Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Hogs don’t give nothing. Hogs don’t leave nothing,” he said.

  “Jefferson, do you like coming out here, or you prefer staying in the cell?”

  “Anything y’all want,” he said. “Don’t matter to me.”

  “It matters to her, Jefferson. Out here she can sit down.”

  He grunted. “I’m the one go’n have to sit down.”

  “You can be kinder to her, Jefferson. Every time she comes up here, she comes back to the quarter looking worse and worse.”

  “She ought to stay home,” he said.

  “All she’d do is worry more if she didn’t see you.”

  “Hogs don’t worry. Hogs just know,” he said.

  “Hogs don’t know anything, Jefferson,” I said. “Only human beings know. Only human beings worry.”

  “This hog know. Fattening up for Christmas. Kill him at Christmastime,” he said.

  “Nobody is going to die at Christmas,” I said.

  “How you know? They told you?”

  “Nobody told me anything,” I said. “I just know. Nothing is going to happen at Christmas.”

  “I be glad when it’s over,” he said. “Old hog get him some rest then.”

  “Do you want me to leave, Jefferson?”

  “Leave when you want. Old hog don’t care.”

  He lowered his head. The chains jangled under the table. I wanted to leave, but it was too early: the sheriff would have had his proof that I hadn’t reached Jefferson, that I was giving up.

  “They found a pine tree this year,” I said. “A nice little pine tree.”

  His head was bowed. He didn’t answer. His hair had begun to grow back, but you could still see the big bones of his skull.

  A half hour later, Paul came in to return him to his cell. Jefferson walked in short steps, his head bowed, his arms hanging low, his shoulders too close together. After locking him in, Paul came back to the dayroom, and he and I walked down to the main floor together.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. But that’s what she wants.”

  Paul nodded. He understood. He had come from good stock.

  I went back of town to the Rainbow and had a couple of beers. When I figured Vivian would be out of class, I drove over to the school. One of the teachers was directing the children onto the bus, and Vivian and another teacher stood by the flagpole, talking. Vivian saw me and came over and got into the car.

  “Hi,” she said, and kissed me.

  “A drink or a sandwich?” I said.

  “A drink’s not too bad,” she said.

  I pulled away from behind the bus where the teacher was still commanding the children, and we went back to the Rainbow. The place was quiet and dark, and we sat at a table far over in the corner. The teachers who were already there knew that we wanted to be alone. The waitress hadn’t come in yet, so Claiborne brought us our drinks. After he left, Vivian looked across the table at me.

  “I don’t think we ought to go to Baton Rouge tonight,” I said.

  Vivian drank and set her glass back down and looked at me, waiting for me to go on. We had talked about going to Baton Rouge that night, but she knew I had seen him today, and we had been noticing that after my visits with him, things did not always go well for us in bed.

  “How’s the program going?” I asked her.

  “All right,” she said, waiting.

  “Mine’s about the same,” I said. “The children found a nice little pine tree this year. Before, it was oak or anything else they could find. But this year, a little pine tree; not very tall, but nice. Nice and round.”

  Vivian nodded. She was looking at me closely.

  “I love you more and more,” I said. “If you’d just say the word, God knows I’d drop everything.”

  “And hate each other for the rest of our lives, Grant? No,” she said.

  “I could never hate you—ever.”

  “You could, and you would,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes, Grant, you would hate me for letting you make this decision. Or I would hate you for doing it.”

  “I’m not doing any good up there, Vivian,” I said. “Nothing changing.”

  “Something is,” she said.

  19

  IT WAS COLD and it rained for the two weeks preceding our Christmas program. It rained too much for the people to go out into the field to cut cane, and the field and the roads were too muddy for the cane to be brought to the derrick for loading and then shipment to the mill for grinding. People stayed at home around the fireplace or near the stove in the kitchen. You could see gray-blue smoke rising from the big chimneys in the fronts of the houses and from the smaller chimneys in the backs. And because the wind always came into the quarter from the river this time of year, you could see the smoke drifting from the quarter back across the field toward the cemetery and the swamp. The only time you were likely to see someone out in the yard was to cut more wood to throw onto the fireplace or put into the kitchen stove. The rest of the time, the quarter was deserted, the doors and windows shut tight against the cold wind and the rain.

  There was still a light drizzle on the night of the program, but it did not keep the people away. I had told the students that this program should be dedicated to Jefferson, and they had taken the message home, and many people who had never attended a Christmas or graduation program came to the church that night. The program began at seven o’clock, but people were there much earlier. Because of the rain, they could not drive cars in the quarter, so they either walked or came by wagon. Reverend Ambrose, who lived up the river and not on the plantation, parked his car along the highway and walked to the church. As usual, he was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie, but tonight he also wore a yellow slicker. Most of the other people wore their “going-to-town” clothes. Not their everyday working clothes, and not their Sunday best either. Going-to-town clothes were old clothes, but without any visible patches. The shirts and the dresses may have been faded, but they were clean and they were neat.

  No one lingered outside, as they would have had the weather been better. After scraping off their shoes on the bottom step, they kicked the mud on the ground and came inside the church. The womenfolks who had brought food set their pots or pans or bowls on the tables that we had placed against the blackboards in the back. Mrs. Sarah James, who had arrived at six-thirty, sat guarding the food until after the program, when everyone would eat. The other women took vacant seats as close to the heater as they could get. The men and the older boys stood in the back, talking, until the womenfolks told them to sit down.

  I was behind the curtain with the students who had been chosen to participate in the Christmas play. The curtain was made up of four bedsheets, suspended from a wire that extended from one side of the church to the other. Three of the sheets were very white; the fourth was a light gray. This one belonged to Miss Rita Lawrence, and as long back as I could remember, she had insisted on contributing something to the Christmas program, and every time it was a sheet, probably the same one, and it was never as white as the others. The audience always knew which sheet was Miss Rita’s, and they thought it was embarrassing to have it hanging up there with all the others, but no one had the courage to speak to Miss Rita about it, and each year it was one of the four that made up the curtain.

  Irene Cole and Odessa Freeman were assisting me in preparing the students behind the curtain. The two shepherds wore brown crokersacks over their dress clothes, and each of them carried a tall bamboo cane curved at the top and tied with black thread. The three wise men wore crepe-paper robes. The robes were red, green, and yellow. Irene and Odessa continued to remind the wise men to be careful not to tear their robes by moving around so much. Mary, the mother of Jesus, wore a wrinkled blue denim dress to show that she was a poor woman. Joseph, her husband, had on overalls and carried a hammer in the loop of his pants. Baby Jesus was a white alabaster doll dressed in a long white gown. The
girls in the choir wore white dresses, the boys white shirts.

  Every so often I would part the curtain to see how many people had come in. Miss Rita Lawrence and her big grandson, Bok, were two of the first people there and sat up front, with Bok taking up almost a third of the bench. Twice Bok had been sent to the mental institution at Jackson, but the doctors there knew he was not dangerous and felt they could do no more for him than Miss Rita probably could do for him at home, and after keeping him a week or two they sent him back to her. Bok had one peculiarity other than being unable to look after himself, and that was his love for marbles. He carried them with him all the time. He sat there now, playing with the marbles in the right pocket of his overalls. Miss Rita occasionally had to touch him on the hand to keep them quiet.

  On the bench with Bok and Miss Rita sat Julia Lavonia, who had two children in the program, the boy as one of the shepherds, and the girl as Mary, mother of Jesus. James, her husband, was not there. A short, big-headed mulatto with curly black hair and gray eyes, he had told me once that he had better things to do than go to a coon gathering. But Julia was there, and I knew that she had brought pecan and coconut pralines, just as she did every year. The Freemans had come in too. Joe Freeman sat far in the back, but his wife, Harriet, and her mother, Aunt Agnes, and several of the children were up front, directly behind Miss Rita, Bok, and Julia Lavonia. The Coles, Irene’s people, sat behind them—Norman and his wife, Sarah, Sarah’s mother, Lelia Wells, Sarah’s sister, Esther, and Esther’s boyfriend, Henry, and two or three children. Sarah usually brought crackling and baked sweet potatoes to the Christmas program.

  On the other side of the aisle, in the front row, and still wearing their overcoats because they were far from the heater, sat my aunt and Miss Emma, Miss Eloise Bouie, and Inez. Behind them were Farrell Jarreau and his little wife, Ofelia. Ofelia was a delicate mulatto woman whose sisters came to the plantation every Sunday morning to take her to the Catholic church in Bayonne. She would return late in the evening, and we would hardly see her again until the next Sunday, when she would climb into the back of the car to go to mass. I supposed it was her husband, Farrell, who got her out tonight, because she had never come before. Behind them sat most of the Martin family—about ten of them—most, but not all. The father, Herbert, was not there, and neither was the idiot boy, Jesse, or the pregnant daughter, Vera, or the old grandmother. But Viola, the mother, was there, along with eight or nine of her children. Two others were in the choir, behind the curtain. The Williamses were there—four of them; three Ruffins—mother, son, and daughter—were there. The Griffins, Harry and Lena, with their two grown-up unmarried daughters, Alberda and Louberda, were there. So the church was nearly full, and it was only a quarter to seven. The bad weather had not kept them away but probably had brought them out tonight. Since they could not work in the field or in their gardens, they had no reason to stay at home, claiming to be tired.

  At seven o’clock I parted the curtains and stepped out to face the audience. I told them how happy the children and I were to see them all here tonight and that I knew they would enjoy the program because their children had worked so hard the past weeks to make it a success. I invited Reverend Ambrose, who sat in one of the side pews, to lead us in prayer. He stood and asked all to stand and bow their heads. The Lord’s Prayer was first. Then he thanked God for letting us see a brand-new day and for allowing us to gather together in His house in such inclement weather. (The minister was a small man and seemed timid, but he did possess a strong, demanding voice when he prayed.) He asked God to go with all the sick and afflicted, both at home and in the hospitals across this land. He asked God to visit the jail cells all over the land and especially in Bayonne and to go with the guilty and the innocent. He asked God to go with all those here tonight who did not know Him in the pardon of their sins and thought they did not need Him. No matter how educated a man was (he meant me, though he didn’t call my name), he, too, was locked in a cold, dark cell of ignorance if he did not know God in the pardon of his sins. He closed by beseeching God to look down upon this humble little church and bless this gathering.

  The people responded with “Amen” and sat back down. My aunt said “Amen” louder than anyone, and she was looking directly at me.

  I went behind the curtain and, taking one of the middle sheets while a student did the same on the other side, pulled the curtain back to reveal the stage. The choir of a dozen boys and girls moved down below the altar to sing “Silent Night.” Irene Cole directed them. I stood behind the gathered curtain on the right so that I could watch both the choir and the audience.

  The children had worked hard, and they sang beautifully—and this, too, was due to the bad weather. At any other time they would have had to go home to work in the field or around the house. But since the weather had been so inclement—to use one of Reverend Ambrose’s words—they had had more time for practice. The audience appreciated the singing. Even those who did not respond with “Amen, Amen” gave the choir their closest attention. So did Bok. Once he raised his hand to point, a sign to show how affected he was by the singing, but Miss Rita took the hand gently and brought it to his knee. She kept her hand on his, not pressing it, but comforting him.

  After “Silent Night,” the choir sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and my eyes left the audience, and I looked at the little pine tree stuck in the tub of dirt, decorated with strips of red and green crepe paper and bits of lint cotton and streamers of tinsel and a little white cardboard star on its highest branch. And under the tree and propped against the tub was one lone gift, wrapped in red paper and tied with a green ribbon and with a red and green bow. The children had contributed nickels, dimes, quarters—money they had made from picking pecans—and Irene, Odessa, and Odeal James had gone to Baton Rouge and bought a wool sweater and a pair of wool socks.

  The people sitting up front could see the package, and they knew who it was for, and at times I could see their eyes shifting from the choir toward the tree, and I could see the change in their expressions.

  But “Jingle Bells,” a gayer and livelier song than the previous two, brought everyone’s attention back to the choir, and I could catch in people’s faces relief from their thoughts.

  Odessa Freeman’s “’Twas the Night before Christmas” followed, and it was more than a simple recitation; it was a dramatic performance. In her long white dress with long sleeves, and with her black hair, recently straightened and shining, combed back and tied with a white silk ribbon, and her body swaying, and her arms spread out one moment, then closed so that the palms of her hands came together, and her voice rising to fill the church, then falling to a whisper that you could barely hear—Odessa not only made you see the room where the stockings were hung, but enabled you to hear the reindeer on the roof and hear Santa before you saw him come down the chimney to fill the stockings. You heard him call the name of each reindeer after ascending the chimney, and you actually watched the reindeer going to the next house in the quarter. It was so real that Bok felt it too and pointed again, and Miss Rita nodded that she understood his feeling, and she drew back the hand and placed it on his knee and kept her own hand on his to comfort him.

  Following the poem came an essay, “The Little Pine Tree,” written and read by Albert H. Martin III. He told of all the other Christmas trees over the years—of oak, of cypress, of strange bushes that could not be named. He told of how the trees had been cut in the pasture and dragged back to the quarter and how the girls had washed the leaves to make the tree presentable. Then he came to the little pine tree: not a great tree—it was not tall, not blessed with great limbs—but it was pine, and it was the most beautiful of all the Christmas trees. The little pine tree even took on a character of its own, it was so happy to be here. While he spoke, Albert Martin III gestured toward the tree, and everybody looked at the tree and at the single gift underneath it.

  “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” came next, and led into the nativity scene. As the son
g ended, two shepherds in their crokersack robes came onstage behind the choir. The shepherds were attending their flock, when suddenly a light appeared on the back wall under the pictures of Christ and Reverend Ambrose. The light came from a flashlight held by a student from stage right.

  Shepherd One: (Pointing) A star in the east.

  Shepherd Two: And so bright.

  Shepherd One: What does it mean?

  Shepherd Two: Wish I knowed.

  (Shepherd One looked at Shepherd Two as if he were about to correct his grammar, but changed his mind. No one in the audience seemed to have noticed.)

  Three wise men enter from stage right, dressed in red, green, and yellow robes of crepe paper. (Several people in the audience snickered and made comments.)

  Shepherd One: Wise men. They can tell us.

  Shepherd Two: Tell us, O wise men. What yon star mean?

  Wise Man One: It shines down on Bethlehem.

  Wise Man Two: Little town of Bethlehem.

  Wise Man Three: We must go to Bethlehem.

  They all look at the star. (The star moved a little, as if the person holding the flashlight was getting tired.)

  Shepherd One: But what it mean?

  Wise Man One: In time you will know.

  Shepherd Two: How we go’n know?

  Wise Man One: He’ll let us know.

  Shepherd One: God on high?

  Wise Man One: Works in mysterious ways.

  (The light moved again, as if the person was changing hands or giving the flashlight to someone else to hold.)

  Wise Man Two: Wonders to perform.

  Shepherd Two: But we ain’t nothing but poor little old shepherds.

  Wise Man One: The lowest is highest in His eyes.

  Wise Man Two: Let us be off.

  Wise Man Three: To yon Bethlehem.

  The wise men leave stage right.

  Shepherd One: Brightest star I ever seen.

  Shepherd Two: Got to mean something.