The Conjure Woman, Charles W. Chesnutt [reading women txt] 📗

wish you would talk to me, or read to me⁠—or something,” she exclaimed petulantly. “It’s awfully dull here today.”

“I’ll read to you with pleasure,” I replied, and began at the point where I had found my bookmark:⁠—

“ ‘The difficulty of dealing with transformations so many-sided as those which all existences have undergone, or are undergoing, is such as to make a complete and deductive interpretation almost hopeless. So to grasp the total process of redistribution of matter and motion as to see simultaneously its several necessary results in their actual interdependence is scarcely possible. There is, however, a mode of rendering the process as a whole tolerably comprehensible. Though the genesis of the rearrangement of every evolving aggregate is in itself one, it presents to our intelligence’ ”⁠—

“John,” interrupted my wife, “I wish you would stop reading that nonsense and see who that is coming up the lane.”

I closed my book with a sigh. I had never been able to interest my wife in the study of philosophy, even when presented in the simplest and most lucid form.

Someone was coming up the lane; at least, a huge faded cotton umbrella was making progress toward the house, and beneath it a pair of nether extremities in trousers was discernible. Any doubt in my mind as to whose they were was soon resolved when Julius reached the steps and, putting the umbrella down, got a good dash of the rain as he stepped up on the porch.

“Why in the world, Julius,” I asked, “didn’t you keep the umbrella up until you got under cover?”

“It’s bad luck, suh, ter raise a’ umbrella in de house, en w’iles I dunno whuther it’s bad luck ter kyar one inter de piazzer er no, I ’lows it’s alluz bes’ ter be on de safe side. I didn’ s’pose you en young missis ’u’d be gwine on yo’ dribe ter-day, but bein’ ez it’s my pa’t ter take you ef you does, I ’lowed I’d repo’t fer dooty, en let you say whuther er no you wants ter go.”

“I’m glad you came, Julius,” I responded. “We don’t want to go driving, of course, in the rain, but I should like to consult you about another matter. I’m thinking of taking in a piece of new ground. What do you imagine it would cost to have that neck of woods down by the swamp cleared up?”

The old man’s countenance assumed an expression of unwonted seriousness, and he shook his head doubtfully.

“I dunno ’bout dat, suh. It mought cos’ mo’, en it mought cos’ less, ez fuh ez money is consarned. I ain’ denyin’ you could cl’ar up dat trac’ er lan’ fer a hund’ed er a couple er hund’ed dollahs⁠—ef you wants ter cl’ar it up. But ef dat ’uz my trac’ er lan’, I wouldn’ ’sturb it, no, suh, I wouldn’; sho ’s you bawn, I wouldn’.”

“But why not?” I asked.

“It ain’ fittin’ fer grapes, fer noo groun’ nebber is.”

“I know it, but”⁠—

“It ain’ no yeathly good fer cotton, ’ca’se it’s too low.”

“Perhaps so; but it will raise splendid corn.”

“I dunno,” rejoined Julius deprecatorily. “It’s so nigh de swamp dat de ’coons’ll eat up all de cawn.”

“I think I’ll risk it,” I answered.

“Well, suh,” said Julius, “I wushes you much joy er yo’ job. Ef you has bad luck er sickness er trouble er any kin’, doan blame me. You can’t say ole Julius didn’ wa’n you.”

“Warn him of what, Uncle Julius?” asked my wife.

“Er de bad luck w’at follers folks w’at ’sturbs dat trac’ er lan’. Dey is snakes en sco’pions in dem woods. En ef you manages ter ’scape de p’isen animals, you is des boun’ ter hab a ha’nt ter settle wid⁠—ef you doan hab two.”

“Whose haunt?” my wife demanded, with growing interest.

“De gray wolf’s ha’nt, some folks calls it⁠—but I knows better.”

“Tell us about it, Uncle Julius,” said my wife. “A story will be a godsend today.”

It was not difficult to induce the old man to tell a story, if he were in a reminiscent mood. Of tales of the old slavery days he seemed indeed to possess an exhaustless store⁠—some weirdly grotesque, some broadly humorous; some bearing the stamp of truth, faint, perhaps, but still discernible; others palpable inventions, whether his own or not we never knew, though his fancy doubtless embellished them. But even the wildest was not without an element of pathos⁠—the tragedy, it might be, of the story itself; the shadow, never absent, of slavery and of ignorance; the sadness, always, of life as seen by the fading light of an old man’s memory.

“Way back yander befo’ de wah,” began Julius, “ole Mars Dugal’ McAdoo useter own a nigger name’ Dan. Dan wuz big en strong en hearty en peaceable en good-nachu’d most er de time, but dange’ous ter aggervate. He alluz done his task, en nebber had no trouble wid de w’ite folks, but woe be unter de nigger w’at ’lowed he c’d fool wid Dan, fer he wuz mos’ sho’ ter git a good lammin’. Soon ez eve’ybody foun’ Dan out, dey didn’ many un ’em ’temp’ ter ’sturb ’im. De one dat did would ’a’ wush’ he hadn’, ef he could ’a’ libbed long ernuff ter do any wushin’.

“It all happen’ dis erway. Dey wuz a cunjuh man w’at libbed ober t’ other side er de Lumbe’ton Road. He had be’n de only cunjuh doctor in de naberhood fer lo! dese many yeahs, ’tel ole Aun’ Peggy sot up in de bizness down by de Wim’l’ton Road. Dis cunjuh man had a son w’at libbed wid ’im, en it wuz dis yer son w’at got mix’ up wid Dan⁠—en all ’bout a ’oman.

“Dey wuz a gal on de plantation name’ Mahaly. She wuz a monst’us lackly gal⁠—tall en soopl’, wid big eyes, en a small foot, en a lively tongue, en w’en Dan tuk ter gwine wid ’er eve’ybody ’lowed dey wuz well match’, en none er de yuther nigger men on de plantation das’ ter go nigh