The March by E.L. Doctorow Read Free Book Online Page A

white I be.
    Clarke said, By and by, Pearl, the black folks will have to go back. Those are the standing orders of General Sherman. You don’t want to go back, do you?
    You burned de house, took de vittles. Back to what?
    Exactly. When the war is won, the authorities will work out the legalities for freed slaves to own their own land. But now if they trail along they are too many mouths to feed. The young men we can enlist, but the women and children and old men, they will fall by the wayside and then where will they be? So it’s best this way.
    Well, a gul chile not much good fer shootin neither.
    Clarke was astonished at the aplomb with which he was subverting orders. You can beat the drum when we’re marching, he said. And you can ride in the wagons when we’re foraging.
    Pearl was not persuaded. She began to feel that staying with Jake Early and the others was what she should do. The prospect was unsettling, and she didn’t know why she felt that way. They had never been kind to her, but there was something wrong in their being sent back while she went on. She enjoyed having a fuss made over her. She had never had that—it came of being free—but she thought now of the plantation, where she loved the fields and the stands of trees. She knew every inch of that place she had lived on all her life. She knew every stream, every rock, every shrub. But, most of all, she worried that if she was not there her mother’s grave would be forgotten, with nobody to care about it or tend to it. The slave quarters were still standing. And if she was free, wasn’t she free to go back if that’s what she wanted? To starve, if she wanted to? To be John Jameson’s slave chile again, if she wanted to?
    In this state of mind Pearl sat down near the fire in her new uniform and joined the men for supper. She was given a tin plate with a roasted chicken leg and sweet potatoes and corn bread with sorghum. This in itself might have been persuasive, but at that moment Jake Early appeared out of the darkness along with Jubal Samuels, he of the one eye. They were under escort, two privates with rifles at the ready.
    Sergeant Malone said, Jesus! What’s this?
    Should be plain we ain’t Johnnies, Jubal Samuels said.
    We been lookin fer dat chile, Jake Early said, pointing at Pearl.
    Here she be, Pearl said.
    Ifn you know yo Bible, Miss Porhl, you ’member ’bout dat Jez’bel. You bes cum wiv us, Jake Early said.
    I ain’t no Jez’bel.
    I see you wiv dese soljer. You got a white pap like to put you sinnin in a white skin. You bes come wiv yo gibn folks now, lest you be some Jez’bel fer de army like your mam been to der Mass’ Jameson.
    Pearl put her plate down and got to her feet. My mama she a po slave lak you, Jacob Early. But wiv a warm, sweet soul, not de cold ice you got in yo heart. You never take no heed of Porhl, you Jacob, nor you, Jubal Samuels—no, non of youn. All dat time only dat Roscoe a frien to me. Lak he my pap. Gib me from de kitchen when I hongry. Watch out fer me. But you ain never be gibn folks to Porhl, no sir, not den and not now.
    Clarke stood and addressed the two privates. Get these men back where they belong, he said.
    Nobody doan never have touch Porhl! When I little, de brudder try. Oh yeah. I raise up dis bony knee hard in his what he got dere, and dat were dat and nobody since! You hear dis gul, Mr. free man Jacob Early? And nobody since! An I ain’t no Jez’bel, she screamed.
    In this way was Pearl’s decision made, and by the time they were on the march through Milledgeville she was drummer for Clarke’s company. She just hit the drum once every other step and they kept the pace, some with smiles on their faces. She looked straight ahead and kept her shoulders squared against the shoulder straps, but she could tell that white folks watched from the windows. And none of them knew she wasn’t but the drummer boy they saw.
    EAST OF MILLEDGEVILLE the weather changed and the terrain grew swampy. A