Alex Haley - Roots - The Saga of an American Family

“I tell de truth, I ’joys listenin’ to ’im talk,” said Lilly Sue, and L’il George scoffed, “He talk like any other cracker. What make him different he de firs’ one I ever seen ain’t try to act like sump’n he wasn’t. De mos’ is so shame of what dey is.” Mary laughed. “Well, dis one ain’t shame, not long as he keep eatin’ de way he is.”

“Soun’ like to me y’all done really taken a likenin’ to Ol’ George,” said Matilda. More laughter rose at their homemade overseer’s new nickname, “Ol’ George,” since he was so ridiculously young. And Matilda was correct: Incredibly enough, they had come to like him genuinely.

The North and the South seemed locked together like stags in mortal combat. Neither seemed able to mount a successful campaign to put the other away. Tom began to notice some despondency in his customers’ conversations. It was a buoy to the hope yet strong in him for freedom.

The family plunged into intense speculation when Ol’ George Johnson said mysteriously, “Mr. Murray done said I could go ’tend to some business. I be back jes’ quick as I can.” Then the next morning he was gone.

“What you reckon it is?”

“Way he always talked, wasn’t nothin’ lef’ to take care of where he come from.”

“Maybe sump’n to do wid his folks—”

“But he ain’t mentioned no folks—leas’ways, not partic’lar.”

“He bound to got some somewhere.”

“Maybe he done ’cided to go jine de war.”

“Well, I sho’ cain’t see Ol’ George wantin’ to shoot nobody.”

“’Speck he jes’ finally got his belly full an’ we done seen de las’ o’ him.”

“Oh, heish up, Ashford! You ain’t never got nothin’ good to say’bout him or nobody else!”

Nearly a month had passed when one Sunday a whooping and hollering arose—for Ol’ George was back, grinning shamefacedly, and with him was a painfully shy creature of a girl as sallow and scrawny as himself, and her eight-months pregnancy made her seems as if she had swallowed a pumpkin.

“This is my wife, Miss Martha,” Ol’ George Johnson told them. “Jes’ befo’ I left, we’d got married, an’ I tol’ ’er I’d be back when I found us somewhere. How come I hadn’t said nothin’ ’bout a wife was it was hard enough to find anybody willing to have jes’ me.” He grinned at his Martha. “Whyn’t you say hello to the folks?”

Martha dutifully said hello to them all, and it seemed a long speech for her when she added, “George tol’ me a lot ’bout y’all.”

“Well, I hope whatever he tol’ you was good!” Matilda said brightly, and Ol’ George saw her glance a second time at Martha’s extreme pregnancy.

“I ain’t knowed when I left we had a baby comin’. I jes’ kept havin’ a feelin’ I better git back. An’ there she was in a family way.”

The fragile Martha seemed such a perfect match for Ol’ George Johnson that the family felt their hearts going out to the pair of them.

“You mean you ain’t even tol’ Massa Murray?” asked Irene.

“Naw, I ain’t. Jes’ said I had some business same as I tol’ y’all. If he want to run us off, we jes’ have to go, that’s all.”

“Well, I know massa ain’t gwine feel like dat,” said Irene, and Matilda echoed, “’Cose he ain’t. Massa ain’t dat kind o’ man.”

“Well, tell him I got to see him first chance,” said Ol’ George Johnson to Matilda.

Leaving nothing to chance, Matilda first informed Missis Murray, somewhat dramatizing the situation. “Missy, I know he a oberseer an’ all dat, but him an’ dat po’ l’il wife o’ his’n jes’ scairt to death massa gwine make ’em leave ’cause he hadn’t mentioned no wife befo’ an’ times is so hard an’ all. An’ her time ain’t far off, neither.”

“Well, of course I can’t make my husband’s decisions, but I’m sure he’ll not put them out—”

“Yes’m, I knowed y’all wouldn’t, ’specially bein’s how I ’speck she ain’t no mo’n thirteen or fo’teen years ol’, Missis, an’ lookin’ ready to have dat baby any minute, an done jes’ got here an’ don’t know nobody ’ceptin’ us—an’ y’all.”

Missis Murray said, “Well, as I say, it’s not my affair, it’s Mr. Murray’s decision. But I do feel certain they can stay on.”

Returning to the slave row, Matilda told a grateful Ol’ George Johnson not to worry, that Missis Murray had expressed certainty there would be no problem. Then she hurried to Irene’s cabin, where after quick consultation, the two of them ambled over to the converted small shed behind the barn where the Ol’ George Johnsons were.

Irene knocked, and when Ol’ George Johnson came to the door, she said, “We worried ’bout yo’ wife. Tell ’er we do y’alls cookin’ an’ washin’, ’cause she got to save up what strength she got fo’ her to have y’all’s baby.”

“She sleep now. Sho’ ’preciate it,” he said. “’Cause she been throwin’ up a lot ever since we got here.”

“Ain’t no wonder. She don’t look to have hardly de strength of a bird,” said Irene. “You ain’t had no business bringin’ her all dat long way right dis time nohow,” Matilda added severely.

“Tried my best to tell ’er that when I went back. But she wouldn’t have it no other way.”

“S’pose sump’n would o’ happened. You don’t know nothin’ in de worl’ ’bout ’liverin’ no baby!” exclaimed Matilda.

He said, “I can’t hardly believe I’m gon’ be no daddy nohow.”

“Well, you sho’ ’bout to!” Irene nearly laughed at Ol’ George’s worried expression, then she and Matilda turned and headed back to their cabins.

She and Matilda worried privately. “De po’ gal don’ look noways right to me,” Matilda muttered in confidence. “Can nigh see her bones. An’ speck it ’way too late to git her built up right.”

“Feel like she gwine have a mighty hard time,” Irene prophesied. “Lawd! I sho’ ain’t never thought I’d end up likin’ no po’ white folks!”

Less than two more weeks had passed when one midday Martha’s pains began. The whole slave-row family heard her agony from within the shed, as Matilda and Irene labored with her on through the night until shortly before the next noon. Finally when Irene emerged, her face told the haggard Ol’ George Johnson even before her mouth could form the words. “B’leeve Miss Martha gon’ pull through. Yo’ baby was a gal—but she dead.”

The late afternoon of the 1863 New Year’s Day, Matilda came almost flying into the slave row. “Y’all seen dat white man jes’ rid in here? Y’all ain’t gon’ b’leeve! He in dere cussin’ to massa it jes’ come over de railroad telegraph wire Pres’dent Lincoln done signed ’Mancipation Proclamation dat set us free!”

The galvanizing news thrust the black Murrays among the millions more like them exulting wildly within the privacy of their cabins ... but with each passing week the joyous awaiting of the freedom dwindled, diminished, and finally receded into a new despair the more it became clear that within the steadily more bloodied, ravaged Confederacy the presidential order had activated nothing but even more bitter despising of President Lincoln.

So deep was the despair in the Murray slave row that despite Tom’s intermittent reports of the Yankees winning major battles, including even the capture of Atlanta, they refused to build up their freedom hopes anymore until toward the end of 1864, when they had not seen Tom so excited for almost two years. He said that his white customers were describing how untold thousands of murderous, pillaging Yankees, marching five miles abreast under some insane General Sherman, were laying waste to the state of Georgia. However often the family’s hopes had previously been dashed, they scarcely could suppress their renewed hope of freedom as Tom brought subsequent nightly reports.