The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Read Online Free PDF Page B

home. I didn’t hear any mosquitoes but I waved my hand over him like I saw Big Laura do the night before. After a while I laid down side him, and I didn’t wake up till I felt the sun shining in my face.
    The sky was more pretty and bluer than I had ever seen it before. I felt better than I had ever felt in my life. Birds was singing in every tree. I woke up Ned and told him look at the air and listen to the birds. But Ned wasn’t much interested in this kind of stuff. He was probably thinking about his mama and his little sister. I was thinking about them, too; thinking about all the people; ’specially the slow-wit I had seen them kill; but I looked at it this way, we had to keep going. We couldn’t let what happened yesterday stop us today.
    I pulled the corn and potatoes out the hole. All of them good and done. We ate the potatoes for breakfast. I was go’n save the corn for me and Ned’s dinner.

Heading South
    I got my bundle together and Ned picked up his two rocks, and we started for the river. It still looked too deep and too wide for us to cross, so I asked Ned what he thought we ought to do, go up or go down? He looked up, he looked down, then he looked up river again. He nodded that way and we started walking. The sun was on our backs now.
    We walked all morning. Every now and then we stopped to nibble on something. We stuck to the bushes all the time, but we kept the river in sight. After going so far I would move closer to the river to see how deep it was. It was always the same—deep deep and wide.
    That evening we heard voices. We was coming up to a bend in the river when we heard the people talking. I stopped and held my hand out so Ned would be quiet. Not that he had been making any noise, but I didn’t want him to make any now for sure. We listened and listened. I thought I heard nigger, but I wasn’t too sure, so I listened some more. When I was sure it was nigger I was hearing I nodded for Ned to come on.
    When we came round the bend I saw niggers strung out all over the place just eating and resting. I had never seen so many happy black faces in all my life before. We done made it, we done made it toOhio, I said. But if this was Ohio, how come I had made it here so fast? What was I doing carrying all this food on my head? Now, instead of me feeling good I felt let-down.
    When the people saw me and Ned they all stopped talking and looked at us. Not far from where they was eating I saw two wagonful of furniture and bundles. Now, I didn’t know what to think. Where would poor niggers get this kind of stuff from?
    I dropped the bundle on the ground and asked the people if this was Ohio. It had been quiet till I opened my mouth. Now everybody started laughing. The air brimming full. One nigger had the cheeks to throw his pan of food up in the air and not even bother to catch it. Food scattered all over the place.
    Then they got quiet. I didn’t know why till I saw the white lady coming toward us. She had two girls about my size.
    “What y’all want?” she asked me.
    “We going to Ohio,” I said. “This Ohio?”
    “This Luzana,” she said.
    “Luzana?” I said. “We been doing all that walking and we still in Luzana? You sure, Misses?”
    “I’m sure,” she said. “And if I was you I’d head right straight on back where I come from.”
    “No, ma’am, we ain’t going back there,” I said.
    Then a nigger stepped up and said: “Don’t be telling my Misses what you ain’t go’n do. She say y’all go back, you high-tail it on back there.”
    Ned stepped in front of me to hit him in the belly, but I made him get back.
    The white lady said: “What you want go to Ohio for?”
    “To freedom,” I said.
    “You free here,” she said. “Ain’t you heard about the Proclamation?”
    “I done heard it,” I said. “Don’t mean I believe it.”
    Then I looked up at that nigger again. He was rolling his eyes at me like he wanted to slap me cross the face. He had a round greasy face