Bear Bob's Story as told to Edward Summer

Chapter Eleven
The Bear
 

The days here had names. There were seven names. Seven names for the days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sun Day. That day had the word for the sun inside it. I liked that name the best. Sun Day.

     On that day, the brown and black people went to a building where we all sat on long chairs. People sang and talked.  We did not go into the fields of cotton. We did not pick anything. We did not work. People took a bath in a big pot and put on different clothes that were not all sweaty. That is when we went to the building with the long chairs.

     A tall brown man dressed all in black stood at the front of the room. He sang. He talked. He jumped. He swayed. He danced.

     People called him Reverend. That was the name for the tall man

     People called this place church. Church was the name for this building with the long  chairs called benches. We sat on the long benches and sometimes we stood up and danced and sang. I did not know what the songs meant. But in their strange words, they sounded like some of the songs of my home. And they let me dance any way I wanted. People just smiled and did not stare at me for too long. So mostly I felt safe.

     Reverend said many, many things He talked much about something called “heaven.” He talked much about something called “peace.” He talked much about something called “freedom.” He talked sometimes about something called “love.” I did not understand most of what he said, but he said these words over and over. Heaven. Peace. Freedom. Love.

     Reverend had deep brown eyes. They looked down upon us all from above his tall shoulders. He looked like some of my people from home. His eyes were deep and they looked deep into me when he said his words of heaven and peace and freedom and love. I did not understand his words, but I understood his eyes. I understood the singing. The singing was sad. His eyes were sad. There was something in his eyes that made me think of my home. There was something in his eyes that made me think that I would see my family again. There was something in his voice that made me think that everything would come out for the best, that I would be safe, that everything was right. That was the other word he said: “hope.” So those were the Sun Day words. Heaven and peace and freedom and love. And hope. The Sun Day words.

     Reverend shook hands with all of us as we left. He reached way down from high in the air to shake my hands. Both of them. Both of my small hands in his big brown hands. His mouth and his eyes smiled down at me.

     “We are happy to have you here with us, child,” he said. “Happy to have you. We love you child. We all love you.”  He called me “child.” I wanted to say that my name was Masa, but I knew that was wrong now. I wanted to tell him my secret name. My secret name. He looked into my eyes with his deep eyes and his smile filled me inside. Perhaps he already knew.
 
 

     Many, many days passed. I learned new words everyday. I could speak to almost all of the brown people now. And I could understand some of the white people. The plants in the fields were all finished now. There were no more balls of cotton to pick off of them.

     On the day when all the cotton was gone, someone came and took me by the hand. It was a brown woman. She was very big, very, very big and very round all over. And she had a smile as big as her body. I remember thinking that I did not know how she could fit so much body inside the clothing she was wearing. I could see it all moving there under the cloth. It moved when she walked. It moved when she spoke to me. It moved when she laughed.

     “You come with me, boy,” she said to me. She smiled a big tooth smile and took me by the hand and pulled me to the big house. The big white house. The big white house with the four smooth white trees holding up the roof.

     We went in through a door in the back of the house. This was the biggest house I had ever seen. There was no hut in our village that was near the size of this house. I could not tell how they made it white. It was white as the clouds, white as the cotton, white as the white of our eyes. But inside it was dark except where the sun came through holes in the walls.  There were such holes in the small house where I slept. I touched the holes one day, but they were solid! I could not get my hand through the holes. A man had laughed at me and said, “Glass, boy. That is glass! You can no put your hand through the glass, boy!”

     This was my name, sometimes. Boy. They all called me boy. I did not like it as well as Masa, but this was a strange place with strange words. Kaa de Gedepoo-mee-de sein koin.  Prince of nature," That was still in my head, in my heartbeat. I could not tell them. I would not tell them anyway. It was none of their business. Let them call me “boy” if they want. Boy. That is as good a name as any.

     The sun came through the glass into the big house and then we began to climb a hill inside the house. The big woman tugged at my hand and we went up the hill. This was like no hill at my home. It had flat places to put your feet. The hill was made of wood sliced flat. “Stairs.” That was the name of this hill. Stairs. Stairs. Stairs. What words these people had! Stairs.

     I looked up and two blue eyes looked down at me. The little girl watched me climb the stairs. It was the little girl with the red scarf. Today she had no red scarf. She just stood and stared at me. Next to her was a brown girl. The brown girl stood silent. When she saw me, she almost smiled, but her eyes looked down and she said nothing. The blue eyed girl said nothing.

     The big woman tugged me into a room. There was a huge bed in this room! The bed stood on legs high off the floor. Why would someone want to sleep so high in the air?  I could smell no straw. I would not like sleeping in such a place.

     The big woman tugged me to the bed. “Bend down, boy,” she said. She pushed on my shoulders until I got down on my knees. Under the big bed was a small white pot. “Pull it out,” she said.

     I pulled it out. This pot did not smell very good. There was something inside, but it had a lid.

     “Good, boy.” the big woman said. Now she tugged me out of the room. The pot was heavy and something wet splashed around inside the pot as I carried it. We went down the stairs. The blue eyed girl watched us. The brown girl watched us. We went down the stairs and out a door and into a field behind the big house.

     “Here, boy.” the big woman said. We came to a hole that did not smell so good. She lifted the lid of the pot. Inside was the yellow liquid that people make when their stomach feels very full. At home, we went into the woods to make this water. We went to a stream to make this water. All my people did it that way. Why would someone put it inside a white pot? It was very strange here in this place. “Here, boy,” she said, taking the pot from me and dumping the yellow water into the hole.”

     We went to the well, and we poured clean water into the white pot and washed it.

     Then we went back to the house and up the stairs and into the room and she made me put the pot back under the bed.

     “Do you understand, boy?” The big woman lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. The blue-eyed girl watched. The brown girl watched. “Every day, you empty this chamber pot. Every day you carry it out. Do you understand.”

     I understood.
 
 

     Now that the cotton was gone, this was my new job. I would go to the house every morning and empty all of the white pots, the chamber pots, that were under all of the beds that stood on tall legs.  When that was done I would do things in the big food room that they called “kitchen.” I liked the kitchen. There was so much food there! Many good things and many good smells. There were many brown women there and sometimes they would let me taste things.

     They carried the food into another room. I was not allowed to go into that room. Only the white people went into that room. They sat around a large flat thing on legs. They sat on flat things on legs. They called it table. They called it chairs. These white people liked everything to have legs. What was wrong with sitting on the ground? They ate their food at the table sitting on the chairs. I ate my food in the corner of the kitchen sitting on the floor. Sometimes I carried it outside and sat under a tree on the ground to eat my food. It tasted good. The air smelled sweet outside under the tree and the food tasted better there than in the dark of the kitchen.

     The little girl with the blue eyes ran all over the house. She ate in the room with the other white people. She ran in and out of the doors. She ran up and down the stairs. She yelled and talked and she sometimes looked at me and ran past without stopping. People called her “Mittie.” The little brown girl ran with her everywhere. People called the little brown girl “Toy.” White, Mittie. Brown, Toy. White, Mittie. Brown, Toy. Girls here had such strange names. Such strange names. And they all ate inside in the dark at a table.
 
 

     A day came when everyone in the kitchen picked up big baskets of food and went out the door. I was handed a big basket that was very heavy. It had food inside that smelled very, very good. We went out the door and got into wagons pulled by the brown horses. Brown and black people got into one wagon. White people got into another wagon.

     This is very strange I thought, as the horses drove off carrying us away from the big white house.

     Mittie was there in the other wagon. She was laughing and talking. Toy sat next to her.

     “Where are we going?” I whispered to the big woman.

     “Picnic.” She said. “Picnic!”

     I had no idea where she meant. I had not been to that place or heard of it, but I did not say so.
 
 

     After a long ride we came to a beautiful field. There were huge rocks. There was a real hill with no flat wooden steps going up it. There were beautiful big trees. There was a river. I could hear the water flowing. We did not bring chamber pots with us, so perhaps the white people knew a different way.

     The air was clean and beautiful and the sky was full of clouds. It was almost like my home here. Yes, the trees were different. Yes, the animals were different. Yes, my family was not here, but still it was much like my home and I felt happy.

     “Bring that!” The big woman got out of the cart with her basket.

     “Is this place picnic?” I asked.

     “Picnic is not a place, child,” she laughed. “Picnic is a special way to eat.” She laughed again. Sometimes she called me “child” like Reverend called me. Child. It meant a young person. Like boy. But I was not young inside. I had climbed the tree that no one else could climb. There were no baobab trees here, or I would show them. I would show them. They had no idea what a real tree was like. No idea.

     The white people took the baskets of the food and went nearer to the river. They gathered about and ate the food. They laughed and talked.  The brown people stayed near by to watch and make sure that the white people had enough of everything. After a while. the brown people were allowed to eat their food, too. We ate chickens. We ate corn. We ate greens. We ate bread. It was all delicious.  Picnic was good. It was like when I ate my lunch outside under the tree, only better. Much better. I hoped we would do this every single day now. Every single day.

     As I sat eating a red melon that grew between the cotton plants, I looked up to see Mittie running by. She was wearing a soft red scarf around her neck. It is too warm to have cloth around your neck, I thought. Why does she do that? I watched her run by. So did everyone else.

     I got up and walked after her. She ran into the woods away from the other people. I looked around and no one seemed to notice. No one seemed to notice that she was running away into the woods. So I walked in after her.

     It was quiet in the woods. The picnic people were talking somewhere behind us, but in the woods was only the sound of the breeze. There was only the sound of insects. There was only the sound of birds. It was a lot like my home, except the insect sounds were a little different and a little buzzier.  Bees they called them. Bees.

     Ahead of me I could hear her footsteps crunching along the ground. I could hear twigs snapping. I licked the juice from the wet fruit off my chin and walked along following the trail of the snapped twigs. I was looking down at the ground when I came out of the woods and looked up.

     Mittie was standing in a clearing a short distance away looking at a small, brown, fuzzy animal. It was on its back at the base of a tree. It was holding and licking a chunk of something that dripped golden drops of thick water onto its paw. There were bees buzzing all around.

     Mittie was walking closer and closer to this animal. There was no animal like this in my home in Africa. It was fat and round and had dark brown fur that was thick. It was just about Mittie’s size. Maybe it was a little smaller. No animals I knew had thick fur like that. It had long claws. The anteaters had long claws. It had eyes like a bush baby. They were big and brown and deep. But a bush baby was all eyes! Big eyes on a little body.

     The animal was making happy noises and Mittie was walking closer and closer. Finally she sat down on the ground next to him. Her long red scarf trailed onto the grass. She reached out her hand and touched the brown animals stomach. She did not seem to care about the bees.

     What a funny noise the little animal made! What a funny noise! It was a noise almost like the big cats, the lions, made when they were full and happy after a good meal! It was part growl, part cat sound!

     The animal stopped licking. It turned and looked at Mittie and made that funny sound again! It rolled onto its feet and looked up at her, wondering, I think, who she was.

     But then there was another noise. This was a noise like a roar. Like a roar when the male lion was angry. A roar like the female lion makes when someone comes near her cubs.

     Mittie looked up!

     I looked up.

     A huge animal rose up out of the woods! It looked just like the small brown one, but it stood many feet taller. Its claws were longer. Its mouth was open. Its mouth was filled with huge sharp teeth. Its mouth was filled with a loud roar like the mother lion.

     Mittie looked up and froze.

     The animal roared again and dropped down onto all four paws. I knew at once that the small animal was its baby.

     Mittie only stared and did not move.

     The mother animal moved closer to the baby. The mother animal moved closer to Mittie.

     The mother animal rose up on its back legs again and raised its paws. Each paw was larger than Mittie’s entire head. Each claw was longer than her face. There was a roar larger and louder than any I had heard before.

     I ran across the field. I did not stop. I ran across the field and I grabbed Mittie and pulled her off of her feet.

     Mittie screamed. A big girl scream from a little girl mouth.

     And the huge paw of the mother animal came down upon my head.