Special Entry #2 - "Becky"

This story was mainly about a woman names Becky who was a white woman who had two Negro sons. It first started with her having one negro son. Everyone in the town was wondering who had given it to her because she wouldn’t say. The white people were calling her a ‘insane white shameless wench’ and the black folk said it was a ‘low down nigger with no self-respect’. So they were through with her and everyone casted her out of the town having nothing to do with her. But a person named Lonnie Deacon went out under cover in the night to build a cabin for her between the railroad in the road. There were trains, fords, horse and mule drawn buggies that passed the house every day. But no one ever saw her. Some thought that she was dead. People started to throw out papers with prayers on them and food as they passed the house. Before long, she had another baby. Those two boys grew up and unlike their mother; they went into town and drifted from job to job. But they were a rough bunch of boys. “They’d beat and cut a man who meant nothing at all in mentioning that they lived along the road.” So no one even dared to ask if their mother was still alive. One time they shot up two men and left town saying “Godam the white folks; godam the niggers”. On Sunday, a congregation was coming home and were about to pass Becky’s house. Before the bend, the horses stopped. It seemed as if everybody had fear of that house. “We were just about to pass…Pines shout to Jesus!..The ground trembled as a ghost train rumbled by. The chimney fell into the cabin.” Barlow threw his Bible on the pile of bricks that lay upon the floor. They got away and when they reached town, the people came to get the true word of it…”Becky was the white woman who had two Negro sons. She’s dead; they’d be gone away. The pines whisper to Jesus. The Bible flaps its leaves with an aimless rustle on her mound.”
As you may agree, all texts should be interpreted. There can be many interpretations that can come out of something even when the author only intended there to be only one main interpretation. This text needs to be interpreted because if you were like me, you could read this twice maybe three times and still not get a clear interpretation. Especially with the phrase, “the pines whisper to Jesus”. A question that I will try to uncover is ‘what did the author intend for us to learn out of this text’?
This story deals a lot with racism. The whole town cast a woman out of their town because she had two black children. This story must have taken place while there were still slaves in America or sometime around then. This story might be saying something like ‘there is no good that can come out of racism.’ God never intended for there to be anger among different races. As you can see it pretty much destroyed this woman’s life.
One very interesting point was about the building of the cabin. In the second paragraph it said that the white and black folks built her cabin. While in the third paragraph it said that Lonnie Deacon stole out at night and built the cabin. At first I was confused on who built the cabin. I later realized that it they both built her cabin. Let me explain. The white and black folks built her cabin in an indirect way. They built it by rejecting her and making her an outcast, calling her a crazy wench. They were setting up the cabin being built. So they didn’t literally build it, they created it.
It also says that the people “prayed secretly to God who’d put His cross upon her and cast her out.” They wanted her to be cast out of the city. They didn’t accept her. But I think some still wanted to help her, but they didn’t want anybody to know that they felt that way. It kind of reminds me of first grade thinking. No one was brave enough to step out and help so they secretly prayed to God so no one would think wrong of them. They prayed that God would put His cross upon her meaning that God would protect her and keep her safe and save her.
Soon, it seemed like it became a ghost story because everyone thought she was dead and that she might haunt them and they had fear. In the text it says that she ‘might be a hant’. I wondered what hant meant so I looked it up and from what I found out it’s a person who haunts people. So the people had a fear that she might haunt them. And get this; they still didn’t know if she was dead or alive. This sets this up to be a decent moral. They rejected her and made her an outcast. I’m not going to say her life was miserable but the story sets it up that way, but it was their fault that she’s living that kind of lifestyle. Now they are taunted by their thoughts and dreams about her, still not knowing if she’s dead or alive. I think everyone can learn from this story in a different way. When we talked about this story in our small group, we each thought differently on the topic.