knew that the store was their home, as it was Annie’s and Willie’s, and so they enjoyed being there, hearing the customers order, listening to the grown-up talk – even if they pretended not to be doing so.
In Annie Henderson’s world, everything had its place. In the outside world of the paths and the chinaberry tree and the cleanly swept front lawn as well as in the inside world of the bedrooms, the kitchen and the outbuildings like the chicken coop and the pig sty. Order was key. The first week after the long train trip, Annie made sure that the grandchildren understood the procedures. Marguerite had cried because she could not find any sidewalks. There were only the edges of the dirt road and the sometimes straw-covered paths. Nothing in Arkansas seemed familiar. But what quickly became familiar was the way to Annie’s bedroom, to the right out the first back door in the store. Annie shared her bedroom with Marguerite. Uncle Willie, whose bedroom was across the path, shared his room with Bailey. Back of those rooms was, to one side, the chicken coop and to the other, the pig sty. Between those two locations was the outhouse, complete with a door that closed and a box filled with not only Sears Roebuck catalogues but also such magazines as Ladies’ Home Companion, Liberty, and some Christian magazines. The children already knew that this was the toilet paper to be used.
When darkness fell over the yard, the animals quieted and people prepared for going to bed. Washing at the pump was a nightly ritual; saying prayers was a similar ritual. Sometimes Uncle Willie would read Scripture from the Bible. Occasionally Annie would allow the radio to be played. But the quiet of the farming community pervaded everyone’s thinking. The store closed around suppertime so it too was dark and still. Suppertime, held in the kitchen that shielded Willie’s bedroom from passers-by, was the crowning daytime event: no family in Stamps had better meals than Annie Henderson’s. There were not many different foods in any one meal, but the cooking was good. And for dessert, there was the whole province of the store.
After Marguerite and Bailey had lived in Stamps for several weeks, they began to see how central Momma’s store was to the community. Not only did people shop for cheese, lunchmeats, sausage, sardines, oil, syrup, greens, crackers, eggs, potatoes, onions, and leather soles for worn-out shoes, they also came by on Saturdays to see what was happening around the chinaberry tree in the back yard. Annie had early on built a table around the base of the tree, providing shade in summer and protection from rains and the occasional snow. Around the tree barbers set up their equipment of a Saturday, as did women hairdressers. Visiting as well as commerce brought people together. Men played juice-harps and cigar-box guitars. Everybody sang. And when the people of black Stamps saw both Bailey, Jr. and Marguerite, they began to bring along outgrown clothing from their own households. It had been thirty years since Annie had had to outfit children.
Off to the side of the chicken coop Annie and Willie grew their large garden – flowers as well as vegetables, rows and rows of different kinds of greens and radishes, potatoes, corn, and cabbages. And across the yard, near the well, stood the deep washing pots (one for soaking and boiling, one for rinsing), with a long clothesline connecting the two larger trees on the plot. It didn’t take Bailey, Jr. or Marguerite long to understand how Momma’s household worked. What was more important was that they understood that there was a place for them in every activity.
They also quickly learned that Annie never bought anything that she could make for herself. She carpentered. She planted. She harvested. She canned. She butchered and preserved. She bartered with neighbors. Famous for her caramel cake, Annie also made the brown sugar for that delicacy – baking that cake and icing it took nearly a whole day. She had always quilted but now that her grandchildren had come to live, she sewed clothes for them, buying whole bolts of fabric so that Bailey’s shirts and Marguerite’s dresses and blouses were from the same fabric (and sometimes Uncle Willie’s work shirts and Annie’s dresses as well). Except for a few fancy buttons on Marguerite’s good dresses, every one of Annie’s results were buttoned with plain white shirt buttons.
One of Momma’s prize possessions was the Singer Sewing Machine. Another was the quilting frame that she housed in her bedroom. When half a dozen neighbors came for a quilting bee, they rolled out the quilt and attached it to the frame. Then each woman began her neatest, tiniest stitches. Marguerite hid behind whatever door seemed nearest and listened to the women’s stories – about black men who had been lynched, or black men who had run away, or white men who had tried to molest black women – their white wives pretending not to notice their efforts, and instead only showing anger at the black women who were being hunted. Black women who, somehow, without agency, were the sexual rivals for those married to the white men in pursuit.4
Even pre-school African American children knew where the loaded shotguns were kept, though they also knew not to tell anyone about the weapons. Set against the omnipresence of the Colored Methodist Episcopalian church, the threat of harming or killing was an obvious sin, but the knowledge that the family had this power – righteous or not – was comforting. And it wasn’t just the African American knowledge that pervaded in the Stamps, Arkansas, culture: the young white girls who came into the store, thinking that if Uncle Willie waited on them they could pull the sexual threat of claiming that he had touched them – and thereby get their candy for free – also knew how racial power worked. Black men who were unfortunately confronted by white girls or women had no power at all.
The comfort of the church was not only based on its spirituality. It also stemmed from its segregated character. African American ministers traveled from rural church to rural church; if there was no minister, Uncle Willie, as Superintendent of the Sunday School, might read some Scripture. In any case, the rituals were known; the families sat where they usually did; the hymns were chosen in advance, and were often led by Sister Henderson – with or without the piano. An oasis in the midst of what might have been a stormy week, the Sunday services took up not only the morning hours but also the early afternoons. Sunday breakfasts were big so that people were held over till the main Sunday meal, the mid-afternoon dinner, usually built around roasted chicken, complete with peas and greens, and inch-high buttermilk biscuits. Served with apple butter in the autumn, the biscuits were memorable with sweet butter no matter the time of year. Metaphoric in several ways, the church service and its accompanying meals were the heart of the serenity that Annie Henderson, Uncle Willie Johnson, and now Bailey, Jr. and Marguerite experienced. The other six days of the week blurred into sameness. But Sunday was “another world,” a place of “hilarity, ecstasy, despair, poignancy, sadness, and human warmth. We go to church not for duty’s sake, but for the joy of it, the music, the excitement.”5
In the silent world of Sister Henderson’s store and household, Ritzie and Bailey were faced with an almost voiceless culture. For that reason alone, being an accepted part of the Colored Methodist Episcopalian congregation was exciting. They loved the hymns, and not only because Momma often led them. “Amazing Grace,” “Abide with Me,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past,” and a bevy of holiday anthems were the music the children could sing by rote. The tattered hymnals had only a few of these. Most parishioners knew the separate verses well, and if they didn’t, they hummed joyfully. No one cared how close the language was to what was written; nobody cared if an interval was a bit off. The spirit of Sunday bound all sounds into one glorious echo. Church became a magical place, suffused with harmony.
Like the path across the road from the store, which led to the African American school, the way to the church was often visible – especially when the children were eager for Sunday to come. Church was the only break in the dailiness that was life in Stamps: Bailey would begin school the following year but Ritzie had several years to be Annie’s helper in the store. She was a learner now. She was not yet a reader (because that was what she would learn at school) though she had found she could read some of the words on boxes and packages in the store. She could not make out what the King James Bible said, though she loved to listen to Uncle Willie reading from it. She was a good learner: she learned how to wash windows with vinegar water, and occasionally scrub dirty patches on the washboard. She learned how to hand the wrung-out clothes to Momma as she filled the wavering
