need; but why must he go and do work for another woman?... And his visits at night; going to take part in the singing and story-telling with other people before Susan’s fireplace;—another thorn in her jealous soul. Every invitation from Tom to go along with him, she refused; preferring to remain at home, brooding and wondering. She was sure something more than “ole lady” interest held Tom to Aunt Susan. No woman kept a man’s money unless there was something secret between them,—and the man with a “natchal wife of his own”.... “Who? Do I look like I got any green in my eye, keep me from seein’ w’at direction de win’ blowin’ in?—Tom mus’ be take me for a fool!”

So she mused to herself when he was away by day; brooding deeper on the seeming deception when he was away at night revelling in the pleasant flow of song and story and the wholesome regalement of crab gumbo and sweet potato pie.

The night of July 4th was to be a “big interprise” at Aunt Susan’s. Three “good altone songsters” were coming to lend added luster to the meeting, and make the “buildin’ rock wid ole-time shoutin’ praise.” Aunt Susan was over the stove the greater part of the day, making pies; and to give the gumbo an extra flavor, Tom had gone crawfishing and brought home a basket full of crawfish, which he would give as his donation. Bell told him she would boil them and pick them, a wifely condescension which pleased Tom as much as it caused him to wonder.

“Maybe her min’ done change at las’. An’ maybe she’ll go ’long wid me tonight to Sis’ Susan house,” thought Tom, as he dragged a chair out on the front gallery and sat down in the shade of the honeysuckle vines.

“Bell alright; ’cep’ for her nasty, jealous-hearted ways,” he argued to himself.

The afternoon was hot and still. A quivering, dancing heat was visible in the brilliant sunlight. Not a leaf stirred on the chinaberry trees by the front fence. A few dejected chickens hid under the castor oil bush by the step, their wings drooping, their mouths open, panting like jaded runners after a weary race.

Bell was inside, looking after the pot of crawfish boiling on the charcoal furnace. The swampy smell of the crawfish mingled with the odor of red pepper, floated through the house and over the gallery, where Tom was already in a deep slumber.

Bell came out to the front door and looked at him, then went back to the kitchen. She sat down, gazing at the pot on the furnace, a strange expression creeping over her face. For a long time she sat like one in a profound study. Her eyes contracted, and she began to gnaw her thumb nail abstractedly, a mask-like vacancy covering her face with dark inscrutability. Passing her hand across her face slowly, she got up and looked at the boiling crawfish. They were bright scarlet; they were done. Taking a colander from the wall, she put it in the dishpan on the table; then, lifting the pot from the fire, she emptied the seething mass into the colander, shaking it well until all the water was out, then put it on the window-sill to cool. Passing her hand across her mouth in a cryptic manner, she went again to the front door and looked at Tom furtively. He was sleeping soundly. She went back to the kitchen, and taking the dishpan of hot water from the table, walked out to the front gallery.

Tom was asleep. A deep, manly, snoring sleep held him fast.

“He wouldn’ know.... It’s so easy to trip,—to stumble. For de handle to slip out my han’”.... The thoughts went chasing through her mind, as she stood over him with the steam rising from the crawfish water like an ominous mist.

“Dey say linseed oil good for scaldin’.... Tom got some in a bottle yonder in de woodshed.... I know how to look aft’ him. Den he gotta stay ’way from Susan”....

An unearthly yell started the quivering air.... The dishpan fell to the floor with a jangling crash. “Have mercy! Lawd, have mercy!” Tom’s reiterated cry sounded across the yard with pathetic appeal, the scalding water tinctured with red pepper torturing him viciously.

No one saw the savage deed but the frightened chickens hiding under the castor oil bush, and Bell swore that it was an accident. She was arrested and sent to jail, but Tom maintained that she was innocent; believing Bell’s flimsy story that she had stumbled against his foot.

“Who? Tom ain’ nothin’ but a plumb fool,” commented Seelan, as she left the house after her visit of sympathy.

“Ain’ Tom know it never was Bell practice habit to th’ow trash water in de front yard?... Comin’ clean th’oo de house to de front do’ to empty a dishpan o’ scaldin’ water? Shucks! Tom des natchally childish.”

“You sho is right,” agreed Felo. “I ain’ never like Bell from de firs’ beginnin’. I ain’ trus’ no ooman w’at got side-b’yeards growin’ ’long-side her jaws like Bell got. Da’s a bad sign.”

And so the comment continued for weeks among Tom’s friends wherever they met.

After the bandage was removed from Tom’s eyes, the doctor told him that he was hopelessly blind. His face took on a look of sudden despair, and in a pleading tone, he said:

“Please suh, doctor, don’ joke me in my mis’ry.”

No one spoke. After a few seconds, Susan took hold of his hand, her affectionate grasp, more eloquent than any spoken word, revealing to him the awful truth of the doctor’s statement.

“Sweet man, Jesus,” he exclaimed, raising his head imploringly; “please tell me w’at po’ Tom goin’ do!”

“You goin’ go home wid Susan, an’ set in yo’ chair yonder ’fo de fire,” came the soft-toned, comforting reply. “An’ Susan goin’ look aft’ you des like she did befo’.”

Then leading him by the hand, they left the doctor’s office and started up the coast towards home.

Bell was tried before a jury, but as there was no available witness to give testimony in the case, she was acquitted as innocent and ordered by the court to go back to Georgia. “Back to de wilderness, whah she b’lonks.” As Tom’s friends declared, with picturesque indignation.

The 4th of July meeting having been postponed on account of Tom’s accident, it was scheduled to take place on All Saints’ Day, he being sufficiently recovered to participate in the “interprise.”

In honor of his coming to live with Susan, the old house was “treated to a fine fixin’-up.” The clapboard front was given a coat of pink-wash, and the horseshoe over the door painted a vivid green. New turkey red curtains were hung on all the windows; a new white marbled oilcloth was bought for the long guest table in the middle of the room; fresh shelf coverings of newspaper cut in fantastic scallops were put in the safe and on the pot shelf against the wall; and the hearth bricks and chimney-piece were treated to a new coat of red ochre. The floor was scrubbed and sprinkled with brick dust; the cypress benches, scrubbed and rubbed until the water-waves of the grain took on the appearance of old satin. And Tom’s chair beside the hearth was given a comfortable cushion covered with a piece of old plaid shawl. The mantelshelf was hung with garlands of garlic and bay leaf, long strings of red pepper pods, and bunches of onions. Two brightly-polished tomato cans, supporting cocoanuts, filled the place of ornaments at each end of the mantelpiece; and in the center stood a venerable steeple-top clock, telling that it was near the time for the “members” to arrive. A glowing fire of magnolia burrs and driftwood burned on the hearth; and the place had an impressive air of humble, medieval cheer.