 Section Zero of Cain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Cain by Gene Tumor. Forward. Reading this book, I had the vision of a land here to foresunk in the midst of muteness, suddenly rising up into the eminence of song. Enumable books have been written about the South. Some good books have been written in the South. This book is the South. I do not mean that Cain covers the South or is the South's full voice. Merely this a poet has arisen among our American youth who has known how to turn the essences and materials of his South land into the essences and materials of literature. A poet has arisen in that land who writes not as a southerner, not as a rebel against southerners, not as a negro, not as an apologist or priest or critic, who writes as a poet. The fashioning of beauty is ever foremost in his inspiration, not forcibly but simply, and because these ultimate aspects of his world are to him more real than all its specific problems. He has made songs and lovely stories of his land, not of its yesterday but of its immediate life, and that has been enough. How rare this is will be clear to those who have followed with concern the struggle of the South toward literary expression and the particular trial of that portion of its folk whose skin is dark. The gift of negro has been too often thwarted from becoming a poet because his world was forever forcing him to recollect that he was a negro. The artist must lose such lesser identities in the great well of life. The English poet is not forever protesting and recalling that he is English. It is so natural and easy for him to be English that he can sing as a man. The French novice is not forever noting this is French. It is so atmospheric for him to be French that he can devote himself to saying this is human. This is an imperative condition for the creating of deep art. The whole will and mind of the creator must go below the surfaces of race. And this has been an almost impossible condition for the American Negro to achieve, forced every moment of his life into a specific and superficial plane of consciousness. The first negative significance of Cain is that this so natural and restrictive state of mind is completely lacking. For a tumor, the Southland is not a problem to be solved. It is a field of loveliness to be sung. The Georgian Negro is not a downtrodden soul to be uplifted. He is material for gorgeous painting. The segregated self-conscious brown belt of Washington is not a topic to be discussed and exposed. It is a subject of beauty and of drama worthy of creation in literary form. It seems to me therefore that this is a first book in more ways than one. It is a harbinger of the South's literary maturity of its emergence from the obsession put upon its minds by the unending racial crisis, an obsession from which writers have made their indirect escape through sentimentalism, exoticism, polemic, problem fiction, and moral melodrama. It marks the dawn of direct and unafraid creation. And as the initial work of a man of 27, it is the harbinger of a literary force of whose incalculable future, I believe no reader of this book, will be in doubt. How typical is Cain of the South's still virgin soil and of its pressing seeds and the book's chaos, the verse, tale, drama, its rhythmic rolling shift from lyricism to narrative from mystery to intimate pathos. But read the book through and you will see a complex and significant form take substance from its chaos. Part one is the primitive and evanescent black world of Georgia. Part two is the threshing and suffering brown world of Washington lifted by opportunity and contact into the anguish of self conscious struggle. Part three is Georgia again, the invasion into this black womb of the ferment seed, the neurotic educated spiritually stirring Negro. As a broad form, this is superb and the very looseness and unexpected waves of the book's parts make Cain still more self, still more of an aesthetic equivalent of the land. What a land it is, what an escalian beauty to its fateful problem. Those of you who love our self will find here some of your love. Those of you who know it not will perhaps begin to understand what a warm spender is at last at dawn. A feast of moon and men and barking howls and orgy for some genius of the south with bloodshot eyes and Cain lift scented mouth, surprised in making folk songs. So in his still sometimes clumsily stride for a tumor is finally a poet in prose. The author gives you an inkling of his revelation, an individual force wise enough to drink humbly at this great spring of his land. Such is the first impression of Jean Tumor, but beyond this wisdom and this power, which shows itself perhaps most splendidly in his complete freedom from the sense of persecution, there rises a figure more significant, the artist hard self-immolating, the artist who is not interested in races, whose domain is life. The book's final part is no longer promise, it is achievement, it is no mere dawn, it is a bit of the full morning. These materials, the ancient black man mute inaccessible and yet so mystically close to the new tumultuous members of his race, the simple slave past, the shredding negro present, the iridescent passionate dream of the tomorrow are made and measured by a craftsman into an unforgettable music. The notes of his counterpoint are particular, the themes are of intimate connection with us Americans, but the result is that abstract and absolute thing called art. Walter Frank. End of section 0. Section 1 of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon. Oh, can't you see it? Oh, can't you see it? Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon when the sun goes down. Men had always wanted her, this Corintha, even as a child, Corintha carrying beauty, perfect as dusk when the sun goes down. Old men rode her hobby horse upon their knees. Young men danced with her at frolics when they should have been dancing with their grown up girls. God grant us youth secretly prayed the old men. The young fellows counted the time to pass before she would be old enough to mate with them. The centrist of the male who wishes to ripen a growing thing too soon could mean no good to her. Corintha at 12 was a wild flash that told the other folks just what it was to live. At sunset when there was no wind and the pine smoke from over by the sawmill hugged the earth and you couldn't see more than a few feet in front. Her sudden darting past you was a bit of vivid color like a black bird that flashes in light. With the other children one could hear some distance off their feet flopping in the two inch dust. Corintha's running was a whir. It had the sound of the red dust that sometimes makes a spiral in the road. That dusk during the hush just after the sawmill had closed down and before any of the women had started the supper getting ready songs. Her voice hyped shrill would put one's ears to itching but no one ever thought to make her stop because of it. She stoned the cows and beat her dog and fought the other children. Even the preacher who caught her at mischief told himself that she was as innocently lovely as a November cotton flower. Already rumors were out about her. Homes in Georgia are most often built on the two room plan. In one you cook and eat. In the other you sleep. And there love goes on. Corintha had seen or heard. Perhaps she had felt her parents loving. One could but imitate one's parents for to follow them was the way of God. She played home with a small boy who was not afraid to do her bidding. That started the whole thing. Old men could no longer ride her hobby horse upon their knees. But young men counted faster. Her skin is like dusk. Oh can't you see it? Her skin is like dusk when the sun goes down. Corintha is a woman. She who carries beauty perfect as dusk when the sun goes down. She has been married many times. Old men remind her that a few years back they wrote her hobby horse upon their knees. Corintha smiles and indulges them when she is in the mood for it. She has contempt for them. Corintha is a woman. Young men run stills to make her money. Young men go to the big cities and run on the road. Young men go away to college. They all want to bring her money. These are the young men who thought that all they had to do was to count time. But Corintha is a woman and she has had a child. A child fell out of her womb onto a bed of pine needles in the forest. Pine needles are smooth and sweet. They are elastic to the feet of rabbits. A sawmill was nearby. Its pyramidal sawdust pile smoldered. It is a year before one completely burns. Meanwhile, the smoke curls up and hangs in odd raves. About the trees curls up and spreads itself out over the valley. Weeks after Corintha returned home, the smoke was so heavy you tasted it in water. Someone made a song. Smoke is on the hills. Rise up. Smoke is on the hills. Oh, rise and take my soul to Jesus. Corintha is a woman. Men do not know that the soul of her was a growing thing ripened too soon. They will bring their money. They will die not having found it out. Corintha at 20 carrying beauty. Perfect as dusk when the sun goes down. Corintha. Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon. Oh, can't you see it? Oh, can't you see it? It is like dusk on the eastern horizon when the sun goes down, goes down. End of section one. Section two of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reapers. Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones are sharpening sides. I see them place the hones in their hip pockets as a thing that's done and start their silent swinging one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds and there a field wrapped, startled, squealing, bleeds, isbelly close to ground. I see the blade blood stained, continue cutting weeds and shade. End of section two. Section three of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. November cotton flower. Bow weevils coming and the winter's cold made cotton stalks look rusty, seasons old. And cotton, scarce as any southern snow, was vanishing. The branch, so pinched and slow, failed in its function as the autumn rake. Growl fighting soil had caused the soil to take all water from the streams. Dead birds were found in wells a hundred feet below the ground. Such was the season when the flower bloomed. Old folks were startled and it soon assumed significance. Superstitions saw something it had never seen before. Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear. Beauty so sudden for that time of year. End of section three. Section four of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Becky. Becky was the white woman who had two Negro sons. She's dead. They've gone away. The pines whispered to Jesus. The Bible flaps its leaves with an aimless rustle on her mound. Becky had one Negro son who gave it to her. Damn, Buck Nigger said the white folks' mouths. She wouldn't tell. Common, God-forsaken, insane white, shameless wench, said the white folks' mouths. Her eyes were sunken, her neck stringy, her breasts fallen till then. Taking their words, they filled her like a bubble rising. Then she broke. Mouth setting in a twist that held her eyes, harsh, vacant, staring, who gave it to her. Loved down Nigger with no self-respect, said the black folks' mouths. She wouldn't tell. Poor, Catholic, poor, white, crazy woman, said the black folks' mouths. White folks and black folks built her cabin, fed her and her growing baby, prayed secretly to God who'd put his cross upon her and cast her out. When the first was born, the white folks said they'd have no more to do with her, and black folks, they too joined hands to cast her out. The pines whispered to Jesus. The railroad boss said not to say he said it, but she could live if she wanted to on the narrow strip of land between the railroad and the road. John Stone, who owned the lumber and the bricks, would have shot the man who told he gave the stuff to Lonnie Deacon, who stole out there at night and built the cabin. A single room held down to earth, old fly away to Jesus by a leaning chimney. Six trains each day rumbled past and shook the ground under her cabin. Fords and horse-a-mule drawn buggies went back and forth along the road. No one ever saw her, train men and passengers who'd heard about her throughout papers and food. Throughout little crumpled slips of paper scribbled with prayers as they passed her eye-shaped piece of sandy ground, ground island eyes between the road and railroad track. Pushed up where blue sheen god with listless eyes could look at it. Folks from the town took turns, unknown of course to each other, in bringing corn and meat and sweet potatoes, even sometimes snuff. Oh, thank ye, Jesus. Old David Georgia grinding cane and boiling syrup never went her way without some sugar sap. No one ever saw her. The boy grew up and ran around. When he was five years old as folks reckoned it, Hugh Jordan saw him carrying a baby. A becky has another son, was what the whole town knew. But nothing was said for the part of man that says things to the likes of that had told itself that if there was a becky, that becky now was dead. The two boys grew, sullen and cunning, old pines whispered to Jesus, tell him to come and press sweet Jesus' lips against their lips and eyes. It seemed as though with those two big fellows there there could be no room for becky. The part that prayed wondered if perhaps she'd really died and they had buried her. No one dared ask. They'd beat and cut a man who meant nothing at all in mentioning that they lived along the road, white or colored, no one knew, and least of all themselves. They drifted around from job to job. We, who had cast out their mother because of them, could we take them in? They answered black and white folks by shooting up two men and leaving town. God damn the white folks. God damn the niggers they shouted as they left town. Becky, smoke curled up from her chimney. She must be there. Trains passing shook the ground. The ground shook the leaning chimney. Nobody noticed it. A creepy feeling came over all who saw that thin wraith of smoke and felt the trembling of the ground. Folks began to take her food again. They quit it soon because they had a fear. Becky, if dead, might be a hand, and if alive it took some nerve even to mention it. O pines whisper to Jesus. It was Sunday. Our congregation had been visiting at Fullverton and were coming home. There was no wind. The autumn sun, the bell from Ebenezer Church, listless and heavy. Even the pines were stale, sticky, like the smell of food that makes you sick. Before we turned the bend of the road that would show us the Becky cabin, the horses stopped, stock still, pushed back their ears and nervously whinnied. We urged, then whipped them on, quarter of a mile away. Thin smoke curled up from the leaning chimney. O pines whisper to Jesus. Goose flesh came on my skin, though there still was neither chill nor wind. Eyes left their sockets for the cabin. Ears burned and throbbed. Uncanny eclipsed. Fear closed my mind. We were just about to pass. Pines shout to Jesus. The ground trembled as a ghost train rumbled by. The chimney fell into the cabin. Its thud was like a hollow report. Ages having passed since it went off. Barlow and I were pulled out of our seats, dragged to the door that had swung open. Through the dust we saw the bricks in a mound upon the floor. Becky, if she was there, lay under them. I thought I heard a groan. Barlow mumbling something through his Bible on the pile. No one has ever touched it. Somehow we got away. My buggy was still on the road. The last thing that I remember was whipping old Dan like fury. I remember nothing after that. That is, until I reached town and folks crowded round to get the true word of it. Becky was the white woman who had two negro sons. She's dead. They've gone away. The pines whisper to Jesus. The Bible flaps its leaves with an aimless rustle on her mound. End of section four. Section five of Cain by Gene Tumer. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Face, hair, silver gray, like streams of stars. Brows, recurved canoes, quivered by the ripples blown by pain. Her eyes, mist of tears, condensing on the flesh below, and her channeled muscles are cluster grapes of sorrow, purple in the evening sun, nearly ripe for worms. End of section five. Section six of Cain by Gene Tumer. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Cotton song. Come, brother, come. Let's lift it. Come now, hew it. Roll away. Shackles fall upon the judgment day. But let's not wait for it. God's bodies got a soul. Bodies like to roll the soul. Can't blame God if we don't roll. Come, brother, roll, roll. Cotton bales are the fleecy way. Weary sinners bare feet trod softly, softly to the throne of God. We ain't a guine to wait until the judgment day. Nasa, nasa, hum. Ioho, Ioho, roll away. We ain't a guine to wait until the judgment day. God's bodies got a soul. Bodies like to roll the soul. Can't blame God if we don't roll. Come, brother, roll, roll. End of section six. Section seven of Cain by Gene Tumer. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Karma. Wind is in the cane. Come along. Cain leaves swaying, rusty with talk. Scratching choruses above the guineas squawk. Wind is in the cane. Come along. Karma, in overalls and strong as any man, stands behind the old brown mule driving the wagon home. It bumps and groans and shakes as it crosses the railroad track. She, riding it easy. I leave the men around the stove to follow her with my eyes down the red dust road, nigger woman driving a Georgia chariot down an old dust road. Dixie Pike is what they call it. Maybe she feels my gaze. Perhaps she expects it. Anyway, she turns. The sun which has been slanting over her shoulder shoots primitive rockets into her mangrove gloomed yellow flower face. God has left the Moses people for the nigger. Using rains to slap the mule, she disappears in a cloudy rumble at some indefinite point along the road. The sun is hammered to a band of gold. Pine needles like Mazda are brilliantly aglow. No rain has come to take the rustle from the falling sweet gum leaves. Over in the forest across the swamp, a sawmill blows its closing whistle, smoke curls up, marvelous web spun by the spider, sawdust pile, curls up and spreads itself pine high above the branch, a single silver band along the eastern valley. A black boy, you are the most sleepiest man I ever seen, sleeping beauty, cradled on a grey mule, guided by the hollow sound of cowbells, heads for them through a rusty cotton field. From down the railroad track, the chug chug of a gas engine announces that the repair gang is coming home. A girl in the yard of a white-washed shack, not much larger than the stack of worn ties, power before it sings. Her voice is loud, echoes like rain, sweep the valley. Desk takes the polish from the rails, lights twinkle in scattered houses, from far away a sad, strong song. Pungent and composite, the smell of farm yards is the fragrance of the woman. She does not sing, her body is a song. She is in the forest dancing, torches flare, juju men, gree-gree rich doctors, torches go out. The Dixie Pike has grown from a goat path in Africa. Night, Foxy the bitch, slicks back her ears and barks at the rising moon. Wind is in the corn, come along. Corn leaves swing, rusty with talk, scratching choruses above the guineas squawk. Wind is in the corn, come along. Carmen's tale is the crudest melodrama, her husband's in the gang, and it's her fault he got there. Working with a contractor, he was away most of the time. She had others. No one blames her for that. He returned one day and hung around the town where he picked up weak old boats and rumors. Bane accused her. She denied. He couldn't see that she was becoming hysterical. He would have liked to take his fists and beat her, who was strong as a man, stronger. Words like corkscrews wormed to her strength, it fizzled out. Grabbing a gun, she rushed from the house and plunged across the road into a cane break. There in quarter heaven, shown the crescent moon, Bane was afraid to follow till he heard the gun go off. Then he wasted half an hour gathering the neighbor men. They met in the road where lamp light showed tracks dissolving in the loose earth about the cane. The search began. Moths flickered the lamps. They put them out, really because she still might be live enough to shoot. Time and space have no meaning in a cane field, no more than the interminable stalks. Someone stumbled over her. A cry went up. From the road one would have thought that they were cornering a rabbit or a skunk. It is difficult carrying dead weight through cane. They placed her on the sofa. A curious, nosy somebody looked for the wound. This fussing with her clothes aroused her. Her eyes were weak and pitiable for so strong a woman. Slowly, then like a flash, Bane came to know that the shot she fired with theverted head was aimed to whistle like a dying hornet through the cane. Twice deceived and one deception proved the other. His head went off, slashed one of the men who'd helped. The man who stumbled over her. Now he's in the gang. Who was her husband? Should she not take others this karma as strong as a man? Whose tale, as I have told it, is the crudest melodrama. Wind is in the cane. Come along. Cain leaves swing. Rusty retalk. Scratching courses above the guinea squaw. Wind is in the cane. Come along. End of section seven. Section eight of Cain by Gene Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Song of the sun. Poor, oh poor, that parting soul in song. Oh, pour it in the sawdust glow of night. Into the velvet pine smoke air to-night. And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along. Oh, land and soil, red soil and sweet gum-tree. So scanted grass, so profligate of pines. Now just before an epic sun declines. Thy sun in time I have returned to thee. Thy sun I have in time returned to thee. In time, for though the sun is setting on, a songlet race of slaves, it has not set. Though late, oh soil, it is not too late yet. To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving soon gone. Leaving to catch thy plaintive soul, soon gone. Oh, negro slaves. Dark purple ripened plums squeezed and bursting in the pine wood air. Passing before they stripped the old tree bare. One plum was saved for me. One seed becomes an everlasting song, a singing tree. Caroling softly souls of slavery. What they were and what they are to me. Caroling softly souls of slavery. End of section eight, section nine of Cain by Jean Tumor. This Lieberbach's recording is in the public domain. Georgia dusk, the sky lazily disdaining to pursue the setting sun. Too indolent to hold a lengthened tournament for flashing gold, passively darkens for night's barbeque. A feast of moon and men and barking hounds. An orgy for some genius of the south with blood-hot eyes. And Cain lipped scented mouth, surprised in making folk songs from soul sounds. Sawmill blows its whistle, buzz saws stop, and silence breaks the butt of knoll and hill. Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill their early promise of a bumper crop. Smoke from that pyramidal sawdust pile curls up, blue ghosts of trees tearing low, only chips and stumps are left to show the solid proof of former dogma style. Meanwhile the men with vestiges of pump raise memories of king and caravan. High priests and ostrich and a juju man go singing through the footpaths of the swamp. Their voices rise, the pine trees are guitars, strumming pine needles fall like sheets of rain. Their voices rise, the chorus of the cane is caroling a vesper to the stars. O singers, resinous and soft your songs above the sacred whisper of the pines. Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines, bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane lipped throngs. End of section 9, section 10 of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Fern. Face flowed into her eyes, flowed in soft cream foam and plaintive ripples in such a way that wherever your glance may momentarily have rested, it immediately thereafter wavered in the direction of her eyes. The soft suggestion of down slightly darkened, like the shadow of a bird's wing might, the creamy brown color of her upper lip. Why, after noticing it, you sought her eyes, I cannot tell you. Her nose was aquiline, Semitic, if you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow sing trivial, when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I follow the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers to their common delta. They were strange eyes in this that they sought nothing, that is nothing that was obvious and tangible, and that one could see, and they gave the impression that nothing was to be denied. When a woman seeks, you will have observed her eyes deny. Fern's eyes desired nothing that you could give her, there was no reason why they should withhold. Men saw her eyes and fooled themselves. Fern's eyes said to them that she was easy, when she was young a few men took her, but got no joy from it. And then, once done, they felt bound to her quite unlike their hidden run with other girls, felt as though it would take them a lifetime to fulfill an obligation which they could find no name for. They became attached to her and hungered after finding the barest trace of what she might desire. As she grew up, new men who came to town felt as almost everyone did, whoever saw her, that they would not be denied. Men were everlastingly bringing her their bodies, something inside of her got tired of them, I guess, for I am certain that for the life of first she could not tell why or how she began to turn them off. A man in fever is no trifling thing to send away. They began to leave her baffled and ashamed, yet vowing to themselves that someday they would do some fine thing for her. Send her candy every week and not let her know whom it came from. Watch out for her wedding day and give her a magnificent something with no name on it. Buy a house and deed it to her. Rescue her from some unworthy fellow who had tricked her into marrying him. As you know, men are apt to idolize or fear that which they cannot understand, especially if it be a woman. She did not deny them, yet the fact was that they were denied. A sort of superstition crept into their consciousness of her being somehow above them. Being above them meant that she was not to be approached by anyone. She became a virgin, now a virgin, in a small southern town is by no means the usual thing if you will believe me. That the sexes were made to mate is the practice of the self, particularly black folks were made to mate. And it is black folks whom I have been talking about thus far, what white men thought of Fern I can arrive at only by analogy. They let her alone. Anyone of course could see her, could see her eyes. If you walked up the Dixie Pike most any time of day, you'd be most like to see her resting listless like on the railing of her porch. Back, propped against the post, head tilted a little forward because there was a nail in the porch post. Just where her head came, which for some reason or other, she never took the trouble to pull out. Her eyes, if it were, sunset rested idly where the sun, molten and glorious, was pouring down between the fringe of pines, or maybe they gazed at the gray cabin on the know from which an evening folk song was coming. Perhaps they followed a cow that had been turned loose to roam and feed on cotton stalks and corn leaves. Like as not, they'd settle on some big spot above the horizon, though hardly a trace of wistfulness would come to them. If it were dusk, then they'd wait for the searchlight of the evening train, which you could see miles up the track before it flared across the Dixie Pike, close to her home. Wherever they looked, you'd follow them and then wave her back, like her face the whole countryside seemed to flow into her eyes, float into them with the soft listless cadence of George's south. A young Negro once was looking at her spellbound from the road. A white man passing in a buggy had to flick him with his whip if he was to get by without running him over. I first saw her on her porch. I was passing with a fellow who's crusty numbness. I was from the north and suspected of being prejudiced and stuck up, was melting as he found me warm. I asked him who she was, that spurn, was all that I could get from him. Some folks already thought that I was given to nosing around. I let it go at that, so far as questions were concerned, but at first sight of her I felt as if I heard a Jewish cantor sing, as if his singing rose above the unheard chorus of a folk song. And I felt bound to her, I too had my dreams, something I would do for her. I've knocked about from town to town too much not to know the futility of mere change of place, besides picture of your Kansas screen-colored solitary girl sitting at a tenement window looking down on the indifferent throngs of Harlem. Better that she listened to folk songs at dusk in Georgia, you would say, and so would I, or suppose she came up north and married, even a doctor or a lawyer say, one who would be sure to get along, that is, make money. You and I know who have had experience in such things that love is not a thing like prejudice, which can be bettered by changes of town. Good men in Washington, Chicago or New York, more than the men of Georgia bring her something left vacant by the bestowal of their bodies. You and I, who know men in these cities will have to say they could not. See her out and out, a prostitute along State Street in Chicago. See her move into a southern town where white men are more aggressive. See her become a white man's concubine, something I must do for her. There was myself, what could I do for her? Talk, of course, push back the fringe of pines upon new horizons. To what purpose and what for her, myself, men in her case seem to lose their selfishness. I lost mine before I touched her. I ask you, friend, it makes no difference if you sit in the Pullman or the Jim Crow as the train crosses her road. What thoughts would come to you, that is, after you've finished with the thoughts that leap into men's minds at the sight of a pretty woman who will not deny them? What thoughts would come to you, had you seen her in a quick flash, keen and intuitively, as she sat there on her porch when your train thundered by? Would you have got off at the next station and come back for her to take her where? Would you have completely forgotten her as soon as you reached Macon, Atlanta, Augusta, Pasadena, Madison, Chicago, Boston, or New Orleans? Would you tell your wife or sweetheart about a girl you saw? Your thoughts can help me and I would like to know something I would do for her. One evening I walked up the pike on purpose and stopped to say hello. Some of her family were about, but they moved away to make room for me. Damn, if I knew how to begin, would you? Mr. and Miss So-and-So, people, the weather, the crops, the new preacher, the frolic, the church benefit, rabbit and possum hunting, the new soft drink they had at Old Pap Store, the schedule of the trains, what kind of town Macon was, Negro's migration north, Bo Weevils, Syrup, the Bible, to all these things she gave a yasser or nasser without further comment. I began to wonder if perhaps my own emotional sensibility had played one of its tricks on me. Let's take a walk. I had last ventured. The suggestion coming after so long and isolation was novel enough, I guess to surprise, but it wasn't that. Something told me that men before me had said just that as a prelude to the offering of their bodies. I tried to tell her with my eyes. I think she understood. The thing from her that made my throat catch vanished. Its passing left her visible in a way I'd thought but never seen. We walked down the pike with people on all the porches gaping at us. Doesn't it make you mad? She meant the row of petty, gossiping people. She meant the world. Through a cane brake that was ripe for cutting, the branch was reached. Under a sweet gum tree and where reddish leaves had damned the creek a little, we sat down. Dusk, suggesting the almost imperceptible procession of giant trees, settled with a purple haze about the cane. I felt strange as I always do in Georgia, particularly at dusk. I felt that things unseen to men were tangibly immediate. It would not have surprised me had I had a vision. People have them in Georgia more often than you would suppose. A black woman once saw the mother of Christ and drew her in charcoal on the courthouse wall. When one is on the soil of one's ancestors, most anything can come to one. From force of habit, I suppose, I held firm in my arms, that is without at first noticing it. Then my mind came back to her, her eyes unusually weird and open held me. Hell, God, he flowed in as I've seen the country's side flow in. Seen men, I must have done something, what I don't know, in the confusion of my emotion. She sprang up, rushed some distance from me, felt her knees and began swaying, swaying. Her body was tortured with something it could not let out. Like boiling sap, it flooded arms and fingers till she shook them as if they burned her. It found her throat and spattered into articulately. Implantive convulsive sounds mingled with calls to Christ Jesus. And then she sang, brokenly, a Jewish cantor singing with a broken voice, a child's voice uncertain, or an old man's. Dusk hit her. I could hear only her song. It seemed to me as though she were pounding her head in anguish upon the ground. I rushed to her. She fainted in my arms. There was talk about her fainting with me in the cane field. And I got one or two ugly looks from town men who'd set themselves up to protect her. In fact, there was talk of making me leave town, but they never did. They kept a watch out for me, though. Shortly after I came back north, from the train window, I saw her as I crossed her road. Saw her on her porch, head tilted a little forward. Where the nail was, eyes vaguely focused on the sunset. Saw her face flow into them. The countryside and something that I call God. Flowing into them. Nothing ever really happened. Nothing ever came to fern, not even I. Something I would do for her. Some fine, unnamed thing. And friend, you. She is still living. I have reason to know. Her name against the chance that you might happen down that way. Is Ferney may Rosen. End of section 10. Section 11 of cane by Jean tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Null of a spray of pine needles dipped in western horizon gold. Fell onto a path. Dry molds of cow hoofs. In the forest. Rabbits knew not of their falling. Nor did the forest catch a flame. End of section 11. Section 12 of cane by Jean tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Evening song. Full moon rising on the waters of my heart. Lakes and moon and fires. Cloying tires holding her lips apart. Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon. Miracle made Vesper keeps. Cloying sleeps and I'll be sleeping soon. Cloying curled like the sleepy waters where the moon waves start. Radiant resplendently she gleams. Cloying dreams lips pressed against my heart. End of section 12. Section 13 of cane by Jean tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Esther one nine. Esther's hair falls in soft curls about her high cheeked boned chalk white face. Esther's hair would be beautiful if there were more gloss to it. Her face were not prematurely serious one would call it pretty. Her cheeks are too flat and dead for a girl of nine. Esther looks like a little white child starched thrilled as she walks slowly from her home towards her father's grocery store. She is about to turn in broad from Maple Street. White and black men loafing on the corner hold no interest for her. Then a strange thing happens. A rustled, magnificent black skin Negro whom she had heard her father mention as King Barlow suddenly drops to his knees on a spot called the spittoon. White men unaware of him continue squirting tobacco juice in his direction. The saffron fluid splashes on his face. His smooth black face begins to glisten and to shine. Then people notice him and gather round. His eyes are rapturous upon the heavens. Lips and nostrils quiver Barlow is in a religious trance. Town folks know it. They are not startled. They are not afraid. They gather round some bag boxes from the grocery stores. From old McGregor's Notion Shop a coffin case is pressed into use. Folks line the curb stones. Businessmen close shop and banker Warpley parks his car close by. Silently all await the profit's voice. The sheriff, a great Florida fellow whose leggings never meet around his bulging calves, swears in three deputies. While you can't never tell what a nigger like King Barlow might be up to. Soda bottles, five fingers full of shine are passed to those who want them. A couple of stray dogs start a fight. Old Goodlowe's cow comes flopping up the street. Barlow still as an Indian faker has not moved. The town bell strikes six. The sun slips in behind a heavy mass of horizon cloud. The crowd is hushed and expectant. Barlow's under jaw relaxes and his lips begin to move. Jesus has been a whisper and strange words deep down. Oh, way down deep deep in my ears. Hums of awe and of excitement. He called me to his side and said get down on your knees beside me son. I was going to whisper in your ears. An old sister cries, Oh Lord, I was going to whisper in your ears. He said, and I replied that I will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Oh Lord, amen, amen. And Lord Jesus whispered strange good words deep down. Oh, way down deep deep in my ears. And he said, tell him, do you feel your throat on fire? I saw vision. I saw man arise and he was big and black and powerful. Someone yells preach it, preacher, preach it. But his head was caught up in the clouds. And while he was a gazing at the heavens, heart filled up with the Lord. Some little white ant bitties came and tied his feet to chains. They led him to the coast. They led him to the sea. They led him across the ocean and they didn't set him free. The old coast didn't miss him and the new coast wasn't free. He left the old coast brothers to give birth to you and me. Oh Lord, great God Almighty, to give birth to you and me. Barlow pauses. Old gray mothers are in tears. Fragments of melodies are being hummed. White folks are touched and curiously awed. Off to themselves, white and black preachers confer as to how best to rid themselves of the vagrant usurping fellow. Barlow looks as though he is struggling to continue. People are hushed. One can hear weevils work. Dusk is falling rapidly and the customary store lights fail to throw their feeble glow across the gray dust and flagging of the Georgia town. Barlow rises to his full height. He is immense to the people. He assumes the outlines of his vision African in a mighty voice. He bellows brothers and sisters. Turn your faces to the sweet face of the Lord and fill your hearts with glory. Open your eyes and see the dawn and now the morning light open your ears. Years afterwards Esther was told that at that very moment, a great heavy rumbling voice actually was heard. That hosts of angels and of demons paraded up and down the streets all night. That King Barlow wrote out of town a stride of pitch black bull that had a glowing gold ring in its nose and that old limp underwood who hated niggers woke up next morning to find that he held a black man in his arms. This much is certain and inspired niggers of wide reputation for being sanctified drew a portrait of a black Madonna on the courthouse wall and King Barlow left town. He left his image indelibly upon the mind of Esther. He became the starting point of the only living patterns that her mind was to know. 2. 16. Esther begins to dream. The low evening sun sets the windows of McGregor's notion shop aflame. Esther makes believe that they really are aflame. The town fire department rushes madly down the road. It ruthlessly shoves black and white idlers to one side. It whoops. It claims. It rescues from the second story window a dimpled infant which she claims for her own. How had she come by it? She thinks of it immaculately. It is a sin to think of it immaculately. She must dream no more. She must repent her sin. Another dream comes. There is no fire department. There are no heroic men. The fire starts. The loafers on the corner form a circle. Chew their tobacco faster. And squirt juice just as fast as they can chew. Gallons on top of gallons they squirt upon the flames. The air reeks with the stench of scorched tobacco juice. Women, fat, chunky, negro women. Lean, scrawny white women pull their skirts up above their heads and display the most ludicrous under clothes. The women scoot in all directions from the danger zone. She alone is left to take the baby in her arms. But what a baby, black, singed, woolly, tobacco juice baby, ugliest sin. Once held to her breast, miraculous thing. Its breath is sweet and its lips can nibble. She loves it frantically. Her joy in it changes the town folk's jeers to harmless jealousy. And she is left alone. 22. Esther's schooling is over. She works behind the counter of her father's grocery store to keep the money in the family. So he said she is learning to make distinctions between the business and the social worlds. Good business comes from remembering that the white folks don't divide the niggers, Esther. Be just as black as any man who has a silver dollar. Esther listlessly forgets that she is near white and that her father is the richest colored man in town. Black folk who drift in to buy lard and snuff and flour of her call her a sweet-natured accommodating girl. She learns their names. She forgives them. She thinks about men I don't appeal to them. I wonder why. She recalls an affair she had with a little fair boy while still in school. It had ended in her shame when he, as much as told her that for sweetness, he preferred a lollipop. She remembers the salesman from the north who wanted to take her to the movies that first night he was in town. She refused, of course, and he never came back having found out who she was. She thinks of Barlow. Barlow's image gives her a slightly stale thrill. She spices it by telling herself his glories. Black, magnetically so. Best cotton picker in the county, in the state, in the whole world for that matter. Best man with his fists. Best man with dice without razor. Promoter of church benefits of colored fairs. Vagrant preacher. Lover of all the women for miles and miles around. Esther decides that she loves him. And with the vague sense of life slipping by, she resolves that she will tell himself whatever people say the next time he comes to town. After the making of this resolution, which becomes a sort of wedding cake for her to tuck beneath her pillow and go to sleep upon, she sees nothing of Barlow for five years. Her hair thins. It looks like the dull silk on puny corn ears. Her face pales until it is the color of the gray dust that dances with dead cotton leaves. Three, Esther is 27. Esther sells lard and snuff and flour to vague black faces that drift in her store to ask for them. Her eyes hardly see the people to whom she gives change. Her body is lean and beaten. She rests listlessly against the counter too weary to sit down. From the street, someone shouts, King Barlow has come back to town. He passes her window, driving a large new car, cut out open. He veers to the curb and steps out. Barlow has made money on cotton. During the war, he is as rich as anyone. Esther suddenly is animate. She goes to her door. She sees him at a distance, the center of a group of credulous men. She hears the deep bass rumble of his talk. The sun swings low, McGregor's windows are aflame again, pale flame. A sharply dressed white girl passes by. For a moment Esther wishes that she might be like her. Not white, she has no need for being that. But sharp, sporty, with get up about her. Barlow is connected with that wish. She mustn't wish. Wishes only make you restless. Emptiness is a thing that grows by being moved. I'll not think, not wish. Just set my mind against it. Then the thought comes to her, that those purposeless, easygoing men will possess him if she doesn't. Purpose is not dead in her. Now that she comes to think of it, that loose women will have their arms around him at Nat Bowle's place tonight, as if her veins are full of thard, sunbleached, southern shanties. A swift heat sweeps them. Dead dreams and a forgotten resolution are buried upward by the flames. Pale flames, they shan't have him. Oh, they shall not. Not if it kills me, they shan't have him. Jerky, a flutter. She closes the store and starts home. Folks, lazing on store. Window, sills, wonder what on earth can be the matter with Jim Crane's gal. As she passes them, come to remember she always was a little off, a little crazy. I reckon Esther seeks her own room and locks the door. Her mind is a pink mesh bag filled with baby toes. Using the noise of the town clock striking twelve to cover the creeks of her departure, Esther slips into the quiet road. The town, her parents, most everyone is sound asleep. This fact is a stable thing that comforts her. After a sundown, a chill wind came up from the west. It is still blowing, but to her it is a steady, subtle thing, like the cold. She, like that, solid, contained, and blank, has a sheet of darkened ice. She will not permit herself to notice the peculiar, phosphorescent glitter of the sweet-gum leaves. Their movement would excite her, exciting to the recession of the dull familiar homes she knows so well. She doesn't know them at all. She closes her eyes and holds them tightly, won't do. Her being aware that they are closed recalls her purpose. She does not want to think of it. She opens them. She turns now into the deserted business street. The corrugated iron canopies and mule and horse-nod hitching posts bring her a strange composure. Ghosts of the common places of her daily life take stride with her and become her companions. And the echoes of her heels upon the flagging are rhythmically monotonous and soothing. Crossing the street at the corner of McGregor's notion shop, she thinks that the windows are a dull flame, only a fancy. She walks faster than runs. A turn into a side street brings her abruptly to Nat Bowle's place. The house is squat and dark. It is always dark. Barlow is within. Quietly she opens the outside door and steps in. She passes through a small room, pauses before a flight of stairs down which people's voices, muffled, calm. The air is heavy with fresh tobacco smoke. It makes her sick. She goes back. She goes up the steps. As if she were mounting to some great height her head spins. She is violently dizzy. Blackness rushes to her eyes. And then she finds that she is in a large room. Barlow is before her. Well, I'm showly damned. Excuse me, but what? What brought you here? Little milk-white gal. You, her voice sounds like a frightened child that calls Hormwood from some point miles away. Me? Yes, you, Barlow. This ain't the place for you. This ain't the place for you. I know, I know, but I've come for you. For me, for what? She manages to look deep and straight into his eyes. He is slow at understanding. Gaffaws and giggles break out from all around the room. Of course, woman's voice remarks. So that's how the dicty niggers laugh, must give them credit, foe their gall. Esther doesn't hear. Barlow does. His faculties are jogged. She sees a smile, ugly and repulsive to her, working upward through thick, liquor fumes. Barlow seems hideous. The thought comes suddenly. That conception with a drunken man must be a mighty sin. She draws away, frozen, like a somnambulist. She wheels around and walks stiffly to the stairs, down them. Jeers and hoots pelter bluntly up on her back. She steps out. There is no air, no street, and the town has completely disappeared. End of section 13. Section 14 of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the domain. Conversion. African guardian of souls drunk with rum, feasting on a strange cassava, yielding to new words and a weak palabra of a white-faced sardonic god. Grins, cries, amen, shout, sozanna. End of section 14. Section 15 of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Portrait in Georgia. Hair braided chestnut, coiled like a lyncher's rope, eyes, faggots, lips, old scars, or the first red blisters, breath, the last sweet scent of Cain and her slim body, white as the ash of black flesh after flame. End of section 15. Section 16 of Cain by Jean Tumor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Blood burning moon one. Up from the skeleton stone walls, up from the rotting floorboards and the solid hand hewn beams of oak of the pre-war cotton factory, dusk Cain. Up from the dusk the full moon Cain. Glowing like a fired pine knot, it illumined the great door and soft showered the Negro shanties aligned along the single street of factory town. The full moon in the great door was an omen Negro women improvised songs against its spell. Louisa sang as she came over the crest of a hill from the white folk's kitchen. Her skin was the color of oak leaves on young trees in fall. Her breasts firm and up pointed like ripe acorns and her singing had the low murmur of winds in fig trees. Bob Stone, younger son of the people she worked for, loved her. By the way the world reckons things, he had won her by measure of that warm glow which came into mind that thought of him he had won her Tom Burwell, whom the whole town called big boy also loved her but working in the fields all day and far away from her gave him no chance to show it. Though often enough of evenings he had tried to, somehow he never got along strong as he was with hands upon the axe or plow he found it difficult to hold her or so he thought but the fact was that he held her to factory town more firmly than he thought for. His black balanced and pulled against the white of stone when she thought of them and her mind was vaguely upon them as she came over the crest of the hill coming from the white folks kitchen as she sang softly at the evil face of the full moon. A strange stare was in her, indolently she tried to fix upon Bob or Tom as the cause of it to meet Bob in the cane break as she was going to do an hour or so later was nothing new and Tom's proposal which he felt on its way to her could be indefinitely put off. Separately there was no unusual significance to either one but for some reason they jumbled when her eyes gazed vaguely at the rising moon and from the jumble came the stir that was strangely within her. Her lips trembled the slow rhythm of her song grew agitant and restless rusty black and tan spotted hounds lying in the dark corners of porches or prowling around backyards put their noses in the air and caught its tremor. They began plaintively to yelp and how chickens woke up and cackled intermittently all over barked and roosters grow as if heralding a weird dawn or some ungodly awakening. The women sang lustily their songs were cotton wads to stop their ears. Louisa came down into factory town and sank weirdly upon the step before her home. The moon was rising towards a thick cloud bank which soon would hide it. Red nigger moon center blood burning moon center come out that factory door to up from the deep dusk of a cleared spot on the edge of the forest a mellow glow arose and spread fan wise into the low hanging heavens and all around the air was heavy with the scent of boiling cane. A large pile of cane stalks lay like ribboned shatters upon the ground. A mule harness to a pole trudged lazily round and round the pivot of the grinder. Beneath a swaying oil lamp a negro alternately whipped out at the mule and fed cane stalks to the grinder. A fat boy waddled pails of fresh ground leaves between the grinder and the boiling stove. Steam came from the copper boiling pan. The scent of cane came from the copper pan and drenched the forest and the hill that sloped to factory town beneath its fragrance. You drenched them in encircle seated around the stove. Some of them chewed at the white pulp of stalks but there was no need for them to taste the cane. One tasted it in factory town and from factory town one could see the soft haze thrown by the glowing stove upon the low hanging heavens. Old David Georgia stirred the thickening syrup with a long ladle and ever so often drew it off. Old David Georgia tended his stove and told tales about the white folks about moon shining and cotton picking and about sweet nigger gals to the men who sat there about his stove to listen to him. Tom Burwell chewed cane stalk and laughed with the others till someone mentioned Louisa. Till someone said something about Louisa and Bob Stone about the silk stalking she must have gotten from him. Blood ran up Tom s neck hotter than the glow flooded from the stove. He sprang up glared at the men and said she's my gal. Will Manning laughed. Tom stirred over to him yanked him up and knocked him to the ground. Several of Manning's friends got up to fight for him. Tom whipped out a long knife and would have cut them to shreds if they hadn't through the woods. Tom had had enough. He nodded to old David, Georgia, and swung down the path to factory town. Just then the dog started barking and the roosters began to crow. Tom felt funny. Away from the fight away from the stove chill got to him. He shivered. He shuddered when he saw the full moon rising he who didn't give a goddamn for the fears of old women he forced his mind to fasten on Louisa. Bob stoned. Better not be. He turned into the street and saw Louisa sitting before her home. He went towards her, ambling, touched the brim of a marvelously shaped spotted felt hat. Said he wanted to say something to her and then found that he didn't know what he had to say or if he did that he couldn't say it. He shoved his big fists in his overalls, grinned, and started to move on. You all want me Tom? That's what us wants. Show Louisa. Well here I am and here I is but that ain't a help all the same you wanted to say something? I did that show but words is like the spots on dice no matter how your fumbles them there's times when they just won't come. I don't know why. Seems like the love I feels for you then stole my tongue. I got it now we, Louisa honey, I oughtn't till I feel I oughtn't cause you is young and goes to church and I has had other gals but Louisa I show do love you little gal I's watched you from them first days when you all sat right here before your door before the well and sang sometimes in a way that like to broke my heart. I's carried you with me into the fields day after day and after that and show comply when you was there and I can pick cotton yes sir come there beatin' Barlow yesterday I show did yes sir and next year old Stonel trust me I'll have a farm my own my bales will buy you what you get from white folks now silk stockings colorful dresses course I don't believe what some folks been whispering as to how you gets them things now why folks always did do for niggers what they likes and they just can't help I like in you, Louisa Bob Stone likes of course he does but not the way folks is whispering does he hun I don't know what you mean Tom I don't I's already cut to niggers have them hun tell them so niggers always trying to make something out of nothing and then besides white folks ain't up to them tricks so much nowadays god damn better not be least wise not with you cause I wouldn't stand it if nice sir what would you do Tom cut him just like I cut a nigger no Tom I said I would and there ain't no mode to it but that ain't the talk for now sing honey Louisa and while I'm listening to you I'll be making love Tom took her hand in his against the tough thickness of his own hers felt soft and small his huge body slipped down to the step beside her the full moon sank upward into the deep purple of the cloud bank an old woman brought a lighted lamp and hung it on the common well whose bulky shadow squatted in the middle of the road opposite Tom and Louisa the old woman lifted the well lit took hold the chain and began drawing up the heavy bucket as she did so she sang figures shifted restless like between lamp and window in the front rooms of the shanties shadows of the figures fought each other on the gray dust of the road figures raised the windows and joined the old woman in song Louisa and Tom the whole street singing red nigger moon center blood burning moon center come out that factory door three five stones sauntered from his veranda out into the gloom of fir trees and magnolias the clear white of his skin paled and the flush of his cheeks turned purple as if to balance this outer change his mind became consciously a white man's he passed the house with its huge open heart which in the days of slavery was the plantation cookery he saw Louisa bent over that heart he went in as a master should and took her direct honest bold none of this sneaking that he had to go through now the contrast was repulsive to him his family had lost ground hell no his family still owned the niggers practically damned if they did or he wouldn't have to duck around so what would they think if they knew his mother his sister he shouldn't mention them shouldn't think of them in this connection there in the dusk he blushed at doing so his brothers about town were all right but how about his friends up north he could see them incredible repulsed they didn't know the thought first made him laugh then with their eyes still upon him he began to feel embarrassed he felt the need of explaining things to them explain hell they wouldn't understand and moreover who ever heard of a southerner getting on his knees to any Yankee or anyone no sir he was going to see Louisa tonight and love her she was lovely in her way nigger way what way was that damned if he knew must know he'd known her long enough to know was there something about niggers that you couldn't know listening to them at church didn't tell you anything looking at them didn't tell you anything talking to them didn't tell you anything unless it was gossip unless they wanted to talk of course about farming and liquor and crafts but those weren't nigger nigger was something more how much more something to be afraid of more hell no whoever heard of being afraid of a nigger Tom Burwell Cartwell had told him that Tom went with Louisa after she reached home no sir no nigger had ever been with his girl he'd like to see one try some position for him to be in him Bobstone of the old stone family in a scrap with a nigger over a nigger girl in the good old days how those were the days his family lost ground not so much though enough for him to have to cut through old lemons cane fuel by way of the woods that he might meet her she was worth it beautiful nigger gal why nigger why not just gal no it was because she was nigger that he went to her sweet the scent of boiling cane came to him then he saw the rich glow of the stove he heard the voices of the men circled around it he was about to skirt the clearing when he heard his own name mentioned in the clearing leaning against a tree he listened bad nigger yes sir he show is one bad nigger when he gets started Tom Burwell's been on the gang three times faux cut men what do you think he's a guine to do to Bobstone don't know yet he ain't found out when he does baby ain't no tellin young stone ain't no quitter blood of the olden's in his veins that's right he'll scrap show be gettin to hot for niggers round this away shut up nigger you don't know what you're talking about Bobstone's ears burned as though he had been holding them over the stove season he'd welled up within him his feet felt as if they rested on red hot coals they stung him to quick movement he circled the fringe of the glowing light beneath his feet he reached the path that led to factory town plunged furiously down it halfway along a blindness within him veered him aside he crashed into the bordering cane brake cane leaves cut his face and lips he tasted blood he threw himself down and dug his fingers in the ground the earth was cool cane roots took the fever from his hands after a long while or so it seemed to him the thought came to him that it must be time to see Louisa he got to his feet there at meeting place no Louisa Tom Burwell had her veins in his forehead bulged and distended saliva moistened the dried blood on his lips he bit down on his lips he tasted blood not his own blood Tom Burwell's blood Bob drove through the cane and out again upon the road a hound swung down the path before him towards factory town Bob couldn't see it the dog loped aside to let him pass Bob's blind rushing made him stumble over it he fell with a thud that dazed him the hound yelp answering yelps came from all over the country side chickens cackled roosters crowed eroding the bloodshot eyes of southern awakening singers in the town were silenced they shut their windows down palpitant between the rooster crows a chill hush settled upon the huddled forms of Tom and Louisa a figure rushed from the shadow and stood before them Tom popped to his feet what you want Bob stoned yes sir and I'm Tom Burwell what you want Bob lunged at him Tom sidestep caught him by the shoulder and flung him to the ground straddled him let me up yes sir but watch your dolens Bob stoned a few dark figures drawn by the sound of scuffles stood about them Bob sprang to his feet fight like a man Tom Burwell and I'll lick ya again he lunged Tom sidesteped and flung him to the ground straddled him get off me you goddamn nigger you you show has started something now get up Tom yanked him up and began hammering at him each blow sounded as if it smashed into a precious irreplaceable soft something beneath them Bob staggered back he reached in his pocket and whipped out a knife that's my game show blue flash a steel blade slashed across Bob stones throat he had a Swedish sick feeling blood began to flow then he felt a sharp twitch of pain he let his knife drop he slapped one hand against his neck he pressed the other on top of his head as if to hold it down he ground he turned and staggered towards the crest of the hill in the direction of white town Negroes who had seen the fight slunk into their homes and blew the lamps out Louisa dazed hysterical refused to go indoors she slipped crumbled her body loosely propped against the woodwork of the well Tom Burwell leaned against it he seemed rooted there Bob reached broad street white men rushed up to him he collapsed in their arms Tom Burwell white men like ants upon a forage rushed about except for the taught hum of their moving all of a sudden shotguns revolvers rope kerosene torches two high powered cars with glaring lights they came together the taught hum rose to a low roar then nothing could be heard but the flop of their feet in the thick dust of the road the moving body of their silence preceded them over the crest of the hill into factory town it flattened the Negroes beneath it it rolled to the wall of the factory where it stopped Tom knew that they were coming he couldn't move and then he saw the search lights of the two cars clearing down on him a quick shock went through him he stiffened he started to run a yell went up from the mob Tom wheeled about and faced them they poured down on him they swarmed a large man with that white face and flabby cheeks came to him and almost jabbed a gun barrel through his guts hands behind you nigger Tom's wrists were bound the big man shoved him to the well burned him over it and when the woodwork caved in his body would drop to the bottom two deaths for a goddamn nigger was driven back the mob pushed in its pressure its momentum was too great drag him to the factory wood and stakes already there Tom moved in the direction indicated but they had to drag him they reached the great door too many to get in there the mob divided and float around the walls to either side the big man shoved him through the door the mob pressed him from the sides taught humming no words a stake was sunk into the ground rotting floor boards piled surrounded kerosene poured on the rotting floor boards Tom bound to the stake his breast was bare nails scratches let little lines of blood trickle down and mad him to the hair his face his eyes were set in stony except for a regular breathing one would have thought him already dead torches were flung into the pile a great flare muffled in black smoke shot upward the mob yelled the mob was silent not Tom could be seen in the flames only his head erect lean like a blackened stone stent of burning flesh soak the air Tom's eyes popped his head settled downward the mob yelled it's yell echoed against the skeleton stone walls and sounded like a hundred yells like a hundred mobs yelling it's yell fluttered against the thick front wall and fell back goes to the yell slip through the flames and out of the great door of the factory it fluttered like a dying thing down the single street of factory town Louise up on the step before her home did not hear it but her eyes opened slowly they saw the full moon glowing in the great door the full moon an evil thing an omen soft showering the homes of folks she knew where were they these people she'd seen and perhaps they'd come out and join her perhaps Tom Burwell would come at any rate the full moon in the great door was an omen which she must sing to red nigger moon center blood burning moon center come out that factory door end of section 16 section 17 of cane by Jean tumor this LibriVox recording is in the public domain seventh street money burns the pocket pocket hurts bootleggers and silken shirts ballooned zooming Cadillacs whizzing whizzing down the streetcar tracks seventh street is a bastard of prohibition and the war a crude boned soft skinned wedge of nigger life breathing its loafer air jazz songs and love thrusting unconscious rhythms black reddish blood into the white and whitewashed wood of washington stale soggy wood of washington wedges rust in soggy wood split it into again shredded the sun wedges are brilliant in the sun ribbons of wet wood dry and blow away black reddish blood pouring for a crude boned soft skinned life who set you flowing blood suckers of the war would spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood prohibition would put a stop to it who set you flowing white and white wash disappear in blood who set you flowing flowing down the smooth asphalt of heaven's street in shanties brick office buildings theaters drugstores restaurants and cabarets edying on the corner swirling like a blood red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven god would not dare to suck black red blood a nigger god he would duck his head in shame on the judgment day who set you flowing money burns the pocket hurts bootleggers and silken shirts bloomed zooming Cadillacs whizzing whizzing down the streetcar tracks end of section 17 section 18 of came this this is in the public domain Robert Robert wears a house like a monstrous diver's helmet on his head his legs are banty, bowed and shaky because as a child he had rickets he is way down rods of the house like antennae of a dead thing stuffed in the air he is way down, he is sinking his house is a dead thing that weights him down he is sinking as a diver which sink in mud should the water be drawn off life is a murky wiggling microscopic water that compresses him compresses his helmet and would crush it the minute that he pulled his head out he has to keep it in life is water that is being drawn off brother, life is water that is being drawn off brother, life is water that is being drawn off the dead house is stuffed, the stuffing is alive it is sinful to draw one's head out of live stuffing in a dead house the propped up antennae would cave in and the stuffing be strewn shredded life pulp in the water it is sinful to have one's own head crushed Robert is an upright man whose legs are banty bowed and shaky because as a child he had rickets the earth is round, heaven is a sphere that surrounds that sink where you will God is a red cross man with a dredge and a respiration pump looking for you at the opposite periphery God built the house he blew his breath into its stuffing it is good to die obeying him who can do these things a feudal something like the dead house wraps the life stuffing of the question how long before the water will be drawn off Robert does not care like most men who wear monstrous helmets the pressure it exerts is enough to convince him of its practical infinity and he cares not too straws as to whether or not he will ever see his wife and children again many a time he's seen them drown in his dreams and has kicked about joyously in the mud for days after one thing about him goes straight to the heart he has an atom's apple which strains sometimes as if he were painfully gulping great globules of air air floating shredded life pulp it is a sad thing to see a banty boat shaky rickett legged man straining the raw insides of his throat against smooth air holding furtive thoughts about the glory of pulp head strewn in water he is way down coining to his banty knees almost hides them soon people will be looking at him and calling him a strong man no doubt he is for one who has had rickets let's give it to him let's call him great when the water shall have been all drawn off let's build a monument and set it in the ooze where he goes down a monument of hewn oak carved nigger heads let's open our throats brother and sing deep river when he goes down brother robert is sinking let's open our throats brother let's sing deep river when he goes down end of section 18 section 19 of cane by gene tumor this LibriVox recording is in the public domain AV for a long while she was nothing more to me than one of those skirted beings whom boys at a certain age disdain to play with just how I came to love her timidly and with secret blushes I do not know but that I did was brought home to me one night the first night that Ned wore his long pants as fellers were seated on the curb before an apartment house where she had gone in the young trees had not outgrown their boxes then the street was lined with them when our legs grew cramped and stiff from the cold of the stone we'd stand around a box and whittle it I'd like to think now that there was a hidden purpose in the way we hacked them with our knives I'd like to feel that something deep in me responded to the trees that we need like colts impatient to be let free on the particular night I have in mind we were waiting for the top floor light to go out we wanted to see AV leave the flat this night she stayed longer than usual and gave us a chance to complete the plans of how we were going to stone and beat that fella on the top floor out of town Ned especially had it in for him he was about to throw a brick up at the window when at last the room went dark some minutes passed and AV as unconcerned as if she had been paying an old maid on to visit came out I don't remember what she had on and all that sort of thing but I do know that I turned hot as bare pavements in the summertime at Ned's boast held that I could get her to if you little niggers I didn't say a word to him it wasn't my way then I just stood there like the others and something like a fuse burned up inside of me she never noticed us but swung along lazy along lazy and easy as anything we sauntered to the corner and watched her till her door banged to Ned repeated what he'd said I didn't seem to care sitting around old mush heads bread box the discussion began how she gets away with it doc started Ned knew of course there was nothing he didn't know when it came to women he dilated on the emotional needs of girls so they weren't much different from men in that respect and concluded with a solemn avowal it does them good none of us liked Ned much we all talked dirt but it was the way he said it and then to a couple of the fellas had sisters and had caught Ned playing with them but there was disputing the superiority of his smuddy wisdom Bubbs Sandburn whose mother was friendly with Avies had overheard the old ladies talking Avies mother's aunter he said we thought that only natural and began to guess at what would happen someone said she'd married that fella on the top floor Ned called that a lie because Avie was going to marry nobody but him we had our doubts about that but we did agree that she'd soon leave school and marry someone the gang broke up and I went home picturing myself as married nothing I did seemed able to change Avies in difference to me I played basketball and when I'd make a long clean shot she'd clap with the others louder than they I thought I'd meet her on the street and there'd be no difference in the way she said hello she never took the trouble to call me by my name on the days for drill I'd let my voice down a tone and call for a complicated maneuver when I saw her coming she'd smile appreciation but it was an impersonal smile never for me it was on a summer excursion down to Riverview that she first seemed to take me into a cow the day had been spent riding merry-go-round scenic railways and shoot-to-shoots we had been in swimming and we had danced I was a crack swimmer then she didn't know how I traveled her up to kick her legs and draw her arms of course she didn't learn in one day but she thanked me for bothering with her I was also somewhat of a dancer and I had already noticed that love can start on a dance floor we danced but though I held her tightly in my arms she was way away that college fellow who lived on the top floor was somewhere making money for the next year I imagined that she was thinking wishing for him Ned was along he treated her until his money gave out she went with another fellow Ned got sore one by one the boys money gave out she left them and they got sore every one of them but me got sore this is the reason I guess why I had her to myself on the top deck of the Jane Mosley that night as we puffed up the Potomac coming home the moon was brilliant the air was sweet like clover and every now and then a salt tang a stale drift of seaweed it was not my mind spot if it went romancing I should have taken her in my arms the minute we were stowed in that old life boat I dallyed dreaming she took me in hers and I could feel by the touch of it that it wasn't a man to woman love it made me restless I felt chagrin I didn't know what it was but I did know that I couldn't handle it she ran her fingers through my hair and kissed my forehead I itched to break through her tenderness to I wanted her to take me in her arms as I knew she had that college fellow I wanted her to love me passionately as she did him I gave her one burning kiss then she laid me in her lap as if I were a child helpless I got sore when she started to hum a lullaby she wouldn't let me go I talked I knew damned well that I could beat her at that her eyes was soft and misty the curves of her lips were wistful and her smile seemed indulgent of the irrelevance of the marks I gave up at last and let her love me silently in her own way the moon was brilliant the air was sweet like clover and every now and then a salt tank a stale drift of seaweed the next time I came close to her was the following summer at harper's very we were sitting on a flat projecting rock they give the name of lovers leap someone is supposed to have jumped off it the river is about 600 feet beneath a railroad track runs up the valley and curves right where part of the mountain rock have to be blasted away to make room for it the engines of this valley have a whistle the echoes of rich sound like iterated gasps and sobs I always think of them as crude music from the soul of a baby we sat there holding hands our palms were soft and warm against each other our fingers were not tight she would not let them be she would not let me twist them I wanted to talk to explain what I meant to her it was as silent as those great trees whose tops we looked down upon she has always been like that at least to me I had the notion that if I really wanted to I could do with her just what I pleased like one constipatory I did kiss her I even let my hands cup her breasts when I was through she'd seek my hand and hold it till my pulse cooled down evening after evening we sat there I tried to get her to talk about that college fella she never would there was time to go home none of my family had come down and as for her she didn't give a hang about them the general gossips could hardly say more than they had the boarding house porch was always deserted when we returned no one saw a center so the time was set conveniently for scandal this worried me a little for I thought it might keep a baby from getting an appointment in the schools she didn't care she'd finished normal school they could give her a job if they wanted to this time went on her friends to things began to peak me I was ambitious I've left the fairy earlier than she did I was going off to college the more I thought of it the more I resented yes hell that's what it was her downright laziness sloppy indolence there was no excuse for a healthy girl taking life so easy hell she was no better than a cow I was certain that she was a cow when I felt an utter in a Wisconsin stock judging class among those energetic Swedes or whatever they are I decided to forget her for two years I thought I did when I'd come home for the summer she'd be away and before she returned I'd be gone we never wrote she was too damn lazy for that but what a bluff I put up about forgetting her the girls up that way at least the ones I knew haven't got the stuff they don't know how to love giving themselves completely was tamed beside just the holding of a baby's hand one day I received a note from her the writing I decided was Slevenon she wrote on a torn bit of notebook paper the envelope had a faint perfume that I remembered a single line told me that she had lost her school and was going away I comforted myself with the reflection that shame held no pain for one so indolent as she nevertheless I left Wisconsin that year for good Washington had seemingly forgotten her I hunted Ned between curses I caught his opinion of her she was no better than a whore I saw her mother on the street the same old pinch back jerky gated creature that I'd always known perhaps five years past the business of hunting a job or something or other had bruised my vanity so that I could recognize it I felt old avian my real relation to her I thought I came to know I wanted to see her I had been told that she was in New York as I had no money I hiked and bummed my way there I got working as shepherd I walked the streets at night hoping to meet her failing in this I saved enough to pay my fare back home one evening in early June just at the time when dusk is most lovely on the eastern horizon I saw avie indolent as ever leaning on the arm of a man strolling under the recently lit arc lights of used street she had almost passed before she recognized me she showed no surprise the puff over her eyes had grown heavier the eyes themselves were still sleepy large and beautiful I had almost concluded indifferent you look older was what she said I wanted to convince her that I was so I asked her to walk with me the man whom she was with and whom she never took the trouble to introduce that a knot from her hailed a taxi and drove away that gave me a notion of what she had been used to her dress was of some fine costly stuff I suggested the park and then added that the grass stained her skirt that it gets stained she said for where it came from there are others I have a spot in soldiers home to which I always go when I want the simple beauty of another soul robins spring about the lawn all day they leave their footprints in the grass I imagine that the grass at night smells sweet and fresh because of them the ground is high Washington lies below it's light spreads like a blush against the dark and sky the soft dusk sky of Washington and when the wind is from the south soil of my homeland falls like a fertile shower upon the lean streets of the city upon my hill in soldiers home I know the policeman who watches the place of nights when I go there alone I talk to him I tell him I come there to find the truth that people bury in their hearts I tell him that I do not come there with a girl to do the thing he's going to watch out for I look deep in his eyes when I say these things and he believes me he comes over to see who it is on the grass I say hello to him he greets me in the same way and goes off searching for other black splotches upon the lawn A.V. and I went there abandoned one of the buildings a fair distance off was playing a march I wish they would stop their playing was like a tin spoon in one's mouth I wanted the Howard Glee Club to sing deep river from the road to sing deep river deep river from the road other than the first comments A.V. had been silent I started to hum a folk tune she slipped her hand in mine pillowed her head as best she could upon my arm kissed the hand that she was holding and listened or so I thought to what I had to say I traced my development from the early days up to the present time the phase in which I could understand her told how they needed a larger life for their expression how incapable Washington was of understanding that need Howard could not meet it I pointed out that in lieu of proper channels her emotions had overflowed into paths that dissipated them I talked beautifully I thought about an art that would be born an art that would open the way for women the likes of her I asked her to hope and build up I resided over my own things to her I sang with a strange quiver in my voice a promised song and then I began to wonder why her hand had not once returned to single pressure my old time feeling about her laziness came back I spoke sharply my policeman friend passed by I said hello to him as he went away I began to visualize certain possibilities an immediate and urgent passion swept over me then I looked at A.V. eyes were closed her breathing was as faint and regular as a child's in slumber my passion died I was afraid to move lest I disturb her hours and hours I guess it was she lay there my body grew numb I shivered I coughed I wanted to get up and whittle at the boxes of young trees I withdrew my hand I raised her head to awaken her she did not stir I got up and walked around I found my policeman friend and talked to him we both came up and bent over her he said it would be alright for her to stay there just so long as she got away before the workman came at dawn a blanket was barred from our neighbor house I sat beside her through the night I saw the dawn steel over Washington the capital dome looked like a gray ghost ship drifting in from sea A.V.'s face was pale and her eyes were heavy she did not have the gray crimson splashed beauty of the dawn I hated to wake her orphaned woman end of section 19 section 20 of cane by Jean tumor this LibriVox recording is in the public domain beehive within this black hive tonight there swarm a million bees bees passing in and out the moon bees escaping out the moon bees returning through the moon silver bees intently buzzing silver honey dripping from the swarm of bees earth is a wax and cell of the world comb and I a drone lying on my back lipping honey getting drunk with silver honey wish that I might fly out past the moon and curl forever in some far off farm yard flower end of section 20 section 21 of cane by Jean tumor this LibriVox recording is in the public domain storm ending thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads great hollow bell-like flowers rumbling in the wind stretching clappers to strike our ears full-lift flowers bitten by the sun bleeding rain dripping rain like golden honey and the sweet earth flying from the thunder end of section 21