Mississippi Bridge Read Online Free PDF

them what happened, but I done it. “Wasn’t . . . wasn’t ’nough room for everybody, and the bus driver, he . . . he done made all the colored folks get off. Your grandmama,Josias, Rudine, and her mama, they all got off.”
    The four of them just stood there staring at me, as if they couldn’t trust my words.
    “What? Y’all don’t believe me?” I said. “I wouldn’t lie to y’all! ’Specially not ’bout somethin’ like this! Josias, he down there, ask him y’all don’t believe me! Ask Josias! He was headin’ back to home when that bus gone over and he down there now pullin’ folks out! Y’all don’t believe me, just y’all ask him!”
    Stacey looked over the bridge. The fog had drifted back and there was no sign of Josias. He looked at me again, then he said, real quiet-like, “Come on. We goin’ home.”
    “But, Stacey, Big Ma—” started Cassie.
    Stacey’s eyes were set right on me. “She at home,” he said, and I know’d he believed me. Then, without another word, he took off streaking down the bridge and Cassie, Christopher-John, and Little Man, they was right behind him, running hard as they could for home. I started to follow after ’cause the church was back up that way, but then the fog shifted and I seen Josias come out of the water and he was carrying a small bundle that looked like it wasn’t no more than a wet doll with sunshine hair,and I ain’t moved. He laid his bundle down on the bank, real gentle-like. He laid it right down next to a still, white body with a summer-sky-blue hat pinned to its hair. He laid it right next side to Miz Hattie.
    “Josias!” I screamed, and he looked up to the bridge and me standing there. Then I run down from the bridge, shrieking to the heaven above. “Miz Hattie! Miz Hattie! Grace-Anne!” I run right for them bodies lying so still and unmoving on the bank. Josias, though, he caught up with me before I got to them.
    “Hold on there, boy,” he said. “Hold on.”
    “Josias, they ain’t . . . they ain’t—”
    “Yes, suh, boy . . . they is.”
    I shook my head and looked up at him. “But how come, Josias?
How come?
”
    Josias, he shook his head too and he give a mighty sigh. “Ain’t for me t’ know. Can’t go questionin’ the ways of the Lord. Onliest thing I know is that the good book, it say the Lord He work in mighty mysterious ways.”
    “But, Josias—”
    “Jeremy!”
    I looked to the other side of the water. It was Pa.
    “Ain’t you gone yet?” he hollered. “I said go ring that bell! Now, get!”
    I looked up at Josias. He patted my shoulder and said real soft-like, “Go on, boy. Go on and ring the bell.”
    I glanced again at Miz Hattie and Grace-Anne, again at Josias, and I turned and I ran back up the bank to the road. I ran down past the store, ran down toward the school of Jefferson Davis and the church. The rain was beating hard on me now and I was glad of it, ’cause I was crying hard too. Weren’t much difference between rain and tears, and I ain’t needed to wipe neither one away. I run straight up to the church, straight up to the belfry and I rung that bell, rung that bell as hard as I could, and all the while I was crying ’cause I couldn’t understand nothing about the day, about how come Miz Hattie and Grace-Anne was on that bus, and Josias, and Stacey’s and them’s grandmama and Rudine and her mama wasn’t. Mysterious ways, Josias done said. Well, if the Lord was punishing, how come Grace-Anne and Miz Hattie? They ain’t hurt nobody.
    I rung that bell till I figured I couldn’t ring it no more, then as folks started coming in answer to the bell, I run with them back to the Rosa Lee. Josias was still there, hauling folks out. I gone down to the bank, took one more look at Miz Hattie and Grace-Anne, then I gone to join Josias. I slipped into the water and give him a hand.
    Me and Josias, we was there all the day.



Text copyright © 1976 by Mildred D. Taylor

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    “Little Man,