Free The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines Page B

even propped it up with fence posts to keep it from falling all the way down.
    “They can sleep in the crib,” he said.
    “That’s right,” his wife said. “Ain’t got nothing else in there. No corn, no punkins, no cushaw, no ’tatoes. Look at this old ground.” She stomped it with her foot. “Look at that garden. What garden? Where my turnips? Where my mustards? Look at them olddead mules. Look at this old ground.” She stomped again.
    Job told us to stay in the wagon, and he got down and started unhitching the mules.
    “Old no count,” his wife said. “That’s why you didn’t go to war like a man. Talking ’bout it ain’t your war, it’s their war. That’s why I ain’t got me no children. You no count. You just no count.” Then she started laughing.
    Job told me and Ned to stay in the wagon till he came back. We sat out there two, maybe three hours. All that time we could hear that woman in the house fussing. They had a bayou behind the house and you could hear crickets and frogs on the bayou, but over all that noise you could hear that woman. When Job came back outside it was so dark we could hardly see him. He told us follow him to the crib. I had to wake up Ned and tell him come on. It was dark in the crib. The crib was hot and dry. I could feel dry grass under my feet, and the scent was strong. Job told us to go sit by the wall. I held my hand out till I touched the wall, then I sat down and pulled Ned down side me. Job was there now. I couldn’t see him too good, but I could smell him. His scent was strong as the grass scent.
    “Here,” he said.
    I reached my hand up in the dark and I touched his hand, than I took the piece of cornbread. It was wet on one end.
    “Piece for him,” he said.
    I gived Ned the piece I already had, then I reached for the piece Job was holding. He told us we could sleep there tonight, and tomorrow he was taking us somewhere else. We sat there in the dark eating the soggy bread. It had been dipped in pot liquor. Pot liquor that had been round couple days.
    When Ned got through eating he laid down and went back to sleep. I sat against the wall listening to that crazy woman till way up in the night. The warhad done that to lot of them, drove them crazy like that. More than once I started to wake Ned up and tell him let’s go. I even put my hand on his shoulder to shake him once. But he was so tired. And I was tired, too. I told myself I would just sit there and keep guard.
    The next morning when Job woke us up I was still sitting there against the wall.
    “Where we going?” I asked him.
    “Y’all friend Bone,” he said.
    “I don’t know nobody name no Bone,” I said.
    Job didn’t say another word. We clambed in the wagon. The woman was standing in the door fussing. Looking the same way she looked the day before. Like she hadn’t gone to bed, like she hadn’t closed her eyes or closed her mouth a second. We could hear her saying “no count” and “niggers” till we got out of sight. When Job was sure she couldn’t see us no more he reached in his pocket and brought out some pecans. That’s what we had for breakfast and dinner that day—pecans.
    I have seen some slow mules in my days, but the two pulling that wagon must have been the slowest yet. Two little brown mules not much bigger than Shetland ponies. You couldn’t even see them from the back of the wagon. Like the wagon was moving there slow and creaky all by itself. I wanted to sit on the board with Job, but he told me to get back. And a good thing I did because later that day we met up with two Secesh on horses. Before they got to us Job told us to stay quiet and let him do all the talking. When they got a little closer he pulled back on the mules to make them stop. He didn’t have to pull back hard.
    “See you got some niggers there,” one Secesh told him.
    “Yes,” Job said. “Can’t say they much, but you got to start with something, a fellow poor like me.”
    “Feed them, they’ll