To Make My Bread (28 page)

The girl came to the very edge of the platform and reaching out her arms stretched them toward the men in front as if she wanted to take them all into her arms at once.

When she finished there was a roar like rocks falling down the side of a mountain. The whole congregation stood up. John climbed on his seat to watch. He saw an old man in gray climb on the platform and hang something around the girl's neck. The general on the platform went up and kissed her. Then, as if he had set a fashion, other old men climbed on the platform and began kissing her until she was surrounded and no more could get there. One old man came to the edge of the stage and called out to the others. “Let's give her the rebel yell,” he said, and held up his arm. There was a sudden quiet. Then came a long weird sound as if the whole congregation was threatening someone in anger. The sound hung over them ugly and shrill and threatening, then up it went into a terrible shriek that shook the hall and the flooring beneath, so that the seat on which John stood became unsteady.

The band began to play Dixie again and everyone started going toward the doors, though the preacher was at the edge of the platform waving his arms. He wanted to say a prayer, but the meeting was over and he had to stop waving his arms and just say the prayer to himself.

Granpap said, “Let's go that way,” and pulled John against the crowd that was moving toward the doors. “I want to see the Congressman close,” Granpap said. They could see him on the platform just outside the circle of people who were around the girl. He was speaking to everyone who came along. And there seemed to be plenty who wanted to shake his hand. He had a fine way of doing this. He would take the other person's right hand in his and lay his left hand on that person's shoulder. Then he would slowly shake the hand that was in his and his mouth opened as if he said kind words. Granpap and John could see him, but there were too many people between them and the platform, so that when they reached it Mister Heilman and. most of the other people had gone. Only the preacher was still there, waiting perhaps for the last one to leave the building, so that he might keep God's blessing in the place as long as anyone was there to receive it.

The only thing to do was to turn and follow the great crowd out of the building. Granpap kept thinking, “If I could find a little drink or two, I could remember the name of that street,” for he thought they must now go back to sleep. Just outside the building a man on a chair was calling to the veterans as they passed. “Gather around the campfires, boys,” he said, “and fill your canteens. The drinks are on the Congressman.” So the evening was not finished.

All down the long main street there were bonfires sending up sparks and smoke. The street was very wide and the sparks died out long before they reached the buildings. But as they went up with the smoke they seemed to be twinkling eyes that said, “Have a good time, old men. There's nobody to watch you but us, and we—are—going—out in—a minute.” They went out and others came up from the fire to take their places and say the same thing.

Granpap pushed along with the other veterans. The crowd was like a gray stream pushing sluggishly along, held back by its own weight and the evenness of its bed. At places where the bonfires were sending up sparks, part of the crowd broke off, circled the fires and settled there. Granpap and John, who were on the outside of the crowd and at the end, were among the last to reach a fire.

Near the fire men were sitting in little groups, talking or singing in low tones. Just opposite the fire was a lighted store, and here they went to refill their bottles or canteens.

Granpap had no bottle but he sat down with one of the groups and began to talk. First someone asked him about the boy and that started a conversation. When one of these men held out his bottle to Granpap the old man was not backward about taking a drink.

Far up at one end of the street the white columns of the Capitol building showed in the street light, and the red flare from the fires lighted up the rows of steps that came down from the columns to the ground.

“The Governor's giving a ball to-night,” one of the veterans said, “for the higher-ups, the generals and such and their ladies.”

“Like the ones on the platform to-night,” Granpap said, as if he knew:

“That was a fine little 'un that spoke,” one of the old men said.

“Well,” Granpap told him, “I don't hold much with women a-speaking.”

“It wasn't a woman. It was a girl,” another said as if he was angry at Granpap.

And another one said, “When she told us, ‘till the silver bugles of heaven play,' by God I heard the bugles sounding in the sky.”

“The Congressman was good, too,” another spoke.

“Hit was downright ugly for him to speak so about aristocrats before the General and those others,” one veteran, who had been quiet before, said.

“Hit was right and proper,” another spoke angrily.

“And I say hit was improper.”

“When the Congressman says we saved the South, then he's right.”

“Maybe he is, but when he speaks like that he don't speak like a gentleman.”

“He speaks for the common people, and when he says we saved the South he's right.”

“He is right,” someone on the outer edge of the group spoke, as if the other voices had just roused him from a sleep.

“We saved the South from the black menace.”

“We did that!”

No one had offered Granpap a drink for some time. “I'm going over to that store,” he said to John, and got up on his feet. John saw Granpap walk unsteadily toward the store that was so full of light. John roused himself and followed Granpap. Inside the store men were drawing their drinks from barrels propped up on the counters.

“Granpap,” John said, going up to Granpap and catching at his fingers, “can you remember that name now?”

“Name?” Granpap asked. He seemed already fuddled, and no wonder. He was filling the tin cup time after time at the spigot. “Name? I don't remember a name. Yes, I do. Hit's Nine O Nine, and away down south in Dixie.” He let out a whoop, like the rebel yell, and taking a last drink, pushed John on to the sidewalk. The push was in fun, and Granpap had meant it so. It was not his fault that the arm behind the push was very strong. It sent John right on to his behind flat on the walk. Some people around laughed, and that made it worse. Granpap came out and tried to pick John up. He fell down himself, and someone else had to come and set them both on their feet. Granpap leaned on John then to keep his feet steady and they got back to the little group. The old man sat down on the ground hard, for he had miscalculated the distance, and John was glad that Granpap, too, had gotten his backside hurt. He knew that to-morrow Granpap would be very sorry about pushing him, but for the present he felt angry and resentful. And he was very tired.

“Let's go, Granpap,” he whispered.

“No,” Granpap said. “Don't ye hear the man's talking. Listen to him, now.”

“And election night,” the veteran who was speaking said, “six white men stood in front of the polls and dared the niggers to go in and vote. We stood there, each with his shot gun. And the next day we were all in jail, courtmartialed for having firearms. But the niggers hadn't voted.”

“It was the same in our county,” another man said. “Only there we had the Ku Klux Klan. When the Ku Klux in another county wanted some niggers scared out of that county they let us know by secret messenger. We dressed up in our white robes with robes over the horses and rode up to the nigger's cabin. Under the robes were long rubber pipes. We made the nigger come out his cabin, and we said, ‘Nigger, we're dead Confederates come back from hell. And it's hot down there. We're thirsty.' And we made him draw water from the well, bucket after bucket, and as each bucket came up we poured it down the rubber pipe. Then we said to the nigger, ‘Get out of this state by sun-up,' or if we didn't want him to vote, we said, ‘Stay home from the polls or by sun-down to-morrow you're a dead nigger.' And he did just what he was told. And the Ku Kluxes who lived in that county could prove to the northern militia that they had been at home peaceful that night, or at the store playing checkers, or at church. And that's how we saved the South.”

Further up the street some veterans around a campfire began to sing “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground.” Their voices sounded crazy and hollow as if they were really spirits come back from the dead. People were leaving the campfires, one by one, or in twos. It was getting late. From up the street on the steps of the Capitol Building came the sound of a bugle. Granpap stood up listening while it played.

“Taps,” someone said in a hollow voice. “Time to go to sleep.”

Granpap started toward the store again without paying attention to John, who followed right behind.

“Hadn't we best find that house?” John asked.

“ 'Nother drink,” Granpap muttered, “and we'll tent on the old camp ground.”

The man was closing the store and would not let Granpap in. He stood before the half open door barring the way.

“I'm a veteran,” Granpap said to the man. “I'm a veteran and I've got a right to a drink. I fought for the Confederacy. I fought and bled and died.”

“Go home,” the man said. He must have been sleepy and tired, too, for he sounded very cross. “Go home, old man. And take your son with you. He should be in bed.”

“Yes,” Granpap said. “My son—my son.”

He looked around for John and finding him right there close to his hand he spoke to the boy crossly as the man had spoken to him. “Go home,” he said to John. “Go home.” And he put one hand on John's shoulder to urge him along.

With Granpap's hand on his shoulder John walked up the street in the direction from which he thought they had come. The streets were almost deserted, and the bonfires were low.

Only a few stragglers were left on the street. Their boots sounded on the pavements. If Granpap, leaning on John's shoulder, had not moved so slowly and unsteadily, John might have caught up with one of those and asked for a place to stay. Granpap's weight kept him back. The sound of steps on the pavement going off in the distance rested on him like another weight. They were telling him, “Left! Right! You're left alone with Granpap.”

He forced himself to walk as far as possible, down the street and around a comer, then down that street, until Granpap came to rest against a stone fence and would not move. Finally the old man slid down to the ground and stayed there. There was nothing to do but sit beside him and wait until he would sleep off the drink. He was snoring already loud enough to wake the people in the houses that were back from the sidewalk. At least John felt so, for the snores sounded like shouts in the street, which was already still with an early morning quietness. Granpap lay sprawled on the ground, his pale face turned up so that the street light shone full down on it. His beard moved gently with a breeze that had sprung up with the early morning. The beard that looked so majestic in the day when Granpap was standing, now appeared scraggly and worn out. The scars across his right cheek pulsed up and down with his breathing.

John waited for the first light, and when that came he shook Granpap awake.

Still they could not remember the name of the street where they had left Emma's quilt in the woman's fine house.

“We could go back to that office,” John said, but he did not want to go.

“No,” Granpap answered. “Hit's a good thing not to go.” He looked away from John and would not meet his eyes. “Hit's better not to go back there.”

Now that the old man was steady on his feet they walked back to the main street. All the stores were closed. They sat with blank fronts facing the bonfires where some embers still showed through the blackened wood and gray ashes.

“We'd best find the station,” Granpap said. “And take a train back. I've got some money in that belt. Emma would like us t' get back as soon as we can. Would ye like to ride a train, John?”

“Yes,” John said. He would like to do that. But at the time he could not feel that anything was very good. He only wanted to sleep, and forget about Granpap in the night. But Granpap wanted him to say he would like the train. He wanted him to feel an excitement about it.

“Hit'll be fine,” he urged. “Ye can tell Bonnie and all that ye rode fifty miles on a train.”

“Yes, hit'll be fine,” John said. “Let's find the station.”

“But I don't know what I'll tell Emma about that quilt. She'll take it hard we lost it.”

I
T
was just daylight. Emma hesitated on the walk, while the people hurrying into the mill passed around her and Ora and Frank as they stood together. The people entering the door of the mill seemed to Emma as if they were corn being fed into a hopper to be ground up.