As a rule, in the boats from shore, there were twelve
boys to paddle and three or four extra men to handle and unhook the
mammy-chair and the luggage. While the boys with the paddles
manoeuvred to bring their boat next to the ship's side, the extra
boys tried to pull their rivals overboard, dragging their hands from
ropes and gunwales, and beating them with paddles. They did this
while every second the boat under them was spinning in the air or
diving ten feet into the hollow of the waves, and trying to smash
itself and every other boat into driftwood. From the deck the second
officer would swing a mammy-chair over the side with the idea of
dropping it into one of these boats. But before the chair could be
lowered, a rival boat would shove the first one away, and with a
third boat would be fighting for its place. Meanwhile, high above
the angry sea, the chair and its cargo of black women would be
twirling like a weathercock and banging against the ship's side. The
mammies were too terrified to scream, but the ship's officers
yelled and swore, the boat's crews shrieked, and the black babies
howled. Each baby was strapped between the shoulders of the mother.
A mammy-chair is like one of those two-seated swings in which people
sit facing one another. If to the shoulders of each person in the
swing was tied a baby, it is obvious that should the swing bump into
anything, the baby would get the worst of it.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137