him, especially with a strange neighbor lady who wore men’s pants and lived
with a colored boy. But he looked up at her and valiantly rose to the occasion.
“Don’t know that I will plant any. Didn’t come to much last year. Wild
turkeys trampled it down, ate most of the grain. Had to go out every day and shoot one of ’em.”
“That’s too bad. At least you must have had a lot of good turkey dinners.”
“Yes, missy, that we did.” Apparently out of words, he hunkered back down
over his plate.
After a short silence Iola seemed unable to contain herself any longer and
gave Olivia a long stern stare. “Look, child, I don’t mean to be minding your p’s
and q’s, but it ain’t right, you and that nigra, alone here like this. You probably
think it ain’t my place to say, but I feel a Christian duty to speak my mind when I
see a body leading herself into sin and peril. It ain’t Christian and you ain’t safe.” She nodded pointedly in the direction of the field.
“Oh, Mourning is –”
“People are so naïve.” Iola batted a hand as she cut Olivia off. “Especially young folks like you. Put your faith in anyone. Don’t know the things can
happen in this sorry world. But you’ll see. You live a while, you learn. You listen
to an older and wiser sister, you save yourself a world of trouble and sorrow.
One thing I can tell you is you can’t trust these nigras. Their instincts are primitive. No self-control at all. Why it says so right in the Bible –”
“There’s no danger in Mourning.” Olivia broke in, her voice firm.
Iola did not respond; she simply stared.
Olivia was surprised by how little she cared for this woman’s opinion,
considering the way she had fretted about what people out in Michigan were
going to think and say. Now the only emotion she felt was anger. She hadn’t come all this way, hauled water and chopped wood, and generally broken her
back, in order to live her life trying to please an old hag like her. Iola was just
going to have to accept Olivia on her own terms or not at all.
But Olivia took a deep breath and calmed herself, hoping to maintain an
amicable relationship with this annoying neighbor. So far Iola seemed to be all there was, other than Norma Gay at the store. And Iola was far from alone in holding that opinion of colored men. If you refused to talk to anyone who was
prejudiced against them, you’d soon have no one to talk to at all.
“He’s making a big thick crossbar for the door, if you think that will make me
any safer,” Olivia said. Then she smiled and rose to pour coffee.
“Well, it might that, but it still ain’t right.”
“No coffee for me,” Filmore said, obviously uncomfortable with the turn the
conversation had taken. “Think I’ll go take a look at that team of yours.” He rose. “Could use some power in front of that plow. Ground’s gotten so rooty, you
practically got to chop the seed into it with an ax. I’ll be outside, Iola,” he said,
pronouncing his wife’s name “Yoo-la,” rather than “Eye-o-la,” as Norma Gay
had. “But take your time. I’ll go lend the nigger boy a hand.”
Once Filmore was gone, Iola hunkered down, as if she and Olivia were old
friends who had only been waiting for a stranger to leave the room. “Now, child,
tell me how you came to be out here all on your own.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Olivia said. “I inherited this piece of land and decided to come see what I could make of it.”
“But dear, you’ll never find a suitable husband around these parts. Oh there’s
