The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Read Online Free PDF

Only one time, so they say, it refused to shine: when they nailed the Master to the cross.
    I stood up and told Ned come on, and we went back to the place where we had camped. The slow-wit was dead, all right; his skull busted there like a coconut. One of his shirt sleeves was knocked clean off. I turned to Ned, but he was standing there just as calm as he could be.
    I left the slow-wit, I wanted to find Big Laura and give Ned back to her. I saw somebody laying over in the bushes, but when I got closer I saw it was a man. He was dead like the slow-wit, and I went on looking for Big Laura. I had to give Ned back to her, and I needed her to show me how to reach Ohio.
    I looked for her everywhere. Sometimes I made Ned stand side a tree while I went in the bushes looking for her. I saw people laying everywhere. All of them was dead or dying, or so broken up they wouldn’t ever move on their own. I stood there a little while looking at them, but I didn’t know what to do, and I moved back.
    Then I saw Big Laura. She was laying on the ground with her baby still clutched in her arms. Imade Ned stay back while I went closer. Even before I knelt down I saw that her and the baby was both dead.
    I took the baby out her arms. I had to pull hard to get her free. I knowed I couldn’t bury Big Laura—I didn’t have a thing to dig with—but maybe I could bury her child. But when I looked back at Big Laura and saw how empty her arms was, I just laid the little baby right back down. I didn’t cry, I couldn’t cry. I had seen so much beating and suffering; I had heard about so much cruelty in those ’leven or twelve years of my life I hardly knowed how to cry. I went back to Ned and asked him if he wanted to go to Ohio with me. He nodded.
    When I turned away I saw a patroller’s cap laying on the ground covered with blood. I wondered if that was Gat’s cap. Then I saw another one all busted up. So she had busted two of them in the head before they killed her and her baby.
    Before we started out I thought we might as well take some of the grub that was left there. I got enough corn and potatoes to last us a week. I reckoned that in a week I ought to be in Ohio or close there. After I got the food, I got a few pieces of clothes for me and Ned to sleep on at night. Then I found the flint and iron Big Laura had used to light the fire with. Both of them looked like pieces of rock, so anytime anybody asked me what they was I just told them, “Two little rocks.” I gived them to Ned and told him it was go’n be his job to see that they got to Ohio same time we did. After I had covered up Big Laura and the child with some clothes, I put the bundle on my head and we started out. Every now and then I asked Ned if he was tired. If he said no, we went on; if he said yes, we found a good place to sit down. Then I would take something out the bundle for us to eat. Ned would put the rocks on the ground while we ate. But soon as he was through eating he’d pick them up again.
    We went on, staying in the bushes all the time. When Ned got tired, we stopped, nibbled on something,then after he had rested we started out again. When the sun went down and the stars came out we traveled by the North Star. We didn’t stop that night till we came up to a river. But I could see it was too wide and too deep for us to cross, so we moved back in the swamps for the night. I dug a hole in the ground and built a little fire just like I saw Big Laura do the night before. While me and Ned sat there eating a raw potato, I put two more potatoes and two more yers of corn in the fire. When Ned got through eating, he went to sleep on the little pallet I had made for him on the ground.
    I sat there looking at Ned, wondering what I was go’n do next. “I got this child to take care, I got that river to cross—and how many more rivers I got to cross before I reach Ohio?” I said to myself.
    I looked at Ned laying there. He was snoring like he was in a little bed at