All Things New (7 page)

“May I help you?”

Otis removed his hat and gave a little bow. “Good evening, sir. We’re looking for the Yankee who’s helping all the slaves. Is this the Freedmen’s Bureau?” He spoke the title clumsily, as if unused to the strange words.

“Yes. You’ve come to the right place. I’m Alexander Chandler.”

Lizzie stared as the man extended his hand for them to shake. When neither of them took it, he lowered it again. Mr. Chandler looked much too young to work at such an important government job. He was tall and skinny, and instead of a beard he had a lot of bushy whiskers on both sides of his face but not on his chin or below his nose.

He smiled, and his light blue eyes looked kind. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, sir. I’m Otis and this here is my wife, Lizzie, sir.” She could tell that Otis was nervous. She was, too.

“Pleased to meet you both. Come on in. And listen, you don’t need to use the back door. Come in the front way next time.” He led them through an unlit room crowded with boxes and into the office in the front of the building. A big desk, piled with papers, filled most of the space. “You know, this is really
your
office, ” he told them.

“
My
office?” Lizzie echoed. What in the world did she need with an office?

“Yes. It was set up to help freedmen, like you. Have a seat.” There were two chairs right in front of his desk, but neither Lizzie nor Otis dared to sit in them.

“Excuse me, sir,” Otis said, “but I never have sat down with a white man in my whole life. It ain’t allowed.”

“I understand.” Mr. Chandler nodded and remained standing, as well. “Where are you folks staying?”

“We belong to one of the plantations just outside of town called White Oak.”

“You mean you
used
to belong to them,” Mr. Chandler said with a smile.

“Yes, sir. Well, we’re still working and living there, even though everyone else is gone. My brother, Saul, said we should come talk to you. He says we need to hear what you have to say.”

“I’m glad you did. We know there are a lot of freedmen like you who are wondering what to do and where to go, so this agency was set up by the government to help you get a new start. And since food is scarce down here, we’re trying to make sure you’re all fed, too.”

“Thank you, sir,” Otis said. “Miz Eugenia says she’ll feed us if we keep on working for her, but the white folks don’t have much to eat, either.”

“You can take some supplies home with you tonight. Do you have children?”

“Yes, sir,” Lizzie said. “Three of them.” Mr. Chandler smiled again, and she thought he must be a contented person, deep inside. She couldn’t get over the fact that he was talking to them as if they were as white as he was and they were all sitting around his parlor having a chat. Couldn’t he see they were Negroes?

“How old are your children? School age?”

Lizzie had to think for a minute. She kept track of their ages by counting how many planting seasons had passed since they were born. “Jack is six, Rufus is eight, and my daughter, Roselle, is fifteen.”

“The reason I ask is because we’re opening a school here in the village next week for all the Negro children. The American Missionary Association sent us a teacher, and we’re going to use the empty storage room in back as a classroom. Your children can start attending school on Monday. You may attend, too, if you’d like.”

The news stunned Lizzie. “You mean . . . learn to read and write?”

“Yes,” he said, laughing. “And all the other school subjects, too.”

Lizzie covered her mouth, afraid she might burst into tears.

“I want my children to go to your school,” Otis said. “It’s the
only way they’ll ever have a better life than we do. Lizzie and I will gladly stay and work at our old plantation if it means my kids can go to your school.”

“Wonderful. They will be welcome here. What is the current working arrangement where you’re living? Are you tenant farmers? Sharecroppers?”

“I don’t know what any of that means, sir. Massa Daniel only got back from the war a little while ago, and nothing’s been planted yet except the kitchen garden. I’m the only field hand left, and besides, we don’t have any mules for plowing.”

“Miz Eugenia says we can keep on living in our cabin,” Lizzie added, “if I keep on working for her up at the Big House.”

“I see. Well, if you’d like, I can help you draw up a working contract with the plantation owners. You’ll work the land for yourself, and when the crops are harvested, you’ll give a portion of the profits to the owners. The rest will be yours. You earned it. Each individual case is different, but the contract also spells out the arrangements for food and lodging.”

“Like I said, Massa Daniel just got back from the war,” Otis said. “He ain’t got hisself together yet.”

“I understand. You can let me know whenever you think he’s ready. And of course your children may start attending school right away.”

Lizzie felt like she was in a dream, afraid she might wake up any minute. She wanted to sit down but didn’t dare. “Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Sure, anything.”

“Does being free mean that nobody can ever take Otis or my children away from me again?”

“That’s right. Only the good Lord has a right to separate you from each other.”

Lizzie covered her mouth again to hold back her tears. It was too much for her to take in. By the time they said good-bye and left for home with a sack of provisions, she felt dizzy. “Am I dreaming, Otis?” she asked.

“If you are, then I’m dreaming, too. Wait till I tell Roselle and the boys that they can learn to read and write! . . . But that means staying on with Miz Eugenia, you know.”

“I know. I guess I can stand it there a while longer.”

She trusted Otis. He was the only sure thing in her life, and the only source of love she’d ever known. With him, she felt like somebody. She slipped her hand into his, determined to do whatever he thought was best.

7

M
AY
10, 1865

Josephine sat at the breakfast table listening to her family’s litany of grievances. Their endless complaints were wearing holes in her threadbare soul like a constant scrubbing. Mother complained the most of all. “If only we had bacon to go with these eggs,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t even remember the last time we ate bacon, can you? It’s bad enough the chickens barely squeeze out enough eggs for breakfast every morning, but it’s hardly a proper meal without bacon or ham.”

“I would dearly love some of Dolly’s strawberry jam to go with these biscuits,” Mary said. “They’re so dry.”

Josephine tried not to think about such luxuries as bacon and jam.

“I would like a cup of real coffee for a change,” Daniel said before disappearing behind his week-old newspaper again. More than a week had passed since he’d returned home, and Josephine kept hoping that he would climb out of the doldrums and get the plantation running again. He could never take Daddy’s place, of course, but it seemed to her that Daniel wasn’t even trying.

“I can remember when our smokehouse was filled to the rafters,” Mother continued. “And oh my, the hams! Remember how Dolly
used to baste them with molasses and stud them with cloves? The fragrance was just heavenly.”

Yes, Josephine remembered. But she didn’t want to be reminded of how happy their life used to be before the Yankee invasion. They might never have bacon or strawberry jam again, so why not fold up those memories and store them away for good?

“Listen, Mama—” she began, but Mother interrupted.

“Remember all the guests we used to entertain at our dinner table? Your father knew such interesting people. They used to rave on and on about our smoked hams.”

Josephine wanted to beg her to stop. God had told the survivors of Sodom and Gomorrah not to look back after they’d been rescued from death and destruction, and if Jo’s family continued to gaze into the past, they were going to become stuck in place like pillars of salt, too. In order to get them to move forward with her, Josephine feared she would have to chip away at their rock-hard stubbornness one bucketful at a time and haul them toward a new future against their will.

“Those disgusting Yankees not only cleaned out our smokehouse,” Mother continued, “but they ruined our dining room table. I cannot sit in this room without becoming furious at their boorishness.”

“Then why eat in here at all?” Josephine asked. “Why can’t we eat in the morning room like we did after Daddy died?”

“Because we must reclaim our home from our enemies,” she insisted. “We will eat our meals in here the way every generation of Weatherlys have since Granddaddy built the house.”

Daniel looked up from his paper again. “Father would have fought to the death before allowing a single one of those savages into our home.”

“I know. But what could we do?” Mother asked. “We were three women, here all alone. We had to flee to Richmond.”

Mother picked up the little silver servants’ bell and gave it an impatient ring, as if expecting a host of slave girls to pour into the dining room to wait on them. But all the house slaves had quit
except Lizzie and Roselle, and they not only had to serve the food but cook it, too. A minute passed, and when no one responded, Mother rang the bell a second time. Lizzie finally shuffled in, drying her hands on her apron. Mother gave an aggrieved sigh.

“Did you not hear me ringing? Shall I buy a louder bell?”

“I heard it, ma’am. But I was busy putting wood on the fire. Next time I’ll be sure and drop what I’m doing right away.”

Josephine held her breath. She saw the fury in her mother’s lovely face—her pinched lips and arched brows, her glittering eyes. Slaves were supposed to reply, “Yes, ma’am” or “No, ma’am” or “I’m sorry, ma’am.” They certainly weren’t supposed to offer excuses for their failings. But Lizzie wasn’t a slave anymore. It must have galled Mother to hold back the angry response she would have given in the past. “Where is Roselle?” she asked. “Is she too busy to wait on us, as well?” Each word pricked the quiet room, as sharp and pointed as a tack, but Lizzie seemed immune to the prodding.

“She’s in school today, ma’am. My Roselle’s going to that new school for colored children now. Both my boys are going there, too.” Lizzie’s gaze should have reached no higher than the floor when speaking to a white woman, but her chin lifted with pride.

A sliver of tension as thin as a knife blade slit the room. Mother made Lizzie wait before making her next move, the way Daddy sometimes paused to study each piece on the chessboard when playing the game. In a battle of wills, no one could beat Eugenia Weatherly. Yet if Lizzie quit like all the others had, the family would be helpless—and everyone in the dining room knew it. The balance of power had shifted ever so slightly from master to servant since the war ended, but to a proud woman like Josephine’s mother, the world must have shifted on its axis.

“We’re finished eating,” Mother said at last. “You may clear the table now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Josephine found the interchange embarrassing. She was sick of all the pointless maneuvering as Mother tried in vain to run their
household by the old rules. The war had changed all the rules. Life would never be the same, and the sooner Mother stopped looking back and got used to the way things were now, the better off they all would be. But as Lizzie silently made her way around the table gathering dishes, Mother tried to reassert her authority by daring to do what she had done all her life, speaking in front of Lizzie as if she were stone deaf or didn’t understand English. “What in the world do Negro children need with a school?” she asked.

“It’s a lot of foolishness, if you ask me,” Daniel replied. “Someone needs to put a stop to it.”

Josephine was desperate to cut the tightening strands of tension. “Do you have plans for today, Mother?” she asked.

“Yes, dear. We’re going to go calling.”

Josephine stifled a groan. Social calls were another useless relic of the antebellum years. There was so much work to be done if their household hoped to survive, work that Lizzie and her husband, Otis, couldn’t possibly accomplish by themselves. But Mother refused to accept the truth, much less go out to the kitchen or the garden and tackle some of the work. “I would like both of you girls to get dressed and accompany me,” she said.

Mary made a face. “I don’t have anything to wear. It’s embarrassing to be seen in the same old dress all the time.”

“What difference does it make?” Josephine asked. “No one else has new clothes to wear, either.”

“Besides, all of my gowns hang on me like old rags, without petticoats,” Mary continued. “We’re no better dressed than Lizzie and Roselle. Can’t we please coax Ida May to come back and sew for us again?”

“We’ll see,” Mother murmured.

Josephine rolled her eyes at such an impossibility. When Ida May had been their slave, Mother used to find fault with the smallest things and make poor Ida May tear out all her tiny stitches and sew them over again. No, she could never be coaxed back. As a free seamstress, she could choose her own customers now.

“We used to have wardrobes full of clothes before the war,”
Mary said, gesturing as if the dining room had been filled with them, too. “Now we have nothing!”

“You’re hardly naked,” Josephine mumbled, but no one seemed to hear her. Jo had been seventeen before the war began, and Mary eleven, but now they had both outgrown their clothes. Ida May had done her best to remake their dresses to fit, but the worn fabric had been turned and resewn so many times during the past five years that the cloth was nearly threadbare.

“How will Jo and I ever find respectable husbands dressed in these rags?”

Josephine shook her head, holding back her thoughts. At least her sister would have a husband one day, since the boys Mary’s age had been too young to fight in the war. Josephine was likely to die an old maid now that so many of the partners she waltzed with before the war had perished. With such a shortage, the men who had returned home could choose a bride who was much prettier than her.

“Now, remember,” Mother said, “the quality of the lace on your gowns isn’t what makes you beautiful. Beauty and charm come from within. A pretty smile and kind words can make up for a dozen petticoats and yards and yards of frills. A sweet demeanor and good manners are much more important than the clothes you’re wearing.”

Daniel lowered his newspaper again. “Did Lizzie say her boys weren’t here?”

“They went to
school
!” Mary said. She rolled her eyes as if the idea were as absurd as teaching a hound dog to read. Josephine winced, watching Lizzie’s reaction as she continued to make trips back and forth to clear the dishes. But the servant’s face might have been carved from the same mahogany as the table.

“I suppose that means they’ll be gone all day,” Daniel said. The paper rustled as he folded it angrily and set it down in front of him. “What’s the use of paying for our Negroes’ upkeep if they aren’t here to help when we need them?”

“We simply must find more workers,” Mother said. “I saw Willy,
our old carriage driver, the other day—just standing on the street corner in the village, watching the people go by, lazy as can be.”

“That’s why we need to pass a vagrancy law,” Daniel said. “Negroes will have to prove they are gainfully employed or go to jail.”

“But Willy has rheumatism,” Josephine said. “You wouldn’t send a crippled man to jail, would you? Why not ask him to come back and work for us?”

“Because it’s not worth the bother of feeding him until we get more horses,” Daniel replied. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to get anywhere without decent carriage horses. And how do they expect us to plow our fields without mules?”

Josephine listened to her brother’s complaints and knew that what he missed the most was his leisurely life. Since Samuel had been destined to inherit the plantation, Daniel never had to worry about planting crops or overseeing slaves or mending the roof when it leaked. He had attended college in Williamsburg, free of responsibility as he’d sported with his friends. But Daniel would have responsibilities now—not the least of which was taking care of his mother and two sisters, making sure they had necessities like food and clothing and a roof that didn’t leak. It seemed to Josephine that the war had changed him into an altogether different person. His lazy grin had disappeared behind the sandy mustache and beard he’d grown while he was away, and his eyes had changed from the color of sunny skies to a shade of gray that reminded her of thunderclouds.

Josephine wanted to stomp her foot and say,
Stop it, all of you! I am so tired of your complaints!
How did it help to look back at what they’d lost? Life wasn’t easy for any of them, but the incessant whining made it worse.

But of course she didn’t say anything. She had learned to remain silent during those terrible years, holding her thoughts and feelings and fears inside, never voicing them out loud. Mother had spoken for all of them during the war, standing up to anyone who threatened them in her lovely, imperious, self-assured way as if she were a commanding general. Josephine had tried so hard not
to be seen or heard that now she could scarcely remember how to express herself. She was twenty-two years old, but one scolding look from Mother or a single warning glance from Daniel would make the words tangle together in her mind like a fine silver chain.

“Must I go calling with you today, Mother?” she asked.

“Of course, Josephine. You know Priscilla Blake is expecting us.”

“But we just visited her last week,” Mary said.

“I know. But Harrison is doing so poorly. I promised Priscilla we would stop by as often as we could and help lift his spirits.”

“He barely spoke a word to us the last time,” Mary said, “and he seemed just as miserable when we left as when we arrived.”

Harrison Blake had turned out to be the bitterest complainer of all, a man whose anger over the Confederacy’s losses knew no bounds. He was eight years older than Josephine and had been wounded in battle near Petersburg. The last time they visited him, he cursed the surgeons who had saved his life but not his leg, and let everyone know he wished he had died. Listening to him, Jo had longed to say,
Oh, go ahead and die, then, and put all of us out of your misery!
Nobody had been surprised when his fiancée finally broke their engagement. And nobody blamed her.

“Captain Blake is a war hero,” Mother said, “and we will treat him with the respect he deserves. His mother is my dearest friend. You girls are coming with me and that’s that.”

“May I be excused, please?” Josephine asked. She was already on her feet before Mother replied, and quietly left the house through the back door before anyone seemed to notice. She had no idea where she was going at first, but as she hurried past the vegetable garden and the stables, she remembered the huge live oak tree where she used to find refuge as a girl. Her brothers had built a tree house in its branches, and Josephine had often climbed up the crude board ladder in a very unladylike way when she wanted to hide from everyone.