The Handsome Road (32 page)

Chapter Fifteen

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S
ome days Fred earned money and some he didn’t. But he was on the wharfs every day, and when the produce wagons came down from the plantations he ran up and offered to help unload for a dime, and was always glad to hold people’s horses when they left them at the curb. Sometimes he got a nickel for that, sometimes as much as fifteen cents. There were weeks when he earned as much as a dollar and a half. He gave it to his ma. She never fussed about things being hard for her, but he could see how she sometimes put her hands to her back as if she was so tired from bending over that washtub. And he could see too how mean the ladies in the big houses were, sometimes not paying her for a month and then taking it out of her wages if she let the iron so much as scorch the corner of a handkerchief.

But his mother said times were better than they used to be. She told him that if the rich people still had slaves she would not be able to get any washing at all, and Fred observed that on the wharfs he could get jobs as readily as any Negro boy his age, so evidently she was right.

By the time he had worked on the wharfs a year most of the men around there knew him. They liked him because he was good-natured and not a bit lazy, so Fred found it easy to get some sort of work almost every day. He looked forward eagerly to spring, remembering from last year how things had picked up after the winter fogs.

But that spring the river began to rise.

At first Fred thought nothing about it. The water rose every spring when the snow melted up North, then as summer approached and the snow was borne to the Gulf the water went down again. The river had risen pretty high last year, higher than usual, but the boats had gone on just the same.

But this year, the river went up and didn’t go down. It kept going up.

As the water rose the steamboats all but disappeared, for only the most intrepid shippers would trust freight on such a current. The others turned to the railroads. There was no work to be had on the wharfs. Fred asked the men who sat about on crates and cottonbales what people did when the water got high. They shook their heads. It hadn’t ever been as high as this, not since they could remember, they told him. But in high-water years, you just didn’t do anything. Fred was astonished at such resignation. But they spoke with acceptance that had in it a sound of wisdom. No man could do anything about the river.

Puzzling about their attitude, Fred recalled that back in school his teachers had told him that in olden times the Indians used to worship the river, thinking it was God. Heretofore he had thought that was merely because they were benighted heathen, but now, though he was not a heathen and this was the year 1882, he began to understand it. The rising river was like God, silent, vast, inscrutable, going ahead without care for the little things running along its banks.

But he reminded himself God was not like that. In Sunday School they had taught him that God did care about the people in the world. His ma was breaking her back taking in washing, and he was nearly fourteen years old and he had to do something to help her. That night after his ma had gone to sleep Fred got out of bed and knelt down and prayed that God would not be uncaring like the river, but kind enough to give him something to do to help ma.

The next day was bright and tangy with spring, and the sunshine seemed to be laughing at the deserted wharfs. Fred approached an old man who had worked on the river all his life and now sat taking the sun on an empty fruit-box.

“Don’t folks work some places, even in high water?” he asked.

The old man removed the pipe from his mouth. “Well, they work on the levees.”

Fred brightened. “Oh. Up on the plantations?”

The old fellow ruminated, his mouth open and his tongue feeling one of his remaining teeth. “’Pears like that un’s getting kind of loose,” he observed. “No, I don’t reckon up on the big plantations. Places like Ardeith and Silverwood, for instance, they got mighty big levees and when the water gets high they just stop field-work and put all the hands on the levees, if there’s any weak places. Anyway, I reckon the big plantations got levees higher than the river’ll ever get.”

“All the way up the river they got big levees?” Fred asked.

“Oh no,” returned the old man. “Not at all.” He felt his tooth with his finger. “You see, away up beyond the big plantations, folks ain’t got so much money. State builds levees, but in low-water years seems like the state sort of forgets about ’em, and you know how it is with a levee, you got to keep at it or it’s liable to get soft. I hear they’s working quite a lot now.” He sighed with the superior sort of pity folks give other people’s troubles. “Tell you, I reckon there might be some floods up the river this year.”

“What’s a flood like?” Fred asked.

His instructor took a puff of his pipe. “Son, you ain’t never seed a crevasse?”

“Crevasse?”

“Levee breaking.”

“No. I ain’t never seed one.”

The old man shook his head slowly. “It’s right bad, a crevasse.”

Fred rested his elbows on the fruit-box. “Who’s working the levees up there?”

“Oh, men. Levee gangs.”

“They pay ’em wages?”

“Sure.”

“How you get up the river?”

The old man shrugged. “Well, there’s the river, and the road follows it. But it’s hard work for a young un.”

Fred laughed. “That don’t make no never-mind. I’m tough.”

He moved back from the old man and looked around the wharf. Not far away, sucking an orange, was a Negro man who lived in the alley back of Fred’s house. Fred went up to him. “You Zeke, look here.”

The Negro grinned affably. “Mornin’, white boy.”

“I got three cents,” said Fred. He had been about to say four, but as he put his hand into his pocket he reflected he might need the extra penny, so he took out only three. “You take word to my ma about me,” he went on. “Tell her I’m going up the river to work with a levee gang, and I’ll be back when the job’s over. And tell her she ain’t to worry about me. I ain’t gonta get in no trouble.”

Zeke promised, and Fred gave him the three cents. It was still fairly early and he figured if he kept going he could find a levee gang before night. With his spare penny he bought a cake from a Negro woman promenading the park with a tray. Pocketing this he started trudging up the road.

After awhile he met a wagon that carried him as far as Ardeith. At the gates of Ardeith he paused a moment and peered through. That place sure was pretty, like a church. Stuck-up rich people lived there. His ma had told him that right after the war they’d been poor, but the war was seventeen years past and now they had money again. The lady who lived there had once ordered ma out of her kitchen and said she hoped ma would starve to death. Talking like that to his ma, Fred reflected angrily as he started plodding up the road again and watched the little clouds of dust his bare feet kicked up as he walked. Well, he’d show them. When he got grown he’d ride his carriage along the front of their house and really raise some dust.

The day had been cool this morning, but now it was getting hot. Fred met up with another wagon that took him as far as Silverwood. After that he got out and walked again, munching his cake. It was getting toward afternoon, and he was tired. He walked on, and said “Howdy” to folks who passed him.

This was the first time he had ever been so far from home. The Silverwood fields looked pretty fine, and past the fields was a stretch of woodland. Maybe that belonged to Silverwood too. He’d heard tell how great landowners liked to keep some space for the flourishing of birds and squirrels so they could go hunting. Just as if there weren’t enough poor folks like him and ma who’d be glad to farm that land for the eating that would grow there. Past the grove he came to other fields, under cultivation but scrubbily worked. In the patches around the whitewashed cabins he could see women here and there hoeing the crops. Far across the fields was the levee, curving with the river bed, and even to Fred’s inexperienced eyes it was obviously lower here than it had been further down. The levee was like a long stretch of hill fifteen or twenty feet high, coming down toward the field in a gentle grassy slope. Fred tried to think about how fine it would be to get a job so he’d forget about how tired his legs were. It was late afternoon now, for the sun was on the other side of the river.

The road gave a sharp curve. As he rounded it Fred looked across at the levee again and saw that it was suddenly black with men.

Men were crawling all over the slope like ants. On the flat ground was a cluster of tents. In the field and along the slope the men were driving mules hitched to queer conveyances like enormous shovels, and the top of the levee, as far as he could see, was piled with sandbags. Fred turned from the road and started across the soft plowed ground toward the river.

As he neared it he stopped to watch the mules drawing the scoops, forgetting his weariness in his fascination. He could see now that the men were building a solid board fence lengthwise along the top of the levee, about three feet higher than the crown had been, and they were piling sandbags against the fence to reinforce it. The mule-drawn scoops were bringing up tons of earth from the field to provide further reinforcement. There seemed to be hundreds of men, black and white. Nobody paid him much attention at first, but as he edged his way up one man yelled at him, “Hey, boy! Get off the levee!”

Fred tried to ask him if they didn’t need one more, but the man was giving orders to his mule and didn’t listen. He accosted several others, but all he got was a repeated “Move on, boy.”

Finally he spied a Negro man pausing a moment to mop his face. The man was struggling with a heavy post about four inches thick, dragging it up the levee side. Fred went up to him. “Hey, you. Who’s boss of this here job?”

The Negro turned a moment. “What you say, white boy?”

“Who’s boss here?”

“Mr. Vance.” He began struggling with his post again.

“Who’s Mr. Vance?”

“White gentleman. Government gentleman.”

Fred scrambled after him. “Where’s he?”

The Negro paused again. “Up on de levee crown, by de sandbag line. Can’t you see? Got on big boots.”

He was off again, dragging the brace. Fred looked toward where he pointed. At the top of the levee he saw a long, gangling man who had his overalls stuffed into big leather boots reaching nearly to his knees. As Fred climbed, being ordered out of the way again and again, he had a feeling of confidence, for you could tell by his bossy gestures Mr. Vance knew his business.

At the top of the levee Fred stopped by the sandbag line and glanced over the fence. “Holy Moses!” he said aloud.

Instead of dawdling along fifteen feet below him, the river was as high as the original levee top had been and was edging toward the braces that held up the sandbags. It’s beautiful golden indolence had become a brown fury; it was whirling and seething, full of eddies tearing at the levee. There were big logs in it, whole trees that somewhere upstream the river had torn down, and the trees were spinning in the whirlpools as though the river liked to play with them before dumping them into the Gulf. From here to the west bank was about a mile, and looking across that howling mass of water Fred had a blank unreasoning terror. He wanted to run.

Somebody grabbed his shoulder and a voice said, “Move off the levee, kid. Can’t you see we’re working?”

Fred looked up into the lean unshaven face of Mr. Vance. Getting off the levee sounded like a welcome order. But he caught the edge of the nearest sandbag firmly. “But I ain’t gonta get off!” he exclaimed. “I came to work for you.”

“Ah, get along,” said Mr. Vance. “A kid like you.”

Fred grabbed him with both hands. “Look here, mister. I’m stout and tough. I can tote sandbags good as them men!”

Mr. Vance started to grin. Under his week-old beard he had a ruddy, dirty face and a nice smile. “How old are you?”

“Going on fourteen.”

“You’re too little, boy,” said Mr. Vance, hurriedly but not unkindly. “This is a big job.”

“I can work like a man, mister. And I got to get a job. My ma takes in washing. She ain’t got nobody but me to look out for her.”

Mr. Vance yelled at a man dragging up a brace. “Further down!” he shouted. “South end of the line.” He looked back at Fred. “Suppose we had a crevasse? Not likely, but suppose we do. I don’t want to take criticism for putting a kid on the levee.” But as he saw Fred’s eager face he began to grin again. “Well, Lord knows we’ve already got every full-grown man hereabouts. It’s plenty hard work, and once on a gang of mine you don’t get off till the flood crest passes. Go over to that foreman with the red hair and tell him I said put you to work. Ten cents an hour till the flood crest goes by.”

Fred broke from him gratefully and ran over to the redheaded foreman. “Put me to work,” he ordered. “Ten cents an hour. Mr. Vance said so.”

The foreman took a notebook out of his overall pocket. He took down Fred’s name, and with a glance at the sun made a note of what time it was. “See them wagons bringing in sandbags?” he asked. “You start dragging the bags up here.”

Fred scrambled down the slope and grabbed a sandbag from the pile a man was unloading near the foot of the levee. The thing was heavy, a lot heavier than he’d thought. It was hard dragging it up the slope. But when he got it to the top and stood to catch his breath the foreman looked up sharply. “Well, what you waiting for? Bring some more.”

Fred obediently trudged down. He knew enough to jump when a foreman spoke. But these things were mighty heavy. By the time he had brought up five or six of them the bags were so heavy he could hardly move them at all. He had walked miles that day and he’d been tired before he started to work. He observed that it was getting dark. He tugged and panted, digging his bare feet into the earth as he went. But even when it got black dark nobody seemed to be stopping. A bonfire flared near the sandbag line. Further along he could see other fires. In their light he saw the men still working. He got down to the bottom of the levee again and looked at the helter-skelter pile of sandbags. In the fitful light they looked enormous. “Well, take ’em up,” said the wagon-driver.