A Dream of Daring (17 page)

Her stunned silence
suggested that she realized the proposal was unheard of,
outrageous . . . unlawful.

“And teach the children
too. Of course, teach them.” Tom continued matter-of-factly, as if he were in
another time and place, arranging a normal activity.

Solo remained speechless
with the dazed look of someone hit in the head and knocked off balance.

“Would you want to do
that? The job’s yours if you want it.”

She cocked her head,
assessing the matter. The proposal itself and being asked for her assent seemed
to take her completely by surprise.

“Well?” Tom waited.

With his eyes searching
hers, he wondered if he could reach something vital within her, as she had
reached in Jerome, and as they both had reached in him. Out of the stagnant
waters that trapped the three of them, their will and choice in how to deal
with one another seemed to be surfacing like a current to carry them into a
fresh new stream.

When she said nothing, he
finally turned to go. As he reached the door, he heard her reply.

“I’ll make a list of what
I need.”

* * * * *

The stores were open and
business was brisk when Tom drove a wagon through the main street of a town ten
miles from Greenbriar. He hoped the distance from home and his wide-brimmed hat
would protect his anonymity. He hitched his wagon to a post, then walked past
the display windows of various shops until he came to the general store. He
paused at the entrance to lower his hat over his face, feeling like a criminal.
He was buying items that would be used to commit a crime: slate pencils and
boards, primers, and other supplies for Solo’s school.

The new teacher had moved
into his childhood tutor’s room in a secluded area of the big house. There she
found items useful to her new role—a desk, a blackboard and chalk, and a
bookcase containing Tom’s early lessons and schoolbooks. Slaves working at the
big house and its dependencies were to comprise her first class. She would add
the children and other adults later . . . after Tom
traveled to other towns for more supplies.

When she had asked to use
an outer building for her classroom, he offered an alternative. “If you’re
going to teach them to read, why not meet where the books are—in the library?”
The offer of his house to the slaves for their meetings left her too shocked to
reply.

“Those books are just
sitting on the shelves collecting dust, kind of like people who waste away with
their potential untapped. Don’t you think we could tap that?”

“Tap the people—or the
books?” she asked.

“Both.”

She laughed, a quick puff
of air with a sweet sound that was too rare an occurrence for his taste.

Her expression quickly
changed to worry. She sensed danger, and she surprised the two of them with her
concern—for
him
. “If we meet outside, maybe you can pretend you don’t
know about the class . . . if . . . anyone—”

“And leave
you
to
take the blame? In case you don’t know it, I would never do that.”

She quietly absorbed his
words of protection.

“If anyone comes around,
I have a plan to conceal the class. If it doesn’t work, then
I’m
the
teacher and you’re just one of the students. And you can’t read or write.”

“But—” she protested.

“No buts.”

She looked uneasy but
accepted his resolve. She would give her class in the place she liked best, the
palace of her life: the library.

He felt he had a personal
stake in the school. It was linked in his mind to the missing invention, the
boarded workshop, the halted project—to the new age he couldn’t yet reach. The
class was a step he
could
take along that road.

The school created to
liberate the servants almost began as an act of utter tyranny. The school’s
self-appointed sergeant at arms and first student, Jerome, wanted to fill
Solo’s class by
ordering
the slaves to attend. This required that they
complete their tasks earlier than usual and give up some of their precious free
time in the evening. When Tom heard of the plan, he shook his head. “You need
to try for
volunteers
,” he advised. “You can force their legs to walk
and their hands to work, but you can’t force this.”

Heeding Tom’s words, Jerome
tried persuasion, and Solo helped with the effort. To their surprise, they soon
found enough servants willing to attend. Whether it was out of curiosity,
constant prodding from the two advocates, or the added inducement of a piece of
Jerome’s new cake—for by then he had gotten the chocolate and produced a fine
product—nine servants arrived at the back door of the big house on the evening
of Solo’s first class.

Before the class began,
Tom appeared at the library door. He inspected the empty room, checking to be
sure the drapes were drawn, as he had instructed. With the bookcases stretching
to the ceiling with musty tomes and the lamplight casting a golden tinge over
the room, it looked like a scholar’s hideaway.

While Tom observed the
new classroom, its teacher appeared. He turned to her, amazed at the new image
before him. She had broken with habit by wearing a dress. The feminine clothing
looked surprisingly well suited to her. The dress was a simple slave’s frock,
clean and ironed, but she wore it with a quiet dignity that made her look like
a handsome farm woman. The frock’s high collar gathered in a simple tie at her
neck looked demure, while the figure the dress hugged looked womanly. A ribbon
fastened her voluminous hair, lifting it off her face. With her hair swept
back, the lines of her face were even more striking.

Tom broke with his
conscious policy by letting his attention linger on her. Against his will, his
glance traveled from the glistening almond eyes that dominated her face, then
to the gaunt cheekbones, the pleasing slope of her nose, the etched lips, the
tapered chin. Her face was still too arresting to evoke calm emotions, but the
fury that was part of her usual countenance had vanished. She looked almost
genteel.

In answer to the surprise
on his face at her newfound civility, she looked as if she were about to smile.
Then thinking better of it, she simply stared back at him.

“If you need me, I’ll be
around,” he said, turning to leave.

She looked astonished at
the prospect of his being at her service.

As he walked toward the
front entrance, he heard Jerome on the back porch welcoming the new class. “Yer
clothes gotta be clean. Lemme see them shoes! Hold out them hands! Git that
dirt off yer knuckles! Y’all’s gotta be clean, clean,
clean
. And don’t
be touchin’ nuthin’ in there!”

After passing Jerome’s
inspection, the slaves quietly passed Solo one by one at the library door. She
gave them each a slate pencil and board, with a cloth for an eraser. She
directed them to seats on the couch, on chairs, and on the floor. They formed a
crescent around the tutor’s blackboard, which had been moved into the room.
Their dark eyes glistened in the lamplight as they glanced up at the walls of
books, absorbing a world completely new to them. They sat in unbreached silence
as Solo closed the door and began her class.

Outside on the gallery, a
lonely figure sat in a rocking chair, a rifle resting across his lap. From his
perch in the moonlight, Tom could see the road approaching the big house.

The slave patrols that
scoured the town appeared on his grounds infrequently, but always at unexpected
times, to search for runaways. He had never heard of a planter chasing them
away, and he didn’t intend to arouse their suspicions by being the first.

Tom could also see the
light filtering out through the drapery in the library. Close enough to see
through the curtains, he noticed Jerome’s figure by the window. Tom had
arranged in advance for his cook to sit there. Should anyone ride up the road
toward the house, Tom would alert Jerome. The slave would then erase the
blackboard, quietly get the students out the back door, and gather them by the
pond. He’d direct them to begin singing hymns, and Tom, if necessary, would
explain that they habitually gathered around the pond in the evening for songs.
That was the plan if someone appeared whom he couldn’t turn away. The plan for
dealing with strangers who needed persuasion to leave was simpler. He glanced
at his rifle.

He could see Solo’s lithe
form through the curtain, standing before the group. From the dark veranda,
unseen by the others, he heard her begin the class.

“Before we get to your
lesson for tonight, I want to say something.” She pointed to the bookcases that
formed a literary cave around them. “You see these books? What do you suppose
is inside them?”

The class stared at her
hypnotically, as if she were the priestess of this new temple.

“The answer is:
everything
.
The whole world is inside these books. Would you like to take a trip across the
ocean? This book is an adventure story written by a sea captain.” She pulled
out a volume and held it up to them. “Would you like to see what people and
places there are up the river, where the steamers go? That’s in this book.” She
selected another title, this one displaying a steamboat on the cover, and held
it up to the group. She placed her selections on a table and continued
searching the shelves. “Would you like to know what it’s like to be a princess
in love with a duke who’s plotting to kill your father, the king?” She made
another selection and held it out to the women in the class. “This book is
called a novel, and it tells a story about that. You see, all of these books
sweep you away from here and bring you to an exciting new place.”

Like the proprietress of
a shop who knows the merchandise well, she brushed through the shelves with
ease. As she spoke, she looked into the eyes of the servants in the room—the
butler and maid, wearing the white gloves they used for formal dinners; the
gardener sitting on a chair next to his girlfriend, the housekeeper; the weaver
and spinner sitting together on the couch; the blacksmith and carpenter sitting
on the rug; and Jerome at the window. They turned their heads to follow her as
she moved among the books.

“Would you like to know
how people in history lived? How great empires of the world grew and crumbled?
That’s in this book.” She took out one of the thickest tomes.

“And did you ever think
about how pretty a rose is? There’s a poem in here that describes that. This is
a book of poetry.” She held up one of the thinnest books.

“Did you ever wonder what
goes on in the theater? This book takes you there. It’s a book of plays, which
are performed onstage.” She held up the selection. “See how you can know the
answer to
everything
in these books?”

She picked another
volume. She thumbed through it and displayed one of its illustrations to the
group. It was of a beautifully dressed man and woman at a table dining; the
couple displayed correct posture and a refinement in handling their silverware.
“Would you like to have manners? This book is called
Etiquette
. It
teaches you the manners that make you gentlemen and ladies. Manners mean that
no one can be better than you. Now, you might not always want to show people
your manners . . .”

Outside, Tom wondered if
perhaps she was thinking of her own outrageous behavior.

“. . . but
you’ll have your manners when you want them. And no one can ever take them away
from you. These manners travel from the pages of the book straight to you. And
they’re yours to keep.”

The class members looked
thoughtful as they heard about things that were theirs to keep and the magic of
the books that awaited them.

“Speaking good English
means nobody is better than you. It means you’re a full person who can stand
tall with anyone. This book teaches you how to speak.” She held up another
book.

“This book is about
bookkeeping and arithmetic. It teaches you how to handle your money, how to buy
a farm, how to manage a shop, how to order your supplies, how to pay your
bills, and how to count your profits.” She held a volume up in front of the
carpenter and the blacksmith. “After you read this book, you’ll be ready to run
your own farm or
shop . . . maybe . . . one
day . . .”

The two tradesmen stared
at the mysterious volume in her hands that was about a subject they had never
imagined or thought possible.

She took another book and
leafed through it purposefully, looking for a certain page. “Here’s a book
about Paris and the shops there that sell so many pretty things.”

She opened the book to
the page she wanted and moved it across the group, starting with Jerome. The
page showed an artist’s illustration of the outside of a Parisian pastry shop.
The drawing captured a store window filled with cakes, cookies, cream puffs,
and other treats. A boy stood in the corner, holding his mother’s hand, looking
eagerly at the display, pointing to an item of special interest to him.

“Hmm.” Jerome seemed
unaware that he had uttered anything or jumped up from his seat to study the
drawing.

“In the meantime, you can
have a shop here . . . almost. You can make things in your
free time and sell them in town,” Solo continued.

Slaves of Indigo Springs
and other plantations sold items they raised or produced, such as broomsticks,
baskets, hens, eggs, hogs, or vegetables. They sold these goods to their
masters or to the locals and steamboat travelers in Bayou Redbird.

“I’ll cover arithmetic in
class, so you’ll be able to buy and sell things for money and make change.”

She looked at some of the
slaves whom she knew had children.

“And you’ll want to teach
your children what you learn, so they can know what’s out there beyond these
fields. They can learn what any other person can learn, so they’ll be able to
do useful things . . . and take care of themselves.”