Witness

  To Jean Feiwel

  And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, wages and love.

  from “Trinity Peace”

  by Carl Sandburg

  The Characters…

  Percelle Johnson,

  town constable (aged 66)

  Fitzgerald Flitt,

  doctor (aged 60)

  Leanora Sutter (aged 12)

  Sara Chickering,

  farmer (aged 42)

  Harvey Pettibone, shop owner,

  husband of Viola (aged mid-50s)

  Merlin Van Tornhout (aged 18)

  Johnny Reeves,

  clergyman (aged 36)

  Viola Pettibone,

  shop owner (aged mid-50s)

  Esther Hirsh (aged 6)

  Iris Weaver, restaurant owner

  and rum runner (aged 30)

  Reynard Alexander,

  newspaper editor (aged 48)

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Act One

  Leanora Sutter

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Esther Hirsh

  Leanora Sutter

  Percelle Johnson

  Esther Hirsh

  Leanora Sutter

  Sara Chickering

  Leanora Sutter

  Johnny Reeves

  Leanora Sutter

  Johnny Reeves

  Esther Hirsh

  Percelle Johnson

  Iris Weaver

  Johnny Reeves

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Sara Chickering

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Reynard Alexander

  Leanora Sutter

  Iris Weaver

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Sara Chickering

  Johnny Reeves

  Act Two

  Leanora Sutter

  Esther Hirsh

  Percelle Johnson

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Sara Chickering

  Leanora Sutter

  Esther Hirsh

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Sara Chickering

  Iris Weaver

  Leanora Sutter

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Iris Weaver

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Johnny Reeves

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Leanora Sutter

  Reynard Alexander

  Esther Hirsh

  Iris Weaver

  Sara Chickering

  Esther Hirsh

  Sara Chickering

  Act Three

  Esther Hirsh

  Percelle Johnson

  Sara Chickering

  Johnny Reeves

  Reynard Alexander

  Johnny Reeves

  Leanora Sutter

  Sara Chickering

  Esther Hirsh

  Reynard Alexander

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Esther Hirsh

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Reynard Alexander

  Viola Pettibone

  Percelle Johnson

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Reynard Alexander

  Esther Hirsh

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Reynard Alexander

  Johnny Reeves

  Iris Weaver

  Sara Chickering

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Percelle Johnson

  Esther Hirsh

  Act Four

  Leanora Sutter

  Percelle Johnson

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Reynard Alexander

  Sara Chickering

  Esther Hirsh

  Johnny Reeves

  Reynard Alexander

  Sara Chickering

  Esther Hirsh

  Sara Chickering

  Harvey Pettibone

  Harvey Pettibone

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Johnny Reeves

  Esther Hirsh

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Harvey Pettibone

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Sara Chickering

  Esther Hirsh

  Percelle Johnson

  Reynard Alexander

  Leanora Sutter

  Percelle Johnson

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Act Five

  Leanora Sutter

  Johnny Reeves

  Esther Hirsh

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Percelle Johnson

  Viola Pettibone

  Reynard Alexander

  Iris Weaver

  Reynard Alexander

  Leanora Sutter

  Esther Hirsh

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Esther Hirsh

  Iris Weaver

  Reynard Alexander

  Leanora Sutter

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Reynard Alexander

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Leanora Sutter

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Fitzgerald Flitt

  Johnny Reeves

  Esther Hirsh

  Harvey and Viola Pettibone

  Merlin Van Tornhout

  Leanora Sutter

  About the Author

  Copyright

  i don’t know how miss harvey

  talked me into dancing in the fountain of youth.

  i don’t know how she knew i danced at all.

  unless once, a long time ago, my mamma told her so.

  but she did talk me into dancing.

  i leaped and swept my way through the fountain of youth

  separated on the stage from all those limb-tight white girls.

  the ones who wouldn’t dance with a negro,

  they went home in a huff that first day,

  but some came back.

  they told miss harvey they’d dance,

  but they wouldn’t

  touch any brown skin girl.

  only the little girl from new york,

  esther,

  that funny talking kid,

  only esther didn’t mind about me being colored.

  i pushed the window up in school

  to get the stink of leanora sutter out of the classroom

  where miss harvey brought her to show off

  a dance from last week’s

  recital.

  mr. caldwell

  chuffed his arms,

  faked a shiver,

  ramped the sash back down

  saying the day was too cold to leave a window open.

  leanora sutter

  turned and stared through me

  that witchy girl

  with those fuming eyes

  she meant to put a curse on me.

  she meant to.

  i left school right then.

  no amount of air will get the smell of her

  out of my nose,

  the soot of her out of my eyes.

  i did first meet sara chickering

  when i had comings here last year

  to be a fresh air girl in vermont.

  vermont is a nice place.

  they have wiggle fish.

  that is what i did tell daddy in new york

  when i had comings back to him.

  i did ask daddy

  to have our livings in vermont with sara chickering

  for keeps.

  but daddy did say no.

  so i made a long walk all by myself.

  i did follow the train tracks and

  pretty quick daddy did have comings after me.

  sara chickering made two rooms
to be for us

  in her big farmhouse

  with her dog jerry.

  we have sitting every night at the round table, next to the hot stove.

  and i do catch the wiggle fish through

  a hole sara chickering does make in the ice.

  daddy gives helps when

  sara chickering has needs for extra big hands.

  but daddy is a shoe man. he has shoe knowings.

  my friend sara chickering, she has knowings of all things else.

  in school willie pettibone handed me an article

  torn from the town paper.

  it said:

  any person to whom an evening of hearty laughter is poison had better keep away from the community club minstrel show friday evening at the town hall. all others will be admitted for a night of fun brought to you by 22 genuine black-faced “coons.”

  felt like skidding on ice as i read,

  felt like twisting steel.

  why can’t folks just leave me alone?

  daddy says:

  how alone you want to be, leanora?

  you’re already nothing but a wild brown island.

  roads were bad.

  don’t blame me.

  it’s not my fault.

  these roads are nothing but hog wallow during a thaw.

  folks ought to know that.

  wright sutter should have thought

  before bringing his wife and child along to town with him.

  that wasn’t my fault,

  his horse and wagon miring down,

  stuck in the mud.

  i wasn’t even on duty.

  not my fault he couldn’t get help.

  no one too energetic about helping a colored man hereabouts,

  even if he is a neighbor.

  sutter, making deliveries, left his womenfolk in the wagon too long.

  wife took a chill,

  waiting. she put her wrap around the little girl,

  leanora.

  sick all year, sutter’s wife was. doc flitt said

  she ought to go away to a sanatorium to get her health back.

  wright sutter didn’t have money for that.

  even if there was a sanatorium for colored folk.

  the sutter woman died this past spring.

  don’t blame me.

  the roads were bad.

  the preacher man

  johnny reeves

  did have sittings on the riverbank

  where i do make the leaves and

  twigs float by in the ice green water.

  even with my hat down over my ears i did hear him cry,

  neighbor,

  oh neighbor.

  so i made my way to see what he did want.

  johnny reeves did stand when he had seeings of me

  and a girl did stand up in the brown tangle bank beside him and run away

  and johnny reeves did yell

  and make fist shakings at me

  and i did yell

  and make fist shakings back

  and we did have a good game of yellings and shakings

  until sara chickering did call me

  and i had runnings back to the house

  to gather the warm chicken eggs

  from the steamy straw nests.

  they made me mad.

  willie pettibone and some of the other boys, they said things

  about me and daddy.

  i shouldn’t let them get to me but

  i’m flint quick these days.

  willie said:

  at the klan meeting last night

  the dragons talked about lighting you

  and your daddy up

  to get them some warmth on a cold day.

  you’d be cheap fuel, they said.

  they liked the smell of barbecue, they said.

  i turned my back on willie pettibone and walked out of school.

  i didn’t know where i was going.

  i just walked out

  without my coat,

  without my hat or rubbers.

  i didn’t feel the cold,

  i was that scorched.

  the day was cold,

  bitter, below-zero.

  made-you-wish-you’d-been-born-inside-a-fur-coat

  cold.

  heavy sky, early dark, lamps already lit.

  esther playing in the kitchen with her clothespin dolls,

  and mr. hirsh still at the shoe store. that’s

  when leanora sutter, half frozen,

  showed up on my porch.

  she wore no coat, her head was bare, no rubbers on her feet,

  nothing but worn-thin school clothes standing between her

  and the teeth of winter.

  i brought her in.

  sat her on a chair by the stove.

  put a mug

  the chipped one

  of warm broth in her hands.

  esther dragged my best quilt into the kitchen and

  worked it up over leanora’s shoulders.

  only esther would go lugging out the company best

  for a colored girl.

  i left leanora there with esther,

  ran the half mile to iris weaver’s restaurant

  with the coffee flowing and the politics raging around me

  phoned doc flitt and constable johnson,

  let them know i had leanora and she wasn’t in any too good shape,

  and they’d better hurry along.

  constable johnson said he’d go after the girl’s father.

  make sure wright got his child home safe and sound

  to that little place they rent from lizzie stockwell

  out the west end of town.

  constable said he didn’t want happening to leanora,

  what happened to the mother.

  when i got back to the house,

  esther sat at leanora’s feet,

  little round esther leaning against

  that slender brown girl, with her long head and longer limbs.

  gave me some turn

  seeing those two motherless children

  in my kitchen

  before the stove,

  esther’s hair draped across leanora’s lap,

  leanora’s dark hand stroking esther’s silk face.

  after wright sutter drove away with leanora,

  i looked at the empty chair by the stove,

  the quilt still slung over it, spilling onto the floor.

  i never had a colored girl in my kitchen before.

  i told daddy i wasn’t going back to school.

  daddy said:

  of course you are.

  no low-down white boy’s gonna stop leanora sutter

  from getting an education.

  some preacher down south

  has himself a following

  of coloreds

  and whites,

  together.

  they trail after him from town to town,

  forgetting their duties to home.

  they even tried him, neighbor, they tried him

  before a jury of white men

  for inciting trouble,

  for leading the lord’s sheep to stray,

  and still, neighbor, it grieves me to tell you that

  still,

  they let the devil go free.

  it’s a sorry state, neighbor,

  it’s a pitiful state of affairs when a colored preacher

  can lure good white folk from their hearths.

  my daddy says

  down in texas

  a reverend by the name of

  revealed jesus

  is preaching so powerful,

  people are leaving their jobs and their houses and

  following him from meeting to meeting.

  my daddy says

  revealed jesus better get his brave behind up north pretty quick because

  what he’s doing down there in texas

  is sure to get him lynched.

  oh, neighbor.<
br />
  down in that den of the devil,

  down in that center of sin,

  down in new york’s harlem,

  negroes kill other negroes

  over gambling debts,

  over women,

  over gin.

  hear me, neighbor.

  if we are patient,

  if we are patient, my good neighbor,

  we can stay here at home,

  we can take care of our problems at home

  and down there in harlem, the

  negro problem will

  settle

  itself.

  in new york

  i did see someone whose poor head

  did have a bullet inside it

  and he did

  have blood everywhere in the street

  where he did sleep so still.

  daddy and sara chickering did talk at the table.

  a man with the name of senator greene did get a bullet in his head, too.

  i did make a whisper sound

  to hear this talk.

  like birds falling.

  daddy did say

  don’t cry esther. senator greene is getting better again.

  daddy says bullets are a very bad thing.

  but daddy says

  sometimes you can even get a shooting in the head

  and still be okay.

  sara chickering did say yes that is true.

  so it has to be.

  the ku klux klan

  is looking to rent the town hall for their meetings.

  why shouldn’t they?

  some girls i know have gone out in the world.

  but most have married,

  settled down to

  children

  and housework.

  i’m different.

  i have this restaurant.

  i have a secret life, too.

  a life the law is forever dogging me over.

  i run booze.

  i know every foot of ground

  between boston and montreal.

  i could walk the distance blindfolded.

  i know the names of the customs officers,

  american and canadian,

  where they’re stationed,

  what shift they’re on,

  the tough ones,

  and the ones who can’t resist a pretty leg

  or a slice of apple pie.

  the officers in vermont are the toughest.

  i’ve brought loads through highgate and alburg,

  but mostly i go through new york:

  rouses point and plattsburg.

  i drive a good secondhand packard.

  it has plenty of pep,