The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Read online

  “What happened?” the white man asked the boy crying.

  The boy was crying too much to answer. He didn’t even try to answer. Ned was still laying there with the iron and the flint. The rest of the children was sitting up looking.

  “What happened?” the white man asked the boy again. “Don’t you have a tongue?” The boy had his mouth wide open, but nothing was coming out; then it all came out. “What happened?” the white man asked Ned. Ned just laid there with the flint and the iron. “You, what happened?” the white man asked another boy.

  The boy said, “Well, Claiborne there asked that little boy over there for one of them rocks and that little boy over there said no and Claiborne there said if that little boy over there didn’t give him one of them rocks Claiborne there was go’n take it. Claiborne there reached and tried to get the rock out that little boy there hand and that’s when that little boy over there konked Claiborne on the forrid. That’s how come Claiborne got a knot coming on his forrid right now.”

  “You got to get rid of them rocks,” the white man told Ned. Ned didn’t answer him, just laying there with that flint and that iron in his hands. “You hear me?” the white man said.

  “He don’t have to get rid of nothing,” I said, from the door. “He done brought them this far and we ’tend to keep on taking them. They for his mama. The Secesh killed his mama, and he can keep them if he want.”

  “You acting like you his mama,” the white man said.

  “I can’t be his mama because I ain’t no more than ’leven or twelve,” I said. “But I ain’t go’n let nobody mistreat him neither.”

  “Any more hitting with them rocks, I’m go’n take them from you myself,” the white man told Ned.

  “Tell that little old Claiborne boy go find his own rocks and Ned won’t need to hit him,” I said.

  “And you, Claiborne, you leave him alone,” the white man said. He blowed out the lamp and came to the door where I was. “And you, Miss Smarty, you better watch your tongue,” he said. “And get back to that other room.” When I walked away I heard him saying, “They told me not to leave, they told me not to come South. No, I want be friend to man. Now, they running me crazy.”

  I went back to my pallet, but I didn’t go to sleep right away, I listened to see if they was go’n try to do Ned something round there. But nothing happened.

  The next morning the children woke me up with their noises. We put on our clothes and went downstairs to eat. Sarah made us wash our face and hands first. The girls washed in one tub, the boys washed in another tub. Then Sarah gived us our food—cush-cush and milk.

  We wasn’t through eating before I heard a bell ringing somewhere. I asked another girl what that was for, and she said the big children had to go to work and the little children had to learn ABC. In the evening the big children had to learn ABC and numbers. They had to learn them, too, or they couldn’t go out and play.

  I had been thinking I might stay here a couple of days, but now everything had changed. ABC and numbers was something I wasn’t ready to start on yet. And the Lord knows I had heard enough bells in them ’leven or twelve years. I told Ned to have his flint and iron together by the time I went upstairs and got the bundle. The white man caught me coming out the room and asked me where I thought I was going.

  “Ohio,” I said.

  “O what?” he said.

  He followed me downstairs just fussing. But soon as he saw Ned with that flint and that iron he remembered Claiborne and left me alone. Him, Sarah and all the children stood on the gallery and watched us leave. They thought we was going little piece and we was go’n turn around and come back.

  We headed for the river. Now, in daytime, I could see this was a little town where we had spent the night. They had had some fighting here between the Yankees and the Secesh—I could see how some of the houses had caught fire. The place where me and Ned had stayed that night was a big white house probably had been owned by some rich white folks. When the Yankees came in they took it over and made it a home for colored children. So many of the children didn’t have nowhere to go, didn’t have nobody to look after them.

  Halfway to the river—now look what I see: two niggers in Yankee uniforms. I hadn’t seen any colored soldiers before then, and I thought these two was just clowning round.

  “Y’all real?” I asked.

  “What you want?” one of them said.

  “Y’all know a soldier called Mr. Brown?” I asked.

  “You mean the colonel, don’t you?” he said. “But I don’t know where he would have knowed you. You pretty young, ain’t you?”

  “Old enough to know I don’t care to know you,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” he said.

  “He from Ohio?” I asked.

  “He can be,” that nigger said. “When we play poker at night we talk about stakes, we don’t talk about States.”

  He slapped the other soldier on the back and laughed.

  “You don’t look like you talk too good about nothing,” I said. “I want see Mr. Brown.”

  “You do, huh?” he said. “Well, you see that building setting over there? Go in there and tell that white soldier you want talk to the colonel. If he say the colonel talking to General Grant, tell him that’s too bad, tell Grant wait.”

  Me and Ned started toward the house and they started laughing. When I looked back they was laughing so hard they had to hold on to each other to keep from falling down.

  “Not all colored is niggers, but them niggers back there,” I told Ned. “Yankee uniform or no Yankee uniform, they ain’t nothing but common niggers.”

  Time I came in the house the white soldier said: “Down the road. Ask one of them colored soldiers out there to point the way.”

  “I know that way already,” I said. “I’m headed from there. I like to see Mr. Brown.”

  “You mean Colonel Brown, don’t you?” he said. “And may I be so bold and ask you why?”

  “He know me,” I said.

  “Get out of here,” the soldier said.

  I took the bundle off my head and dropped it on the floor. The soldier looked at me a second and left the room. He was gone about an hour, then he came back. Ned was sitting down side the bundle, but I was still standing there.

  “Y’all still here?” he said.

  “I want see Mr. Brown,” I said.

  “The colonel busy,” he said. “Come back some other time.”

  “We going to Ohio,” I said.

  “Stop by on your way back,” he said. “The colonel ought to be free by then.”

  He started outside and I headed for that room I saw him come out of. He must have seen me over his shoulder and he hollered at me to stop, but I had already opened the door. Now I was sorry I had wasted all that time. All I saw in the room was an old man with white hair and white whiskers. Sitting behind a table full of papers.

  “Yes, private?” he said, raising his head. Then he saw me—and he almost jumped out of that chair. “What in the world? Who sent you here?” he asked.

  The other soldier came in and said: “I’ll get her out of here, colonel, sir. Get out of here, you,” he said to me.

  “No, let her speak,” the colonel said.

  “I thought you was Mr. Brown,” I said.

  “I’m Colonel Brown,” he said.

  “You ain’t the right one,” I said. “The other one was young and he was running Secesh. He gived me my name.”

  “Where you from, child?” the colonel asked.

  “Master Bryant plantation,” I said.

  The colonel turned round in his chair and looked at a big map on the wall. All the time he was looking at the map he was going, “Hummmm, hummmm, hummmm.” I pulled the door quietly and went out. I picked up my bundle and told Ned come on.

  When we came up to the river we turned toward the sun. We was going so far this way, then we was go’n turn North again. If I had knowed anything about traveling we could ’a’ headed North from where we
had spent the night, but being so young and ignorant I thought I had to start back where I had come from the day before.

  Soon as we lost sight of town we took to the bushes. You couldn’t ever tell who you was go’n meet ’long the road, and we was too far from town to holler for help. We walked, we walked, we walked. The Yankees and Secesh had battled here, too. You could see how the Yankees had burned everything in sight. The ground was still black. The trees looked like black posts, no leaves, no moss, no limbs. When the sun got straight up in the sky we found a shady place in a ditch and sat down. I was so tired I felt like sitting there all day, but I knowed I had to keep going. Once I stopped moving that was go’n be the end for me and Ned. I looked at him sitting there and I asked him if he was all right. He nodded his head.

  “Well, let’s go some more,” I said.

  Late that evening I spotted a house setting cross the field. It wasn’t in the direction we was going—it was in the West—but I wanted to know if we was headed right. We started for the house. Even before I reached the yard I could see poor white trash lived there. A little garden side the house, an old dress on the clothesline, a little scrawny woodpile in the back yard. A dog tied with a chain started barking at us when we came up to the gate. A woman in overalls looked out the door. She was poor and skinny, and she looked mean as she was poor.

  “You can tell me if this the way to Ohio?” I asked her.

  She looked at me, but she didn’t say a thing.

  “Please ma’am,” I said.

  “You don’t get away from my gate, I’m go’n let that dog point the way to Ohio,” she said. “Get away from my gate.”

  “I just want know if I’m headed right,” I said.

  “I don’t know nothing ’bout no Ohio,” she said. “And if you don’t move from there like I done already told you I’m go’n turn that dog loose.”

  “We leaving,” I said. “Can you tell me if y’all got a spring round here? Me and this little boy awful thirsty.”

  “You don’t see no spring, do you?” she said.

  “No ma’am.”

  She didn’t say another word, she just stood in the door looking at us. I told Ned come on. She didn’t say a thing till we got to the end of the fence, then she told us to stop. When I looked back toward the house I couldn’t see her. But a few minutes later I saw her coming back with a cup of water. We met her at the gate. When I reached for the cup she pulled it back.

  “You think I’m go’n let you put your black mouth on this cup?” she said. “Hold out your hands.”

  I cupped my hands together. The water was warm. I reckoned she had got it out a bucket or a tub setting in the sun. Ned didn’t know how to hold his hands together, and I had to cup my hands again so he could drink. Long as we was standing there the woman was fussing at us.

  “Don’t think I love niggers just because I’m giving y’all water,” she was saying. “I hate y’all. Hate y’all with all my heart. Doing it because I’m a God-fearing Christian. I hate niggers with all my heart. Y’all cause of all this trouble, all this ravishing. Yankee and nigger soldiers all over the place stealing my hogs and chickens. Y’all cause of it all. I hope the good white people round here kill all y’all off. Hope they kill y’all before the night over. I’m go’n tell them which way y’all went, and I’m go’n tell them go kill y’all. Now, get away from here. Get away from here before I kill y’all myself. If I wasn’t a God-fearing Christian I’d kill y’all myself.”

  I thanked her for the water and told Ned come on. We went East till sundown, then we swung back North.

  The Hunter

  Night caught us but we kept going, traveling by the North Star all the time. I reckoned it had been dark about three hours when we came in a thicket of pine trees, and I smelled food cooking. I stopped quickly and held out my arms so Ned would be quiet. I turned my head and turned my head, but I couldn’t see the fire or the smoke. Now, I didn’t know what to do—go back, go forward, or move to one side.

  Then somebody spoke: “Now, don’t this just beat everything.”

  I turned around so fast I dropped the bundle on the ground. But I felt much better when I saw another black face standing there looking down on us. He had a green stick about the size and link of a bean pole. He had come on us so quietly he could have killed both of us with that stick before we even saw him.

  “What the world y’all doing way out here?” he said. “Y’all by y’all self?”

  “Just me and this little boy,” I said.

  “Lord, have mercy,” he said. He was one of the fussin’est people I had ever seen. “Y’all come on over here,” he said.

  I picked up my bundle and me and Ned followed him back to his camp. He had a rabbit cooking on the fire. He nodded for me and Ned to sit down. I saw a bow and arrows leaning against one of the trees. The man squatted by the fire and looked at us.

  “Now, where the world y’all think y’all going?” he said.

  “Ohio,” I said.

  “My Lord, my Lord,” he said. “I done seen things these last few weeks, but if this don’t beat everything, I don’t know. Coming and going, coming and going, and they don’t bit more know what they doing than that rabbit I got cooking on that fire there. I bet y’all hungry.”

  “We got something to eat,” I said.

  “What, potatoes and corn y’all done stole?” he said. “Don’t have to tell me, I already know. I done met others just like y’all.”

  He took the rabbit off the fire and laid it on the leaves he had spread out on the ground. Then he took a knife from his belt and cut the rabbit up in three pieces. When it had cooled off good he handed me and Ned a piece. He had seasoned it down good with wild onions that he had found out there in the swamps.

  “You going North?” I asked him.

  “No, I’m where I’m going right now,” he said. “South.”

  I quit eating. “You got to be crazy,” I said.

  “I reckoned you got all the sense, dragging that child through the swamps all time of night,” he said. “Good thing I’m a friend, not an enemy. I heard y’all long time before you stopped back there listening. I had been leaning on that pole so long I was fixing to fall asleep.”

  “We was quiet,” I said.

  “Quiet for you, not for me,” he said. “A dog ain’t got nothing on these yers. What you think keeping me going, potatoes and corn?”

  I didn’t answer him. The rabbit was good, but I didn’t want show him how much I liked it. Just nibbling here and there like I was particular.

  “Who you know in Ohio?” he asked me.

  “Just Mr. Brown,” I said.

  “Mr. Brown who?”

  “Mr. Brown, a Yankee soldier,” I said.

  “Lord, have mercy,” the hunter said, shaking his head. “Now, I done heard everything.”

  “How come you going back South?” I said.

  “What?” he said. He wasn’t eating, he was thinking about me looking for Brown. “I’m looking for my pappy,” he said. But looked like he was still thinking about me looking for Brown.

  “Your mama dead?” I asked.

  “What?” he said. He looked at me. “No, my mama ain’t dead.” He just looked at me a good while like he was thinking about me looking for Brown. “I know where she at,” he said. “I want find him now.”

  “Y’all used to stay here in Luzana?” I asked.

  “What?” he said.

  “Your daddy and y’all?”

  “When they sold him he was in Mi’sippi,” the hunter said. “I don’t know where he at now.”

  “Then how you know where to look for him?” I asked.

  He got mad with me now. “I’m go’n do just what you doing with that child,” he said. “Look everywhere. But I got little more sense.”

  “Well, if you was beat all the time you’d be running away, too,” I said.

  “I was beat,” he said. “Don’t go round here bragging like you got all the beating.”

  I
ate and sucked on the bone. I didn’t want argue with him no more.

  “Who was them other people you seen?” I asked him. “Any of them going to Ohio?”

  “They was going everywhere,” he said. “Some say Ohio, some say Kansas—some say Canada. Some of them even said Luzana and Mi’sippi.”

  “Luzana and Mi’sippi ain’t North,” I said.

  “That’s right, it ain’t North,” the hunter said. “But they had left out just like you, a few potatoes and another old dress. No map, no guide, no nothing. Like freedom was a place coming to meet them half way. Well, it ain’t coming to meet you. And it might not be there when you get there, either.”

  “We ain’t giving up,” I said. “We done gone this far.”

  “How far?” he asked me. “How long you been traveling?”

  “Three days,” I said.

  “And how far you think you done got in three days?” he said. “You ain’t even left that plantation yet. I ought to know. I been going and going and I ain’t nowhere, yet, myself. Just searching and searching.”

  When he said this he looked like he wanted to cry, and I didn’t look at him, I looked at Ned. Ned had laid down on the ground and gone to sleep. He still had the flint and iron in his hands.

  I told the hunter about the Secesh who had killed Ned’s mama and the other people. He told me he had seen some of the Secesh handywork, too. Earlier that same day he had cut a man down and buried him that the Secesh had hung. After hanging him they had gashed out his entrails.

  “What they do all that for?” I asked.

  “Lesson to other niggers,” he said.

  We sat there talking and talking. Both of us was glad we had somebody to talk to. I asked him about the bow and arrows. He told me he had made it to shoot rabbits and birds. Sometimes he even got a fish or two. I told him I bet I could use it. He said I didn’t have the strength. He said it took a man to pull back on that bow. I asked him what he knowed about my strength. But he kept quiet. After a while he said: “Y’all want me lead y’all back where y’all come from?”