Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard.After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber.I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn't really think he was, so I don't ask.You must belong to those beet-cattle peoples down the road, I said.They said Asalamalakirn when they met you too, but they didn't Shake hands.Always too busy feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay.When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands.I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.Hakim-a-barber said, I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style.(They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean.Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread, the greens and every-thing else.She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes.Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't afford to buy chairs.Oh, Mama! she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber.
