It's Good to Be Black

6. Sunday Morning

6. Sunday mornlng Willie Turner was Dad's cousin. He was short, black, and bow-legged, with a perpetual smile and an infectious sense of humor. He should have been on the stage. To us he was much funnier than Bert Williams, who came to St. Louis every year with the Ziegfeld Follies. Some of the older people accused him of being stingy with his money. Maybe he was, but he was a spendthrift with the world's highest commodity-wholesome humor. As soon as we heard his voice, we scampered screaming from everywhere and crowded about him. "Get away from Willie," Mother admonished. "You'll get him dirty. Make them get down, Willie." But Willie never seemed to mind. Taking us by the hand he would form a circle and dance us around the room while he chanted his favorite poem from the old McGuffey Reader: Oh come with me and we will go To try the winter's cold, sir, 'Tis freezing now and soon will snow, But we are tough and bold, sir. "Lord, Willie, these children take you for a regular plaything . You'd better come on and let me tie your tie before I start making up my biscuits and get my hands all covered with flour." 62 Sunduy morning Willie had never learned how to tie his tie. He came over every Sunday morning for Mama to do it for him. Since then, I have suspected that he only used the tie as a ruse to come over and play with us. After Mother had adjusted the four-in-hand at the proper angle, she went back to her cooking. Again Willie turned his attention to his enslaved audience. He bowed, squatted, swayed, pranced, and moved his hands with slow rhythmic grace as he recited poem after poem from memory. \Ve had heard them all many, many times-The Spider and the Fly, Over the River, The Little Match Girl, and We Are Seven. We sat quietly, following his flow of artistry with a tightening of our throats and tears in our eyes as he recreated the poverty of the little girl trudging from door to door selling matches; the loneliness of the child who would not recognize the separation of death and insisted that there were still seven in her family though some were buried in the churchyard and some were lost at sea. Breaking the tragic spell he would then spring out the front door singing with accompanying gestures: We'll chase the antelope over the plain, And the tiger's cub we'll bind with a chainAgain we were laughing. Willie wobbled on across the road to his home where he lived with Cousin Frankie and her quiet sister, Nettie, who kept a cookie jar that was never empty. Sunday morning also brought Uncle George across the road with a tempting just-right-brown chicken drumstick in his hand. Uncle George was the town constable. He was what you might call a weather-beaten mulatto. His hair was not close cropped, neither did it hang on his neck in Daniel 63 it's good to be black Boone fashion. His trim mustache was slightly curled at each end, and long before I had ever seen a Kentucky colonel, long, lean, slightly stooped, Uncle George typified that gentry to me. He was married to Dad's oldest sister, Belle, and they lived in a gray frame house directly across the street from us. Uncle George could not read and could only write his name, but nobody knew this but the older folk of the family . We never questioned why Mother always read over his warrants for arrest or papers of eviction. Sometimes she would make out as many as ten rent receipts. Uncle George would sign them, collect the money, give each renter his proper receipt, and never make a mistake. Like most people who are short on book learning, Uncle George had a remarkable memory. He would listen very attentively while Mother read the warrant over to him. Then he would sally forth, gun in holster, and warrant or court summons in hand, and read it off to the party for whom it was intended without omitting one single "to wit" or "whereas." Uncle George didn't have any teeth. His breakfast consisted largely of mush, but Aunt Belle fried a chicken every Sunday morning. "Hello, Sophia. Hello, there...