384
PARTISAN REVIEW
they figured he was just another nigger and didn't have any vote.
I got to Cross Roads at three o'clock that afternoon they
buried Roman. I went to the store and did my trading. Swapped
the eggs for some kerosene and some chewing tobacco. There
wasn't anybody hanging around the store that afternoon. It was a
fine day and I reckon all the white folks around there were finish·
ing their wheat sowing or were out shooting birds, but a nigger
never works on Saturday afternoon. I knew they were all out at
the graveyard.
I finished my trading at the store and went on out to the nigger
cemetery. There was a mob of niggers standing around the grave.
One nigger was down in it, levelling it off, so that the coffin would
go down in it without any trouble.
I spoke to them and they all spoke back. I was the only white
man there but nobody looked like they thought it was out of place.
I hadn't been there long when Brack Mosley, a nigger who
lived on Old Man White's place, drove up in his road cart. I
noticed that he rode with his legs spread out, catty-wampus fashion,
then I saw the coffin across the foot of the cart. It wasn't covered
up. I could see that it was made out of pine boards.
Brack drove right up to where they were digging the grave.
A couple of young bucks took the coffin off the cart and brought it
up to the side. They sat it down. Brack looked around. I knew
what he was looking for.
"Ain't there no preacher here?" he asked.
One of the niggers said: "Naw, we figgered on gittin Unker
lzair Wall to preach de funeral, but he tuk sick dis mawnin. He
cain't git here."
"Well," Brack said, "some of us ought to make a shawt
prayer. Cain't none of you niggers pray?" Nobody looked up.
Brack looked at me. I turned my head and looked off in
the
direction of Wilkinson's store.
They buried him without any service at all. They just put his
coffin in the grave and began to shovel dirt on top of it. They didn't
even put down any planks in the bottom of the grave like
they
usually do. They shovelled the dirt in as fast as they could. When
they finished filling up the grave they started rounding it off at
the
top. Most of the niggers left then, but I stayed till the last. I sort
