47

The mature slave knows that dreams never come true. They know that they'll eat sour grain and sawdust every day except Christmas and that they'll always work from before sunrise until after dusk every day for all the days of their lives.

If I were a full-grown slave I would have known that picking cotton was the only job for me on the Corinthian plantation. But being a child I was hoping for a loophole, like a job picking peaches that I could take a bite out of now and then.

Mud Albert smiled because I couldn't answer his question.

"So you don't love Miss Eighty-four and all those long rows'a cotton balls?"

"It's pretty hard, Mud Albert. My hands," I said holding out my bloody ringers and palms.

The sight of my cuts took the grin from Albert's lips.

"I sorry, boy," he said. "I know that it hurts pickin' that cotton. It hurts the back and the hands, the eyes and the

heart too. Work can break your heart just as bad as a woman can. Every nigger out here works harder than any two white peoples. That's why I let you have the mornin' pickin' cotton with Miss Eighty-four.

"You really too little to be workin' in the fields yet. I don't know what Master Tobias was thinkin' to put you out here like that. But as long as you here I need you to know what it is to chop cotton. And now that you know I'ma put you out chere as a ru

"An' don't you forget them bleedin' hands an' watery eyes, don't forget the hurt in your back and your chest. Because I cain't save you from pullin' cotton if'n you don't do the job I give ya."

"I run so fast that my feet won't even touch the ground, Mud Albert," I swore.

He laughed and nodded and handed me his water bottle. That was the first drink of water I had since we got to the cotton fields many hours before.

I know how bad a thing it is to be a slave and I know how terrible it was but I don't believe that there's a free person in the whole world that knows how good a cup full of water can taste. Because you have to be a deprived slave, to be kept waiting for your water like we were to really appreciate how good just one swallow can be. When we finally got a drop on our tongues it was like something straight from the hands of the Almighty.

4.

From Sunday to Sunday to Sunday I ran water and messages for Mud Albert.

Mr. Stewart was the plantation boss and it was his job to organize the work that the slaves did. But Mr. Stewart relied on Mud Albert to direct the workers. No slave ever did anything bad under Albert because he was much kinder than any white boss would be. The white bosses thought that slaves were always lying but Albert was one of us; he could tell the difference between a malingerer and somebody who was really sick.

So Mr. Stewart would sit around talking to the white plantation workers while Albert oversaw the cotton picking, and even the processing of the cotton gin.

All us slaves hated the cotton gin, the machine used to separate the cotton from the seeds and chaff. It was like the hungry maw of Satan himself swallowing every pound of cotton we could deliver. If the cotton gin were idle Master would think that was because us slaves were too lazy to feed it. But Albert knew how to keep the machine going with the least possible amount of raw cotton and he knew to the bale how much the master needed to be satisfied.

And so all the slaves worked while Albert sent me to bring them water and to keep him informed about how everything was going. If somebody was slacking off or else if somebody was sick and couldn't work I'd tell Albert and he'd tell Champ and sooner than you could count to ninety-three the problem would be solved.

There were only two big problems in those first few weeks. The first was my hands. They were all red and dripping ever since my first day of picking cotton. Albert said that he didn't like the look of it but he didn't want to call the horse doctor either.

"Sometimes that crazy doctor jus' say to cut off whatever limb is hurtin'," Albert told me. "An' if'n he cut off yo hands that will be the end of you."

That was all I needed to hear. I carried the water by holding the buckets by their handles on either my wrist or in the crook of my arm and I kept my hands out of sight whenever Mr. Stewart came around to make sure that his slaves were working.

The other thing that happened was that the slave we called Nigger Ned, Number Twelve, died of pneumonia in his cot. Mud Albert tried to take the load off of Ned but by then he was too sick. Three days after my second Sunday in the slave quarters Ned couldn't climb out of his bed. By the next morning he was dead.

Master Tobias allowed us slaves to have a burial service because Ned had been in the slave cabin for many years. Ned was a good man and we all liked him. Nobody except for rascals ever had a bad word to say about him. The slaves all called him that terrible name because we didn't know any better and the white people said it just because they like the way it sounded.

The free colored preacher, Brother Bob, was too far away to make it for to give the sermon and so Master Tobias said that he would say some words.

We all walked to the slave graveyard in the evening after work in the fields. The slave graveyard was situated on the far side of the Master's big house. It was a small plot of land surrounded by a dilapidated picket fence. The slender slats of wood used as grave markers were crowded closely together. I remember that even in death the slaves would never have a place to spread out and rest.

Mr. Stewart let us leave the fields an hour before the sun set so that we could form in lines in front of the grave that Tobias had Champ Noland dig. They didn't give Ned a pine box after all he was just a field slave. Instead they wrapped him in one of those big burlap sacks and laid him in the ground.

I was standing in front of everyone because I was the smallest of the field slaves. I could see Big Mama Flore standing with the house Negroes across from the grave, behind Master Tobias. She looked at me once but I turned away. I was still mad at her for slamming that door and not saving me from Mr. Stewart. I hoped that she would feel bad in her heart because of the way I ignored her.

A row of jet black ravens stood along the slanted roof on the south side of the mansion. They numbered a dozen or more. The birds watched the funeral proceedings. Every once in a while they made comments in their dry, crackling voices. Back then we saw ravens as an evil omen. Now that I look back on that day I see that it was Master Tobias who should have worried about the portent of those birds.

My hands were hurting terribly. Most of the time I held them up to keep the worst pain away, but I couldn't do that at the funeral. At funerals you were supposed to keep your hands down.

"We come heah today," Master Tobias said after we were all in place, "to say good-bye to Nigger Ned, or as I always called him Slim."

Tobias, who was wearing work pants and a blue shirt, gestured toward the hole in the ground and then continued, "Slim was a good boy. He never asked for more or complained. We only had to beat him twice in my memory and he always worked hard in the field. You know all the niggers who work hard in this life will have a land of milk and honey after they die. The Lord don't want no shiftless slaves in heaven, only thems that has worked hard and showed that they are worthy of heaven's bounty " "Mr. Tobias!" a man's voice called out.