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Callaloo 23.4 (2000) 1311-1314



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Roots Woman

Beatrice Perry Stanley


On the Sunday that she was to join the church, a crow came down and sat on her shoulders. Everybody said it was a sign and it was indeed, for the strange events that brought the creole conjure woman to Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church were incredible, if not bizarre.

People who saw the church service said the bird was one of the roots woman's voodoo roosters, in his Sunday clothes. But the true believers knew it was the bird whose body her spirit sometimes inhabited when she went about doing what could loosely be defined as good works.

Miss Beulah, as she was called by all who lived in Dupré Parish, was a descendant of a long line of conjure women. She had been born with a veil over her face. The news of this occurrence had been spread throughout the community by a midwife who had been struck dumb and blind within five minutes of the birth.

Her oldest son never remembered a day when the house wasn't filled with some of everybody's children eating red beans and rice and hot sausage. The phrase "taking pot luck" originated at their home.

Sugar, as she called her husband, had long ago given up trying to keep a handle on her missionary work. He just always knew to bring home an extra two pounds of shrimp for the shrimp creole.

She was always and everywhere to be found saying a good word for, to, and about everybody. Miss Beulah had testified before the school board that the colored chil'ren needed a brick school. She had hollered long and loud that a spark dropped from the stove or the priest's pipe could send the children from Hallelujah to Kingdom Come before anyone could say one Hail Mary. She also added in that same testimony (or some would say harangue) that the priests ought to be allowed to marry so that the nuns would be safe, and especially teachers like Miss Lespre would be safe. At the mention of Miss Lespre's name, the board members had lapsed into a collective swoon, interrupted by choruses of throat clearing and coughing. Word had it that Miss Lespre had been transferred when she wouldn't attend to all of the priest's special needs.

One day while walking her six offspring to the clapboard building against which she had spoken so vehemently only a few nights before, Miss Beulah took a notion to march her group straight past the school and to the ferry. So for a nickel apiece, they all rode over to the French Quarter. The children roamed around through the Cabildo, then watched their mamma make pralines at the candy shop on Dumaine. At lunch time they went to Jackson Square and ate cold plantains and drank café au lait. [End Page 1311]

As it neared time for their mamma to get off from work, the children found their way back to the confectionary. They walked, the children in pairs in their starched uniforms, boys first, down to the ferry. As they neared the river bank, having made their second short voyage across the Mississippi, they noticed a commotion at the spot where the school was. They got off and walked closer, and saw that the school had burned to the ground.

Frantically running to see what the news was of the children, Miss Beulah and her ageless, faceless brood, marched to the house of Sister Mavis. All information of any importance was held in the heart and head of Sister Mavis.

"The chil'ren is fine. Course you knew that, Beulah. They say a crow flew in the window of the schoolroom and while the chil'ren were looking at it, and really following it around the room, the crow flew out, and the chil'ren and teacher followed it. They ran along the levee like a second line at carnival time, bouncin', hollerin' and shoutin'. The teacher was tryin' to keep up, but they were really rollin' along. When they...

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