Their Eyes Were Watching God - Get a Free Blog

missiles, floating dangers, avoiding stepping in holes and warmed on the wind now at their backs until they gained comparatively dry land. They had to fight to keep
from being pushed the wrong way and to hold together. They saw other people like themselves struggling along. A house down, here and there, frightened cattle.
But above all the drive of the wind and the water. And the lake. Under its multiplied roar could be heard a mighty sound of grinding rock and timber and a wail. They
looked back. Saw people trying to run in raging waters and screaming when they found they couldn’t. A huge barrier of the makings of the dike to which the cabins
had been added was rolling and tumbling forward. Ten feet higher and as far as they could see the muttering wall advanced before the braced-up waters like a
road crusher on a cosmic scale. The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles an hour wind had loosed his chains. He seized hold of his dikes
and ran forward until he met the quarters; uprooted them like grass and rushed on after his supposed-to-be conquerors, rolling the dikes, rolling the houses, rolling
the people in the houses along with other timbers. The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel.
“De lake is comin’!” Tea Cake gasped.
“De lake!” In amazed horror from Motor Boat, “De lake!”
“It’s comin’ behind us!” Janie shuddered. “Us can’t fly.”
“But we still kin run,” Tea Cake shouted and they ran. The gushing water ran faster. The great body was held back, but rivers spouted through fissures in the rolling
wall and broke like day. The three fugitives ran past another line of shanties that topped a slight rise and gained a little. They cried out as best they could, “De lake
is comin’!” and barred doors flew open and others joined them in flight crying the same as they went. “De lake is comin’!” and the pursuing waters growled and
shouted ahead, “Yes, Ah’m comin’!”, and those who could fled on.
They made it to a tall house on a hump of ground and Janie said, “Less stop heah. Ah can’t make it no further. Ah’m done give out.”
“All of us is done give out,” Tea Cake corrected. “We’se goin’ inside out dis weather, kill or cure.” He knocked with the handle of his knife, while they leaned their
faces and shoulders against the wall. He knocked once more then he and Motor Boat went round to the back and forced a door. Nobody there.
“Dese people had mo’ sense than Ah did,” Tea Cake said as they dropped to the floor and lay there panting. “Us oughta went on wid ’Lias lak he ast me.”
“You didn’t know,” Janie contended. “And when yuh don’t know, yuh just don’t know. De storms might not of come sho nuff.”
They went to sleep promptly but Janie woke up first. She heard the sound of rushing water and sat up.
“Tea Cake! Motor Boat! De lake is comin’!”
The lake was coming on. Slower and wider, but coming. It had trampled on most of its supporting wall and lowered its front by spreading. But it came muttering and
grumbling on-ward 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.