MUMBO JUMBO
She was not witch. Let's set that silly Salemism aside and resolve to avoid any references to the occult as we go along.
When I was nine or ten years of age, I had a rather noticeable wart on the back of my right hand. It was right on that muscle at the base of the thumb which old folks use to stretch out by raising the thumb itself to form natural snuff holder. The powdered tobacco was sifted into the hollowed-out cup , then raised to the nostrils for inhaling. Anyway, I had a hard wart on my snuff box strap.
A young negro girl who helped my mother with housework noticed it when we were seated at the kitchen table having lunch one day.“Nipper,” she said, having picked up the nickname from my Granddaddy 's most recent visit, ”would you like to get rid of that ugly thing?”
I said I would.
”I can take it away for You, if you believe I can?”
I must have looked at her in a puzzled way. “It won't work, if'n you don't believe it will. I know the magic words. My Grandmammy told them to be afore she died. They's secret words. Ain't many people admits they know them, but I do. I kin take that ole wart of your'n off if you just believe I kin! Hit won't hurt a bit, either.....”
The way she left the invitation dangling the air like that, demanded a positive answer. “Yes”, I said, “ I believe you can do it.” She seemed so straight forward and honesty about it all that I really believed she could. I turned to my mother who was seated there with us listening. I think I must have been seeking parental reassurance as I felt myself stepping to the unknown. “”Mom, Ada, here, says she can take my wart off. Can I let her do it?” She agreed. “Get rid of that thing. I hate to see you chewing on it like you do, anyway!”
I was about to protest that accusation, but I knew it to be true. Ada broke the silence of the moment when she asked Mom if she had a small onion handy. Our onions were kept in a net sack hanging inside the pantry, so I was sent to get on.
Ada took it in her hand; deftly skinned the light covering and the pungent smell of raw onion became noticeable. “Now, do 'zackly what I tell you,” she admonished, when I, at her urging, placed my hand on the table on the table in front of her. She began rubbing the wart with half of the onion as she squeezed juice from it. “Jus' you keep a'thinkin' out loud: “Ada kin take my wart away. She kin do it. Ada can make my wart go away. She kin do it...I know she kin.. i know she can....”
That continued for a minute or more, then Ada stopped rubbing and sat still. We all did so. Absolute silence for moment. Then she handed me the fresh half of the onion from the table after touching it lightly to the crushed portion on the table. “Eat it! Now!”
I did so and tears welled into my eyes.
She put the squeezed portion of the onion it my hand and ordered me to go out and bury it in yard. I was to kick a hole in the sod with the heel of my shoe and not to use anything to dig with.
When I returned Ada and Mom were busy doing dishes.
Without looking at me Ada said. “ When that onion rots away out there yo' wart will follow it.”
How ? Who cares! No scar. Not the slightest indication of any wart to this day!
A.L.M November 11, 2002 [c645wds]
