Free Such Sweet Thunder by Vincent O. Carter Page A

Rutherford. “They say she was a slave, even, an’ I heard Mr. Simpson say he knew her when
he
was a boy! An’ he ain’ no spring chicken! I don’ think she knows how old she is herself. But she kin tell about things can’t nobody else remember. Git to drinkin’ that catnip an’ she’ll tell you ’bout the time she saw Lincoln!”
    “I sure wish I had a nickel for every lie you told, boy! I’d be settin’ pretty for the rest of my life!”
    “No stuff, Babe! That old woman kin drink more’n
me!
Yes, sir! She just sets there in that old rockin’ chair — for centuries, Jack! — just a rockin’ an’ swattin’ flies. An’ every now an’ then you see ’er duck down under that old apron an’ come up with a jug an’ take a li’l nip! Wipe ’er mouth with the back of ’er hand. Ahhha — hey! Hey! As far back as I kin remember eeeeever’body called ’er Old Lady!”
    “Well,” said Viola, “I ain’ gonna tell no lie. I don’ know how ol’ that ol’ woman is, but she’s the oldest human bein’ I’ve ever seen!”
    He was directly in front of the house now. He looked up at the old woman with awe. Her thin white hair was braided in little braids. Patches of scalp shone through the thin matting of hair and the skin on her face was saddle-leather brown and smooth, tightly drawn into the hollows of her cheekbones, which stood out strong and severe and puckered around her mouth.
    Looks like a baby. He grinned, but then checked himself when her gaze fell fully upon his face. One large brown eye and one clouded snot-green eye froze him with terror.
    She knows! Staring her image out of focus, her face took on a sinister air. He saw her ancient figure shrouded in a faded blue dress as though underwater. The waves washed her back and forth in her rocking chair. It creaked against the floorboards of the porch, whichseemed to sway as though it might collapse under her weight at any moment. He stared into the cool reaches of the porch beneath her and waited for her to fall.
    Under the porch on the ground floor were two apartments. Mrs. Farnum lived in one and Mrs. Clark lived in the other. Miss Milly Clark was a big yellow woman with a sad plain face and a wide pink bruised-looking mouth. She wrote numbers and had three daughters. Annie was the smallest, four maybe. Cornelia, six, and Blanche, the oldest, about ten or eleven: eyes didn’t match, feet didn’t match, a big kindhearted, loudmouthed buxom girl. And Willie Joe. Willie Joe, the only boy. Four, or three. Little! Fudge-colored, snotty-nosed, barefoot, and dirty. He had big, sad, wet eyes.
    They ran out onto the cement porch and looked up over the concrete wall that gave onto the floor of the alley, four pairs of eyes, and said in unison:
    “Hi, ’Mer’go, Sammy, Etta, Carl, an’ Turner, an’ Tommy!”
    “Girls!” cried the boys in disgust.
    “Girls!” shrieked Etta louder than all the rest.
    “Et-ta’s a tom-boy!”
    “Et-ta’s a tom-boy!”
    “Et-ta’s a tom-boy!”
    Whereupon Etta and the boys started throwing rocks at them. Willie Joe managed to escape while his sisters’ attention was being absorbed by the barrage, and followed the boys down the alley.
    “Willie Joe!” cried Blanche, “you come back here, boy! I’m gonna
tell!
I’m gonna tell Momma on you, just as soon as she comes home! You just wait an’ see if I don’!”
    A stray rock cracked against the window of the house next door. A tall lean iron-gray-haired woman appeared in the door with a small white naked baby in her arms. His hair was a mass of fibrous golden waves and his eyes were blue. Little Delbert! And Mrs. Farnum’s his grandmother.
    “I seen you throw that rock, Sammy!” she was yelling in a trembling voice that was too weak to give vent to her anger, as though she had been sick and was still weak. “You li’l demon!” shaking her forefinger at him.
    “Look at ol’ Delbert!” exclaimed the child, excited by the strange-looking