Black Sadie

Front matter

Black Sadie By T. Bowyer Campbell

Here is a first novel without a dull page. From first to last, it sets a fast pace, carrying the reader forward with the irresistible stir and beat of a night-club orchestra.

'Black Sadie' is a dusky imp who was borne in on the crest of the 'negro fad' just before the War. Gradually she learned to speak like the whites, forsake her low-born Southern friends for high-class Harlem 'yallers,' pose as a model, and dance at a famous night-club named in her honor.

Part 1

Black Sadie's father was hanged several months before she was born. Lightfoot Mose died on the gallows for raping an old white woman. He descried her one evening in her cowshed milking her cow. It was an easy matter for him to throttle her. Two hours later the sheriff caught Mose hiding in the high pokeweeds behind Aunt Nancy Ritchie's cabin, and in a brief time Mose found himself in jail. His victim exhibited to all the proper authorities the two blue handprints on her scraggly neck well down towards the shoulders. In a day or so she got out of bed and occupied herself with her usual domestic duties.

Nevertheless Lightfoot Mose was condemned to be hanged. He quite enjoyed the publicity incident to the trial. The notoriety was a distinction. The courtroom was filled with all his colored friends and acquaintance, and the white people made much of the occasion too. Mose was pleased and gratified at the amount of attention he got. But Mose's hanging was private. He regretted that. It seemed an anticlimax. His friends regretted it too, So did, the Ritchie family, though Mose did not belong to their clan save by a most brief liaison with one of Aunt Nancy's daughters. Ella Ritchie, quick to assume importance, disclosed the fact that she was with child and that 'Mr. Mose' had been her friend and was responsible for her condition. She bragged about it up and down the neighborhood.

Old Nancy thereupon conceived it devolved upon her to administer a public beating to her wayward daughter. The kin and acquaintance of the family would expect some demonstration, and it would be timely as an extra flourish to the already pleasing importance of the family. A gratifyingly large number of people assembled at the sound of Nancy's rich imprecations. But Unc' Amos interposed between the angry negress and the girl. Aunt Nancy was foiled. She flung down her broomstick, struck an attitude, and delivered a peroration suitable to the occasion. She wished all and sundry to understand that the Scripture proved her magnanimity in sparing Ella a castigation. In this case it little behooved her to cast the first stone, or, as it happened to be, a broomstick, at the guilty one, because . . . and she decorated aptly the account of the woman taken in adultery in the Gospel. Two of Nancy's own sons, Beau Jim and Lucky Andrew, were themselves illegitimate. Nancy regretted that no one had ever been hanged for her glory and distinction. Some even tarried in the penumbra of her favor to subsist on viands of her providing, though if the bounty were traced to its source it would be found to come from the rich opportunities of Ole Miss's kitchen, where Nancy flourished as cook in ordinary.

Mose was converted in the jail. As he walked to the gallows, he ruminated with pride on the unprecedented glory of his approaching obsequies. After the hanging, everybody went to the funeral at Shiloh Baptist Church. Ella went too, supported on the arm and bosom of her affectionate mother. They were accorded places with the chief mourners. Both women wailed and lamented with becoming vigor and importance. That was consoling to all. At appropriate climaxes Ella fainted dead away, and Nancy called on heaven to witness the justice of her cause. But in fact the congregation witnessed to Ella's perceptibly enlarging form.

Five months later Black Sadie was born. Ella died at the same time. Aunt Nancy wrapped the inky morsel of humanity in red flannel rags and deposited her in Ole Miss's empty clothes-basket. Ella was laid out on the ironing-board propped on two chairs. Everybody came to see. She was a fine sight with twenty-five-cent pieces on her eyes and patent-leather shoes on her feet. Ole Miss gave the shoes to Nancy from Mr. Tom's closet. Nancy was proud. The Ritchie family felt sated with importance. The funeral was Sunday afternoon.

Black Sadie had convulsions. Even at six weeks old she was manifestly destined to fame . . . a hanged father, a dead mother, convulsions. The Ritchie household was greatly upset. Unc' Amos shifted his 'buck-eye hoss-ches'nut' from the right hip pocket to the left to change the 'luck.' Aunt Thorry (a collapsed form of Dorothy) advised 'medicine,' vaguely. Queer Sister sat on the edge of the woodbox laughing uproariously. But Aunt Nancy rendered rabbit fat and oiled the infant. Black Sadie pulled through.

She got her teeth later, not without effort on her part and sharp reprimand from those whose slumbers were disturbed by her wails. Sleeping quarters at Aunt Nancy's were congested at best. Beau Jim, perhaps to brazen out his own questionable origin, threatened to throw the bastard brat out in the cornfield. Aunt Thorry guffawed at this humorous subtlety, while Unc' Amos, peering down from his sleeping accommodations in the loft, observed that 'God would judge.' The teething was a severe test of the family loyalty to Ella's baby. When it was safely over, it was plain that Black Sadie's position in the family was sound beyond a doubt. Innocent babe, her personality scored a triumph over the inimically disposed elders of the Ritchie clan.

When Sadie was five, Lucky Andrew gave her two two-cent pieces he had come by in a crap game. Unc' Amos bored holes in them and Aunt Thorry strung the coins on bits of silver wire to make earrings. She twitched and pinched the lobes of Black Sadie's ears till they tingled and lost all feeling; then she punctured them with a large needle and inserted waxed thread in the holes to keep them open. When the perforations healed, she adorned the little pickaninny with the dangling copper ornaments. Sadie was very proud of them. She shook her head continually to feel the delightful weight of the two-cent pieces. The arrogant oscillations made Queer Sister jealous. It was delicious to elude the clumsy idiot girl by dexterous runs and dives.

Once in two weeks Aunt Nancy combed out Sadie's nappy hair. It was kinky, abundant, obstinate. Aunt Nancy pinioned the reluctant child between vicelike knees, arms immovable, legs helpless, and then she divided the scalp into a great number of small squares, gathered up the wool in each into tiny, tight plaits. Each plait she bound with bits of red or white twine. The result had the appearance of a small cocoanut stuck all over with spines. Black Sadie wriggled and wept throughout the ordeal, but when the travail was over, she admired exceedingly the elegant coiffure. It was a work of art and a marvel.

Aunt Nancy was cook for Ole Miss at the big house. It was a lucrative position for her. Ole Miss was very kind, and she shut her eyes to Nancy's many shortcomings and predatory ways. Peace is a valuable asset in any household. Ole Miss gave simple orders in the pantry, but she kept a blind eye for the kitchen. Nancy ruled and occupied entirely her own domain.

Aunt Nancy promised Black Sadie daily lodgment in the kitchen when she came to six years old. But before that day arrived, Ole Miss had already encountered little Black Sadie. The meeting was very embarrassing for both. They felt the strain in wholly different ways. It was summer. Sadie cooled her toes in the trickle of water in the gutter in front of her home. Ole Miss came by, walking slowly on the high plank walk above the street. Her black silk skirts made a charming sound about her well-shod heels. Sadie wore a single calico shift, much soiled with grease and drippings from her infantile nostrils. When she saw Ole Miss, high and grand and terrifying, on the walkway above her, she lifted the shift to cover her embarrassed head. That was all of little Black Sadie that was covered. Three small males, also in the gutter, became hilarious at the sight and uttered many cutting and apposite remarks. When Ole Miss got home, she spoke sharply to Nancy and gave her an old chemise with peremptory orders to make drawers for her granddaughter. Thus Sadie's wardrobe began and her vanity enlarged at the same time. Drawers have a genuine psychic importance.

Aunt Thorry had a daughter. Her name was Quecene (an attractive vocalization caught by Nancy's ear from frequent remarks of Ole Miss relative to the housekeeping). Quecene was seventeen years old when Black Sadie turned five. She was very proud. Black Sadie admired her august cousin, but she worshiped from afar. Quecene rarely deigned to admit the fact of Sadie's existence; when she did so condescend the recognition was apt to be violent and quite unpleasant for Sadie.

Quecene was a good laundress. She served in that capacity to Ole Miss's household. On Monday mornings she carried home the huge bundle of bed and table linen balanced like a vast turban on her head, and the hamper of sundries she supported with one hand while Nancy's twelve-year-old Dave grasped the handle on the other side. On Friday nights the wash was returned to the big house. The intervening days of the week afforded Quecene many leisure opportunities to disport herself in such items of wearing apparel as pleased her fancy. Mr. Tom's collars gave quite a distinguished finish to her own gingham shirt-waists.

Sadie often contrived bundles of rags and clothes and practiced carrying them on her head after the fashion of Quecene with the mountainous turban of wash. Aunt Thorry delighted in this infantile mimicry. She previsaged in Sadie a competent laundress and said as much. The game entertained Queer Sister also. But Quecene considered it impertinent and offensive. If she caught the little nigger at it, she smacked her face. Tears, upbraidings, sulking pouts followed such scenes, the different emotions appropriate to the reactions of the several persons concerned.

Once, on Thursday, Quecene had finished the wash for the week, all but ironing the sheets. They still flapped drying on the line. The day was very cold, so cold that it made Sadie think of snow. She went out in the back yard to observe the condition of the sky. But the sky was crystal clear. There was no chance of snow. Sadie's preoccupation with the thought became entangled with the sight of the vast white sheets billowing in the wind. Spread out on the earth they would look just like snow. It was an intriguing, provocative idea. Sadie generously gave one glance toward the cabin door as if to give Quecene at least one sporting chance to interfere, but that worthy's star was at the moment in eclipse. Very quickly Sadie tore down all the sheets and the ground was soon white with an excellent semblance of snow. Sadie romped riotously over the drifts. It was most exhilarating. She was wholly unprepared for the sudden and furious arrival of Quecene. That unreasonable and irate person threatened scalding water and a red-hot poker.

Sadie fled before the tempest. She made her way straight to Ole Miss's kitchen and the cover of Aunt Nancy's capacious authority and power. She blubbered out a tragic story of Quecene's unwarrantable wrath and was appeased with baked sweet potato and Aunt Nancy's threats 'to wallop 'at yaller gal fer hollerin' at my chile.' Here Beau Jim discovered Sadie, when he arrived at dark 'to see Ma home.' He said that Quecene still cursed and wept, vowing vengeance, and that Aunt Thorry 'had a spell' because she thought Black Sadie was lost in Bollin's woods. Under double protection and with determined resolves forming in her thin breast, Black Sadie walked meekly home between Aunt Nancy and Beau Jim. 'She shan't tetch yer,' said Aunt Nancy. 'I'll bash in her haid,' said Beau Jim.

Thenceforward, every day, Black Sadie accompanied Aunt Nancy to the kitchen at the big house. She sat in the big, smoky place throughout the day, connecting her small person with delectable viands that came her way from time to time. At evening Aunt Nancy would give her a small pail to 'tote,' and she would go home under the immediate escort of her protectress and Beau Jim, or Lucky Andrew, followed by Dave, or one of the other boys. After many weeks Quecene forgot her grudge. Safety and calm became again the portion of the small black child. But the precedent of spending the days in Ole Miss's kitchen was established, and Black Sadie had no mind to break the custom.

Ole Miss was aware of the fact that Nancy largely fed her tribe from the big house larder. She sometimes saw the procession of Ritchies wending its way at evening, homeward bound, each member but half concealing a comestible burden. But Ole Miss was wise. She reminded herself of the Pauline doctrine that where there is no law there is no sin. So charity abounded, and much provender changed hands undesignated as stolen food.

Aunt Nancy soon grew accustomed to hav- ing Sadie with her. She sat quiet and inoffensive in the shadows by the biscuit block. After a while she really enjoyed the child's companionship. She was a more desirable auditor than the cat for her varied remarks and reflections, though Sadie herself rarely said a word. She found her useful also for running errands between the house and the kitchen, and Sadie gained the approbation of Ole Miss by holding things for Aunt Nancy when that personage repaired every morning to the storeroom door to receive the quota of supplies for the day.

One day Ole Miss placed aside on a platter a pound or two of hard, fresh butter. Later she turned to cut off some for Nancy's cooking ration. The butter was nowhere to be seen. Where had it gone? The gaze of Ole Miss came to rest on Sadie. The abdomen of that minute person was unduly protuberous. Sadie supported its bulging weight with both hands. But the butter was already well beyond control. The front of Sadie's calico dress grew dark and oily with the melting grease. It oozed through the thin fabric of the garment, surrounding the clutching fingers; it flowed sluggishly in thick yellow blobs down Sadie's spindling black legs. Ole Miss said that Sadie must never come to the storeroom again. She was shocked and surprised that she should have stolen butter and hidden it under her dress. Aunt Nancy was shocked and surprised, too, but her mortification lay in shame for Sadie's maladroit maneuver and the detection. True Ritchies were never caught. Black Sadie wept beside the biscuit block disgraced.

The sad event solicited the notice and chagrin of Miss Belle. She felt sorry for Sadie and wished to do her good. It was very sad that the black people grew up without instruction in right principles and noble ideals. Miss Belle thought Sadie ought to be guided and instructed. For her a knowledge between good and evil seemed an immediate necessity. So Miss Belle constituted herself preceptress.

Miss Belle was Ole Miss's maiden daughter, no longer quite young. She clung to the fancies and fashions of her girlhood and wore bunches of sandy curls over each ear and a waterfall behind. She supported basques and gores, and her sleeves were called 'mutton-leg.' Miss Belle practiced gavottes and études on the square piano in the parlor for an hour every afternoon. On Sundays she played hymns and sang them in a thin but not unmusical soprano. She had a little work-table constructed of willow sticks. The bark was still on, and the tops, where they had been sawed off, were elegantly gilded. The arrangement of the sticks was most artistically haphazard. A band of red ribbon girdled the table's irrational middle, and wicker pockets hung over the sides. In them Miss Belle kept her 'work.'

At this little work-table, every day after the episode of the butter, Sadie sat on one side and Miss Belle on the other while she gave the little negress lessons. She taught her to know the letters and to spell by syllables . . . a-b AB, e-b EB, i-b IB, o-b OB, u-b UB, and so on. Miss Belle taught Sadie to count, to tell the time on the face of a clock, to read the days and seasons on the calendar, and to embroider daisies on a piece of red silk. She read a chapter in the Bible every morning and explained to Sadie about heaven. Sadie already knew a good deal about hell. She had learned it from the conversations of her elder kith and kin when they were angry.

Instructions continued for two years. Black Sadie maintained the outward mien of docile though nondescript pupil. But she learned to read and to cipher. She could also repeat from memory 'Once in Royal David's City' and 'I Think When I Read That Sweet Story of Old,' and Miss Belle hoped that the day would come when she would be able to remember the words of the collects in the Prayer Book. Sadie could say 'Our Father' with her hands folded and her eyes shut. On the whole she was a creditable pupil. Miss Belle felt pleased with her.

But now and then small objects of no great value disappeared from tray or pincushion on Miss Belle's bureau . . . a pin, a cuff-link, a small tortoise-shell comb, and such like. Miss Belle would be grieved, but she would not despair. She thought it wiser not to tax Sadie with pilfering, but to try to turn her heart and waken her conscience by gentle and loving instruction. Sadie liked the gentleness and love, while she appreciated the opportunities for enlarging her possessions. The instruction did not seem in her eyes quite necessary or profitable, but she never allowed it to disturb her soul or cloud the demure aspect of her countenance.

In the spring each year, Ole Miss, a shawl over her head and her square, leather key basket on her arm, busied herself out-of-doors. She superintended Unc' Roes in the garden, or on the lawns, or attended to the setting of her hens. There was much to be done in the dark of the moon in March. In the garden, the tubers of all sorts had to be planted, the garden squares ploughed, and the asparagus bed burned off; the lawns must be raked and the flower beds prepared for planting; all the chickens had to be kerosened under their wings and on top of their heads on each side of the red combs. In the house, all the beds were dismantled. A feather, dipped in a concoction of oil, salt, and poison, was drawn firmly along the jointures of the bedsteads and down the seams and around the leather rosettes of the mattresses. These ceremonies and precautions were never omitted. Ole Miss directed them all.

One day Ole Miss ordered the annual holocaust of the asparagus bed. For weeks Unc' Roes had dragged brushwood, rakings from the lawn, empty barrels and boxes from the cellars, all the litter of the place, and piled up the asparagus bed ready for the burning. At the fiat for fire Black Sadie thrilled with delight. She wished ardently to help, but she was too shy to make herself conspicuous and her tactics were never obtrusive in any private undertaking of her own. In this instance she followed Unc' Roes at a distance into the garden and waited beside the gate while he went to fetch his rake with which to control the fallings from the fire. He had put a long piece of twisted paper and a box of matches on the scantling of the garden fence. Black Sadie saw him lay them there. Sadie eyed the tempting combustibles. She waited a long time for Unc' Roes's return. He delayed aggravatingly. Sadie conceived the thought of hastening matters by just kindling the fire herself. A blazing fire was the immediate object of her soul. She was not quite sure where or what the asparagus bed was, but she saw a stand of high dead grass in the bottom of the garden below the grape arbors. It would make a lovely fire. Sadie assured herself that the grass lot could be no other than the asparagus bed. The question settled to her satisfaction, she lit her torch and proceeded to apply it.

The fire in the high grass was an unexpected surprise. A great many people came to see. They trampled down the newly turned garden plots and the flower beds on the lawn. Several panels of paling fence were destroyed, but the carriage house and the gentlemen's privy (cryptically called 'Number Ten') behind it were saved from the flames. Fighting the fire was very exciting. Black Sadie danced with joy when the ancient carriage, unused for many years, came rolling out of the big doors to a safe place in the yard. Sadie put down the steps of the carriage and climbed in. She sat on the driver's box and played 'driving' the rest of the afternoon.

When the fire was over and Ole Miss was drinking sangaree to restore her nerves, Unc' Roes committed a tactical blunder. It deflected the normal development of his career, eliminating him from that sphere of the industrial world in which until this time he had every reason to suppose himself a part. He came to Ole Miss and said, 'Now, Miss, mus' I burn dat sparry-grass bed?' It was more than Ole Miss could endure after the alarms and dangers of the afternoon. She also blamed her gardener for the fire, no one having sufficient information to enlighten her to the contrary. 'Roes, I will pay you your wages and you may leave my employ. I cannot trust you at all.' So Unc' Roes moved the same evening from his room over the stable at Ole Miss's to a lean-to at Aunt Nancy's cabin. He complained of 'rheumatiz' and 'misery' to account for the reversal of his fortunes. He himself was much too mystified as to the origin of the fire to lay the blame on anybody. He felt so discouraged that he never sought for work again, but settled down into an indigent old age on Nancy's bounty. Black Sadie was very sorry for Unc' Roes. He seemed so sad.

In the early months of the summer Ole Miss's hens strutted forth surrounded by flocks of yellow chicks. Black Sadie loved them dearly. At feeding-time she was allowed to throw the soft mushy food through the slats of the feeding-coops. The fluffy little fowls ran in and out pecking up the food, the mother hens clucked pompously on the outside. Once a large dominica matron, a quarrelsome, irritable fowl, took offense at Sadie's too close attentions to her brood. She flew up in the child's face with a furious onslaught. Black Sadie screamed with terror. Ole Miss called loudly for help. Aunt Nancy came to the rescue. Ole Miss ordered the irate dominica to be slain then and there and her brood to be distributed amongst the flocks of less belliger- ent mothers. It was done. Sadie was appeased and helped to pluck the carcass of her enemy. It was not good for much, being very tough and thin after the brooding. Aunt Nancy saved the breast feathers for a pillow. The two wings were spread out and fastened down by heavy flatirons. Ole Miss said Sadie might have one for a fan.

By July or August the chickens were large enough to broil or fry. Every day Aunt Nancy cut off the heads of several of the likeliest. The execution came as complete surprise to the chickens, who had hitherto fancied themselves as the highly privileged among fowls. As at the hatching, so at the death, Black Sadie was on hand to assist. When the axe fell, she leapt with nervous glee well out of range of the convulsive plunges of the headless victims. Later she gathered up all the heads, pulled open the soft yellow eyelids, and poked straws down the beaks. The ends of the straws stuck out of the severed gullets.

But Ole Miss's chickens fascinated others than Sadie in the Ritchie family. Sadie found them satisfactory enough alive or dead on the premises of the big house, but Aunt Nancy had a fancy for carrying them home to her cabin. Unc' Roes, now a permanent pensioner in the cabin, and Unc' Amos liked fried chicken. Obviously they had to eat something. What better than chicken? Even Queer Sister showed an epicurean discernment between chicken and less succulent viands. Under protection of stormy nights, Lucky Andrew and Beau Jim also obeyed a cosmic urge for chicken-stealing. They made successful visits to the hen roost at the big house. Black Sadie exulted in these nocturnal triumphs. Late at night, when she heard the fall of the cover on the box behind the stove where the booty was confined, she would think of the drop of the gallows trap, which she had repeatedly heard foretold as the doom for which the boys were destined. In the morning she would peep through the cracks at the captured chickens and whisper: 'Ya'll soon be daid. Oh-yo!'

Ole Miss had a grandson. His name was Mr. Tom. His mother was dead and his father was a ne'er-do-well who had run away. Mr. Tom lived with his grandmother and his aunt, Miss Belle. The day he was twenty-one Ole Miss gave him a buggy. It had rubber-tired, yellow wheels. The whip flaunted a bright red ribbon. When Mr. Tom drove out in his buggy, he wore a straw hat in the summertime and a derby in the winter; a linen robe covered his knees in the one season and a frayed bearskin in the other. He used to take young ladies of his acquaintance for the air.

Black Sadie considered Mr. Tom a paragon of men. She admired his person and she admired his elegant clothes. 'Poor Tom has a race-track taste in dress,' sighed Ole Miss at his flashy wardrobe. 'Ain't he jes' gran'?' said Aunt Nancy, when he passed under the kitchen window. Black Sadie sometimes found opportunities, when Mr. Tom was gone and Ole Miss slept on the library sofa and Miss Belle practiced on the piano, to steal up to his room and, hiding behind the half-closed closet door, try on the tan shoes with the cloth tops and the shiny row of buttons down the sides. The shoes were far too big for Sadie, but she gloried in the roomy elegance. Sometimes she would even venture outside the stuffy closet into the vaster freedom of the room. Here she would make a stealthy peregrination, sliding her feet around with a skating motion and admiring herself in the oblique pier-glass between the windows.

Often when Mr. Tom drove out of the yard, Black Sadie would run behind the yellow-wheeled buggy to close the gate after him. Once she did not return immediately to Aunt Nancy and the kitchen. She tarried at the gate to see Mr. Tom drive past with the lady of the day. She pushed her small person well out of sight under the beetling hedge and sat down on a stone. Presently the buggy came, rolling down the road. Beside Mr. Tom jounced Miss Flora Lee, holding a green silk parasol at a bewitching angle over her shoulder. Sadie darted out from her hiding-place to follow the flashing yellow wheels. She caught hold of the box at the back and swung her feet clear of the ground. The vehicle carried her forward fast as the wind. Sadie could feel the ticklish draughts about her legs. She hoisted herself into the box. The buggy drove on for miles. Sadie grew tired and drowsy. She lay down on the floor and was soon asleep. She was awakened by a scream. It was Miss Flora Lee. Sadie was discovered. Mr. Tom was furious. They drove back to town, Sadie standing up in the box and holding on to the back of the seat. Mr. Tom would not speak a word. Miss Flora Lee laughed a great deal and asked Sadie many pointed questions.

'If you damned little snotty coon ever climb in my buggy again,' swore Mr. Tom to Sadie, when he got her by herself, 'I'll horsewhip the livin' hide off you. I don't want to ever see you in my grandma's kitchen again either. So get out and go home.'

Mr. Tom had exacted from Ole Miss the promise of Sadie's banishment as some slight satisfaction for the humiliating wrongs suffered at her' hands. And Ole Miss was stern in her complaint to Nancy about Sadie's unprecedented behavior, but Ole Miss and Miss Belle laughed merrily over the affair, unknown to Mr. Tom or Sadie. Nevertheless Sadie had to depart from the kitchen at the big house. Aunt Nancy grumbled in private, but she did not protest the mandate. She said: Tain't fer long,' and, 'Jess you wait.' But Black Sadie felt that life was over.

Black Sadie was now eight years old. Dave and Kiddo and Joe, three male relatives of indefinable kinship, received her into their company. They ranged the fields and woods together, wild and impudent and provocative. They gathered birds' nests, pilfered fruit from orchards, stoned the cattle, and thrust sticks and sods into springs. They gathered poke-berries to make paint and medicine. With the paint, they scrawled Repent on white board fences; the medicine was forcibly administered to Aunt Thorry's tame crow. The crow died. In the autumn nuts were plentiful, chestnuts and chinquapins. Sadie hoarded her gatherings, boiled them in a tin can, and strung them into lengthy necklaces. From these edible ornaments she fed at frequent intervals of time and space.