The Polished Hoe Read Online Free Page A

gear, right in front our house; and that lorry was packed to overflowing, with canes; so much so that the lorry driver had to slow down, and change from low gear into the jewel gear, to get over the hill, poor fellow. The weight of the canes, the age of the lorry, the smoke and the exhaust from the engine was almost burying Mr. Broomes the lorry driver; poor soul; and when he back-down, back into the jewel gear, in order to get over the crest of the hill, Mr. Broomes, poor fellow, was almost buried alive in all this smoke and exhaust; and then, this pullet. A Bardrock hen. The stupid fowl decide at this very same minute, whether she got blind by the smoke and the exhaust, or else was thinking that day had turn-into night, through the smoke from the old lorry engine, decided to cross the road; and blam! Mr. Broomes tried his best to slam-on the brakes— Scrrrrrrreeeenk! —but too late. The pullet lay fluttering. Mr. Broomes, poor fellow, couldn’t extricate himself from outta the cab of the lorry fast-enough; or in time to rescue the Bardrock; or, put it in the cab and carry it home to his wife; nor could he stop the lorry. It was still on the incline of the hill. And a minute later, the whole lorry of canes start backing-back, by itself, back down the hill; and as Mr. Broomes was occupied with the safety of the lorry, and the load of canes, he couldn’t think about laying claim to the pullet; plus, all the feathers was now joining-in with the clouds of exhaust smoke. I was looking out the window seeing all this, when Ma in the kitchen, hearing the screeling of the brakes, and the racket from the fowl, start screaming.
    “ ‘Take it! Take it!’ Ma say. ‘Take it, before somebody-else! Quick, before anybody see you taking it!’
    “Ma had just come home, carrying her crocus bag apron full with sweet potatoes, in one hand, and her weekly wages, in the other.
    “ ‘Quick, Mary-girl, before anybody see!’
    “Well, I tell you, Constable, that that Friday evening was the day I committed my first act of sin.
    “But, I tell you also, that that Bardrock pullet was put in warm water with lil salt and lime juice, to draw it, Friday evening and all Saturday; and on the Sunday morning, into the iron buck-pot with some eschalots, fresh thyme, lard-oil and hot nigger-peppers. And it grace our table the next day, Sunday, the same Sunday that after Church, I came face-to-face the first time, with Mr. Bellfeels.
    “We had that chicken with doved-peas, as I told you. I am relating these foolish things to you, at a time like this, when I should be giving you a Statement of my deeds and misdeeds, in this stage of my life. But . . .”
    “Better late than never, ma’am,” the Constable says.
    “This is my history in confession, better late than never, which in your police work is a Statement. And I wonder, as I sit here this Sunday evening, why I am giving you this history of my personal life, and the history of this Island of Bimshire, altogether, wrap-up in one?”
    “Ma served me the part of that Bardrock hen that has the wishbone, and . . .”
    “Did you break-it-off, for luck?”
    “ ‘Wish,’ Ma tell me, whilst she was sucking-out the two eyes from the chicken head. ‘Wish, Mary-girl! Wish for the whirl. For the stars! You may be a poor, only-child of a poor, confuse mother . . . but the wish you wish, can still be rich! And big! Wish big! God will bring your wish to fruitions, and make you a powerful woman, on this very Plantation. So, wish big, Mary-girl! Wish!’
    “Ma’s hand, slippery from holding the chicken head, slip-off the wishbone, so the whole wishbone remain inside my fingers, whole. Was it my fate?
    “Well, Constable, I carried that wishbone for years; hoeing in the North Field with it; tending elementary school with it, pin-tomy-dress; everywhere. I would sit in Sunday School and run my hand over it, and dream as I followed the words in the Bible story of Daniel in the lions den; and the flight of the