I am sure, reader, that there be tasks round and about your own household which you likewise find tiresome: the dusting of china ornaments upon an open shelf, the plumping of cushions, fancy needlework upon a stocking, may be your example. But before you slap this book shut in frustration at your storyteller having strayed so far from her tale, let me bring you back so you can find reason within this old woman’s diversion. For it is at this point within my story, reader, that we must once more seek out Kitty. It is at this time that we must walk again within the company of that field slave that is our July’s mama.
Kitty had, many years before, been persuaded by Miss Rose’s tireless pestering that risking the massa’s wrath by every night taking that rutted path to climb the low stone wall and hide like a jumbie in the window of the great house was not wise. ‘Your pickney not sold away, Miss Kitty,’ Miss Rose had said. ‘She here seeing sun-up and sun-down in same sky as you and me. You wan’ be lock-up in the stock for seeing that? T’ink on it, Miss Kitty, and save your pity. You might chance you pickney any season.’
And it was true. Kitty had seen July on a few occasions during the eight or so years that had passed. Whilst pressing at the window of the great house, Kitty had first spied July tethered to a table leg by a long yellow ribbon about her wrist. Then once, from a distance, she thought she had seen July struggling a basket of wet washing into the house. More recently, upon her way to Sunday market, Kitty believed she saw July waving a long stick to chase some chickens home. But Kitty had never, since that day when she last stroked her daughter’s cheek with the soft pink petal of a flower, been close enough to touch, speak or trade a look with July.
Now, like your storyteller and the pressing of her petticoats, there were many jobs upon the sugar plantation named Amity that Kitty found grievous to perform. Come, the listing of tasks that she found agreeable would be a much, much, much shorter undertaking. But no work provoked such dread within Kitty’s heart as the pitiful task of manuring.
Canes, once planted in the regimented holes dug for their purpose, become one of the most indulged plants in the whole of the Caribbean. They must be fed like suckling babes if they are to grow tall with their cherished sweetness. For this purpose, the droppings that splutter and fall from the backside of any stock—be it cattle or mule—are hoarded and prized as steaming treasure. For months in any year, Kitty and the whole of the first gang are required to convey this dung from backside to cane piece. And there they must spread it about at the base of the growing canes, so the plants might sup upon the fetid goodness.
Some of this mess is taken from the pen to be shovelled into baskets and slung either side of a mule. The mule then, unaware of the load it carries, trots off as happy with this weight as with any other. But the wicker dung-baskets—overflowing and spilling—that Kitty carried to the cane pieces of Dover, Virgo, or even as far as Scarlett Ponds, were borne in the way of most slave burdens, upon her head. The weight was no sufferance, for Kitty could carry much heavier, much further. Come, it is true, the smell would see our white missus faint clean away with just one sniff. But the Lord, in making the nose, fashioned a shrewd organ; although so renk that upon Kitty’s first breaths the solid odour did choke her at the throat, after mighty coughing and a few strong inhalations, all the air about Kitty, be it sweet or bitter, came to smell like shit, so the offence was lost.
But for her poor tongue, there was no such accommodation. When, unwittingly, a piece would fall into her open mouth—which it did when she turned her head or a breeze blew or she struggled to catch her breath as she climbed the hill that led to Virgo—it would burn so fierce upon her tongue that she feared a hole was being bored right through it. For it was sharp as rancid lemon and did make her retch. Everything she nyam, be it food at the cane piece, or her porridge after her day’s work was done, come to taste not like a repast but like . . . well, the putrid splutterings that fall from the backside of a mule.
And if this dung did find its way into her eyes—for the brown juice from this waste matter did ooze through the weave of the basket to slip-slide all down Kitty’s face—then, oh! its sting did well up such tears as to leave her blind.
At the day’s end, Kitty would squat in the river—the water rippling over her shoulders, around her neck—and she would scrub with leaves of Bald-bush to rid this muck from her skin. But, reader, you see the dung did cling, so the stream would glide over her as if it be running across the pelt of some water rat. And so was true of the few garments she possessed; no pounding in the river seemed to rid them of their stink. At Sunday market none would come close enough to study Kitty’s sweet cassava roots or limes, excepting the flies. For they encircled her as a mist—tickling to explore up her nose, in her mouth, upon the moisture in her eyes and down her ears. Come, at manuring, Kitty did think on herself as shit walking tall.
And so it was upon this day. Kitty and her gang were returning to the village from the cane piece called Virgo in a ragged line that moved slow as lame donkeys—for Kitty had trod that two-mile route from the stock-pen to the field six times that day. As was usual, the flies did mass around her, even as she swotted the pests away with fancy flapping. The sun baking upon her back had her so drowsy that she heedless kept resting her hand upon the shoulder of Peggy, the woman who walked at her side. ‘Miss Kitty, me finish with me load this day. Me caan carry you now,’ her companion said many times before Kitty heard her plea.
On the lane that follows the boundary stones—just before Kitty entered in upon her village—a breeze of gossip reached her ears. Some negroes from the second gang, squatting within the yard of the bad houses, called out to Kitty that they had heard that Pitchy-Patchy had come from town. That this raggedy masquerade man—adrift from the Christmas Joncanoe—was in the mill yard, growling so as to fright all the pickney in the hope of mango being thrown.
Then, under the thatch roof of the head-man’s kitchen, there was a huddle of men—two coopers were there, but the head-man was not. All were chatting upon the situation. These men told Kitty that, no, it was not Pitchy-Patchy that had fallen from the long grasses, but two persons that had escaped from this fight-for-free war-war that was raging upon this island—a very little man, who was bust-up and limping, and a young girl who stood, fiercely pleading for all about to help them. The argument among this gathering of men, so Kitty understood, was whether to chase these bad-wind strangers upon their way, or take pity upon them. However, ‘Trouble, trouble, gon’ come,’ was all the men within this noisy quarrel could agree upon.
On the lane that leads to Kitty’s home, the fires out front of the huts had been left unattended; for all who lived there were at the mill yard. They had gone to gawp their big-eye upon the ghoulish sight of those blow-in visitors. Kitty had to shoo three hogs that had their snouts deep within their deserted pots.
Ezra, calling Kitty to chat, kept her long-long. All his talk was of the fires and the bloodshed, ‘But we is good niggers,’ he told Kitty over and over. ‘We no strike blow for free like them did tell us we mus’ do. We no sit down, Miss Kitty, we no sit down.’
By the time Kitty did reach her hut, she was too weary to worry upon all the fuss-fuss that blew about her. To squat in the river and scrub with leaves of Bald-bush was her only prayer.
But, shuffling up the lane toward her, came Miss Rose. Limping, yet still kicking nimble at the chickens within her path, Miss Rose eventually landed heavy upon the stone in front of Kitty’s fire. She then caught her breath enough to whisper loud, ‘Miss Kitty, your pickney is come. Miss July is come. The bad-news stranger girl with hurt man ’pon her shoulder be Miss July, all grow up. And she say massa be dead. Massa John be dead!’