African Americans -- Louisiana -- Gretna -- Fiction; Short stories, American
What kind of inheritance did some of the white folks sittin’ up in the
court house have? Lizzie wanted to know. Did Mr. Felo ever take notice
how many of the people holdin’ high office in the court house, ain’t been
connected with nothin’ but cows, one generation to another?... Who?...
She could look back long as she knowed, and could tell about the time
when their gramma and grampa went grassin’ ’long-side the railroad track
with a wheel-barrow.... And the many times she seen their parents pushin’
cows to the pasture back and forth.... And right now, she could call
the name of _plenty_ of them drawin’ pay from the court house, what was
makin’ extra change, sellin’ cream cheese and buttermilk from the cows
they had in their yard.... And was that kind o’ practice-habit the thing
Mr. Felo wanted to call inheritance?... Who? She asked him, laughing with
great amusement.... A grass sickle, cows, and some cream cheese moulds
wasn’t nothin’ she could see to make people set up and put on airs like
folks what comed from a family of ’ridginy people....
“But w’at all dis hist’ry got to do wid Chester goin’ away from Gritny?”
Felo asked with eager curiosity.
It had plenty to do with it; Lizzie assured him. She was sharp enough to
know what would happen if people kept on talkin’ about Chester and Tempe
and the needle and the fatal switch engine; tryin’ to make him answer for
somethin’ when he wasn’t guilty.... No indeed. She wasn’t goin’ to take
no fool chances with court-house people she knowed so good.... White
folks what always bin used to somh’n, never was hard on niggers; even way
back in Reb’-time days. And anybody ever bin had any traffic with them
could tell you the same thing.... And Mr. Felo could ask his Ma Fanny,
and find out for himself she wasn’t tellin’ no lie. ’Cause all the people
along the coast knowed the hist’ry about the Derbignys and the Garderes
and the De Gruy family, and some them yuther plantation people what
always had somh’n; and how they was good to their cullud folks.... Even
today....
“But who wan’ put inny pennunce in shoo-fly people an’ off-springs?” She
asked indignantly. “No indeed, Lawd! Not Lizzie Cole.... No matter if
her father is a preacher o’ de gospel, an’ tries to make her b’lieve she
gotta love her neighbor like she love herself.... Who? Mr. Felo think she
goin’ study ’bout givin’ people love an’ trus’, w’en she look back an’
ain’ see nothin’ behin’ ’um but a ginneration o’ cattle an’ cows?” ...
“An’ you ain’ goin’ leave none yo’ own color know whah Chester gone to?”
Felo asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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