The Confessions of Nat Turner Part 13

than himself. Dred's very existence was the walking, living proof of a swindle, and enough to drive his owner to a frenzy. Now responsible for Dred, unable to sell him, and refraining from murder less because of legal restraints than because unprovoked murder of a slave bore a social odium hard for even Francis to abide, he revenged himself for the swindle not by such simple and crude extremes as whipping but by tormenting Dred with unspeakable tricks like causing him once (according to Sam, whom I had no reason to doubt) to copulate with a b.i.t.c.h dog before an a.s.sembly of local white trash.

Francis had bought Will and Sam at the Petersburg auction block when they were both around fifteen, and by the time I first encountered them-during periodic rentals to Moore or the idle hours we might spend together in Jerusalem on market day-they had endured their owner's thrashings for five or six years. Such abuse had caused both of them to run away more often than either of them could remember, and Francis's alligator-hide whip had left k.n.o.bs like walnuts on their shoulders, backs, and arms. Francis might have been a moderately prosperous landowner had not his roaring need to inflict misery on his Negroes smothered that logic which must have tried to tell him that halfway decent treatment would keep the pair, however reluctantly, home and busy: as it was, each time Will or Sam, anguished past endurance, took to the woods Francis lost money just as surely as if he had dropped silver dollars down a well. For Will and Sam among the field Negroes he owned were the oldest, the strongest, and most capable. To fill the gap their absence made he was compelled to hire other Negroes at substantial prices he would not have been forced to pay had he restrained his imbecile cruelty.

Furthermore, many if not most of the other farmers in the area were aware of Francis's savage propensities. (This included Travis, his own brother-in-law, who never once allowed Hark near the Francis farm.) Even when they were not prompted by considerations solely humane (which I must confess some were) the landowners were understandably reluctant to let out any of their field hands to this ruffian who might send back to them a chattel worth five hundred dollars damaged beyond all repair.

Thus whenever Sam or Will ran away, Francis was often unable to obtain replacement and he would be driven to an even greater pitch of rage. Setting off with a jug of brandy, his barbarous tublike shape jouncing and jostling astride a bay mare as he scoured the countryside, he would after several days find Sam or 238.

Will-or perhaps the fugitives would be returned to the farm by some local poor white eager for the customary reward-and once again they would be thrashed until they were bleeding and senseless and then left for a time locked in the barn until their stripes and welts began to grow scabs and they were ready for work. All in all it was a never-endingly ugly and dispiriting situation. And easily the most sinister aspect of the matter was what this treatment had done not so much to their bodies but to their minds. Of the two Negroes, Sam was the less affected.

Which is to say that brutalized as he was, wounded to the depths of his being, he managed to keep a grasp on reality and-in spite of a wicked temper which caused him to lash out mindlessly from time to time at other slaves-presented more often the outward spirit of an ordinary young field hand, a frolicsome and happy-go-lucky air that among certain Negroes, I have noticed, is a kind of necessary disguise for almost unendurable affliction. But Will was altogether different. A livid stripe like a shiny eel ran the length of his face from beneath his right eye to the tip of his chin. Another blow, inflicted during the same beating, had given his nose the appearance of a black mashed-in spoon. He muttered to himself constantly, incoherently. The torture that had been imposed upon him had made him hate not just Francis, hate not just white men but all men, all things, all creation-and because I myself dwelt within the inchoate universe of that hatred I could not help but come to fear him in a way I had never feared any man, black or white, before . . .

The whole day after Moore's encounter on the road with Isham we unloaded wood at various places in Jerusalem. Moore had contracted to "store" at each house we visited and at the courthouse and the jail. This meant no disorderly heap of logs thrown in a hodgepodge behind the kitchen but rather a tidy arrangement of cords which it was Hark's and my duty to stack wherever Ma.r.s.e Jim or Ma.r.s.e Bob wished them stacked. It was monotonous and gut-wrenching labor. This strain, combined with the stifling heat of the town and my continuing fatigue and dizziness, made me stumble often and once I fell sprawling, only to be helped up by Hark, who said: "You jes' take it easy, Nat, and let ole Hark do de work." But I kept up a steady pace, retreating as was my custom into a kind of daydream-a reverie in which the brute toil of the moment was softened and soothed by my mind's murmurous incantation: Deliver me out of the mire, Deliver me out of the mire, The Confessions of Nat Turner 239.

and let me not sink, let not the deep swallow me up, hear me O Lord, turn unto me according to the mult.i.tude of thy tender mercies . . . mercies . . .

At noon Hark and I made our dinner in the shade of one of the wagons, eating cold hoppin' john-mashed cowpeas mixed with rice-and sat listlessly afterward cooling ourselves while Moore and Wallace went off to visit the townwh.o.r.e-a two-hundred-pound free mulatto woman named Josephine. The food revived me slightly but I still felt faint and weird, with the mystery and wonder of my vision in the woods lingering not in my mind alone but as if throughout my entire being, my soul, like the shadow of a cloud that has appeared out of nowhere to smudge the bright face of the day. I shivered, the mystery haunted me as if great fingers the size of pine boughs rested on my back, ever so lightly, and a mood of evil premonition stole over me as we went back to work. I could not shake the feeling off while we sweated through the waning afternoon. That night the languor and illness returned, I ached with fever, and as Hark and I lay asleep beneath one of the wagons, parked in a field smelling of sweet mustard and goldenrod, I had dreams of giant black angels striding amid a spindrift immensity of stars.

Then late in the forenoon of the next day after another hot morning's work, we made our delivery to the market-the last. It was a Sat.u.r.day, market day, and as usual the gallery was thronged with Negroes from the country who were generally allowed a few idle hours to fritter away while their masters attended to business in the town. After we unloaded the last logs Moore and Wallace went off on some errand and Hark and I retired-he with his pine-strip banjo, I with my Bible-to a shady corner of the gallery where I could meditate on a certain pa.s.sage in Job which had attracted my curiosity. Hark strummed softly, humming a tune. Quite a few of the Negroes loitering about I had become acquainted with by now, largely because of these market days. Daniel, Joe, Jack, Henry, Cromwell, Marcus Aurelius, Nelson, half a dozen more-they had arrived with their masters from all over the county, had helped load or unload their owners' produce, and now stood about with nothing to do but ogle the pa.s.sing bottoms or b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Negro girls of the town, jabbering the while loudly about poontang and p.u.s.s.y, goosing each other and scuffling around in the dust. One or two succeeded with the girls and stole off with them into a field of alfalfa. Others played mumbletypeg with rusty stolen jackknives, or simply drowsed in the sunlight, waking now and then to 240.

exchange their sorry belongings: a straw hat bartered for a homemade jew's-harp, a lucky hairball from a cow's belly for a bag of pilfered snuff. I looked at them briefly, then returned to Job's racking, imponderable vision. But I found it difficult to concentrate, for although I had recovered somewhat from my fever I could not dislodge the sensation that I had somehow been utterly changed and now dwelt at a distance from myself, in a new world apart. It was noon and Hark offered me a biscuit from a panful he had spirited out of the kitchen of one of Moore's customers, but I had no stomach for food. Even here in town the air was hazy, smelling of far-off fires.

Suddenly I became aware of a commotion-laughter and shouts from a cl.u.s.ter of white men behind the blacksmith's stable perhaps fifty yards away across the road. The bare earthen plot at the rear of the stable was the Sat.u.r.day gathering place for the poor whites of the county just as the market gallery had become the social focus for the Negroes. These white idlers were the rogues and dregs of the community: penniless drunks and cripples, scroungers, handymen, exoverseers, vagabonds from North Carolina, harelipped roust-abouts, squatters on pineland barrens, incorrigible loafers, cretins, rapscallions, and dimwits of every description, they made my present owner by comparison appear to possess the wisdom and dignity of King Solomon.

There by the stable each Sat.u.r.day with straw hats and cheap denim overalls they gathered in a shiftless mob, cadging from each other quarterplugs of chewing tobacco or snorts of rotgut brandy, palavering endlessly (like the Negroes) about p.u.s.s.y and cooze, scheming out ways to make a dishonest half-dollar, tormenting stray cats and dogs, and allowing the slaves from their market promontory a bracing glimpse of white men worse off-in certain important respects at least-than themselves.

Now when I looked up to find the source of the disturbance among them I saw that they had a.s.sembled in a rough circle. In the midst of the circle, perched upon a horse, was the squat, hunched form of Nathaniel Francis, roaring drunk, his round face besotted with swollen pleasure as he gazed down at something taking place on the ground. I was only mildly curious, thinking at first that it was a white man's wrestling match or drunken fist fight: hardly a Sat.u.r.day pa.s.sed without one or the other. But through the baggy pants' legs of one of the bystanders I saw what appeared to be two Negroes moving about, engaged in doing what I could not tell. Cackles of glee went up from the crowd, wild hoots and cries. They seemed to be egging the 241.

Negroes on, and Francis drunk in the saddle caused the horse to stamp and prance at the s.p.a.ce within the encircling mob, raising an umbrella of dust. Hark had risen to his feet to gawk and I told him that he had better go find out what was happening; he moved slowly off.

After a minute or so Hark came back to the gallery, and the sheepish half-smile on his face-I will never forget that expression, its mixed quality of humor and gentle bewilderment-filled me with a sad foreboding, as if I had known, sensed what he was going to say the instant before his mouth opened to say it.

"Ole Francis he puttin' on a show fo' dem white trash," he proclaimed, loud enough for most all of the other Negroes to hear. "He drunker dan a scritch owl and he makin' dem two n.i.g.g.e.rs Will and Sam fight each other. Don't neither of 'em want to fight but ev'y time one of 'em draw back an' don't don't whop de other, ole Francis he give dat n.i.g.g.e.r a stroke wid his whip. So dem n.i.g.g.e.rs dey whop de other, ole Francis he give dat n.i.g.g.e.r a stroke wid his whip. So dem n.i.g.g.e.rs dey got got to fight and Sam he done raised a bleedin' to fight and Sam he done raised a bleedin'

whelp on Will's face and Will I do believe he done broke off one of Sam's front teeth. Hit sho is some kind of c.o.c.k fight."

At this, all the Negroes within hearing began to laugh-there was indeed something oddly comical about Hark's way way of describing things-but at the same time my heart seemed to shrivel and die within me. This was of describing things-but at the same time my heart seemed to shrivel and die within me. This was all all. All! Of the indignities and wrongs that a Negro might endure-blistering toil and deprivation, slights and slurs and insults, beatings, chains, exile from beloved kin-none seemed more loathsome, at that minute, than this: that he be pitted in brutal combat against his own kind for the obscene amus.e.m.e.nt of human beings of any description-but especially those so mean and reptilian in spirit, so worthless, so likewise despised in the scheme of things and saved from the final mora.s.s only by the hairline advantage of a lighter skin. Not since the day years before when I was first sold had I felt such rage, intolerable rage, rage that echoed a memory of Isham's fury as he howled at Moore, rage that was a culmination of all the raw buried anguish and frustration growing inside me since the faraway dusk of childhood, on a murmuring veranda, when I first understood that I was a slave and a slave forever. My heart, as I say, shrank inside me, died, disappeared, and rage like a newborn child exploded there to fill the void: it was at this instant that I knew beyond doubt or danger that-whatever the place, whatever the appointed time, whoever the gentle young girl now serenely plucking blossoms within a bower or the mistress 242.

knitting in the coolness of a country parlor or the innocent lad seated contemplating the cobwebbed walls of an outhouse in a summery field-the whole world of white flesh would someday founder and split apart upon my retribution, would perish by my design and at my hands. My stomach heaved and I restrained the urge to vomit on the boards where I sat.

But now the commotion across the road dwindled, the shouts fell away, and the circle of white men broke up as they turned their attention to other pleasures. Aslant to one side in the saddle, Francis rode off at a lurching pace down the street, exhausted by his sport, smiling a smile of gratification and conquest. And at this moment I saw Will and Sam-battered-looking, bruised, and dusty-cross the road together, weaving toward the market. Will was muttering to himself as he stroked a swollen jaw and Sam shivered while he walked, trembling in pain, misery, and in the throes of grievous shame and abas.e.m.e.nt-a short, wiry little mulatto neither too old yet nor too calloused by suffering to be prevented from sobbing bitterly like a child as he wiped the blood away from a jagged cut across his lips. Still unperceiving of anything at all, still witlessly amused by Hark's account of the fray, the Negroes on the gallery watched Sam and Will approach and kept laughing. It was then that I rose to face them.

"My brothers!" I cried. "Stop yo' laughin' and listen to me! Leave off from that laughin', brothers, and listen to a minister of the Holy Word!" A hush fell over the Negroes and they stirred restlessly, turned toward me, puzzlement and wonder in their eyes. "Come closer!" I commanded them. "This here is no time for laughin'! This is a time for weepin', for lamentation! lamentation! For rage! For rage!

You is men, men, brothers, brothers, men men not beasts of the field! You ain't no four-legged dogs! You is not beasts of the field! You ain't no four-legged dogs! You is men, men, I say! Where oh where, my brothers, is yo' pride?" I say! Where oh where, my brothers, is yo' pride?"

Slowly, one by one, the Negroes drew near, among them Will and Sam, who climbed up from the road and stood gazing at me as they mopped their faces with gray slimy wads of waste cotton.

Still others shuffled closer-young men mostly, along with a few older slaves; they scratched themselves out of nervousness, some eyes darted furtively across the road. But all were silent now, and with a delicious chill I could feel the way in which they had responded to the fury in my words, like blades of sawgra.s.s bending to a sudden wind. And I began to realize, far back in the remotest corner of my mind, that I had commenced the first sermon I had ever preached. They became still. Brooding, 243.

motionless, the Negroes gazed at me with watchful and reflective concern, some of them hardly drawing a breath. My language was theirs, I spoke it as if it were a second tongue. My rage had captured them utterly, and I felt a thrill of power course out from myself to wrap them round, binding us for this moment as one.

"My brothers," I said in a gentler tone, "many of you has been to church with yo' mastahs and mist'esses at the Whitehead church or up Shiloh way or down at Nebo or Mount Moriah. Most of you hasn't got no religion. That's awright. White man's religion don't teach nothin' to black folk except to obey ole mastah and live humble-walk light and talk small. That's awright. But them of you that recollects they Bible teachin' knows about Israel in Egypt an' the peoples that was kept in bondage. Them peoples was Jewish peoples an' they had names just like us black folk-like you right there, Nathan, an' you, Joe-Joe is a Jewish name-an' you there, Daniel. Them Jews was just like the black folk. They had to sweat they fool a.s.ses off fo' ole Pharaoh. That white man had them Jews haulin' wood an' pullin' rock and thrashin' corn an' makin' bricks until they was near 'bout dead an' didn't git ary penny for none of it neither, like ev'y livin'

mothah's son of us, them Jews was in bondage bondage. They didn't have enough to eat neither, just some miser'ble cornmeal with weevils in it an' sour milk an' a little fatback that done got so high it would turn a buzzard's stomach. Drought an' hunger run throughout the land, just like now. Oh, my brothers, that was a sad time in Egypt fo' them Jews! It was a time fo' weepin' an'

lamentation, a time of toil an' hunger, a time of pain! pain! Pharaoh he whupped them Jews until they had red whelps on 'em from head to toe an' ev'y night they went to bed cryin', 'Lord, Lord, when is you goin' to make that white man set us free?' " Pharaoh he whupped them Jews until they had red whelps on 'em from head to toe an' ev'y night they went to bed cryin', 'Lord, Lord, when is you goin' to make that white man set us free?' "

There was a stirring among the Negroes and I heard a voice in the midst of them say, "Yes, yes," faint and plaintive, and still another voice: "Mm-huh, dat's right!" right!" I stretched out an arm slowly, as if to embrace them, and some of the crowd moved nearer still. I stretched out an arm slowly, as if to embrace them, and some of the crowd moved nearer still.

"Look aroun' you, brothers," I said, "what does you see? What does you see in the air? What does you see blowin' in the air?"

The Negroes turned their faces toward the town, raised their eyes skyward: there in amber translucent haze the smoke from the distant fires swam through the streets, touching the gallery, even as I spoke, with its acrid and apple-sweet taste of scorched timber, its faint smell of corruption.

244.

"That there is the smoke of pestilence, pestilence, brothers," I went on, "the smoke of pestilence an' death. The same smoke that hanged over the Jews in bondage down there in Egypt land. The same smoke of pestilence an' death that hanged over them Jews in Egypt hangs over all black folk, all men whose skin is black, yo' brothers," I went on, "the smoke of pestilence an' death. The same smoke that hanged over the Jews in bondage down there in Egypt land. The same smoke of pestilence an' death that hanged over them Jews in Egypt hangs over all black folk, all men whose skin is black, yo'

skin and mine. An' we got a tougher row to hoe even than them Jews. Joseph he was at least a man, not no four-legged dog. My brothers, laughter is good, laughter is bread and salt and b.u.t.termilk and a balm for pain. But they is a time for ev'ything.

They is a time for weepin' too. A time for rage! And in bondage black folk like you an' me must weep in they rage. Leave off Leave off from such dumb laughter like just now!" I cried, my voice rising. "When a white man he lift a hand against one of us'ns we must not laugh but rage and weep! 'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion!' That's right!" from such dumb laughter like just now!" I cried, my voice rising. "When a white man he lift a hand against one of us'ns we must not laugh but rage and weep! 'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion!' That's right!"

("Mm-huh, dat's right!" came the voice again, joined by another.) " 'We hanged our harps upon the willows, for they that carried us away captive required of us a song. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' That's right!" That's right!" I said, the words bitter on my tongue. "White man make you sing an' dance, make you shuffle, do the buck-an'-wing, play 'Ole Zip c.o.o.n' on the banjo and the fiddle. 'They that carried us away captive required of us a song.' Yes! Leave off from that singin', leave off from that banjo, leave off from that buck-an'-wing! They is a time for ev'ything. This is no time fo' singin', fo' laughter. Look aroun' I said, the words bitter on my tongue. "White man make you sing an' dance, make you shuffle, do the buck-an'-wing, play 'Ole Zip c.o.o.n' on the banjo and the fiddle. 'They that carried us away captive required of us a song.' Yes! Leave off from that singin', leave off from that banjo, leave off from that buck-an'-wing! They is a time for ev'ything. This is no time fo' singin', fo' laughter. Look aroun'

you, my brothers, look into each other's eyes! You jest seen a white man pit brother 'gainst brother! Ain't none of you no four-legged beasts what can be whupped an' hurt like some flea-bit cur dog. You is men! You is men men, my dear brothers, look at yo'selves, look to yo' pride! pride! " "

As I spoke, I saw two older black men at the rear of the crowd mutter to each other and shake their heads. Glances of puzzlement and worry crossed their faces and they sidled off, disappeared. The others still listened, intent, brooding, nearly motionless. I heard a soft sigh and a gentle "Amen." I raised my arms to either side of me and extended my hands, palms outward, as if in benediction. I felt the sweat pouring from my face.

"In the visions of the night, brothers," I continued, "G.o.d spoke to Jacob an' He said, 'I am G.o.d, the G.o.d of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a great nation.'

An' Jacob went down into Egypt an' the peoples of Israel multiplied an' Moses was born. Moses he was born in the 245.

bulrushers an' he delivered the Jews out of Egypt an' into the Promised Land. Well, there they had a powerful lot of troubles too. But in the Promised Land them Jewish peoples they could stand up an' live like men men. They become a great nation. No more fatback, no more pint of salt, no more peck of corn fo' them Jews; no more overseers, no more auction blocks; no more horn blow at sunrise fo' them mothahs' sons. They had chicken with pot likker an' spoonbread an' sweet cider to drink in the shade.

They done got paid an honest dollar. Them Jews become men men.

But oh, my brothers, black folk ain't never goin' to be led from bondage without they has pride! pride! Black folk ain't goin' to be free, they ain't goin' to have no spoonbread an' sweet cider less'n they studies to love they own Black folk ain't goin' to be free, they ain't goin' to have no spoonbread an' sweet cider less'n they studies to love they own selves selves. Only then will the first be last, and the last first. Black folk ain't never goin' to be no great nation until they studies to love they own black skin an' the beauty of that skin an' the beauty of them black hands that toils so hard and black feet that trods so weary on G.o.d's earth. And when white men in they hate an' wrath an' meanness fetches blood from that beautiful black skin then, oh then then, my brothers, it is time not fo' laughing but fo' weeping an' rage an' lamentation!

Pride!" I cried after a pause, and let my arms descend. "Pride, pride, I cried after a pause, and let my arms descend. "Pride, pride, everlasting everlasting pride, pride will make you free!" pride, pride will make you free!"

I ceased speaking and gazed at the rapt black faces. Then I finished slowly and in a soft voice: "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, an' the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Amen."

The Negroes were silent. Far off in Jerusalem, through the hot afternoon, a church bell let fall a single chime, striking the half-hour. Then the Negroes one by one straggled away across the gallery, some with troubled looks, some stupid and uncomprehending, some fearful. Others drew toward me, radiant; and Henry, who was deaf, who had read my lips, came up close to me and silently clasped my arm. I heard Nelson say, "You done spoke de truth," and he too drew near, and I felt their warmth and their brotherhood and hope and knew then what Jesus must have known when upon the sh.o.r.es of Galilee he said: "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

On another Sat.u.r.day in Jerusalem, a month or so later, a curious thing happened which-although it bears only indirectly upon the great events I must soon describe-produced an important enough effect on me to compel its recounting. During the intervening weeks I had, on these Sat.u.r.days, formed a Bible cla.s.s composed of seven or eight Negroes, including Daniel, Sam, Henry, and Nelson. Hark had returned to Travis, so he no 246.

longer accompanied me to town. I held this cla.s.s in the shelter of a large maple tree behind the market. There, seated on the cool earth with the Negroes crouching or squatting in a ragged arc around me, I had the opportunity to bring some of these people into the presence of the Holy Word for the very first time in their lives. Few of them had the ability to become what one might call devout; none of them was disposed to really cease from foul language or to abstain from drinking whatever brandy could be filched from a white man's wagon. (Only Henry, owned by a pious master and walled up in his deafness, possessed what might be called a spiritual nature.) But as slaves who had had nothing to fill their heads save for old grannies' scare-stories about conjurs and ha'nts and omens, they responded eagerly to my description of the events in Genesis and Exodus-the tales of Joseph and his brothers and the pa.s.sage of the Red Sea and Moses smiting the rock in h.o.r.eb-and each Sat.u.r.day morning I noted with pride and pleasure that they had begun to greet me with the looks of those for whom my arrival marked their most treasured hour. After the lesson, which might last until well past noon, I bade them all a friendly good-bye and then retired by myself to the shade beneath Moore's wagon where I would have my midday dinner of pone and bacon. Already I had resolved to adopt an air of aloofness and mystery, believing that such a distant pose would work to my advantage when the time came at last to reveal to my followers the great plans in the offing.

On this particular Sat.u.r.day, I had just left the group when a strange white man sidled up to me and tapped me lightly on the elbow of my shirt.

"Oh, preacher," said a tremulous voice, "a word with you, if'n you please."

The tone was gentle; save for Moore's sarcastic thrusts I had never heard myself called "preacher" before and I looked down, startled, to behold a slope-shouldered little man who became known to me as Ethelred T. Brantley.

"I heerd you preach to the n.i.g.g.e.rs t'other Sattidy," he murmured to me with a furtive, urgent sound. The voice was touched with desperation. "Oh, you preaches so good," he said. "What kin I do to be saved?"

Ethelred T. Brantley was a round womanish man of about fifty, with soft plump white cheeks upon which tiny sores and pustules congregated like berries amid a downy fringe of red hair.

247.

Dressed in a ragged gray denim jacket and pants, he stirred sluggishly on wide hips and his pale dirty little fingers fluttered as he talked. Now he pressed me to go with him behind the market; his eyes darted nervously, as if he were fearful that we might be seen together. There amid the weeds he told me about himself in a burst of words, his squeaky, piteous voice seeming at any moment about to crack and to dissolve into sobs. At present without regular employ or money, he had until the year before been third a.s.sistant overseer on a failing plantation down in Beaufort County, in Carolina. After having lost his position he had come back to Jerusalem to live in a shack with his elderly sister, who supported him on a pittance and who was dying of consumption. He did odd jobs but was in no way to do much. He had a bad cough himself; asthma, consumption too? Brantley didn't know. He hoped it was asthma. He might not die of asthma. The eruptions on his cheeks wouldn't go away, he'd had them since he was a boy. He was tormented by some kind of ailment in his guts that caused him to go to the privy a dozen times a day, frequently in his pants. He had been sent to jail once in Carolina. Now he was afraid again. Because- He had taken a woman- No! No! He hesitated, his eyes anxious behind flickering eyelids, a pink flush rising beneath the pustuled skin. He hesitated, his eyes anxious behind flickering eyelids, a pink flush rising beneath the pustuled skin.

That was wrong. No, he-He had done something bad, bad, yesterday, with a boy. The son of a local magistrate. He had paid the boy a dime. The boy had told. He thought the boy had told. yesterday, with a boy. The son of a local magistrate. He had paid the boy a dime. The boy had told. He thought the boy had told.

He wasn't sure. He was afraid. "Oh Lord G.o.d," "Oh Lord G.o.d," he exclaimed. He broke wind with a plaintive hiss and for an instant his exhalations filled my nostrils like air from a swamp bottom. he exclaimed. He broke wind with a plaintive hiss and for an instant his exhalations filled my nostrils like air from a swamp bottom.

"I has always keered for n.i.g.g.e.rs, tucken good keer of n.i.g.g.e.rs,"

said Brantley. "I has never beat a n.i.g.g.e.r in my life. You preaches so good. I done heerd you. I'm so afeared. I'm so miser'ble. Oh, how can I be saved?"

"By baptism in the Spirit," I replied sharply.

"If'n I could read," he said, "maybe I'd know 'bout religion like you does. But I cain't read nor write neither, not ary word. Oh, I'm so miser'ble! I jest wants to die die. But I'm skeered of dyin'. Kin all men have pride? Kin all all men be redeemed?" men be redeemed?"

"Yes," I said, "all men can have pride. And all men can be redeemed-by baptism in the Spirit." Then in a rush it occurred to me that this might be some kind of white man's trap, a joke, a ruse. "But when you overheard me preach-" I paused. "When you heard me preach that day I was saying things that wasn't for 248.

white men's ears." A sudden apprehension overtook me, and I started to turn away from him. "I was preaching for black folk," I said in a harsh voice.

"Oh no, preacher," he implored me, plucking at my sleeve, "I needs he'p so bad, please."

"Why don't you go to your own church?" I retorted. "Why don't you go to the white man's church?"

He hesitated, then finally he said: "I cain't. I mean, I used to go at Nebo. That's where my sister worships at. On'y Reverend Entwistle, the preacher there, he-" Halting, he seemed unable to go on.

"He what?" I said.

"Oh, he done throwed me out," he blurted in a choked voice. "He said I was-" Again he paused, and with a sigh, cast his eyes toward the ground. "He said-"

"He said what?" what?" I demanded. I demanded.

"He said they will be no sotomite of the sons of Isr'el in the house of the Lord. He tole me the Bible said so. That's what he done said, I 'members ever' word of it. He said I was a sotomite. So I cain't go to Nebo. I cain't go nowheres." He looked up at me in anguish, tears swimming in his eyes. "Oh, preacher, how how can I be redeemed?" can I be redeemed?"

I was suddenly swept by pity and disgust, and I have wondered since why I said to him what I did but have failed to come up with a sure answer. It may be only that Brantley at that moment seemed as wretched and forsaken as the lowest Negro; white though he might be, he was as deserving of the Lord's grace as were others deserving of His wrath, and to fail Brantley would be to fail my own obligation as minister of His word. Besides, it gave me pleasure to know that by showing Brantley the way to salvation I had fulfilled a duty that a white preacher had shirked.

Anyway- "Then listen," I told him. "Fast for eight days until next Sunday.

You must eat nothing except that once every two days you can have as much corn pone as you can fill the palm of one hand.

Then next Sunday I will baptize you in the Spirit and you will be redeemed."

249.

"Oh Lord have mercy, preacher!" Brantley cried, all asnuffle.

"You done saved my life! I'm so happy!" He tried to clutch my hand and kiss it but I drew away, squirming.

"Fast, as I say," I repeated, "and meet me at Mr. Thomas Moore's next Sunday. We will be baptized together in the Spirit."

The following day was a Sunday, when it was customary for Negroes to be let off for most of the time between late morning and dusk. Early that afternoon I walked the four miles up the road and presented myself at the front door of Mrs. Catherine Whitehead's. Set back from the road several hundred yards, the house was a comfortable, rambling place made of smooth-planed clapboard (unlike Moore's, put together with rough-hewn timbers), freshly whitewashed, shuttered, surrounded by a pleasant lawn of clover humming with bees. A dusty field of budding cotton stretched to the far woods. In the front yard reposed a gilt and cherrywood English brougham; it was drawn by a thoroughbred filly, plump, beautifully currycombed, that now stood feeding placidly in the deep gra.s.s and broke the hot afternoon silence with her champing sound.

Zinnias bloomed in neat red boxes on the front porch, I smelled a warm odor of roses from a trellis. Mrs. Whitehead was a gentlewoman, a lady of some wealth. There was nothing fancy about the place but it was far better than Moore's; I knew that she even owned books. Not since my days at Turner's Mill had I brushed close to white people of means, and as I stood on the porch, awaiting some response to my knock, I was made hurtfully aware of my descent in life and suddenly suspected that I reeked of mule dung. Idly I wondered how in the midst of this drought a place could retain such green grace, such color and lushness; then I spied in the field a windmill-which brought up water from a well-the only one for miles and a marvel to all who beheld it. Its weathered blades made a faint sad clack and flutter across the afternoon quiet.

My knock at the door was answered by Margaret Whitehead; it was our first encounter, and one that should retain momentous syllables, intonations, recollected cadences, glances, hues, harmonies, curvatures, refractions of late summer light. But I remember only a dim pretty pale girl's face-she must have been thirteen or so-and a gentle voice that replied, "Why yes, he's here," unsurprised as if my skin had been alabaster-white, when I said: "Please, young missy, may I have a word with yo'

brother the preacher?"

250.

When Richard Whitehead appeared he had the crumbs of midday dessert still on his lips; he lost no time in directing me around to the rear door. There I waited fifteen minutes before he came back again-a slender youngish man, rather frail, with a prim hostile mouth and the same petrified eyeb.a.l.l.s I had seen once years before in a Turner library sketch-book, amid the h.e.l.l-ravaged face of John Calvin. His voice was reedy, thin, touched with all of the Sabbath's hushed and purple melancholy.

I realized I should not have come. Queasy, I was stricken with the old familiar n.i.g.g.e.r fear, and could not help but avert my glance.

"What is it that you want?" he demanded.

I hesitated for a moment-Out with it quick, I thought-then I said: "Please, mastah, I'm a minister of the gospel. I wonders if after all the folks is gone next Sunday I couldn't baptize a white gentleman down in yo' church."

A startled look came over his face, then faded. "Who are you?"

he said.

"I'm Nat Turner," I replied. "My mastah's Mr. Thomas Moore, down by Flag Marsh."

"Yes, I've heard of you," he said shortly. "What is it you want again?"

Once more I made my request. He regarded me with unblinking eyes, then he said: "What you are asking is ludicrous. How can a darky claim to be an ordained minister of the gospel? Pray tell me where you acquired your background in divinity. Washington College? William & Mary? Hampden-Sydney? What you are asking-"

"I don't have to be ordained, mastah," I put in. "In G.o.d's sight I am a preacher of His Word."

He pursed his lips and I could tell that his incredulity was being slowly converted into anger. "I've never heard of such tomfoolery from a darky in my life," he exclaimed. "What are you up to, anyway? What sort of white gentleman do you propose to baptize in church?"

"Mr. Ethelred T. Brantley," I said.

"Brantley!" At the name he seemed to go ashen with outrage. "A 251.

gentleman! I know of that sc.u.m! Jailed in Carolina for an abominable, unnatural crime against nature! He has been turned out of one congregation in this county, and now he would pollute the sacred altar of a Methodist temple through seeking baptism by the likes of you! What did he pay you to solicit me for such blasphemy?" I know of that sc.u.m! Jailed in Carolina for an abominable, unnatural crime against nature! He has been turned out of one congregation in this county, and now he would pollute the sacred altar of a Methodist temple through seeking baptism by the likes of you! What did he pay you to solicit me for such blasphemy?"

"Brantley is a poor man," I said. "He hasn't got ten cents. And he is very sick. And lost. Doesn't the Bible say that the Son of man is come to save that which was lost?"

"Get out of here!" Richard Whitehead cried, his voice shrill now. I hopped sideways as he aimed a kick at me through the door.