Jonah's Gourd Vine Read Free

poet and philosopher. If language is the chief visible sign of human beings’ pre-eminence over beasts, then poetry is the purest expression of man’s spiritual quest. Jonah’s Gourd Vine is a glorious paean to the power of the word, an attestation to the promise made in Langston Hughes’s famous 1926 essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”:
    We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
    R ITA D OVE

CHAPTER 1
    G od was grumbling his thunder and playing the zig-zag lightning thru his fingers.
    Amy Crittenden came to the door of her cabin to spit out a wad of snuff. She looked up at the clouds.
    â€œOle Massa gwinter scrub floors tuhday,” she observed to her husband who sat just outside the door, reared back in a chair. “Better call dem chaps in outa de cotton patch.”
    â€œâ€™Tain’t gwine rain,” he snorted, “you always talkin’ more’n yuh know.”
    Just then a few heavy drops spattered the hard clay yard. He arose slowly. He was an older middle-age than his years gave him a right to be.
    â€œAnd eben if hit do rain,” Ned Crittenden concluded grudgingly, “ef dey ain’t got sense ’nough tuh come in let ’em git wet.”
    â€œYeah, but when us lef’ de field, you told ’em not to come till you call ’em. Go ’head and call ’em ’fo’ de rain ketch ’em.”
    Ned ignored Amy and shuffled thru the door with the chair, and somehow trod on Amy’s bare foot. “’Oman, why don’t you git outa de doorway? Jes contrary tuh dat. You needs uh good head stompin’, dass whut. You sho is one aggervatin’ ’oman.”
    Amy flashed an angry look, then turned her face again tothe sea of wind-whipped cotton, turned hurriedly and took the cow-horn that hung on the wall and placed it to her lips.
    â€œYou John Buddy! You Zeke! You Zachariah! Come in!”
    From way down in the cotton patch, “Yassum! Us comin’!”
    Ned shuffled from one end of the cabin to the other, slamming to the wooden shutter of the window, growling between his gums and his throat the while.
    The children came leaping in, racing and tumbling in tense, laughing competition—the three smaller ones getting under the feet of the three larger ones. The oldest boy led the rest, but once inside he stopped short and looked over the heads of the others, back over the way they had come.
    â€œShet dat door, John!” Ned bellowed, “you ain’t got the sense you wuz borned wid.”
    Amy looked where her big son was looking. “Who dat comin’ heah, John?” she asked.
    â€œSome white folks passin’ by, mama. Ahm jes’ lookin’ tuh see whar dey gwine.”
    â€œCome out dat do’way and shet it tight, fool! Stand dere gazin’ dem white folks right in de face!” Ned gritted at him. “Yo’ brazen ways wid dese white folks is gwinter git you lynched one uh dese days.”
    â€œAw ’tain’t,” Amy differed impatiently, “who can’t look at ole Beasley? He ain’t no quality no-how.”
    â€œShet dat door, John!” screamed Ned.
    â€œAh wuzn’t de last one inside,” John said sullenly.
    â€œDon’t you gimme no word for word,” Ned screamed at him. “You jes’ do lak Ah say do and keep yo’ mouf shet or Ah’ll take uh trace chain tuh yuh. Yo’ mammy mought think youse uh lump uh gold ’cause you got uh li’l’