...And They Called us Nancys Gilbert B. Dickey
INTRODUCTION-THE YEAR 1866
On a balmy June night the oil lamps were flickering on the town square in Pulaski, Tennessee, though it was not dark enough to make them useful. The only noises were the sounds from horse hooves and jingling bridles. It was the silence, the god damn spooky silence, thought John Lester. People were standing frozen on street corners as though watching a funeral pass by.
To himself John Lester thought, hey, this is supposed to be funny, folks. Don't you think it's funny that we are wearing our mamas' print dresses with mismatched buttons down the front so we can ride to the saddle? And, how about these flour sacks on our heads and our horses wearing dresses to cover their naked bodies?
Twenty former Confederate soldiers, riding two abreast around and around the square, moved in a precision drill to the orders of a muted whistle. Though they were all sworn to silence, whispered words passed between them. "Did you see those niggers--scared out of their wits? Hey, boys, you're supposed to be showing a mouth full of teeth, not rolling those eyeballs. Watch him run!" Frank McCord whispered to no one in particular.
John Lester rose in his saddle and looked back at the riders. Even though they couldn't see John frown, they felt it and went silent.
At that same moment a brave leading citizen lifted the mantle on the rump of one of the passing horses he thought he recognized. Frank McCord saw the act to his horse but let it pass as the gesture of a man showing off in front of the ladies.
If fate records such events, the action of this one citizen was the beginning of the Ku Klux Klan.
Chapter 1 1840
"John Lester, are you up there?" yelled the sandy-haired, freckled-faced, eight- year-old girl as she ran into the barn. She shouted up to the hay loft, "John, please answer me."
"I'm up here, Adeline," he sobbed. Adeline, tomboy that she was, swung her bare feet expertly up the loft ladder and joined John who was lying face down in the dusty hay. "Don't cry, John, the fellows didn't mean anything by it. They call me names all the time."
She took five-year-old John Calhoun Lester in her arms and held him to soothe the hurt. "Mama just don't have time for everybody, her still nursing Baby Nancy. Ten young'uns in nineteen years, Daddy dead and all, means we got to take care of each other." Adeline took the hem of her hand-smocked dress and wiped away John's tears. She knew the adults expected the older children to take care of all her younger brothers and sisters, but John was her favorite.
"Adeline, why don't I look like my brothers? They're all different from me."
"I don't know, John. Most Lesters look alike--even the girls--tall, lanky, broad- shouldered, with aristocratic noses, close-set eyes, and gentle manners. But you, John, look like Mother with her slight build, thin shoulders and a shy, pleasant face. Must be the McConnico side coming out. Wish I had your looks."
John smiled at the compliment, but it didn't take away the hurt. Franklin always started the teasing and his other brothers followed his acts everytime. Calls me sissy and Mama's boy. I hate him. Only Adeline sticks up for me, John thought
Walking into the house, John and Adeline overheard their mother complaining to Granville. "I'm sorry, but I've got no one to turn to except you," Mary said to Granville, her nineteen-year-old son. "It's hard work studying to be a doctor but we have the family to think about. Even with twenty slaves, the farm still needs someone strong like your blessed father to supervise the work. I'll say this, your dead father, bless his soul, believed equally in an education for the children. Do you think maybe your brother James can do it--he being seventeen now?"
The family was moving slowly into the long dining room for noon dinner. Little John sat at the end of the table. On his right sat Adeline and on his left sat Sarah, who was only four. Other than his baby brother, Albert, the girls were his sole playmates. Their games and toys were more to his liking than the rough and tumble antics of his older brothers. "Well, I see the cry baby has decided to come in for dinner," Franklin, the thirteen-year-old, cracked.
"You leave him alone," Adeline said, "you big bully."
"Did the little sissy run and hide under his sister's skirts?"
"Children, stop this at once," Mary said. "Don't think just because your father's not yet cold in the ground you can get away with this kind of behavior. If I can't handle you, Uncle German can."
A warm hand reached for John's hand under the cover of the tablecloth. At least she cares, thought John. How he hated that word, "sissy." When he grew up, he'd show them. He wished his mother coddled him like she did baby Nancy. He found himself wanting to be the baby nursing at the warm breasts of his mother.
John let his mind drift from the family noise. He liked it best when he was alone. As he grew older, one of his happy times was going with his mother to visit Uncle German. After he'd learned to read, the hundreds of books in the brick mansion's library were a treasure. On most visits he would be left to play with Martha and Edwin, German's youngest children, while the grownups talked. When no one was looking John would slip away to the library, select a book and sit quietly reading.
On one visit when he was ten, his Uncle German found him reading about frontier life in the territories. "Reading about America's pioneers, are you? Sometime, I'll tell you about my brother and me coming here when this was just Indian Territory." "Oh, would you, Uncle German, would you please?"
"Yes, that's a promise, but about these books, John, I want you to know that it's all right to be here. These books have more life inside their covers than one man can experience in a thousand lifetimes. The other kids out there playing in the yard are having fun, but you, sir, are enriching your mind. Don't you let anyone tell you that what you're doing is not manly," German said, sitting beside him. "You'll never find closer companions for life than old Aristotle, Virgil, or Plato. I take that back; if you'll come with me out to the storeroom, you'll meet someone who'll be even closer."
John eagerly took his uncle's big hand and went with him to the storeroom. "I love you, Uncle German. Wish you'd been my father."
"I love you, too, John. Let's just say we're closer than father and son." Opening the door to the room, John was surrounded by a sea of warm, fuzzy bodies. German's purebred Scotch Collie, Cumberland, had birthed eight pups.
"If it's all right with your mother, you may have your pick of the litter for your very own. A collie will be your dearest friend and no one will ever love you more."
"Oh yes, Uncle German, may I? For my very own?"
With that John threw his arms around German and kissed him on the mouth, imagining him to be the father he never knew who died while he was a baby. Then he carefully watched the puppies gambol at his feet. After a few minutes he picked up one squirming pup and turned to German and said, "This one."
"How did you pick that particular one?"
"'Cause he's the shyest and needs loving the most."
With German's insistence, his mother let John take the puppy home. John noticed that his mother could not deny German. Riding back to Robertson's Fork in the surrey, John thought about how his mother had hugged and kissed German. She must have loved him for a long time.
The next day as he walked to school John thought about how much he hated recess. I'm not going anywhere near the stickball field. Stupid game. All the captains choose their own friends. He thought, I'd rather go out into the woods and watch the squirrels. He'd sit on his favorite log and eat his lunch, a mixture of molasses and butter stirred together and poured over cornbread.
When he was through, he spotted his sisters walking ahead. He ran after them. "Wait up," he shouted. Adeline and Sicily would see him home and the neighborhood bullies would stay clear of the girls. For him the school day passed as slowly as the smoke off of cowpaddies in winter. Soon home was in sight and his dog, Prince, waited, wiggling and dancing.
Putting his books in his room, John turned back to Prince, and they ran to his favorite hillside rock. He thought, Prince, no one really loves me except you. And Uncle German. And Adeline. When I grow up and leave home, I'll show them. Then it'll be brains, not an old dumb stickball game that people will notice. Then they'll see me for who I really am . .
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