Slave Girl (2 page)

Easter Sunday

After breakfast, we all gathered in the Quarters for the Easter meetin’. Most times all of us be so tired, we just fall out on Sunday. Try to rest. Be ready for sunrise
bell come Monday. But Rufus lifted everybody’s spirits today.

Mas’ Henley came to the service to see what we was doin’ – come talkin’ ’bout how he didn’t want no shoutin’ and carryin’ on ’bout fredum.
He told us to pray for good weather and a big harvest. Sing ’bout joy and happiness. No sad songs. I wonder does he really believe we’ll pray for his good fortune and not our own? He
say if we do like he say, then he’ll let us have more meetin’s on Sunday.

Anyhow, Mas’ Henley sat down, and Rufus took over. Wook tol’ me once that Rufus had been the slave of a preachin’ man before bein’ sold to Mas’ Henley. Uncle Heb
say Rufus had learned the Bible from cover to cover – and know all the stories by heart. One day, I want to read the Bible for myself. There’s a Bible that stays on Mas’
Henley’s readin’ table. I’ve looked at it many times, but I’ve never touched it. I think he’d know if I did.

Rufus began the meetin’ by askin’ Uncle Heb to speak a prayer. Then he called on Aggie to sing. Then Rufus told us a story ’bout a brave man named Daniel who stood down lions
with just his faith.

When we find ourselves in the lion’s den, Rufus say that we should be like Daniel and believe that God will deliver us from all harm. Everybody shouted Amen to that, even me. But,
I’m not so sure ’bout facin’ a lion. What a scary thing facin’ a lion.

Monday evenin’

The last meal of the day is over and all the dishes is washed. I’m so tired! “You don’t know what tired is,” Aunt Tee told me. “Be glad you aine
got to work the fields.” I cain’t demagine bein’ tireder than I am now. I wondered did Wook and Aggie go to bed feelin’ sick-tired like me?

Day or two later

There’s just enough light to practice my writin’.

Freedom is one of the first words I teached myself to write. Down in the Quarters people pray for freedom – they sing ’bout freedom, but to keep Mas’ Henley from knowin’
their true feelings, they call freedom “heaven.” Everybody’s mind is on freedom.

But it is a word that aine never showed me no picture. While fannin’ this afternoon, my eyes fell on “freedom” in a book William was readin’. No wonder I don’t see
nothin’. I been spellin’ it f-r-e-d-u-m.

I put the right letters in my head to make sure I remembered their place. F-R-E-E-D-O-M. I just now wrote it. Still no picture. Nothin’. The letters just sit there on the page. Spelled
right or wrong, freedom got no picture, no magic. Freedom is just a word.

Friday

Whenever I dust Mas’ Henley’s study I look at his calendar and get the date. Today is Friday, April 1, 1859.

First Sunday in April

’Round here, they don’t work the field hands on Sunday, but us who works in the kitchen and Big House, don’t get but a few hours off on Sunday mornin’
and in the evenin’ after the last meal is served. We didn’t even get that much time off today.

A new girl named Spicy come to the kitchen today. She’s got ’bout fifteen years. Miz Lilly bought her from the Ambrose Plantation. S’posed to help Aunt Tee and me with the
cookin’ and cleanin’. I’m glad she’s here. We need all the help we can get. But Aunt Tee aine so happy. She thinks Spicy is a spy for Miz Lilly.

“Clotee, make sure you don’t give Spicy no bones to take to the Big House.”

It’s a fair warnin’. Mas’ Henley and Miz Lilly promise us extra clothin’ and sweets if we tell them things. The Missus promised to give me a handkerchief with yellow and
purple pansies at each corner if I told her things ’bout what went on here in the kitchen. I wouldn’t tell her nothin’ if she promised me a box full of handkerchief. None of us in
the kitchen are tattlers. I hope Spicy aine one either.

Later the same day

Spicy seems nice enough. Quiet though. We got her settled in and ready to start work come daybreak Monday, here in Aunt Tee’s kitchen.

“Our day starts when the roosters crow,” say Aunt Tee.

It made me dizzy listenin’ to her put to words all the things we do ’round here. We fix three meals every day – take the food up to the Big House and serve it. Miz Lilly likes
her food served on time. First meal is on the table at 8 o’clock. Midday meal is served up at noon. Dinner is at 6.30 o’clock. Then we clean up and get ready for the next day. In
between, we do general house cleanin’ – dustin’. Miz Lilly wants a clean house, but she aine willin’ to help keep it clean – throw stuff all ’round in her room,
dresser all messy. We wash on Monday and iron on Tuesday. Eva Mae and Aggie come up from the Quarters to help out on those days.

“William don’t eat at the table with his folks,” Aunt Tee say. “He eats at a smaller table to the side an hour ’fore his folks. You’ll serve him. You
understand, girl?”

Spicy shook her head yes. I aine never seen nobody with eyes that look like big pools of sorryness. I wonder what’s done happened to Spicy to make her look so sad?

Monday

It’s Monday again. Miz Lilly come swishin’ to the kitchen first thing this mornin’, measurin’ out the flour, sugar and so on. Actin’ like she know
what’s goin’ on. “That woman don’t know salt from sugar,” Aunt Tee chuckled under her breath, “let alone how to cook with it.” But the Missus likes to
pr’tend that she’s in charge of the kitchen, but we all know better. Ask anybody and they’ll tell you Aunt Tee is the mistress of Belmont’s kitchen.

Miz Lilly counts the cans of perserves and the dried vegetables ’gainst the recipes, makin’ sure we don’t eat extra food or give it away to the people in the Quarters. In the
Quarters, they don’t never get enough to eat or enough time to eat it.

But Aunt Tee been cookin’ here at Belmont since Mas’ Henley married Miz Lilly sixteen years ago. She was the onlyest slave he owned when he come here. Everybody else b’longed
to Miz Lilly’s family. They was the one’s rich. Mas’er come from Tennessee, po’ as a church mouse, but he wooed the widow Lilly until she married him. Aunt Tee say
Mas’er married the money and not Miz Lilly. He was hopin’ that if ’n he owned Belmont it would make him a gentleman. He aine no gentleman though, no matter how much money he
got.

Aunt Tee got her own way of doin’ things in the kitchen, and it makes Miz Lilly mad. “I aine ’bout to cook and not eat,” say Aunt Tee, laughin’. She knows how to
pinch and save back, so we most times got a-plenty to eat. Sometime, she skims off enough to slip food to a sick child or a nursin’ mother in the Quarters. What we’re all hopin’
is that Spicy can be trusted not to tattle.

I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think Spicy is a tattler. She aine talkin’ much to nobody. So we just been leavin’ her be.

Monday again

Spicy been here a week, already. She’s as big as a man and just ’bout as strong. But Lord that girl is clumbsy. She’s forever stumblin’ over things,
droppin’ things and knockin’ over things.

“She been used to hard work,” Aunt Tee say, with a little less suspection in her voice. Spicy got on the good side of Aunt Tee when she helped wring the water out of big ol’
heavy sheets like they was just hand towels and never once complained – even when her hands was all red and sore. Spicy can lift hot pots and even chop wood. Her hands is rough, but even so,
she’s right pretty. Hard to get a look at her square on, ’cause she holds her head down all the time.

She’s older than me and bigger than me. For some reason, though, I feel like she needs takin’ care of. Maybe it’s her sad eyes that make me feel that way.

Later

“That gal b’longs in the fields,” say Mas’ Henley when he saw Spicy servin’ the table with me.

“She’ll be a great help here in the house,” say Miz Lilly. Say she bought her for a little of nothin’.

Spicy don’t know it yet, but she’s in the middle of a big mess here at Belmont. Mas’ Henley and Miz Lilly always be on the two ends of a stick. One say up – the other is
bound to say down. Miz Lilly bought Spicy, so Mas’ Henley is sure to find fault with her.

It goes like that all the time – them two havin’ silly fights ’bout one thing or another. Miz Lilly say Aunt Tee is uppity and needs a good beatin’. Mas’
don’t like Uncle Heb. Say he’s useless. “Diggin’ ’round out there in them roses don’t put meat in my storehouse.” He cain’t see that Belmont is a
pretty place ’cause Uncle Heb cares so much ’bout the flowers. Mas’ Henley cain’t see pretty ’cause he’s too mean inside.

If mean was a tree, it would grow tall here at Belmont.

Tuesday

Durin’ lesson time, the Missus gave William a smack on his ear. “And you, Clotee! Come closer,” she snapped at me, as if I had somethin’ to do with the
heat. “Move that fan faster.” But that’s ’xactly what I wanted her to say. Move closer. Standin’ directly behind William, I can look over his shoulder and see the
words in his book.

Sometimes when I’m fannin’, I make out like I done fell asleep – I let my arms drop. Then when Miz Lilly yells at me, I jump like I’m wakin’ up. This makes her
think I’m not interested in what’s goin’ on.

I have to be careful doin’ that though. I don’t want to get caught learnin’, but I don’t want to lose my job neither.

Next day

The noon meal was broke up when twenty riders stopped by Belmont lookin’ for a man what they say is a northern abo – somethin’ I aine never heared before. The
compression on Mas’ Henley’s face say to me that whatever he is, the man is in deep trouble.

Mas’ Henley sent Hince to ring the plantation bell, callin’ everybody to the front of the house. Mas’ counted heads to make sure all 27 of us was there. He showed ’round
a drawin’ of a white man with a tangle of dark hair. He had a patch over his left eye.

“You ever see this man, you come straight and tell me. I’ll make it sweet for whoever helps us catch him.” He looked at the picture, spat, then crumpled it into a ball and
throwed it away. Again, he called the man an abo-abolistine, I think.

When no one was lookin’ I picked up the crumpled-up piece of paper and hid it under my dress. I want to know what this abolistine is.

Thursday

Spicy and I helped Aunt Tee make ginger cakes. Spicy spilled more than she got in the bowl. She’s just natural-born clumbsy. Right after the last meal, Hince and Uncle Heb
come to the kitchen for dinner.

Aunt Tee had fixed a two layer cake with strawberry perserves in the middle for Mas’ Henley, or at least he thought it was for him. Aunt Tee had saved out just enough batter to make me a
little cake ’bout the size of my hand. She say, “A bird flew by and told me there’s a girl livin’ ’round here who’s been in this world near ’bout twelve
years.”

Nobody knows the real day I was borned, but Aunt Tee say, “You come here when the dogwoods bloomed.”

“Yo’ mama loved the very breath you took. All us did,” say Uncle Heb. He handed me a doll he’d carved out of hardwood, no larger than two thumbs.

I’ve named her Little Bit, ’cause she so small. Mama knew Aunt Tee and Uncle Heb. In fact when she got sent away, she put me in their care. That all happened when I had just come to
the age of rememberin’.

Hince made me a sun hat out of field grasses, and put it on my head. He had to tease me ’bout it, sayin’, “If you lose it, I’m gon’ bus’ yo’
head.”

These words seemed to upset Spicy somethin’ fierce. She snatched off her apron and ran out the door. I started to go after her – tell her Hince didn’t mean it. He
wouldn’t hit me. “Let her be,” said Aunt Tee. So we did.

Spicy is totin’ a basket full of sorrow on her head. Been beat down so much, I ’spect. When somebody raise they hand, she covers her head. Mostly I been lettin’ her be. She
don’t say much, so I don’t say much back to her. At night when we lay side by side on our sleepin’ pallets, I can hear her cryin’. I wonder can she hear me cryin’
sometime, too?

Friday

Seen Mas’ Henley’s calendar today. It’s Friday, April 15, 1859. Been practisin’ my writin’, too. I just wrote R-I-V-E-R. I sees the James River out
in front of the Big House. Wonder what’s down that ol’ lazy, movin’ river? I aine never been away from Belmont. Maybe one day Miz Lilly will take me ’long with her when she
goes to Richmond to shop and visit.

Saturday

This mornin’ Hince and Spicy got into the worse spat. She’s real touch-ous ’bout her name being Spicy. Hince found out, and that was good for a tease. He asked
if Spicy was more cinnamon or more nutmeg? Lord, what did he say that for! Spicy hauled off and whacked him right in the mouth. “You half-white dog,” she screamed at him. Hince went
sprawlin’ out on the ground.

“You addled, girl?” he shouted back. Hurt took over his face. None of us ever say much ’bout the way he looks. Spicy’s eyes filled with tears and she stomped off in a
huff, sayin’, “You might look like ol’ mas’er, but you aine really white. And I aine got to put up with you devilin’ me!”

Words said cain’t be taken back – even if they is true. Hince could pass for anybody’s ordinary white boy – a member of the Big House family. He’s got
grayish-lookin’ cat eyes and curly, sandy hair. There’s talk in the Quarters that his daddy is a white man – Mas’ Henley’s brother, maybe, or even Mas’ Henley,
hisself. I don’t care who his daddy is. Hince is like my brother and I know it bothers him that he looks white, but he is black.

Later

Whenever I’m troubled ’bout somethin’, I go find Uncle Heb in the roses and help him weed. ’Fore I know it, the troubles don’t seem so bad.

I told Uncle Heb ’bout what Spicy said. “Colour of yo’ skin don’t matter when you’re a slave,” Uncle Heb s’plained to me real easy-like. “Virginia
law say, if the mama be black, then her chir’ren be black. If the mama be a slave, then her chir’ren be a slave. Hince looks white but he’s black ’cause his mama Ola was
black. Never mind who his daddy be.”

Aunt Tee never say who Hince’s daddy is, and I dare not ask. Cain’t help but wonder though. Does Hince know who his daddy really is? And if it is Mas’ Henley, then, how do it
make him feel, bein’ the slave of his own daddy? There’s somethin’ deep down wrong ’bout such a thing. But it go on all the time. Lots of white-lookin’ black folks
live in the Quarters. They’s daddys be white, but they mamas be slaves. So they be slaves, too. Aine right!