Chap­ter 14: To Janie’s strange eyes, every­thing in the Ever­glades was big and new. Big Lake Oke­chobee, big beans, big cane, big weeds, big every­thing. Weeds that did well to grow waist high up the state were eight and often ten feet tall down there. Ground so rich that every­thing went wild. Vol­un­teer cane just tak­ing the place. Dirt roads so rich and black that a half mile of it would have fer­til­ized a Kansas wheat field. Wild cane on either side of the road hid­ing the rest of the world. Peo­ple wild too.

“Sea­son don’t open up till last of Sep­tem­ber, but we had tuh git heah ahead uh time tuh git us uh room,” Tea Cake explained. “Two weeks from now, it’ll be so many folks heah dey won’t be lookin’ fuh rooms, dey’ll be jus’ look­ing fuh some­where tuh sleep. Now we got uh chance tuh git uh room at de hotel, where dey got uh bath tub. Yuh can’t live on de muck ’thout yuh take uh bath every day. Do dat muck’ll itch yuh lak ants. ’Tain’t but one place round heah wid uh bath tub. ’Tain’t nowhere near enough rooms.”

“Whut we goin­tuh do round heah?”

“All day Ah’m pickin’ beans. All night Ah’m pickin’ mah box and rollin’ dice. Between de beans and de dice Ah can’t lose. Ah’m gone right now tuh pick me uh job uh work wid de best man on de muck. Before de rest of ’em gits heah. You can always git jobs round heah in de sea­son, but not wid de right folks.”

“When do de job open up, Tea Cake? Every­body round here look lak dey wait­in’ too.”

“Dat’s right. De big men haves uh cer­tain time tuh open de sea­son jus’ lak in every­thing else. Mah boss-man didn’t get suf­fi­cient seed. He’s out huntin’ up uh few mo’ bushels. Den we’se goin­tuh plan­tin’.”

“Bushels?”

“Yeah, bushels. Dis ain’t no game fuh pen­nies. Po’ man ain’t got no busi­ness at de show.”

The very next day he burst into the room in high excite­ment. “Boss done bought out anoth­er man and want me down on de lake. He got hous­es fuh de first ones dat git dere. Less go!”

They rat­tled nine miles in a bor­rowed car to the quar­ters that squat­ted so close that only the dyke sep­a­rat­ed them from great, sprawl­ing Oke­chobee. Janie fussed around the shack mak­ing a home while Tea Cake plant­ed beans. After hours they fished. Every now and then they’d run across a par­ty of Indi­ans in their long, nar­row dug-outs calm­ly win­ning their liv­ing in the track­less ways of the ’Glades. Final­ly the beans were in. Noth­ing much to do but wait to pick them. Tea Cake picked his box a great deal for Janie, but he still didn’t have enough to do. No need of gam­bling yet. The peo­ple who were pour­ing in were broke. They didn’t come bring­ing mon­ey, they were com­ing to make some.

“Tell yuh whut, Janie, less buy us some shootin’ tools and go huntin’ round heah.”

“Dat would be fine, Tea Cake, exceptin’ you know Ah can’t shoot. But Ah’d love tuh go wid you.”

“Oh, you needs tuh learn how. ’Tain’t no need uh you not knowin’ how tuh han­dle shootin’ tools. Even if you didn’t nev­er find no game, it’s always some trashy ras­cal dat needs uh good killin’,” he laughed. “Less go intuh Palm Beach and spend some of our mon­ey.”

Every day they were prac­tis­ing. Tea Cake made her shoot at lit­tle things just to give her good aim. Pis­tol and shot gun and rifle. It got so the oth­ers stood around and watched them. Some of the men would beg for a shot at the tar­get them­selves. It was the most excit­ing thing on the muck. Bet­ter than the jook and the pool-room unless some spe­cial band was play­ing for a dance. And the thing that got every­body was the way Janie caught on. She got to the place she could shoot a hawk out of a pine tree and not tear him up. Shoot his head off. She got to be a bet­ter shot than Tea Cake. They’d go out any late after­noon and come back loaded down with game. One night they got a boat and went out hunt­ing alli­ga­tors. Shin­ing their phos­pho­res­cent eyes and shoot­ing them in the dark. They could sell the hides and teeth in Palm Beach besides hav­ing fun togeth­er till work got press­ing.

Day by day now, the hordes of work­ers poured in. Some came limp­ing in with their shoes and sore feet from walk­ing. It’s hard try­ing to fol­low your shoe instead of your shoe fol­low­ing you. They came in wag­ons from way up in Geor­gia and they came in truck loads from east, west, north and south. Per­ma­nent tran­sients with no attach­ments and tired look­ing men with their fam­i­lies and dogs in flivvers. All night, all day, hur­ry­ing in to pick beans. Skil­lets, beds, patched up spare inner tubes all hang­ing and dan­gling from the ancient cars on the out­side and hope­ful human­i­ty, herd­ed and hov­ered on the inside, chug­ging on to the muck. Peo­ple ugly from igno­rance and bro­ken from being poor.

All night now the jooks clanged and clam­ored. Pianos liv­ing three life­times in one. Blues made and used right on the spot. Danc­ing, fight­ing, singing, cry­ing, laugh­ing, win­ning and los­ing love every hour. Work all day for mon­ey, fight all night for love. The rich black earth cling­ing to bod­ies and bit­ing the skin like ants.

Final­ly no more sleep­ing places. Men made big fires and fifty or six­ty men slept around each fire. But they had to pay the man whose land they slept on. He ran the fire just like his board­ing place—for pay. But nobody cared. They made good mon­ey, even to the chil­dren. So they spent good mon­ey. Next month and next year were oth­er times. No need to mix them up with the present.

Tea Cake’s house was a mag­net, the unau­tho­rized cen­ter of the “job.” The way he would sit in the door­way and play his gui­tar made peo­ple stop and lis­ten and maybe dis­ap­point the jook for that night. He was always laugh­ing and full of fun too. He kept every­body laugh­ing in the bean field.

Janie stayed home and boiled big pots of black­eyed peas and rice. Some­times baked big pans of navy beans with plen­ty of sug­ar and hunks of bacon lay­ing on top. That was some­thing Tea Cake loved so no mat­ter if Janie had fixed beans two or three times dur­ing the week, they had baked beans again on Sun­day. She always had some kind of dessert too, as Tea Cake said it give a man some­thing to taper off on. Some­times she’d straight­en out the two-room house and take the rifle and have fried rab­bit for sup­per when Tea Cake got home. She didn’t leave him itch­ing and scratch­ing in his work clothes, either. The ket­tle of hot water was already wait­ing when he got in.

Then Tea Cake took to pop­ping in at the kitchen door at odd hours. Between break­fast and din­ner, some­times. Then often around two o’clock he’d come home and tease and wres­tle with her for a half hour and slip on back to work. So one day she asked him about it.

“Tea Cake, whut you doin’ back in de quar­ters when every­body else is still workin’?”

“Come tuh see ’bout you. De booger­man liable tuh tote yuh off whilst Ah’m gone.”

“ ’Tain’t no booger­man got me tuh study ’bout. Maybe you think Ah ain’t treatin’ yuh right and you watchin’ me.”

“Naw, naw, Janie. Ah know better’n dat. But since you got dat in yo’ head, Ah’ll have tuh tell yuh de real truth, so yuh can know. Janie, Ah gits lone­some out dere all day ’thout yuh. After dis, you bet­ta come git uh job uh work out dere lak de rest uh de women—so Ah won’t be losin’ time comin’ home.”

“Tea Cake, you’se uh mess! Can’t do ’thout me dat lil time.”

“ ’Tain’t no lil time. It’s near ’bout all day.”

So the very next morn­ing Janie got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake. There was a sup­pressed mur­mur when she picked up a bas­ket and went to work. She was already get­ting to be a spe­cial case on the muck. It was gen­er­al­ly assumed that she thought her­self too good to work like the rest of the women and that Tea Cake “pomped her up tuh dat.” But all day long the romp­ing and play­ing they car­ried on behind the boss’s back made her pop­u­lar right away. It got the whole field to play­ing off and on. Then Tea Cake would help get sup­per after­wards.

“You don’t think Ah’m tryin’ tuh git outa takin’ keer uh yuh, do yuh, Janie, ’cause Ah ast yuh tuh work long side uh me?” Tea Cake asked her at the end of her first week in the field.

“Ah naw, hon­ey. Ah laks it. It’s mo’ nicer than set­tin’ round dese quar­ters all day. Clerkin’ in dat store wuz hard, but heah, we ain’t got noth­in’ tuh do but do our work and come home and love.”

The house was full of peo­ple every night. That is, all around the doorstep was full. Some were there to hear Tea Cake pick the box; some came to talk and tell sto­ries, but most of them came to get into what­ev­er game was going on or might go on. Some­times Tea Cake lost heav­i­ly, for there were sev­er­al good gam­blers on the lake. Some­times he won and made Janie proud of his skill. But out­side of the two jooks, every­thing on that job went on around those two.

Some­times Janie would think of the old days in the big white house and the store and laugh to her­self. What if Eatonville could see her now in her blue den­im over­alls and heavy shoes? The crowd of peo­ple around her and a dice game on her floor! She was sor­ry for her friends back there and scorn­ful of the oth­ers. The men held big argu­ments here like they used to do on the store porch. Only here, she could lis­ten and laugh and even talk some her­self if she want­ed to. She got so she could tell big sto­ries her­self from lis­ten­ing to the rest. Because she loved to hear it, and the men loved to hear them­selves, they would “woof” and “booger­boo” around the games to the lim­it. No mat­ter how rough it was, peo­ple sel­dom got mad, because every­thing was done for a laugh. Every­body loved to hear Ed Dock­ery, Bootyny, and Sop-de-Bot­tom in a skin game. Ed Dock­ery was deal­ing one night and he looked over at Sop-de-Bottom’s card and he could tell Sop thought he was going to win. He hollered, “Ah’ll break up dat set­tin’ uh eggs.” Sop looked and said, “Root de peg.” Bootyny asked, “What are you goin’ tuh do? Do do!” Every­body was watch­ing that next card fall. Ed got ready to turn. “Ah’m goin­tuh sweep out hell and burn up de broom.” He slammed down anoth­er dol­lar. “Don’t over­sport your­self, Ed,” Bootyny chal­lenged. “You git­tin’ too yaller.” Ed caught hold of the cor­ner of the card. Sop dropped a dol­lar. “Ah’m goin­tuh shoot in de hearse, don’t keer how sad de funer­al be.” Ed said, “You see how this man is teasin’ hell?” Tea Cake nudged Sop not to bet. “You goin­tuh git caught in uh bul­let storm if you don’t watch out.” Sop said, “Aw ’tain’t noth­in’ tuh dat bear but his curly hair. Ah can look through mud­dy water and see dry land.” Ed turned off the card and hollered, “Zachari­ah, Ah says come down out dat sycamore tree. You can’t do no busi­ness.” Nobody fell on that card. Every­body was scared of the next one. Ed looked around and saw Gabe stand­ing behind his chair and hollered, “Move, from over me, Gabe! You too black. You draw heat! Sop, you wan­ta pick up dat bet whilst you got uh chance?” “Naw, man, Ah wish Ah had uh thou­sand-leg tuh put on it.” “So yuh won’t lis­sen, huh? Dumb nig­gers and free schools. Ah’m goin­tuh take and teach yuh. Ah’ll main-line but Ah won’t side-track.” Ed flipped the next card and Sop fell and lost. Every­body hollered and laughed. Ed laughed and said, “Git off de muck! You ain’t noth­in’. Dat’s all! Hot boilin’ water won’t help yuh none.” Ed kept on laugh­ing because he had been so scared before. “Sop, Bootyny, all y’all dat lemme win yo’ mon­ey: Ah’m send­ing it straight off to Sears and Roe­buck and buy me some clothes, and when Ah turn out Christ­mas day, it would take a doc­tor to tell me how near Ah is dressed tuh death.”