Jubilee

John Dutton, Jr. has a friend, Kevin MacDougall, over to the Big House. Kevin takes an immediately liking to Lillian, whom he thinks is “the prettiest girl” (124) he’s seen in a very long time. They talk about their lives—John, Jr. expresses his admiration for his mother, while Kevin remarks on how his mother died in childbirth. John, Jr. also registers how excited he is to go to West Point. Kevin, on the other hand, wants only to spend his time with books and to enjoy a romance. He senses that Lillian is as attracted to him as he is to her. Kevin then asks John, Jr. what he thinks of Fanny Crenshaw’s flirtations; John, Jr. insists that they’re only childhood friends. Besides, he’s leaving for West Point and, after that, he intends to go out into the world.

The two young men “[are] putting on their long tailcoats” (127) in preparation for the evening’s party. Fanny, who is one of Lillian’s five best friends is there, too. Fanny is the leader of this group; all the other girls compete for her attention. Meanwhile, Kevin begins courting Lillian. Initially, Salina is uncomfortable with the idea of them as a couple, given that Kevin looks to be nearly 30. Kevin eventually charms Salina with his bookishness, while Marse John finds this “unmanly” (128).

Vyry fascinatedly watches this courtship. She hears rumors about Lillian soon marrying and having a wedding on the plantation. It’s summer, and love is blooming both among slaves and their masters. Missy Salina maintains “a big supply of ipecac, ergot, and saltpeter to control the passionate natures of house servants” (129).

Vyry is now 16 years old. She still has Randall Ware on her mind and fantasizes about his kisses and embraces—all in the context of his promise of freedom. Also that summer, Marse John orders Grimes to purchase 12 more field hands. One of the boys whom Grimes purchases seems “simple-minded or touched in the head” (131). The boy, Willie, does as he’s told, but all soon learn that he cannot be entrusted with any major task. More strangely, no one has ever heard him laugh or cry. Vyry sympathizes with him. No matter how much Grimes physically or verbally abuses him or Missy Salina yells orders at him, the boy only “[shakes] his head from side to side” (132) or stares. Vyry, however, understands that his docility comes not from stupidity but from being repeatedly dehumanized.

One Sunday afternoon, Miss Lillian is with her dinner guests on the veranda. She gets a fit of gas and farts audibly. Everyone quiets in embarrassment. Lillian’s friend, Addie, asks if she’s not feeling well. Lillian becomes embarrassed and cries. She then runs away from the house and her company. Lillian retains her embarrassment for days. While her father encourages her to “forget it,” her mother knows that “[g]enteel, well-bred southern ladies [are] above such human frailty” (132). To make her daughter feel better, Missy Salina comes up with a plan to have Willie go out on the veranda, when Lillian’s friends gather the Sunday next, and announce himself as the one who farted the week before. He then turns, as though saying nothing out of the ordinary, and walks away. Lillian is dumbfounded.

Kevin finally proposes, and the family plans a wedding set to take place in late June. While preparations are underway, Lucy runs into trouble with Missy Salina over the latter’s parrot, who acts as “a kind of watch dog” (134) over the kitchen slaves. One night, when the Duttons have guests, Lucy is particularly unhappy about Missy Salina’s incessant nagging and, in a moment of irritability after yet another request from her mistress, curses Missy Salina while the woman is standing in the doorway. The parrot screeches and Lucy, not knowing that Missy Salina is now watching her every move and hearing every word, slaps the parrot from its perch. Vyry, May Liza, and Caline, who are also working in the kitchen, stand frozen in shock and fear. Missy Salina approaches Lucy and slaps her repeatedly. Before returning to her guests, Salina orders May Liza and Lucy to bring everyone more coffee. After dinner, the slaves gather and sing spirituals for the guests, then listen to Salina read “her favorite passage from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians” (135), encouraging servants to obey their masters.

The slaves retire to the quarters for the night. May Liza overhears Missy Salina tell Grimes that Lucy is to be whipped in the morning, just after her guests leave. Lucy disappears during the night, but the bloodhounds find her, and she’s brought back. Grimes throws her down. Lucy, in her panic, “[twitches] all over and [foams] at the mouth” (138). Grimes orders a group of slave boys to tie Lucy’s arms and legs, to “[drive] a steel spike into the ground and [tie] the rope that [binds] her legs to the spike” (138). Grimes also has assistance from white guards, one of whom “[stoops] over [a] fire” with a “pair of tongs” in his hands (138). He takes “a red hot piece of iron” (138), the size of a small stone, from the fire. One of the slave boys becomes nauseous. Vyry turns away to avoid seeing the guards brand Lucy; she then faints. She awakens to Caline throwing water on her face. Lucy is still tied down. Her face is puffy, and there’s blood streaming from it. In the distance, the slaves hear bloodhounds “yelping and crying” (139), meaning that Grimes, now out of sight, is probably game hunting.

Meanwhile, Missy Salina is excited with preparations for the wedding. On Lillian’s wedding day, Vyry takes a break from “creaming chicken for patty shells” (140) to gaze upon the beautiful bride and to wish her luck. After the wedding, Vyry is busy with “a mountain of dishes” (140) and other chores. Lucy is working, too. Her swelling has gone down, but the branding left behind “the mark of ‘R’ for runaway” (141). Vyry remarks on how “her glassy eyes [look] dull and witless and her shaking fingers [steady] themselves under some strange control from within” (141). Vyry goes home to her cabin, exhausted. She doesn’t fall asleep but sits in the doorway of her cabin “watching the moon rise high in the heavens” (141). Just then, she hears the cry “of a distant whippoorwill” (141). 

For the holiday, to commemorate the country’s 80th birthday, Lee County plans to hang the two slave women convicted of murdering their owner. Normally, people barbecue on such days. Vyry prepares lunch for Marse John’s family and the field hands. The master and mistress “generously ordered extra rum and tobacco for the slaves and they were going to make a barrel of sweetened water for the slave children” (142).

For the hanging, everyone gathers at the courthouse. Poor white boys sit up in the branches of trees, shouting obscenities. Dirt farmers’ wives put on “their best bonnets” (144). Among the wealthy planter families, only men are present. Most of the white people at the event seem festive and friendly, though only with those within their social class, while the black people are silent and tense. The crowd is atwitter with word that a display of fireworks will follow the hanging.

At exactly noon, Judge Winston enters “in his black robes and with him the preacher, also in black robes” (145). The prisoners stand in chains between their appointed guards. The hangman “[sits] like a hawk, perched on a stool” (145). He, too, is wearing “the blackest black” (145). The preacher reads from the Fourth Book of Moses and then preaches to the planters that it’s their duty to teach their slaves “right from wrong” (146). He describes slavery as part of the natural order and a marker of civilization. The preacher then addresses the slaves, telling them how “fortunate” they are “to have found Christian masters” to “protect and feed and clothe and shelter [them]” (147). He warns them that God will punish them if they are disobedient. Finally, the preacher turns to the two convicted women and condemns their ingratitude, calling them “evil and black-hearted and lowdown” (148). One of the boys sitting in the trees shouts for the women’s murder. As if reading a cue, the hangman ties a nose around one woman’s throat, but does not cover her face with a hood. The woman who awaits her own execution screams in horror at the sight of the other woman’s “bulging” eyes and her “hanging” tongue (150). Black children also scream and cry.

At the end of the hanging, in the late afternoon, the slave drivers and guards herd the slaves into waiting wagons. When Vyry and the other slaves from Shady Oaks arrive back home, Grimes does a head count. Lucy is not there. Caline says that Lucy told her the night before that she felt ill. A guard goes into Lucy’s cabin and checks her pallet. He thinks that he sees a body “under some rags” (151), but it turns out to have been a dummy. Lucy ran away. Grimes searches for her in the company of “a posse of men and bloodhounds” (151), but he never finds her.

Vyry is secretly happy to know that Lucy has escaped. She also learns that May Liza and Caline knew much more than they let on about Lucy’s plans. They saw Lucy practice covering her branding scar with “a mixture of yellow ochre, red clay, and charcoal, until it had blended into her skin” (152). On the other hand, the Duttons think that Yankee abolitionists are to blame. They are irritated to have lost money on Lucy and advertise for her return in “all the Georgia papers from Augusta to Athens and Savannah to Milledgeville, as well as the New Orleans Picayune” (153). Grimes advocates advertising in newspapers from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland, too, knowing that Lucy is on her way north on the Underground Railroad.