Song of the Trees (2 page)

Christopher-John and Little Man ran to catch up with
us. Then, resuming their leisurely pace, they soon fell behind again.

A large gray squirrel scurried across our path and up a walnut tree. I watched until it was settled amidst the tree’s featherlike leaves; then, poking one of the calves, I said, “Stacey, is Mama sick?”

“Sick? Why you say that?”

“Cause I heard Big Ma asking her ’bout some medicine she’s supposed to have.”

Stacey stopped, a worried look on his face. “If she’s sick, she ain’t bad sick,” he decided. “If she was bad sick, she’d been in bed.”

We left the cows at the pond and, taking our berry baskets, delved deeper into the forest looking for the wild blackberry bushes.

“I see one!” I shouted.

“Where?” cried Christopher-John, eager for the sweet berries.

“Over there! Last one to it’s a rotten egg!” I yelled, and off I ran.

Stacey and Little Man followed at my heels. But Christopher-John puffed far behind. “Hey, wait for me,” he cried.

“Let’s hide from Christopher-John,” Stacey suggested.

The three of us ran in different directions. I plunged behind a giant old pine and hugged its warm trunk as I waited for Christopher-John.

Christopher-John puffed to a stop; then, looking all around, called, “Hey, Stacey! Cassie! Hey, Man! Y’all cut that out!”

I giggled and Christopher-John heard me.

“I see you, Cassie!” he shouted, starting toward me as fast as his chubby legs would carry him. “You’re it!”

“Not ’til you tag me,” I laughed. As I waited for him to get closer, I glanced up into the boughs of my wintry-smelling hiding tree expecting a song of laughter. But the old pine only tapped me gently with one of its long, low branches. I turned from the tree and dashed away.

“You can’t, you can’t, you can’t catch me,” I taunted, dodging from one beloved tree to the next. Around shaggy-bark hickories and sharp-needled pines, past blue-gray beeches and sturdy black walnuts I sailed while my laughter resounded through the ancient forest, filling every chink. Overhead, the boughs of the giant trees hovered protectively, but they did not join in my laughter.

Deeper into the forest I plunged.

Christopher-John, unable to keep up, plopped on the ground in a pant. Little Man and Stacey, emerging from their hiding places, ran up to him.

“Ain’t you caught her yet?” Little Man demanded, more than a little annoyed.

“He can’t catch the champ,” I boasted, stopping to rest against a hickory tree. I slid my back down the tree’s shaggy trunk and looked up at its long branches, heavy with sweet nuts and slender green leaves, perfectly still. I looked around at the leaves of the other trees. They were still also. I stared at the trees, aware of an eerie silence descending over the forest.

Stacey walked toward me. “What’s the matter with you, Cassie?” he asked.

“The trees, Stacey,” I said softly, “they ain’t singing no more.”

“Is that all?” He looked up at the sky. “Come on, y’all. It’s getting late. We’d better go pick them berries.” He turned and walked on.

“But, Stacey, listen. Little Man, Christopher-John, listen.”

The forest echoed an uneasy silence.

“The wind just stopped blowing, that’s all,” said Stacey. “Now stop fooling around and come on.”

I jumped up to follow Stacey, then cried, “Stacey, look!” On a black oak a few yards away was a huge white X. “How did that get there?” I exclaimed, running to the tree.

“There’s another one!” Little Man screamed.

“I see one too!” shouted Christopher-John.

Stacey said nothing as Christopher-John, Little Man and I ran wildly through the forest counting the ghostlike marks.

“Stacey, they’re on practically all of them,” I said when he called us back. “Why?”

Stacey studied the trees, then suddenly pushed us down.

“My clothes!” Little Man wailed indignantly.

“Hush, Man, and stay down,” Stacey warned. “Somebody’s coming.”

Two white men emerged. We looked at each other. We knew to be silent.

“You mark them all down here?” one of the men asked.

“Not the younger ones, Mr. Andersen.”

“We might need them, too,” said Mr. Andersen, counting
the X’s. “But don’t worry ’bout marking them now, Tom. We’ll get them later. Also them trees up past the pond toward the house.”

“The old woman agree to you cutting these trees?”

“I ain’t been down there yet,” Mr. Andersen said.

“Mr. Andersen . . .” Tom hesitated a moment, looked up at the silent trees, then back at Mr. Andersen. “Maybe you should go easy with them,” he cautioned. “You know that David can be as mean as an ole jackass when he wanna be.”

“He’s talking about Papa,” I whispered.

“Shhhh!” Stacey hissed.

Mr. Andersen looked uneasy. “What’s that gotta do with anything?”

“Well, he just don’t take much to any dealings with white folks.” Again, Tom looked up at the trees. “He ain’t afraid like some.”

Mr. Andersen laughed weakly. “Don’t worry ’bout that, Tom. The land belongs to his mama. He don’t have no say in it. Besides, I guess I oughta know how to handle David Logan. After all, there are ways . . . .

“Now, you get on back to my place and get some boys and start chopping down these trees,” Mr. Andersen said.
“I’ll go talk to the old woman.” He looked up at the sky. “We can almost get a full day’s work in if we hurry.”

Mr. Andersen turned to walk away, but Tom stopped him. “Mr. Andersen, you really gonna chop all the trees?”

“If I need to. These folks ain’t got no call for them. I do. I got me a good contract for these trees and I aim to fulfill it.”

Tom watched Mr. Andersen walk away; then, looking sorrowfully up at the trees, he shook his head and disappeared into the depths of the forest.

“What we gonna do, Stacey?” I asked anxiously. “They can’t just cut down our trees, can they?”

“I don’t know. Papa’s gone . . .” Stacey muttered to himself, trying to decide what we should do next.

“Boy, if Papa was here, them ole white men wouldn’t be messing with our trees,” Little Man declared.

“Yeah!” Christopher-John agreed. “Just let Papa get hold of ’em and he gonna turn ’em every which way but loose.”

“Christopher-John, Man,” Stacey said finally, “go get the cows and take them home.”

“But we just brought them down here,” Little Man protested.

“And we gotta pick the berries for dinner,” said Christopher-John mournfully.

“No time for that now. Hurry up. And stay clear of them white men. Cassie, you come with me.”

We ran, brown legs and feet flying high through the still forest.

By the time Stacey and I arrived at the house, Mr. Andersen’s car was already parked in the dusty drive. Mr. Andersen himself was seated comfortably in Papa’s rocker on the front porch. Big Ma was seated too, but Mama was standing.

Stacey and I eased quietly to the side of the porch, unnoticed.

“Sixty-five dollars. That’s an awful lot of money in these hard times, Aunt Caroline,” Mr. Andersen was saying to Big Ma.

I could see Mama’s thin face harden.

“You know,” Mr. Andersen said, rocking familiarly in Papa’s chair, “that’s more than David can send home in two months.”

“We do quite well on what David sends home,” Mama said coldly.

Mr. Andersen stopped rocking. “I suggest you encourage Aunt Caroline to sell them trees, Mary. You know, David might not always be able to work so good. He could possibly have . . . an accident.”

Big Ma’s soft brown eyes clouded over with fear as she looked first at Mr. Andersen, then at Mama. But Mama clenched her fists and said, “In Mississippi, black men do not have accidents.”

“Hush, child, hush,” Big Ma said hurriedly. “How many trees for the sixty-five dollars, Mr. Andersen?”

“Enough ’til I figure I got my sixty-five dollars’ worth.”

“And how many would that be?” Mama persisted.

Mr. Andersen looked haughtily at Mama. “I said I’d be the judge of that, Mary.”

“I think not,” Mama said.

Mr. Andersen stared at Mama. And Mama stared back at him. I knew Mr. Andersen didn’t like that, but Mama did it anyway. Mr. Andersen soon grew uneasy under that piercing gaze, and when his eyes swiftly shifted from Mama to Big Ma, his face was beet-red.

“Caroline,” he said, his voice low and menacing, “you’re the head of this family and you’ve got a decision
to make. Now, I need them trees and I mean to have them. I’ve offered you a good price for them and I ain’t gonna haggle over it. I know y’all can use the money. Doc Thomas tells me that Mary’s not well.” He hesitated a moment, then hissed venomously, “And if something should happen to David . . .”

“All right,” Big Ma said, her voice trembling. “All right, Mr. Andersen.”

“No, Big Ma!” I cried, leaping onto the porch. “You can’t let him cut our trees!”

Mr. Andersen grasped the arms of the rocker, his knuckles chalk white. “You certainly ain’t taught none of your younguns how to behave, Caroline,” he said curtly.

“You children go on to the back,” Mama said, shooing us away.

“No, Mama,” Stacey said. “He’s gonna cut them all down. Me and Cassie heard him say so in the woods.”

“I won’t let him cut them,” I threatened. “I won’t let him! The trees are my friends and ain’t no mean ole white man gonna touch my trees ——”

Mama’s hands went roughly around my body as she carried me off to my room.

“Now, hush,” she said, her dark eyes flashing wildly. “I’ve told you how dangerous it is . . .” She broke off in midsentence. She stared at me a moment, then hugged me tightly and went back to the porch.

Stacey joined me a few seconds later, and we sat there in the heat of the quiet room, listening miserably as the first whack of an ax echoed against the trees.

That night I was awakened by soft sounds outside my window. I reached for Big Ma, but she wasn’t there. Hurrying to the window, I saw Mama and Big Ma standing in the yard in their night clothes and Stacey, fully dressed, sitting atop Lady, our golden mare. By the time I got outside, Stacey was gone.

“Mama, where’s Stacey?” I cried.

“Be quiet, Cassie. You’ll wake Christopher-John and Little Man.”

“But where’s he going?”

“He’s going to get Papa,” Mama said. “Now be quiet.”

“Go on Stacey, boy,” I whispered. “Ride for me, too.”

As the dust billowed after him, Mama said, “I should’ve gone myself. He’s so young.”

Big Ma put her arm around Mama. “Now, Mary, you know you couldn’t ’ve gone. Mr. Andersen would miss
you if he come by and see you ain’t here. You done right, now. Don’t worry, that boy’ll be just fine.”

Three days passed, hot and windless.

Mama forbade any of us to go into the forest, so Christopher-John, Little Man and I spent the slow, restless days hovering as close to the dusty road as we dared, listening to the foreign sounds of steel against the trees and the thunderous roar of those ancient loved ones as they crashed upon the earth. Sometimes Mama would scold us and tell us to come back to the house, but even she could not ignore the continuous pounding of the axes against the trees. Or the sight of the loaded lumber wagons rolling out of the forest. In the middle of washing or ironing or hoeing, she would look up sorrowfully and listen, then turn toward the road, searching for some sign of Papa and Stacey.

On the fourth day, before the sun had risen bringing its cloak of miserable heat, I saw her walking alone toward the woods. I ran after her.

She did not send me back.

“Mama,” I said, “how sick are you?”

Mama took my hand. “Remember when you had the flu and felt so sick?”

“Yes’m.”

“And when I gave you some medicine, you got well soon afterward?”

“Yes’m.”

“Well, that’s how sick I am. As soon as I get my medicine, I’ll be all well again. And that’ll be soon now that Papa’s coming home,” she said, giving my hand a gentle little squeeze.

The quiet surrounded us as we entered the forest. Mama clicked on the flashlight and we walked silently along the cow path to the pond. There, just beyond the pond, pockets of open space loomed before us.

“Mama!”

“I know, baby, I know.”

On the ground lay countless trees. Trees that had once been such strong, tall things. So strong that I could fling my arms partially around one of them and feel safe and secure. So tall and leafy green that their boughs had formed a forest temple.

And old.

So old that Indians had once built fires at their feet and had sung happy songs of happy days. So old, they had hidden fleeing black men in the night and listened to their
sad tales of a foreign land.

In the cold of winter when the ground lay frozen, they had sung their frosty ballads of years gone by. Or on a muggy, sweat-drenched day, their leaves had rippled softly, lazily, like restless green fingers strumming at a guitar, echoing their epic tales.

But now they would sing no more. They lay forever silent upon the ground.

Those trees that remained standing were like defeated warriors mourning their fallen dead. But soon they, too, would fall, for the white X’s had been placed on nearly every one.

“Oh, dear, dear trees,” I cried as the gray light of the rising sun fell in ghostly shadows over the land. The tears rolled hot down my cheeks. Mama held me close, and when I felt her body tremble, I knew she was crying too.

When our tears eased, we turned sadly toward the house. As we emerged from the forest, we could see two small figures waiting impatiently on the other side of the road. As soon as they spied us, they hurried across to meet us.

“Mama! You and Cassie was in the forest,” Little Man accused. “Big Ma told us!”

“How was it?” asked Christopher-John, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Was it spooky?”

“Spooky and empty,” I said listlessly.

“Mama, me and Christopher-John wanna see too,” Little Man declared.

“No, baby,” Mama said softly as we crossed the road. “The men’ll be down there soon, and I don’t want y’all underfoot.”

“But, Mama ——” Little Man started to protest.

“When Papa comes home and the men are gone, then you can go. But until then, you stay out of there. You hear me, Little Man Logan?”