The Land (27 page)

“Yes, but—”

“Y'all get it open?” Sam Perry yelled from across the yard.

I looked again at the latch and leveled it up with my hand. I was then able to release the tongue of the latch, and the gate opened.

“We got it now, Papa!” answered Caroline, and Sam Perry waved his hand in return and turned his attention back to his hogs. “I sure do thank you, Mister Paul Logan,” Caroline said, picking up her basket.

“You're welcome,” I said. “But tell me something.”

“What's that?”

“Why do you always address me by my full name?”

Caroline smiled at me without any hint of shyness. “'Cause I likes the way it sounds. Always did like that name Paul. It just sounds nice, don't ya think?” She didn't wait for an answer as she went into the chicken pen. “You come on wit' me and see some of our layin' hens. And be sure and close that gate behind ya so's these chickens don't get out. The younguns already fed 'em, so it's their beddin' time now, but we got some hens that lay late, so I gotta check for eggs.”

I did as I was told and followed Caroline through the yard and into the henhouse.

“S'pose you 'bout ready t' be quit of us and all our family,” Caroline teased as she went about checking under the hens. “There's sure a lot of us.”

“No, actually, I've enjoyed being here. I haven't seen my own family in some time, so this has been a good day for me. One thing, though. It seems to me your mother doesn't much care for me.”

Caroline brushed away my comment with a wave of her hand, as if fanning away a fly. “Ah, don't you mind Mama. She ain't meant no harm. It's just that she done had a hard life and it done got into her soul. Ain't nothin' you done.”

“But there's something about me, isn't there, that made her that way toward me?”

Caroline was more open than I had expected her to be. She looked straight into my eyes when she answered. “Nothin' more'n the fact you lookin' like a white man.”

I gazed at her in silence.

“That there, that's what it is,” she said, and turned back to gathering her eggs.

“But didn't your daddy tell her about me? About me coming to dinner?”

“Oh, he told her, all right. He done told her he invited Mister Paul Logan, but that's all. He didn't tell her anythin' 'bout what ya look like. Ain't said nothin' 'bout you lookin' near white. He shoulda done told her that, knowin' how Mama is, but he ain't, so my mama ain't 'spected you t' be lookin' like ya do, and it took her by surprise a bit. When she done seen ya, other things come to her mind.”

“Other things?”

Caroline diligently continued to gather her eggs. “Things 'bout when she was born. Things 'bout when she was a baby. Things 'bout slavery days.”

“Now, what could seeing me have to do with that? Certainly I'm not the first near-to-white-looking person she's seen.”

“Not sittin' at her table,” Caroline retorted. She stopped and fixed her deep brown eyes on mine. “You see, t' my mama ya might's well be white. That there's what she sees, and she can't get over that.”

“Well, I'm not white,” I said.

“Partly you are. Anybody can see that. But that don't matter. Part of it you are, my mama done seen it.” Caroline's eyes were still fixed on me. “She done seen that and not nothin' much else. She done seen that there man called hisself her master when she seen ya, and she done seen the white woman that was his wife too.” She turned from me and walked on.

“Well . . . I'm not them,” I said softly.

Caroline glanced back. “Course you ain't. But Mama, she ain't thinkin' on that. She thinkin' on the folks takin' away her name.”

I watched her without words.

Caroline continued on with her talk, gathering eggs all the while. “Ya see, my mama was a baby only a week old when she found her name gone.”

“Her name gone?” I followed her again. “How?”

“The white folks done took it,” answered Caroline matter-of-factly.

“Took it?” I questioned. “A name?”

“That's right. Just took her name. Ya see, this here's how it was. My mama was born into slavery belongin' t' some white folks by the name of Means. Now, my grandmama Rose, she done picked out a name for my mama even 'fore my mama was born, and that name she done give to my mama was Rachel. My grandmama Rose, she done took pride in that name 'cause that there was the name her mama done held. So come the day my mama was born, my grandmama Rose, she give my mama that name of Rachel, and that was the way everybody was thinkin' of her, the name when she got born, just simply that. Rachel.”

Caroline pulled one last egg from under a protesting red hen and put it in her basket. Then she fixed her eyes on me again. “But my mama wasn't 'lowed to keep her name for long. Come a week after her birth, that white woman married to the white man who had hisself papers to my mama said no baby on her place could be callin' herself Rachel. Said no baby born, 'ceptin' hers, was t' have that name, 'cause that was what she was namin' her baby born a few days after my mama, and she wasn't gonna 'low no colored child carryin' the same name as her child.

“Well, my grandmama still gone on callin' my mama Rachel, 'ceptin' when the white folks were around. But then some years later that white woman heard my grandmama Rose calling my mama Rachel, and she got mad. She tried to stop my grandmama from callin' my mama by her name. My grandmama told her ain't nobody got a right t' take my mama's name away. Well, that ole white woman figured she had the right, so she had my grandmama took to the yard and she whipped my grandmama 'cause she wouldn't give up my mama's name. She whipped her, but it ain't done no good, 'til she gone and threatened my mama. Then my grandmama Rose gone and done what them white folks 'spected said in their hearin'. Whiles they was around, she called my mama ‘Daughter' or ‘Sister,' nothing else. But to my grandmama, my mama's name remained the same: Rachel, and that's what she called her when they was by theyselves. That was her name. Name she was born. Name now.” Caroline gave me a pointed look. “So, Mister Paul Logan, that's what she be thinking on when she see you. That's a fact,” she said with a nod, ending her story. “Just hope you don't hold how she be actin' 'gainst her.”

“No . . . no, I don't. Fact, I can somewhat understand how she feels. A given name's important. My mama didn't have to suffer about my name, but she had a name for me too—my daddy's name. She couldn't give it to me officially though, because my daddy said it wasn't fitting that I be called by his name.”

“Why not?”

“Because my daddy had three other sons and none of them had his name.” I hesitated, then added, “They didn't have his name and they were white.”

Caroline nodded in understanding. “Well, what was the name?”

“My daddy's name is Edward. My mama used to call me that sometimes, along with my given name of Paul, when it was just her and me and my sister, Cassie, around. Even my daddy sometimes called me by it when it was just the two of us.”

“And how'd you feel 'bout that?”

“What do you mean?”

“How'd you feel 'bout not having your name spoken open?”

“Well, I suppose I felt like it was a secret. But the fact was, I wasn't a secret. Everybody knew I was my daddy's son. I just think my daddy didn't want to hurt my brothers by speaking my name so open, not to mention the fact it wouldn't've looked right to his white friends. But I've got to admit, whenever he called me by his name, I always felt a pride in it.”

Caroline's dark eyes studied me without another word. Then she put her basket down, turned, and looked around as if she were searching for something. After a moment she went to a corner and brought back a small burlap sack. She stuffed it with straw, then placed half a dozen eggs inside. She held out the sack to me. “You take these. They're for you.”

“What?”

“You said you liked eggs, ain't ya?”

“Well . . . yes . . .”

“You got yo'self a layin' hen?”

“No . . . but I can't just take your eggs.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Well, what do I owe you for them?”

She smiled a bright smile at me. “Jus' a good rockin' chair for my mama. Now, take 'em.”

There she was giving orders again. I took the sack and thanked her for the eggs. “Are you always this generous?” I asked.

“Whatcha mean?” she said, picking up her egg basket again. “You seen we got plenty. Nothin' generous 'bout that.”

I thought on how she'd given the harelipped boy one of her mama's sweet-potato pies. “I happened to be at Luke Sawyer's store the day you and your sister brought pies to sell, and you took a little boy's part who, as you said, was sorely in need of something ‘to make him feel good.' From the smile on that boy's face, I think that pie you gave him was just what he needed.”

Caroline halted and laughed outright. “You was there? You seen that?” She sounded somewhat embarrassed; then, if there was embarrassment, it fled quickly. “Yeah, Henry, he enjoyed that pie, all right.”

“But what about you? What did your mama have to say about her pie when you got home?”

“Don't tell me you done heard that too? You heard me and Callie talkin' 'bout Mama and that whippin' I was sure t' get?”

I nodded. “Anybody standing near heard it.”

She laughed again. “'Spect you right. Well, I gotta admit I worried a bit all the way home 'bout how Mama was gonna get after me, but when I got back, she wasn't so bad. She fussed a lot, mind ya, but then again she always fussin' 'bout how I'm too much like my papa, always givin' stuff away and how we never gonna have nothin' 'cause we ain't got the good sense t' realize we poor.” Caroline was still laughing as she ushered me out of the henhouse.

I gazed out across the pasture, west of the barn, at the cluster of animals. “I'd hardly call you poor.”

“Well, when it come t' money we ain't got much. But we thankful for what we got. What you see out in that there pasture, though, is 'cause of my daddy's healin' hands and God's grace.”

I nodded, understanding from Mister Perry's words what she meant.

“God give him the power in his mind and in his hands t' heal critters when he was in slavery, and that blessin' made his life and ours some easier. Fact, his knowin' healin' saved him from hangin' during slavery days.”

“How was that?” I asked.

“Well, seems like there was a time my papa tried runnin' away from that man called hisself his master. He done already run away two times before then when he was still a boy and was so-called belongin' t' another man. But he was now property of this man called Perry, and he ain't run off on him before. Now, this Perry fella thought well of my papa 'cause of all he knew 'bout healin', and he let my daddy go off his place t' court my mama, who was livin' on somebody else's plantation. Well, on one of those times my daddy went off courtin', he run away. He was figurin' t' get hisself free, then get my mama free. But then the white folks caught up with him and they was ready to hang him, but that ole master wouldn't let them do it. He said, ‘I need this here boy. He more'n valuable t' me. He got the healin' in his hands.' So them white men whipped my papa, but they ain't hung him.”

Caroline looked at me and gave a nod. “That's a fact. Tell ya somethin' else 'bout names too. In them slavery days my papa got called by the name of Sam for Samson 'cause he was so strong. White folks, they call him that still, and when he doin' business, he go by that. But he had hisself a Christian name of Luke, like Jesus' disciple, and his folks and all the colored folks called him by that, and my mama, when she and my papa was courtin', she called him Luke too. My papa, he liked that. My mama says my papa's a healer and he got the blessin', and she's right proud of that. Well, what I'm right proud of is, my daddy say of all his younguns, I got the blessin' too and he be teachin' me.”

“You like the healing?”

“I surely do,” she admitted. “May be selfish of me t' say so, but I'm glad, of all my daddy's children, I was the one got the gift.”

I knew Caroline was saying exactly what she felt. I had nothing to say in return to her honesty. I just smiled as I opened the gate.

When I left the Perry farm, it was almost sunset. As I mounted Thunder, I had with me not only the eggs Caroline had given me but a helping of food for my supper and for my breakfast too. All the Perrys saw me off, including Miz Rachel Perry. I thanked her for having me and for the wondrous food she had cooked. All she gave me for my words was a nod in return, and as I rode off, I realized that during all the hours I had spent at the Perry home, Miz Rachel Perry had not spoken one word to me.

 

It was in the next month that Sam Perry brought Caroline to the shed to paint her flowers on the rocker. Nathan was with her. Sam Perry left them both while he went off to tend some ailing horses on the other side of town. I felt a bit awkward at first, having the brother and sister in my work space, but when Caroline saw the rocker, she put me at ease. “Oh, Mister Paul Logan, it's lookin' mighty fine!” she declared as she slowly slid her fingers along the sanded grain of the chair's rounded back, then rocked it gently. “Oh, it's just so fine!”

“It sure is,” Nathan agreed.

“Why don't you try it out?” I said to Caroline. “Go ahead and sit in it.”