Worry

MAMBA'S DAUGHTERS--Du Bose Heyward--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

The Story. Black Hagar flung the man's body over her shoulder and strode toward the heart of the swamp--"tearing a way through the matted growth with her right hand while she steadied the body with her left. But this position caused her to advance with lowered head, and eyes fixed on the pools of shallow water through which she waded. At first this pleased her, for the little mirrors flung back pictures of sky seen through swaying cypresses, with small white clouds tangled in their branches. But presently she became aware of the reflection of an object that projected over her shoulder and looked down into the water, as she was doing. She paused, and the reflection did likewise. Then she recognized its cause as the head of the corpse which hung over her shoulder close to her own.

"With the first sense of uneasiness that her dead had brought to her she shifted her load so that it would no longer gaze downward and started forward again. But with an almost animate persistence the body moved with each stride, and gradually the round, blank silhouette again eclipsed the miniature skies through which she waded. Now her anger rose, and she splashed heavily through the water, shattering and dispersing its reflections. . . . The air about her broke into a shrill ominous whine, and a black cloud of mosquitoes enveloped her, settling like dust on head, shoulders, and legs. Involuntarily she struck out with both hands. With a heavy splash her burden fell from her back and commenced to settle slowly into the semifluid ooze. . .

"As the corpse's eyes filled she remembered how Gilly had hated the dark. "Bright lights," he would say, "gimme de bright lights. So she dragged him to a dry knoll, wiped his eyes of the slime, then struck West toward escape. A great buzzard flapped over her--omen of evil--and when she reached a clearing she could see a cloud of his fellows in waterspout formation pointing like a finger down to the knoll in the swamp. She was betrayed. In an agony of fear and bafflement Hagar of the massive torso and puny wit, surrendered to her fate. But suddenly a beautiful idea dawned: "A nigger killin' heself by what de white folks calls committin' suicide."--"Everybody know nigger nebber kill heself."--"Why dat is?"--" 'Cause nigger ain't worry heself dat much."

But Hagar did "worry heself dat much," slid leaden into the river. Painstakingly her wizened old mother Mamba had trained her to sacrifice everything for her daughter Lissa. And now Hagar had strangled the "woman-chaser," Gilly, strangled him before he could do her Lissa hahm." Mamba was furious, feared the scandal might ruin Lissa's career as a lady and as a singer. Quick in emergency, she packed Lissa off to a friendly parson in "Noo Yo'k;" and ordered Hagar to keep her mout' shet if caught and questioned about the murder. But Hagar knew the prying prosecutor would "dig and dance and circle" until he had wrung from her the whole story involving Lissa, so she chose the quieter way out.

The Significance. The story of two generations of Charleston "waterfront niggers" scheming and suffering to give the third generation a "chance" follows Mamba through naive cajoling relationship with "her white folks" follows Hagar through backsplitting labor in the phosphate mines; ends with Lissa scoring triumph at the opera. The long process is marked off by many a high moment of comedy, tragedy, melodrama. Mamba's "my white folks" play considerable part in the book, but are important and interesting only as protectors to Mamba's daughters. The story loses force by their presence, but is the more valuable as sociology.

The Author. Born and bred in Charleston, S. C., Author Heyward comes of a long line of planters, impoverished and stripped of their feudal rights after the Civil War. Evidence of his inborn understanding of the Negro was the novel Porgy. With the aid of his wife, a playwright by profession, the novel was dramatized and most successfully produced last year by the Theatre Guild.