The Shorn Lamb/Chapter 12
Chapter 12
AUNT PEARLY GATES' WISDOM
"Aunt Pearly Gates, do you mind being black all the way through? Sometimes, I wish I'd a' been born black and could come live down in your cabin with you and Uncle Si."
"Laws-a-mussy, Miss Becky baby, that ain't no way for 'ristocratical white chilluns ter talk. The good Gawd makes some of us black an' some of us white, but when you hear black folks longin' fer white hides or white folks longin' fer black hides 'tain't nothin' but the ol' Debble a' whisperin' in their hearts—the Debble er discontentment."
"Well, Aunt Pearly Gates, I wish God had been just a little gooder and made me either very white or very black."
"Now, honey chil', you stay in out the weather some an' if you's bleeged ter go out put on yo' sunbonnet an' you won't be near so bluenettish. How you 'spect ter be fa' as a lily if you go bare-haided right out in the sun an' win'?"
"But, Aunt Pearly Gates, you have been in out of the weather for years and years—"
"Pretty nigh twenty!"
"And you haven't bleached a bit," continued Rebecca.
"But I's born dyed-in-the-wool black. Th'ain't nothin' gonter change me but I 'low if 'n you stays in the house a spell, leastways puts on yo' bonnet, you'll git as white as a 'tater sprout in no time. Why don' you let ol' Pearly Gates wuck some button holes in the top er yo' sun-bonnet an' plait yo' hair through the holes? Then, when you gits ter itchin ter snatch off yo' bonnet it'll be a unpossumbility 'thout you take down yo' hair."
Rebecca happily agreed to her old friend's plan. She untied the despised gingham sun-bonnet from about her neck and handed it to Aunt Pearly Gates. She was obliged to wear a sunbonnet but, as a rule, it was worn hanging down her back. She watched curiously while the old negress cut slits in the top of the bonnet and then with deft fingers worked button holes with neat, even stitches. For twenty years Aunt Pearly Gates had been bed-ridden, but in the whole county there was no person, black or white, more industrious than she. She was never idle for a moment. Even in the dark, through long, sleepless nights, the old hands were busy either knitting or tatting.
"I ain't got nothin' but time an' I sho' ain't a gonter was'e none er that," she would say. "When han's is got ter do the wuck of han's an' feet too, they is fo'ced ter labor overtime. I don' need much sleep an' I of'en draps off when I'm a tattin'. I ain't never been able ter tell whether I tats in my sleep or not. Sometimes I thinks I does, 'cause they'll be a mighty big pile er trimmin' on the baid in the mawnin'. As fer knittin': One time I tu'ned a sock heel in my sleep. I knows I did 'cause I wa' a dreamin' an' my dream wa' all mixed up with that there sock heel. It seemed lak little Miss Beck baby an' me wa' knittin' a tremenjous sock. Back an' fo'th we went, pretty nigh over the whole place as fur down as the Rapidan an' it seemed lak the business of the fambly wa' kinder mixed up in our stitches an a lot depended on how we tu'ned the heel. An' Miss Beck baby, by the time we got ter the heel, tuk the needles out'n my han's an', fo' Gawd, she tu'ned as pretty a heel as you ever seed! Jes' then I woke up an' bless Bob but it wa' daylight an' the heel er the sock wa' finished an' I wa' on the downward road to'ads the toe. An' Si Johnson wa' a fussin' an' grumblin' 'ca'se he said I wa' a clickin' needles all night a interruptin' er his slumbers. So, I knows I knits in my sleep."
The buttonholes were finished and Rebecca's dark hair pulled through and braided. The little girl stood patiently while the old woman gently smoothed her hair.
"I been a layin' by ter git Brer Johnson ter trade in some er this here tattin' fer a bresh ter keep down here jes' fer yo' hair, Miss Beck baby. If yo' hair'd git mo' 'tention it wouldn't hurt none. Who fixes it fer you of a mornin'?"
"Aunt Evelyn does it sometimes and sometimes Aunt Myra but sometimes I just kind of slap it with a brush myself and run along quick before either one of them remembers me. Aunt Evelyn digs into my head something awful, Aunt Pearly Gates, just like she was doing something she didn't want to do a bit, but felt somehow she must do it to keep from going to the bad place. I can see her face in the mirror over my head and it looks so queer and hard—not pretty the way she is sometimes. When Aunt Myra does my hair she stands 'way off from me and picks up the comb just like it was a snake, or something horrid, and then she dabs at me and seems to be trying not to touch my hair any more than she can help—kind of like it was a greasy dishrag or something nasty. What makes them hate me so, Aunt Pearly Gates?"
"Lord love us, chil'! They don't ter say hate you," answered the old woman, with a note of sadness in her rich, soft voice. "You mustn't git no sich a notion."
"But they do! They hate me and Uncle Spot hates me. I think he hates me worst of all. He never says anything cross to me, but when he helps me to ham I have a feeling that he can't decide whether he'd rather give me a little bit, so little that I'll starve to death or so much that I'll make myself sick eating it. He usually gives me too much and when Aunt Evelyn tells him so he smiles a kind of hard smile. I think Uncle Spot is so handsome and I'd rather he'd like me than anybody but I don't know what to do to make him feel differently. He never even looks at me. I've been here three whole months and I don't know my aunts and uncle any better than I did the day I came."
"Does you try ter make 'em take a likin' ter you?"
"Ye-es—I try a little bit."
"Does yer love Miss Myra an' Miss Evelyn the way you wants 'em ter love you?" asked Aunt Pearly Gates.
"They hated me so from the very first, Aunt Pearly Gates. I didn't do anything to make them hate me. They just did it."
"But is you done nothin' ter 'suade 'em ter stop a hatin' of you."
"I don't know what to do. I don't have to do anything to Grandfather. He just naturally likes me. I believe he liked me because I sassed him and because he can't tease me. I tease him back every time and then he and I laugh and laugh and Aunt Evelyn and Aunt M yra look like somebody had talked out loud in church or something and Uncle Spot gets up and leaves the room. It seems to tease them when Grandfather and I have a joke that they can't see. Sometimes we just pretend to have a joke. That's the best joke we have. Grandfather always starts that joke when the family get kind of stuffy and stupid and dignified. We made Aunt Evelyn cry the other day. She thought the joke was on her and there wasn't any joke at all!"
Aunt Pearly Gates looked sad, put down her needles and gazed attentively into the dimpling little brown face.
"Honey baby, don't you know the good Gawd is sent you here ter make happiness instid er misery? Jokes is fine and lots er happiness comes through jokes but not jokes what makes other folks cry. S'pose the joke had been on you. Would you had er liked that much?"
"But I would have seen it and laughed. My aunts can't ever see the joke. Then they blame me because they are afraid of Grandfather and as soon as his back is turned they pick on me.
"If there was any fun in their picking I wouldn't mind a bit but they are just hard and cold and mean. They raise their eyebrows and talk about how blond all true Taylors are, and how well grown, and what a misfortune it would be to be born small and dark. Of course they want me to understand that they do not really believe I am their brother's child. That's kind of hard because—because they mean to say something about my poor little mother. They don't say it right out, but I can see they mean unkind things."
Aunt Pearly Gates looked distressed. She resumed her knitting, adroitly picking up a dropped stitch.
"You ain't never answered my question, honey baby: Does you love Miss Myra and Miss Evelyn the way you wants them ter love you? Does you sho' 'nough keer whether they loves you or not? I'm a old, old ooman, Miss Beck baby, and I's took a heap er notice er folks in my time an' I ain't never seen hate all on one side. I ain't a sayin' they didn't start it in the fust beginning but what I is a sayin' is that the way ter stop folks a hatin' you is stop a hatin' them. I's been a' watchin' you all this summer an' a hopin' you wa' a gonter fin' out a way ter git on better with po' Miss Myra an' Miss Evelyn."
"They are not as poor as I am," pouted Rebecca.
"Yes, they is, chil'. They's po' 'cause they ain't never learned how ter wuck none, they nor they ma befo' 'em. They don't know nothin' 'bout the joy of 'complishin' something an' they air got sluggerish minds an' I reckon they ain't never enjyed a good larf sence they wa' babies and somebody tickled they toes."
"That's kind of sad but they needn't get so sore when Grandfather and I are getting our toes tickled now. So many things are funny and when nothing funny is happening at the moment one can always think about something funny that has happened," protested Rebecca.
"You ain't never answered my question yit, honey baby."
"You mean about loving them if I expect them to love me? How can I love people who are always putting me in the wrong? I never do anything to suit them?"
"Do they make out to suit you none?"
"We-e-ll, no, not exactly! But, Aunt Pearly Gates, they are older than I am."
"Why, chil', age ain't got a mite ter do with gittin' along with folks. Look at ol' Marse Bob! He air ol' enough ter git along if age'll do it. It air plain common sense mixed with a good, kin' heart that puts up with other folkses' failin's that does the wuck. Not that Marse Bob ain't got mo' sense than mos' folks an' his heart is kin', too, but he air so imtolerant to'ds folks what ain't got as much sense as he am. He done made a joke er the whole cremation an' it looks lak it done kinder et in on his soul. He allus tuck out his spleen a teasin' folks. He allus wa' a teasin' pusson from the time he wa' a boy. He teased his ma an' his pa. He teased all the niggers on the place an' even the animules, though he loved 'em all an' they loved him. When he married Miss Evy Spottswood, yo' gran'ma what was, he'd tease her till she'd cry an' then he'd tease her some mo'. I hearn him with my own years a teasin' her on her death bed. That wa' twenty years ago, jes' befo' my lim's played out on me."
"Didn't he love her, Aunt Pearly Gates?" asked Rebecca in big-eyed wonderment.
"Sho' he loved her, but teasin' air allus been the bref er life ter Marse Bob. He didn't mean no harm, but Miss Evy wa' too easy ter tease. Same way wif all the chilluns, 'ceptin' yo' pa, Marse Tom. Nothin' couldn't tease Marse Tom. He'd jes' larf an' tu'n the joke on him. I reckon tha's why he tho't mo' er Marse Tom than any o' the res' er his chilluns. That's how come he tuck on so when yo' pa lef' Virginny an' went off ter them furren parts up to Noo York. He ain't never stopped a missin' him."
"Did my father tease people, too?"
"An' that he didn't! He useter crack plenty er jokes, but they wa' allus the kinder jokes what made folks laugh wif him. Yo' grampa air allus a laughin' at folks instead er wif 'em. Now, honey baby, Ol' Aunt Pearly Gates air got a notion in her fool ol' haid that yo' is gonter make things kinder happier down here at Mill House. Yo' mus'n' be too much lak yo' grampa, but try ter be mo' lak yo' pa. I ain't a throwin' no sticks at Marse Bob an' I see all he virtues. You mus' copy 'em, Miss Beck baby, an' let all the faults go by. You is done made the ol' man happier by comin'. Now try an' make all the others happy, too."
"Yes, Aunt Pearly Gates, I'll try, but you must tell me where to begin," said Rebecca, solemnly.
"That's yo' pa's own chil'," approved the old woman. "Begin at the fust beginnin'. When we want folks ter lak us we begins by doin' 'em a kin'ness. Now I ain't up ter the gret house an' I ain't able ter say jes' what them kindnesses ought ter be, but they is sholy sumpen a nice lil' gal kin do ter make life brighter fer two po' ladies what ain't got nothin' ter do on Gawd's green yearth but set aroun' an' complain. Is you talked ter them much?"
"No! I never know what to talk about. I tried at first, because Mrs. O'Shea used to tell me I must try to be entertaining, but they were so shocked by everything I said I just stopped and let off steam on Grandfather. He is always glad to listen to me."
"Then, chil', you mus' fin' something what ain' shockin' ter they squeamy years. Fin' out what is mos' interestin' ter them an' talk about them things. You try it, baby, an' come see ol' Pearly Gates to-morrer an' tell her all about it. I mought have a s'prise fer you by then, anyhow."