CHAPTER 1
One of the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, ZoraNeale Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, anthropologist, folklorist, andchampion of black heritage, and the first African American woman to receive aGuggenheim fellowship. Her work includes four novels, including Their Eyes WereWatching God and Jonah's Gourd Vine, numerous short stories, essays, and plays,and her autobiography Dust Tracks on the Road, for which she received theAnisfield-Wolf Award. This is an excerpt from her autobiography.
MY MOTHER WAS THE ONE TO DARE ALL
Our house had eight rooms, and we called it a two-story house; but later on Ilearned it was really one story and a jump. The big boys all slept up there, andit was a good place to hide and shirk from sweeping off the front porch orraking up the back yard.
Downstairs in the dining-room there was an old "safe," a punched design in itstin doors. Glasses of guava jelly, quart jars of pear, peach, and other kinds ofpreserves. The left-over cooked foods were on the lower shelves.
There were eight children in the family, and our house was noisy from the timeschool turned out until bedtime. After supper we gathered in Mama's room, andeverybody had to get their lessons for the next day. Mama carried us all pastlong division in arithmetic, and parsing sentences in grammar, by diagrams onthe blackboard. That was as far as she had gone. Then the younger ones wereturned over to my oldest bother, Bob, and Mama sat and saw to it that we paidattention. You had to keep on going over things until you did know. How I hatedthe multiplication tables—especially the sevens!
We had a big barn, and a stretch of ground well covered with Bermuda grass. Soon moonlight nights, two-thirds of the village children from seven to eighteenwould be playing hide and whoop, chickmah-chick, hide and seek, and otherboisterous games in our yard. Once or twice a year we might get permission to goand play at some other house. But that was most unusual. Mama contended that wehad plenty of space to play in; plenty of things to play with; and, furthermore,plenty of us to keep each other's company. If she had her way, she meant toraise her children to stay at home. She said that there was no need for us tolive like no-count Negroes and poor white trash—too poor to sit in the house—hadto come outdoors for any pleasure, or hang around somebody else's house. Any ofher children who had any tendencies like that must have got it from the Hurstonside. It certainly did not come from the Pottses. Things like that gave me myfirst glimmering of the universal female gospel that all good traits andleanings come from the mother's side.
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We mightnot land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. Papa did not feelso hopeful. Let well enough alone. It did not do for Negroes to have too muchspirit. He was always threatening to break mine or kill me in the attempt. Mymother was always standing between us. She conceded that I was impudent andgiven to talking back, but she didn't want to "squinch my spirit" too much forfear that I would turn out to be a mealy-mouthed rag doll by the time I gotgrown. Papa always flew hot when Mama said that. I do not know whether he fearedfor my future with the tendency I had to stand and give battle, or that he felta personal reference in Mama's observation. He predicted dire things for me. Thewhite folks were not going to stand for it. I was going to be hung before I gotgrown. Somebody was going to blow me down for my sassy tongue. Mama was going tosuck sorrow for not beating my temper out of me before it was too late. Posseswith ropes and guns were going to drag me out sooner or later on account of thatstiff neck I toted. I was going to tote a hungry belly by reason of my forwardways. My older sister was meek and mild. She would always get along. Whycouldn't I be like her? Mama would keep right on with whatever she was doing andremark, "Zora is my young'un, and Sarah is yours. I'll be bound mine will comeout more than conquer. You leave her alone. I'll tend to her when I figger sheneeds it." She meant by that that Sarah had a disposition like Papa's, whilemine was like hers.
Behind Mama's rocking-chair was a good place to be in times like that. Papa wasnot going to hit Mama. He was two hundred pounds of bone and muscle and Mamaweighed somewhere in the nineties. When people teased him about Mama being theboss, he would say he could break her of her headstrong ways if he wanted to,but she was so little that he couldn't find any place to hit her. My Uncle]im,Mama's brother, used to always take exception to that. He maintained that if awoman had anything big enough to sit on, she had something big enough to hit on.That was his firm conviction, and he meant to hold on to it as long as thebottom end of his backbone pointed towards the ground—don't care who the womanwas or what she looked like, or where she came from. Men like Papa who held toany other notion were just beating around the bush, dodging the issues, andotherwise looking like a fool at a funeral.
Papa used to shake his head at this and say, "What's de use of me taking my fistto a poor weakly thing like a woman? Anyhow, you got to submit yourself to 'em,so there ain't no use in beating on 'em and then have to go back and beg 'empardon."
[...]
When I began to make up stories I cannot say. Just from one fancy to another,adding more and more detail until they seemed real. People seldom see themselveschanging.
So I was making little stories to myself, and have no memory of how I began. ButI do remember some of the earliest ones.
I came in from play one day and told my mother how a bird had talked to me witha tail so long that while he sat up in the top of the pine tree his tail wasdragging the ground. It was a soft beautiful bird tail, all blue and pink andred and green. In fact I climbed up the bird's tail and sat up the tree and hada long talk with the bird. He knew my name, but I didn't know how he knew it. Infact, the bird had come a long way just to sit and talk with me.
Another time, I dashed into the kitchen and told Mama how the lake had talkedwith me, and invited me to walk all over it. I told the lake I was afraid ofgetting drowned, but the lake assured me it wouldn't think of doing me likethat. No, indeed! Come right on and have a walk. Well, I stepped out on the lakeand walked all over it, it didn't even wet my feet. I could see all the fish andthings swimming around under me, and they all said hello, but none of thembothered me. Wasn't that nice?
My mother said that it was. My grandmother glared at me like open-faced hell andsnorted.
"Luthee!" (She lisped.) "You hear dat young'un stand up here and lie like dat?And you ain't doing nothing to break her of it? Grab her! Wring her coat tailsover her head and wear out a handful of peach hickories on her back-side! Stompher guts out! Ruin her!"
"Oh, she's just playing," Mama said indulgently.
"Playing! Why dat Iil' heifer is lying just as fast as a horse can trot. Stopher! Wear her back-side out. I bet if I lay my hands on her she'll stop it. Ivominates a lying tongue."
Mama never tried to break me. She'd listen sometimes, and sometimes shewouldn't. But she never seemed displeased. But her mother used to foam at themouth. I was just as sure to be hung before I got grown as gun was iron! Theleast thing Mama could do to straighten me out was to smack my jaws for me. Sheoutraged my grandmother scandalously by not doing it. Mama was going to beresponsible for my downfall when she stood up in judgment. It was a sin beforethe living justice, that's what it was. God knows, grandmother would break me orkill me, if she had her way. Killing me looked like the best one, anyway. All Iwas good for was to lay up and wet the bed half of the time and tell lies,besides being the spitting image of dat good-for-nothing yaller bastard. I wasthe punishment God put on Mama for marrying Papa. I ought to be thrown in thehogslops, that's what. She could beat me as long as I last.
[...]
I knew that Mama was sick. She kept getting thinner and thinner and her chestcold never got any better. Finally, she took to bed.
She had come home from Alabama that way. She had gone back to her old home to bewith her sister during her sister's last illness. Aunt Dinky had lasted on fortwo months after Mama got there, and so Mama had stayed on till the last.
It seems that there had been other things there that worried her. Downunderneath, it appeared that Grandma had never quite forgiven her for the moveshe had made twenty-one years before in marrying Papa. So that when Mamasuggested that the old Potts place be sold so that she could bring her shareback with her to Florida, her mother, urged on by Uncle Bud, mama's oldestbrother, refused, Not until Grandma's head was cold, was an acre of the place tobe sold. She had long since quit living on it, and it was pretty well run down,but she wouldn't, that was all. Mama could just go on back to that yaller rascalshe had married like she came. I do not think that the money part worried Mamaas much as the injustice and spitefulness of the thing.
It was not long after Mama came home that she began to be less active. Then shetook to bed, I knew she was ailing, but she was always frail, so I did not takeit too much to heart. I was nine years old, and even though she had talked to mevery earnestly one night, I could not conceive of Mama actually dying. She hadtalked of it many times.
That day, September 18th, she had called me and given me certain instructions. Iwas not to let them take the pillow from under her head until she was dead. Theclock was not to be covered, nor the looking-glass. She trusted me to see to itthat these things were not done. I promised her as solemnly as nine years coulddo, that I would see to it.
What years of agony that promise gave me! In the first place, I had no idea thatit would be soon. But that same day near sundown I was called upon to set mywill against my father, the village dames, and village custom. I know now that Icould not have succeeded.
I had left Mama and was playing outside for a little while when I noted a numberof women going inside Mama's room and staying. It looked strange. So I went onin. Papa was standing at the foot of the bed looking down on my mother, who wasbreathing hard. As I crowded in, they lifted up the bed and turned it around sothat Mama's eyes would face the east. I thought that she looked to me as thehead of the bed was reversed. Her mouth was slightly open, but her breathingtook up so much of her strength that she could not talk. But she looked at me,or so I felt, to speak for her. She depended on me for a voice.
The Master-Maker in His making had made Old Death. Made him with big, soft feetand square toes. Made him with a face that reflects the face of all things, butneither changes itself, nor is mirrored anywhere. Made the body of Death out ofinfinite hunger. Made a weapon for his hand to satisfy his needs. This was themorning of the day of the beginning of things.
But Death had no home and he knew it at once.
"And where shall I dwell in my dwelling?" Old Death asked, for he was alreadyold when he was made.
"You shall build you a place close to the living, yet far out of the sight ofeyes. Wherever there is a building, there you have your platform thatcomprehends the four roads of the winds. For your hunger, I give you the firstand last taste of all things."
We had been born, so Death had had his first taste of us. We had built things,so he had his platform in our yard.
And now, Death stirred from his platform in his secret place in our yard, andcame inside the house.
Somebody reached for the clock, while Mrs. Mattie Clarke put her hand to thepillow to take it away.
"Don't!" I cried out. "Don't take the pillow from under Mama's head! She saidshe didn't want it moved!" I made to stop Mrs, Mattie, but Papa pulled me away.Others were trying to silence me. I could see the huge drop of sweat collectedin the hollow at Mama's elbow and it hurt me so. They were covering the clockand the mirror.
"Don't cover up that clock! Leave that looking-glass like it is! Lemme putMama's pillow back where it was!"
But Papa held me tight and the others frowned me down. Mama was still raspingout the last morsel of her life, I think she was trying to say something, and Ithink she was trying to speak to me. What was she trying to tell me? Whatwouldn't I give to know! Perhaps she was telling me that it was better for thepillow to be moved so that she could die easy, as they said. Perhaps she wasaccusing me of weakness and failure in carrying out her last wish. I don't know,I shall never know.
Just then, Death finished his prowling through the house on his padded feet andentered the room. He bowed to Mama in his way, and she made her manners and leftus to act out our ceremonies over unimportant things.
I was to agonize over that moment for years to come. In the midst of play, inwakeful moments after midnight, on the way home from parties, and even in theclassroom during lectures. My thoughts would escape occasionally from theirconfines and stare me down.
Now, I know that I could not have had my way against the world. The world welived in required those acts. Anything else would have been sacrilege, and nonine-year-old voice was going to thwart them. My father was with the mores. Hehad restrained me physically from outraging the ceremonies established for thedying. If there is any consciousness after death, I hope that Mama knows that Idid my best. She must know how I have suffered for my failure.
But life picked me up from the foot of Mama's bed, grief, self-despisement andall, and set my feet in strange ways. That moment was the end of a phase in mylife. I was old before my time with grief of loss, of failure, and of remorse.No matter what the others did, my mother had put her trust in me. She had feltthat I could and would carry out her wishes, and I had not. And then in thatsunset time, I failed her. It seemed as she died that the sun went down onpurpose to flee away from me.
That hour began my wanderings. Not so much in geography, but in time. Then notso much in time as in spirit.
Mama died at sundown and changed a world. That is, the world which had beenbuilt out of her body and her heart. Even the physical aspects fell apart with asuddenness that was startling.
My oldest brother was up in Jacksonville in school, and he arrived home afterMama had passed. By then, she had been washed and dressed and laid out on theironing board in the parlor.
Practically all of the village was in the front yard and on the porch, talkingin low tones and waiting. They were not especially waiting for my brother Bob.They were doing that kind of waiting that people do around death. It is a kindof sipping up the drama of the thing. However, if they were asked, they wouldsay it was the sadness of the occasion which drew them. In reality it is a kindof feast of the Passover.
Bob's grief was awful when he realized that he was too late. He could notconceive at first that nothing could be done to straighten things out. There wasno ear for his excuse nor explanation-no way to ease what was in him. Finally itmust have come to him that what he had inside, he must take with him wherever hewent. Mama was there on the cooling board with the sheet draped over her blowinggently in the wind. Nothing there seemed to hear him at all.
There was my sister Sarah in the kitchen crying and trying to quiet Everett, whowas just past two years old. She was crying and trying to make him hush at thesame time. He was crying because he sensed the grief around him. And then Sarah,who was fifteen, had been his nurse and he would respond to her mood, whateverit was. We were all grubby bales of misery, huddled about lamps.
