The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Read Online Free Page A

I’ll come to Ned later. Yes, Lord, I’ll come to him later. But even with them two children she had the biggest bundle out there balanced on her head.
    Big Laura took the lead and we started walking again. Walking fast, but staying quiet. Somebody said we ought to get sticks just in case of snakes, so we all hunted for a good green stick. Now everybody had a stick but Big Laura. She leading the way with that little girl in her arms and Ned by the hand. She had found us a good clean path and it was cool under the trees, and everybody was happy. We walked and walked and walked. Almost sundown before we stopped the first time.
    “We headed toward Ohio?” I asked.
    “You got somebody waiting for you in Ohio?” they asked me.
    “Mr. Brown told me look him up,” I said.
    Nobody believed Mr. Brown had told me that, but they didn’t say nothing.
    “I want go to Ohio,” I said.
    “Go on to Ohio,” one of them said. “Nobody holding you back.”
    “I don’t know the way,” I said.
    “Then shut up,” one of them said.
    “Y’all just sorry y’all ain’t got nobody waiting for y’all nowhere,” I said.
    Nobody said nothing. I was little, and they didn’t feel they needed to argue with me.
    We was in a thicket of sycamore trees, and it was quiet and clean here, and we had a little breeze, becauseway up in the top of the trees I could see the limbs sagging just a little. Everybody was tired from the long walk and we just sat there quiet, not saying a thing for a good while. Then somebody said: “My new name Abe Washington. Don’t call me Buck no more.” We must have been two dozens of us there, and now everybody started changing names like you change hats. Nobody was keeping the same name Old Master had gived them. This one would say, “My new name Cam Lincoln.” That one would say, “My new name Ace Freeman.” Another one, “My new name Sherman S. Sherman.” “What that S for?” “My Title.” Another one would say, “My new name Job.” “Job what?” “Just Job.” “Nigger, this ain’t slavery no more. You got to have two names.” “Job Lincoln, then.” “Nigger, you ain’t no kin to me. I’m Lincoln.” “I don’t care. I’m still Job Lincoln. Want fight?” Another one would say, “My name Neremiah King.” Another one standing by a tree would say, “My new name Bill Moses. No more Rufus.”
    They went on and on like that. We had one slow-wit fellow there who kept on opening his mouth to say his new name, but before he could get it out somebody else had said a name. He was just opening and closing his mouth like a baby after his mama’s titty. Then all a sudden when he had a little time to speak he said Brown. They had took all the other names from him, so he took Brown. I had been sitting there on the end of a log listening to them squabbling over new names, but I didn’t have to get in the squabbling because I already had a new name. I had had mine for over a year now, and I had put up with a lot of trouble to hold on to it. But when I heard the slow-wit say his name was Brown I was ready to fight. I jumped up off that log and went for him.
    “No, you don’t,” I said.
    He said, “I, I, I, can be, be, be Brown if I want be, be, be Brown.” He was picking on me because I was small and didn’t have nobody there to stand up for me. “You not the on’, on’, only one ra, ra, round herethat can be, be, be Brown,” he said. “Me’, me’, mess round here wi’, wi’, with me, I ma’, ma’, make you, you, you change your name back to Ti’, Ti’, Ticey.”
    “I’ll die first,” I said.
    “Go, go, go right on and di’, di’, die,” he said. “Br’, Br’, Brown my name.”
    And I tried to crack his head open with that stick. But I didn’t bit more hurt that loon than I would hurt that post at the end of my gallery. He came on me and I swung the stick and backed from him. He kept coming on me, and I kept hitting and backing back. Hitting and backing back. Then