Linda Wagner-Martin - The Life of the Author - Maya Angelou

In the silent world of Sister Henderson’s store and household, Ritzie and Bailey were faced with an almost voiceless culture. For that reason alone, being an accepted part of the Colored Methodist Episcopalian congregation was exciting. They loved the hymns, and not only because Momma often led them. “Amazing Grace,” “Abide with Me,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past,” and a bevy of holiday anthems were the music the children could sing by rote. The tattered hymnals had only a few of these. Most parishioners knew the separate verses well, and if they didn’t, they hummed joyfully. No one cared how close the language was to what was written; nobody cared if an interval was a bit off. The spirit of Sunday bound all sounds into one glorious echo. Church became a magical place, suffused with harmony.

Like the path across the road from the store, which led to the African American school, the way to the church was often visible – especially when the children were eager for Sunday to come. Church was the only break in the dailiness that was life in Stamps: Bailey would begin school the following year but Ritzie had several years to be Annie’s helper in the store. She was a learner now. She was not yet a reader (because that was what she would learn at school) though she had found she could read some of the words on boxes and packages in the store. She could not make out what the King James Bible said, though she loved to listen to Uncle Willie reading from it. She was a good learner: she learned how to wash windows with vinegar water, and occasionally scrub dirty patches on the washboard. She learned how to hand the wrung-out clothes to Momma as she filled the wavering clothesline with the weekly wash. She was a hearty eater – always – though never quite so hearty as Bailey, Jr. She could scrape dishes into the slop bucket and some nights she could feed the pigs, but only if someone went with her. And she could regularly feed the chickens though their scurrying flapping was not her favorite part of the back yard. And she was a very good girl when she washed, remembering Annie’s joke that “first you wash as far as possible and then you wash possible.”

Obedience was nothing to challenge. She loved to do whatever “work” was assigned to her – by either Momma or Uncle Willie. She behaved like Momma, too, in a decorous, stately way – bordering on the solemn. Her slim, tall body swayed like Momma’s did when she sang the hymns joyfully: she displayed her grandmother’s joyous state of both singing and listening to the Word of God. Even when her feet could barely reach the church floor, she sat upright and paid attention to whatever words were being spoken. (She frowned at babies who cried, at younger children who fidgeted.) Marguerite delighted in being Annie’s shadow in every possible way.

Watching Bailey cross the road to the pathway to school, watching him climb the slight elevation, was one of Ritzie’s moments of pride mingled with sorrow. She wanted to go where Bailey went: she did not believe that her comforting brother was any smarter than she was, or any better at following directions. And she missed him to an almost intolerable degree until he returned home again. From the front door of the store, she could watch for him at the close of school. Watching for Bailey became one of those daily rituals that Ritzie liked to create for herself.

Although it didn’t happen every day, Annie tried to find some time during the school day to make Ritzie feel special. The most common ploy was to help her young granddaughter make something for supper, all by herself. It might be washing off some good fresh fruit and fixing a sugar sauce to dip it in; it might be washing greens and showing her how to boil the vinegar water in the skillet. It might be a much more elaborate time, of creating the black strap sauce that would dress up the date cake Annie had already made. Marguerite learned that she was also able to learn new things. She did not miss playing with little girls her own age when she had the comfort of being Annie’s chosen helper.

Centrally located as Annie Henderson’s store was, with the dirt road to one side leading to “the town,” which identified white Stamps, and on the other side, leading to the best of the African American houses, there was little need to ever leave the store’s front yard. As Marguerite grew taller, she became the person who swept that yard, carefully making the scrolls in the dirt to pretty it up. The Johnson-Henderson lives were led in the back yard, but the public face of the expanded family became the front yard. Somewhere in the distance, people explained that she could hear the Red River, but Ritzie had not yet seen that important-sounding place. (Was it really red , she sometimes wondered.) She heard grown-ups talk about the river, the mountains (and in her mind, Bailey walked up the mountain to get to school, though the incline was very slight in fact). She had never paid attention to the land in St. Louis or in Long Beach, not in the way Momma paid attention to it. Don’t pour that grease into the grass, Ritzie. Pick those leaves carefully. (Don’t just pull up the potatoes.) Momma was a kind of natural force in herself, and she respected the nature that surrounded her and her family.

She talked often about planting more grass seed in the back, so as to protect the yard and also to make that area more pleasant for the Saturday gatherings. She thought about what she might trade the seed store for the grass seed. Annie did not move as swiftly as some people thought she should but she planned much about her life – what she could plan. The rest she accepted.

She also was a saver. Even as she always made sure that Bailey and Marguerite had pennies and nickels for the church offering, she kept a penny jar inside the kitchen cupboard for the unexpected. Sometimes Bailey reminded her late that he needed a dime for this or that at school. Then Annie would go to the jar. Her natural tendency was to barter but she would never embarrass her grandchildren – never. Occasionally she put a folding bill into the church offering plate, but not every week. Sensitive to the way the plants in their garden are growing, pausing to enjoy the bright blue skies of the Arkansas world, Annie is also the epitome of what nature itself demands: she has never questioned that she must care for Uncle Willie. She has never considered placing him in a care facility. Even in the years when it seemed as if he might never learn to read, she knew that her own calm acceptance of whatever injuries God had allowed him to experience would provide a buffer for him and his life.

Similarly, she did not expect her handsome and talented second son, Bailey, to stay in Stamps. When he insisted he wanted to join the Navy, she outfitted him as best she could and sent him off. When he brought Vivian home, carrying Bailey, Jr., she smiled as graciously as she could though she could see that nothing in Stamps would be suitable for her new daughter-in-law, citified and educated as she was. Similarly, when she got Bailey’s letter telling her – not asking her – that he would be sending his two children back to her by train, she did not mention any expenses, any concerns about the toddlers’ wellbeing. She never suggested that he keep them in his own household. Annie Henderson did not see the expansion of her family from two to four as anything but a useful gift – from her son? From her God? – and she behaved accordingly. She did not grumble her way into the position of grandmother. She did not grumble at all.

Throughout her mature life, Annie Henderson had provided. She knew that Willie would need care throughout his life. She had set up friendships with Stamps officials – particularly with the various sheriffs who might keep watch over KKK activities. She was known not only in the religious community but also in the circles of education and medicine. She was a fair trade person long before the term existed: she dealt carefully and humanely with her neighbors. She had even created a kind of road to the store, a strip of semi-paving that cars and wagons could traverse – to deliver supplies, to pick up Willie for trips to town, to make the physical connections more agreeable for her and her family. It crossed the back yard at an angle, but Annie kept it clear. Hers was a practical functionality: whatever, whenever, God sent to her, she was going to be ready.