It's Good to Be Black

2. As a Fruitful Vine

2. as a fruitful vitae The ever new miracle of birth was an old, old taken-for-. granted thing in the Berkley household. For the fourteenth time in her twenty-three years of married life, Mother was going down into what was often referred to as "the valley of the shadow." The first four boys, true to a gypsy's prediction, had died at birth. "There'll be no luck for yon till the sex changes," the woman had prophesied as she shook her head sadly. The golden earrings and the brightly colored scarf swayed ever so gently as she turned away, too impressed by the tragedy she had seen in Mother's hand to ask for a piece of palm-crossing silver. Helen was born next, a little saffron cherub with a head as bald as a teacup, smiling almost from the moment she caught her first frightening breath. Dad and Mother never got over the wonderment of her victorious clinging to life. My advent was less novel, and by the time Braxton Junior (whom we called Spud), Cecil, Roggie, Lester and Robert came along, squalling long-headed, bow-legged babies were an old story. How Mother and Dad managed to maintain an air of joyful expectancy as we put in our appearance every two years, come hail, hell, or high water, I have never been able to discover. W odd happenings were catalogued in the Bottoms by the birth of Mother's youngsters. Cliff was born just before a 2.2 as " fruitful viue young student assassinated an archduke and his wife in far away Bosnia. Tom came shortly after we entered the first W arid vVar. The armistice had been signed and the guns were now silent. The boys in khaki were returning home from the battlefields of Europe, and the people in the Bottoms awaited the birth of Sophia's new baby. Usually Dad was the first one up to start the fires, but not so on Christmas morning. Even before daybreak, curiosity had chased the sleep from our eyes. A whispered "See anything?" came from near the bedroom door. I answered back a negative "uh-uh!" Spud crept to the center of the room near the base-burner. I slid out of bed. Together we tiptoed about the room. Helen slept soundly as did the smaller children in the next room. Through the semi-darkness we could see long-ribbed cotton stockings, knotted with Oregon apples and Florida oranges, hanging about on the walls, like stumpy chicken snakes full of eggs. A small table near the south wall held cereal bowls of Christmas candy shaped like bows and rosettes. There were chocolate drops and creamy white sticks with intricate colored designs running through the center. Pecans, almonds, Brazil and English walnuts were mixed with the hickory nuts and scaly-barks we had gathered in the fall on the banks of Big Muddy Creek. Spud shook down the ashes and soon had a roaring fire in the base-burner. The younger children were now awake, and as they crowded about the pile of gaily wrapped presents on the floor they glanced impatiently toward the bedroom where Mother lay. Dad hushed their inquiries with a simple statement, "Your mother don't feel so well this morning." Immediately, we became silent and unconsciously grouped ourselves in the bedroom door. We had it's good to be black forgotten the presents and the Christmas goodies in our anxiety. Whether Aunt Dea was sent for or just happened to drop in, we never knew. Somehow she was there, nudging toys and young ones gently aside with her foot, sashaying into the bedroom with a steaming cup of tea, and stuffing a twenty-pound turkey Mother's brother Sargeant had sent her from California. Under her clipped commands and searching eyes the folding bed in the living room became a davenport, ashes were brushed from the faded floral rug, chairs were pushed against the walls, lamps were filled, and chimneys were polished. The pungent smell of celery, onions, garlic, and sage filled the four rooms and slipped quietly outside where it hung about the porches in the crisp December air. It was early afternoon when Aunt Dea, after numerous trips into Mother's room, came back into the kitchen and sent Helen and me to call Dr. Gillis. "Hit the grit!" she ordered. "And don't stop to talk...