A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton (19 page)

This time we tried to busy ourselves with something else for the hour. When we came back, it looked about the same.

“Take a piece out and eat it,” said Katie.

“Why … you mean now?”

“We’ve got to see if it’s ready.”

“How will we know?”

“The book says it will feel squeaky.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll try it.”

I took a little piece that was floating on top and ate it.

“It
is
squeaky,” I said laughing. “It feels funny.”

“What does it taste like?” asked Katie.

“I don’t know … like warm milk,” I said. “Warm milk that’s a little sour.”

Katie took a piece and ate it too, then giggled at the feel of it.

“Do you want a piece, Aleta?” she asked.

Aleta glanced slowly into the pot, then shook her head.

“How about you, Emma?” said Katie. “It’s good. Come on—try it. Here, I’ll break you off a piece.”

She did, then handed it to Emma. She chewed it slowly, then kind of grimaced, and both girls smiled together.

“I want to try it too,” now said Aleta.

Katie handed her one of the curds and she ate it, with the same kind of reaction as Emma’s.

“It’s hard enough to pour it into the cheesecloth now,” said Katie. “We’ll need another pan.”

She went to the pantry, where most of the kitchen things were kept, and came back with another deep pot and set it on the floor. “We need to line it with cheesecloth,” she said.

She brought the roll and rolled out enough to cover the top of the empty pot, draping it down about halfway into it, then cut it off the rest of the roll with a pair of scissors.

“Emma,” she said, “can you hold the cheesecloth so that its edges don’t fall into the pot?—Here, hold it like this.”

When Emma had the cheesecloth in place, Katie and I lifted the cooking pot off the stove and carefully poured the mixture into the new pot. At first the whey came pouring out easily. Then gradually the lumps of curds plopped onto the cheesecloth. When it was empty we set the warm pot aside, then slowly lifted the cheesecloth up with the dripping curds in the center.

“Is that cheese?” asked Aleta as she watched. She sounded impressed that Katie and I would be so smart to know how to make cheese.

“Not quite yet,” I said. “But it’s halfway there.”

“Now the book says to wrap the cheesecloth around it and put a press on top of it,” said Katie. “Oh yes, now I remember—there’s a cheese press. Why didn’t I think of it before! I’ll get it.”

She ran into the pantry. I could hear her lugging the ladder out of the corner and climbing up to one of the shelves above her head. She came back a few minutes later with a small wood box contraption that I recognized from Josepha’s kitchen.

“There was a cheesecloth bag up there on the shelf with it that I’d forgotten about,” she said. “I guess we didn’t need to buy the cheesecloth after all.”

“What do you do with that?” asked Aleta, pointing at the box.

“We put the cheesecloth in the bottom of it,” said Katie. “I remember seeing my mama do it. Then fold it over the top and put the slab of wood over it with weights on top. It will press down on the curds and slowly push all the rest of the whey out of those little holes on the sides of the box until the curds get hard.”

“Won’t it make a mess?” said Aleta, following Katie outside.

“We’ll put it outside, on the worktable next to the kitchen,” said Katie. “The whey will drain out through the cloth.”

“I remember now too,” I said. “That’s exactly how Josepha did it.”

“I saw her do dat once afore I left too,” said Emma. “Why din’t I eber see you dere, Miz Mayme?”

“I don’t know, Emma,” I answered. “But I don’t reckon I was up at the big house more than once a year. You must have come after the last time I was there. Where’d you come from before Master McSimmons bought you?”

“I don’ know, someplace ober yonder. I got bought an’ sold all da time. I reckon dey din’t think I was too full a wits fer a house slave.”

“Do you know how long you have to leave it?” I asked Katie as Emma and I watched.

“Let me look,” said Katie, going back to the book.

“It says to press it for ten hours, then cover it for four days, then turn it over and rub it all down with salt, and then let it sit for six months.”

“Six months!” I said. “We’ll be out of cheese way before that.”

“You can eat it anytime, it says, but it gets better as it gets older.”

“You take the press out to the table and I’ll carry the cloth outside,” I said.

Twenty minutes later our first slab of cheese was sitting under the press, with clear whitish liquid slowly oozing out the sides of the box onto the table.

“Now it’s time to clean up the mess we made!” I said as we all walked back inside.

“We should make cheese every day, or at least every two days,” said Katie. “Now that we know how to do it, there’s no reason to waste the milk.”

“And we need it to eat!” I said.

“Why do you talk about your mama like she’s never coming back?” Aleta asked abruptly. The question took Katie off guard. Neither of us had noticed that we’d been talking more freely than we realized. We also realized that Aleta had more natural curiosity than Emma, and that we’d likely have to answer her questions eventually.

Katie glanced at me with a concerned look. Then she looked back at Aleta.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” she said. “Just not today. Can you be patient and let me tell you another—”

I
NTERRUPTION
29

S
UDDENLY WE HEARD A KNOCK ON THE DOOR.

We all stopped right where we were. Katie and I glanced at each other with wide eyes. The kitchen was silent as a tomb. We’d been so involved in the cheese making that we hadn’t heard any horse or buggy approaching. And we’d been outside just a minute earlier.

Katie looked at me again, then slowly began moving toward the door. I didn’t know whether we should all scatter and hide or stay where we were and pretend that nothing was wrong. But it was too late to hide anyway—there we were, all messy and with our sleeves rolled up, and there was the figure of whoever it was standing at the window of the kitchen door.

Slowly Katie opened the door. Standing in front of her was the last person we’d expected to see … Henry’s Jeremiah.

“Afternoon t’ you, Miz Clairborne,” he said. “My pa thought dat you might be needin’ dat bridle ob yers fixed so it don’ break on you.”

Still taken by surprise, Katie just stood there for a second or two. From where I was standing on the other side of the room, I saw that he was holding some leather and tools.

“Is … uh, Miz Mayme here?” he asked.

I heard the question in his deep voice. I don’t know if he saw me or not, but my heart started beating faster the minute he said my name. I didn’t know why. In the middle of my thoughts, I heard my name again. But this time it was Katie.

“Mayme … Mayme,” she was saying. “Henry’s son … uh, Jeremiah brought a piece of leather to mend that broken bridle—would you show him where it is … in the barn?”

I could tell from her voice that she was nervous—especially after what she’d told me after her last trip into town, that she’d had the feeling that Henry knew all about us. I knew she didn’t want anyone, least of all someone who was curious, looking too closely at what was going on inside the kitchen—though he was standing right there at the open door. In Katie’s mind I was the logical one to get him away from the house.

I walked toward the door and outside. The instant I was on the porch Katie shut the door behind me. I was left alone with Jeremiah.

I didn’t look at him but walked down the steps and toward the barn. He followed. I glanced back and saw Katie’s face in the window.

“Where’s your horse?” I asked.

“Don’ have one, Miz Mayme,” he said. “I walked.”

“All the way from town?”

“Yes’m.”

“That’s a long way.”

“My pa thought Miz Clairborne might be needin’ dat bridle. He’s been worried it would break.”

I thought to myself that I wished Henry showed a little less concern about us.

“An’ I been wantin’ a chance t’ try ter see Miz Clairborne an’ yerse’f agin,” he added, speaking slowly. Heat rose up the back of my neck. I didn’t say anything and didn’t dare glance over at him.

“Ain’t too many young folks my age ’bout town,” he said. “Leastways, no coloreds. Now dat we’re free, dey all lef ’, I reckon.—Is you free too, Miz Mayme?”

“I reckon so,” I said. “I heard about that proclamation, whatever it’s called.”

“Why you still here, den?”

“Where else would I be?”

“Why ain’t you lef ’?”

“I’ve got no place to go. This is my home.”

“Your ma an’ pa here too?”

“No.”

“Where are dey?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’ you want ter fin’ dem, now dat yer free?”

“I can’t find them,” I said. I was getting uncomfortable with so many questions, especially about my kin. “I told you—this is my home. I don’t have anyplace else to go. I don’t want to go someplace else.”

“Mister an’ Mistress Clairborne pay you?” he asked.

The question took me off guard. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve got all I need,” I said. “I’ve got food and a bed, and …” I paused briefly, “… and folks who care about me.”

“Yep … I reckon dat’s mighty important.”

“And I feel like I’m needed,” I added. “And Katie … I mean, Miss Clairborne needs me.”

I don’t know why I was talking so much, but I realized it was easy to talk to him. We’d already reached the barn but had unconsciously stopped while we kept talking. I’d been around plenty of boys of my own color. But this was so different from any situation I’d ever been in before in my life … just
talking
to a black boy my own age. Back at the colored town where I’d lived, if I’d been standing together with a black boy like Jeremiah, we wouldn’t have been talking. We’d have been standing there keeping our mouths shut, while some white man looked us over wondering what kind of babies we’d make together.

But now we were just two people … two
free
people. Nobody was watching us. Nobody was thinking anything. And we could just talk. It felt strange, but good.

“Dey really
need
you?” asked Jeremiah. His voice sounded like he’d never considered such a thing—that a white person could need a black person. “And you think Miz Clairborne cares ’bout you? You make it soun’ like yer frien’s.”

“We are,” I said with a little laugh. “What’s so strange about that?”

“I jes’ neber considered dat afore, I reckon.”

“Miss Katie couldn’t get by without me … or me without her either. I don’t know what would become of us if we hadn’t—”

I stopped myself, realizing I’d gone too far. Feeling comfortable talking to Jeremiah was one thing, but what was I thinking!

“I mean …
they
…” I said, fumbling to correct myself, “—
they
took me in and helped me, and … well, that’s all.”

Again I stopped. He was looking at me funny.

“What do you mean … took you in?” he said. “Din’t you used ter be one ob dere slaves?”

“Uh … yes … that’s what I meant to say. I mean, they let me stay after I was free.”

“Where’s Mister and Mistress Clairborne?” he asked. “My pa wanted me t’ ask dem somethin’ fer him.”

“Katie’s pa ain’t back—”

“What about Mistress Clairborne—she in da house? I din’t see nobody but jes’ two other girls, an’ one ob dem was colored.”

“She’s … she’s somewhere and it ain’t … well, it ain’t none of your business where she is,” I said. Then I turned and led the way into the barn. “Here’s that bridle,” I went on. “Just fix it and mind your own business.”

He set about his work with the straps of leather and few tools he had. I saw him looking around the barn. I knew he was noticing things—maybe we’d done a few things wrong, but at least it was pretty clean.

I walked outside, more mad at myself than at him. I hoped I hadn’t got us into a worse fix than we were already in.

I went back to the kitchen where Katie and the others were waiting for me. Katie sent me a look of question and I just shrugged.

“I don’t think he’ll be too long,” I said. “We can finish the cheese when he’s gone.”

Then I went back outside and waited on the porch. I didn’t figure it’d do anybody any good for him to come snooping around looking inside again.

Five or ten minutes later I saw him coming out of the barn. I got up and walked over to meet him.

“Got it mended,” he said. “Reckon I’ll jes’ tell Miz Clairborne.”

I didn’t like the idea of him looking into the kitchen again, but after what had happened I figured I’d better not protest too much.

We walked in silence back to the house. He climbed the steps and knocked on the door again. Katie had been watching and immediately opened it.

“Bridle’s fixed, Miz Clairborne,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Anything else you’d like done aroun’ da place?”

“Uh, no … but thank you,” said Katie. Then without waiting for anything further, she closed the door, leaving me to get rid of Jeremiah by myself.