Roots Read Online Free Page A

morning, with the bright-colored petals and green leaves beaten loose by the rain of the night before. But amid all the lushness of nature, sickness spread steadily among the people of Juffure, for none of the richly growing crops was ripe enough to eat. The adults and children alike would stare hungrily at the thousands of plump mangoes and monkey apples hanging heavy on the trees, but the green fruits were as hard as rocks, and those who bit into them fell ill and vomited.
    “Nothing but skin and bones!” Grandma Yaisa would exclaim, making a loud clicking noise with her tongue every time she saw Kunta. But in fact his grandma was almost as thin as he; for every storehouse in Juffure was now completely empty. What few of the village’s cattle and goats and chickens had not been eaten or sacrificed had to be kept alive—and fed—if there was to be a next year’s
crop of kids and calves and baby chicks. So the people began to eat rodents, roots, and leaves foraged from in and around the village on searchings that began when the sun rose and ended when it set.
    If the men had gone to the forests to hunt wild game, as they frequently did at other times of the year, they wouldn’t have had the strength to drag it back to the village. Tribal taboos forbade the Mandinkas to eat the abounding monkeys and baboons; nor would they touch the many hens’ eggs that lay about, or the millions of big green bullfrogs that Mandinkas regarded as poisonous. And as devout Moslems, they would rather have died than eat the flesh of the wild pigs that often came rooting in herds right through the village.
    For ages, families of cranes had nested in the topmost branches of the village’s silk-cotton tree, and when the young hatched, the big cranes shuttled back and forth bringing fish, which they had just caught in the bolong, to feed their babies. Watching for the right moment, the grandmothers and the children would rush beneath the tree, whooping and hurling small sticks and stones upward at the nest. And often, in the noise and confusion, a young crane’s gaping mouth would miss the fish, and the fish would miss the nest and come slapping down among the tall tree’s thick foliage to the ground. The children would struggle over the prize, and someone’s family would have a feast for dinner. If one of the stones thrown up by the children happened to hit a gawky, pin-feathered young crane, it would sometimes fall from the high nest along with the fish, killing or injuring itself in the crash against the ground; and that night a few families would have crane soup. But such meals were rare.
    By the late evening, each family would meet back at their hut, bringing whatever each individual had found—perhaps even a mole or a handful of large grubworms, if they were lucky—for that night’s pot of soup, heavily peppered and spiced to improve the taste. But such fare filled their bellies without bringing nourishment. And so it was that the people of Juffure began to die.

CHAPTER 5
    M ore and more often now, the high-pitched howling of a woman would be heard throughout the village. The fortunate were those babies and toddlers yet too young to understand, for even Kunta was old enough to know that the howling meant a loved one had just died. In the afternoons, usually, some sick farmer who had been out cutting weeds in his field would be carried back to the village on a bullock’s hide, lying very still.
    And disease had begun to swell the legs of some adults. Yet others developed fevers with heavy perspiration and trembling chills. And among all the children, small areas on their arms or legs would puff up, rapidly grow larger and painfully sore, then the puffed areas would split, leaking a pinkish fluid that soon became a full, yellow, stinking pus that drew buzzing flies.
    The hurting of the big open sore on Kunta’s leg made him stumble while trying to run one day. Falling hard, he was picked up by his playmates, stunned and yelling,