Their Eyes Were Watching God - By Zora Neale Hurston & Edwidge Danticat Page 0,74

wider, but coming. It had trampled on most of its supporting wall and lowered its front by spreading. But it came muttering and grumbling onward like a tired mammoth just the same.

“Dis is uh high tall house. Maybe it won’t reach heah at all,” Janie counseled. “And if it do, maybe it won’t reach tuh de upstairs part.”

“Janie, Lake Okechobee is forty miles wide and sixty miles long. Dat’s uh whole heap uh water. If dis wind is shovin’ dat whole lake disa way, dis house ain’t nothin’ tuh swaller. Us better go. Motor Boat!”

“Whut you want, man?”

“De lake is comin’!”

“Aw, naw it ’tain’t.”

“Yes, it is so comin’! Listen! You kin hear it way off.”

“It kin jus’ come on. Ah’ll wait right here.”

“Aw, get up, Motor Boat! Less make it tuh de Palm Beach road. Dat’s on uh fill. We’se pretty safe dere.”

“Ah’m safe here, man. Go ahead if yuh wants to. Ah’m sleepy.”

“Whut you gointuh do if de lake reach heah?”

“Go upstairs.”

“S’posing it come up dere?”

“Swim, man. Dat’s all.”

“Well, uh, Good bye, Motor Boat. Everything is pretty bad, yuh know. Us might git missed of one ’nother. You sho is a grand friend fuh uh man tuh have.”

“Good bye, Tea Cake. Y’all oughta stay here and sleep, man. No use in goin’ off and leavin’ me lak dis.”

“We don’t wanta. Come on wid us. It might be night time when de water hem you up in heah. Dat’s how come Ah won’t stay. Come on, man.”

“Tea Cake, Ah got tuh have mah sleep. Definitely.”

“Good bye, then, Motor. Ah wish you all de luck. Goin’ over tuh Nassau fuh dat visit widja when all dis is over.”

“Definitely, Tea Cake. Mah mama’s house is yours.”

Tea Cake and Janie were some distance from the house before they struck serious water. Then they had to swim a distance, and Janie could not hold up more than a few strokes at a time, so Tea Cake bore her up till finally they hit a ridge that led on towards the fill. It seemed to him the wind was weakening a little so he kept looking for a place to rest and catch his breath. His wind was gone. Janie was tired and limping, but she had not had to do that hard swimming in the turbulent waters, so Tea Cake was much worse off. But they couldn’t stop. Gaining the fill was something but it was no guarantee. The lake was coming. They had to reach the six-mile bridge. It was high and safe perhaps.

Everybody was walking the fill. Hurrying, dragging, falling, crying, calling out names hopefully and hopelessly. Wind and rain beating on old folks and beating on babies. Tea Cake stumbled once or twice in his weariness and Janie held him up. So they reached the bridge at Six Mile Bend and thought to rest.

But it was crowded. White people had preempted that point of elevation and there was no more room. They could climb up one of its high sides and down the other, that was all. Miles further on, still no rest.

They passed a dead man in a sitting position on a hummock, entirely surrounded by wild animals and snakes. Common danger made common friends. Nothing sought a conquest over the other.

Another man clung to a cypress tree on a tiny island. A tin roof of a building hung from the branches by electric wires and the wind swung it back and forth like a mighty ax. The man dared not move a step to his right lest this crushing blade split him open. He dared not step left for a large rattlesnake was stretched full length with his head in the wind. There was a strip of water between the island and the fill, and the man clung to the tree and cried for help.

“De snake won’t bite yuh,” Tea Cake yelled to him. “He skeered tuh go intuh uh coil. Skeered he’ll be blowed away. Step round dat side and swim off!”

Soon after that Tea Cake felt he couldn’t walk anymore. Not right away. So he stretched long side of the road to rest. Janie spread herself between him and the wind and he closed his eyes and let the tiredness seep out of his limbs. On each side of the fill was a great expanse of water like lakes—water full of things living and dead. Things that didn’t belong in water. As far as the eye could reach, water and wind playing upon it in fury. A