Po' Sandy

The fourth story we studied last Thursday was Po' Sandy by Charles Chesnutt. Once again, both the story and the author were new to Ellen and myself, though I understand that Charles Chesnutt has become very well-known in academic circles in recent years. The story is told by a man, John, who is living with his wife, Annie, on land they bought in North Carolina, but they are both originally northerners. Annie wants John to build her a kitchen addition - but she wants it to be an external kitchen - a separate building, as it was in the old South, mainly as a way of reducing the likelihood of fire spreading from the kitchen to the rest of the house, and maybe also to keep the extreme heat of the kitchen confined to that area. There was some discussion of whether this piece of information revealed that this couple had sort of a romantic image of the old South and were more or less oblivious to the dark side of the slave system. It was, after all, slaves who were toiling in that hot kitchen. In the story, John decides to use some lumber from an old abandoned school-house on his property, but when he does some measurements, he finds he'll need some additional new lumber. So he goes off to the sawmill with an old man, Julius MacAdoo, who is a "colored coachman" to the couple. When they get to the sawmill and Julius hears the saw ripping out a log, he shudders and says, "Ugh! but dat des do cuddle my blood!" When John asks why, Julius tells a bizarre story - but what a story! It is told in the dialect of his people at that time. It is about a slave who belonged to a slave-owner, "Master Marrabo McSwayne," whose plantation bordered on John and Annie's property. - a slave named "Sandy." Sandy had been a gift to a family of siblings, and though he was based at the home plantation, he was passed back and forth among the siblings as the need arose. Consequently, he had no life of his own, and during one absence from the home plantation, his wife was sold away, and he came home to find he no longer had a wife. He eventually took up with another woman, Tenie, and came to love her very much. One day, Sandy says to Tenie (and here I'll quote directly from the story): "'I'm gittin monstus ti'ed er dish yer gwine roun' so much. Here I is lent ter Mars Jeems dis mont', en I got ter do so-en-so; en ter Mars Archie de nex' mont', en I got ter do so-en-so; den I got ter go ter Miss Jinnie's: en hit's Sandy dis en Sandy dat, en Sandy yer en Sandy dere, tel it 'pears ter me I ain' got no home, ner no marster, ner no mistiss, ner no nufTn'. I can't eben keep a wife: my yuther ole 'oman wuz sole away widout my gittin' a chance fer ter tell her good-by; en now I got ter go off en leab you, Tenie, en I dunno whe'r I'm eber gwine ter see yer ag'in er no. I wisht I wuz a tree, er a stump, er a rock, er sump'n w'at could stay on de plantation fer a w'ile.' "Atter Sandy got thoo talkin', Tenie did n' say naer word, but des sot dere by de Ter, studyin' en studyin'. Bimeby she up'n says: — "'Sandy, is I eber tole you I wuz a cunjuh-'ooman?' "Co'se Sandy had n' nebber dremp' er nufTn lack dat, en he made a great miration w'en he hear w'at Tenie say. Bimeby Tenie went on: — "'I ain' goophered nobody, ner done no cunjuh-wuk fer Tfteen year er mo; en w'en I got religion I made up my mine I would n' wuk no mo' goopher. But dey is some things I doan b'lieve it 's no sin fer ter do; en ef you doan wanter be sent roun' fum pillar ter pos', en ef you doan wanter go down ter Robeson, I kin Tx things so yer won't haf ter. Ef you'll des say de word, I kin turn yer ter w'ateber yer wanter be, en yer kin stay right whar yer wanter, ez long ez yer mineter.' (My translation of the above: I'm getting monstrous tired of this here going round so much. Here I am lent to Master Jeems this month, and I got to do so-an-so, and to Master Archie next month, and I got to do so-an-so, then I got to go to Miss Jinnie's, and it's Sandy this and Sandy that, and Sandy here and Sandy there. It appears to me that I haven't got a home, no master, no mistress, no nothing. I can't even keep a wife. My other old woman was stolen away without my even getting a chance to tell her goodbye, and now I've got to go off and leave you, Tenie, and I don't know whether I'm going to see you again or not. I wish I was a tree, or a stump, or a rock, or something that could stay on the plantation for a while." After Sandy got through talking, Tenie didn't say a word, but just sat there, studying and studying. Bye and bye, she up and said, "Sandy, have I ever told you I am a conjure woman?" Because Sandy had never dreamed of nothing like that, and he made a great ?? when he heard what Tenie said, bye and bye Tenie went on:"I haven't goophered ("to cast a spell") nobody or anything like that nor done any conjure work for fifteen years or more, and when I got religion I made up my mind I wouldn't work no more goopher. But there are some things I don't believe its a sin to do and if you don't want to be sent around from pillar to post and if you don't want to go down to Robeson, I can fix things so you don't have to. If you just say the word, I can turn you into whatever you want to be and you can stay right where you want to as long as you've a mind to.") The story goes on to say that Sandy decides, finally, to become a pine tree, and that works fine for a while, with Tenie bringing him back as a man at night and turning him back into a tree before morning (it works fine, despite some incidents in which someone cuts off one of his branches, or a woodpecker attacks him, which means that when he comes back as a man, he has a sores on his body). but eventually, the master's wife decides to use him as a source for lumber for a new kitchen (just like the one Annie wants built). Unfortunately, this happens while Tenie is away. The story then vividly describes the great difficulty the men have getting that tree cut down and taken to the sawmill (i.e., Sandy is fighting every inch of the way), and. the horrible sounds the saw makes cutting him up - and the extreme grief that Tenie experiences when she comes back, which drives her crazy The kitchen which is made out of Sandy's wood .proves to be haunted and no one will work in it. It is taken down and made into the very schoolhouse John is using for Annie's kitchen. Even that has queer things about it and no one goes into it at night. So it is eventually abandoned. When Annie hears this story, she decides that none of that schoolhouse lumber is going into her kitchen! John chides her for believing this wild tale, but she is insistent. And when Julius tells her that his church is experiencing a schism and his group is seceding and want to build a new church - and could he use the schoolhouse? - Annie gives her permission. When John asks about using haunted lumber for a church, Julius assures him that ghosts don't bother churches, and if Sandy does come in, the preaching will do him good (all of which raises the possibility that Julius made the whole story up to wangle the schoolhouse for his church!). It was pointed out that Chesnutt managed to convey a lot of information about the evils of the slave system in the telling of this wonderful story full of "black humor." Chesnutt was born in Cleveland in 1858 to parents who were "free persons of color," from Fayetteville, NC, but most of his ancestry was white, and included at least one slave-owner. Chesnutt identified as African-American even though he could easily have passed as a white man. When Chesnutt was nine years old, his family returned to Fayetteville and Chesnutt grew up there, attended schools created by the Freedmen's Bureau and eventually became a teacher there in a school that later became Fayetteville State University. He married, had four daughters, lived for a time in New York City, and then settled in Cleveland where he read for the law, passed the law exam and created a highly successful court reporting business (legal stenography). This gave him the financial stability which allowed him to become a prolific writer of short stories and novels which explored complex issues of racial and social identity in the post Civil-War South. His short story, The Goophered Grapevine (1897) was the first story by an African-American to be published in The Atlantic Monthly. He published several collections of stories, including The Conjure Woman, and The Wife of His Youth. Though he wrote many novels, they were not commercially successful and several were published posthumously. He became more of an activist in his later years, particularly within the NAACP. He died is 1932, age 74.

Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932) ******************************************************** Tonight we are studying two stories, Where is the Voice Coming From? by Eudora Welty, and Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin. Welty wrote her story the day after the murder of Medger Evans, in 1963, and in it, she enters into the mind of the white man who murdered Evans and tells the story from his perspective. She does this very authentically, and it is chilling. Baldwin's story is told from the perspective of a white, racist sheriff in Mississippi in the 1960's who witnessed a lynching as a ten-year-old boy, an experience that profoundly affected his psyche (and not for the good!). I don't think I'll be able to relate that story in any detail here.