The Emancipation of Robert Sadler (10 page)

“I believe so,” I said.

Harvesttime of 1921 saw plenty of work on the plantation. The men and women were in the fields before dawn, ready to work. The work in the Big House began before dawn, too, and I was given added chores. Carrying water to the overseers in the fields was the hardest. I tried hard not to spill as I climbed the hill and stumbled along the uneven dirt paths the quarter of a mile or more to the overseers, but more often than not water spilled out of the pails and I would be punished.

When I arrived at my destination, breathless and dripping wet with sweat, with the heavy two-gallon buckets, Thrasher would sometimes tip them over, dumping the water on the ground, and order me to go and fill them up again. “Don't spill any this time!” he would cackle.

I'd fight tears of anger as I struggled toting those buckets. It was a job I had for nearly three years.

I had eaten my supper one night when an awful pain in my jaw made me gasp. “You ailin, boy?” Big Mac asked, without looking up from his dish.

“I believe my tooth is ailin.”

And ail it did. In a week's time my face was swollen twice its normal size, and I was dizzy with pain. Big Mac told Master Beal about it, and he came into the kitchen to see it.

“Ain't nothin I can do except take you to the dentist in Anderson, I reckon,” he said. To the dentist! It sounded so wonderful to me, I wanted to throw my hands in the air and shout for joy. That meant a trip in the buggy, or possibly the new car! I hadn't been off the plantation since I had been bought by Master Beal.

He called me the next morning after he had been to the field for a couple of hours. “Git in the buggy,” he commanded. I hurried outside, fetched the horse, hitched her up to the buggy, and then climbed aboard and waited. Master Beal came out soon, and we started on the journey to Anderson. I stayed near him because the road was filled with holes and very bumpy. When it got really bad, I took hold of his coattail and hung on for dear life. He never did slap my hand away. This simple gesture of holding his coattail meant as much to me as a warm embrace and a kiss. After all, he didn't push me away from him, and he was taking me to the dentist! Maybe he cared about me!

The town of Anderson bristled with activity. I gazed with wide eyes at the store-lined Market Street. The sun shone on the low buildings as we drove up the sloping hill and pulled in front of a large, white corner building.

The dentist was a young white man with what seemed to be a kindly face.

“Well, where's the Hudson today, Sam?”

“My man is picking cotton,” Master explained. “Need him more in the field than in the car.”

The dentist smiled and nodded his head in understanding.

“What have we here?” he asked.

“This here boy got a toothache, Doc, and I'd like you to fix him up.”

“Sure enough, Sam. Come here, boy.”

I went into a small room with a window that overlooked a grassy empty lot. “Open your mouth,” the dentist told me.

“Uh oh. You got yorself an abscess. I'll have to pull out the tooth and let the poison drain out.”

He strapped my arms to the chair and then he took a tool like a blacksmith's pliers from his drawer, clamped hold of my tooth, and began to yank. It was a chipping and yanking and grinding process and I screamed and howled and wailed miserably until he finally got the tooth out. Master Beal had told him he didn't have more money for a pain killer because, after all, I was a nigger.

I hobbled out of the office somehow with cotton wadding stuffed into my mouth to catch the blood and pus. Master Beal did consent to some medication for me, but with great reluctance. “If he doesn't take this, the poison could spread through his body and then you'll have a bigger problem on yor hands,” the dentist explained.

“All right, give me the stuff. I'll see that he takes it.”

The ride home was agony. I wept bitterly in the back of the buggy. This pain was worse than a hundred whuppings with the cow lash.

Once back at the plantation, Master ordered me to get the water to the men in the field. My face was fiery hot, and my entire body ached. I couldn't speak at all. I wouldn't even try to form words in my mouth.

Thrasher saw my face and laughed his mean laugh. “Somebody ought to shoot you and put you out of your misery.”

“Yeah,” mocked one of the drivers, “why don't you shoot him right through the haid now?”

“Maybe this boy would like a bullet through the head; would you, boy?”

“Oh, come on now, Thrasher,” jibed the driver. “Give him a chance! Let him at least run for his life!”

Thrasher laughed, “Yeah!” He pulled his rifle out of the saddle and cocked it.

“OK, Robert, get runnin! Let's see if you can outrun this bullet!”

I twirled around, grabbing the buckets, and began to run with every bit of strength I had. I heard the gun fire, and I screamed and threw myself on the ground between cotton plants, sending the buckets tumbling. I heard their laughter.

“Git going!” Thrasher shouted. I began to crawl frantically toward the buckets. I couldn't lose those. When I had retrieved them, I tried crawling in the direction of the trees at the edge of the field. Thrasher fired again. I was almost insane with terror, and it was only after about six shots were fired that I realized he was shooting into the air. The cruel laughter rang across the field. I felt like a fool. I rose to my feet and ran for all I was worth, and when I was safe in the trees, I fell on the ground and lay there until I had regained enough strength to continue back.

As I lay in the shade of the trees, I remembered Miss Ceily praying for John Henry when he was sick and how the Lord had answered her prayer. I looked up into the leaves of the trees. “Lord,” I prayed, “plee—” I wanted so badly for the pain to subside. I was dizzy and nauseous and could not form words.

A few minutes later a tiny, cool breeze blew across my face. It was so refreshing and sweet that I wanted to smile. I sat up, feeling a little better. By the time I got back to the Big House, the pain was almost gone.

When Master Beal came in from the field that day, the swelling had vanished from my face, and I was suffering no pain at all.

“Take your medicine, boy,” Master called to me when he saw me bringing a load of clean towels upstairs. I stopped on the stairs and smiled broadly. “Oh, suh,” I exclaimed, “I was in sech terrible pain I thought I was dyin for sure. Then I looked up to the Lord, and I begged Him to take the pain away an heal me.”

Master Beal grunted.

I continued. “They won't be no need for the medicine from the dentist, suh. I got the medicine straight from the Lord!”

Master Beal's eyes narrowed, and he drew closer to the stairs.

“Come here,” he ordered. I obeyed and jumped down to where he could see my face better.

The look on him was one of complete consternation.

“Open your mouth.”

In the place where the tooth had been pulled, there was a smooth, gaping hole with no sign of swelling or infection.

“Well, I'll be damned—”

“Oh, suh!”

“I'll be—”

“The Lord done it, suh, sure enough! I prayed and ast Him to heal me! A breeze come over me from yonder, and He healed me!”

Master Beal stared at me for a few seconds, and then with a grunt said, “That dentist is better'n I thought.”

The thrill over the healing of my mouth stayed with me for many days. I whistled, sang, and hopped around the house doing my chores, pleased about everything. Most of the ugliness and the pressures escaped my notice during the harvest because I had discovered that God actually cared about colored folks. Furthermore, I knew for sure that He cared about me—me! It was hard to believe, but I knew it was true.

That autumn Miss Anna started school. I helped her get ready on her first day. I was sure this would be the end of our friendship. At school she would learn to hate me just like her brothers and sisters had learned. She hugged me and took her lunch box, which Mary Webb had packed for her.

Anna was distressed about the whole idea and wanted to stay home with me. In those early weeks of attending school, she often awoke in the morning fitfully sick. She would complain dramatically of a stomach ache or a headache or a sore throat. Once she insisted she had the pneumonia. As soon as the buggy was gone, she would miraculously recover.

“I's hungry,” she'd tell me with a grin. Then after breakfast we would head for outdoors, and I would take her riding on her pony or we would catch frogs by the creek or pick wild flowers.

When Master Beal got wind of Anna's missing so much school, he ordered her to go to school, sick or not. Anna cried and wailed so pathetically, Master picked her up in his arms and cooed, “Tell Daddy what would make you happy, honey.”

Between sniffs, Anna said, “I wants Robert to come to school with me!” Master was not pleased. He tossed me an angry squint of the eye.

“He kin go with you jes once, and thassall!” he snarled.

I could hardly sleep that night. I finished my chores well before daybreak the next morning and had my breakfast with Big Mac in the kitchen while it was yet dark out. I was given a chunk of corn bread for my lunch, which I wrapped up in a piece of brown paper. Big Mac didn't realize that I thought I'd be going
inside
the school.

I scrubbed my face and put on my trousers and shirt and then waited for the children to wake up. Harriet was not at all happy about my going with them.

“This ain't a good idee, boy,” she warned me in a whisper. I was too happy to listen to any warnings. God had shown me He cared about me, and now I was going to school!

We climbed into the buggy at last. I sat in the back on the end. Anna talked and giggled in front with her sisters. The ride was slow, and the early smells of the day were fresh and clean and sweet. I breathed in and watched the wisps of clouds in the bright blue sky overhead. The bumpy road was lined with dogwood, wild violets, and Joe-Pye weed. Before long we drove up to the schoolhouse.

It was a small red building, well built with even boards, and it had windows with glass and a door with hinges and a knocker. There was a hitching post for the horses.

I walked up the path with Miss Anna. She wore a blue dress and a white pinafore. She had white button-up shoes, which weren't quite buttoned up. Her curly blond hair looked uncombed, even though it had been carefully brushed and put into place, and it blew in her face and eyes. She stayed close to me, and we neared the big door.

At last we were inside. I stood staring, my heart pounding loudly. The room was so clean, so neat, so polished. The rows of desks were clean and orderly. The walls were wood paneled with pictures of white men and a big map hanging on them. In the front of the room was a wooden platform and on it a wood desk. A white lady was sitting at the desk, and she smiled at the children as they took their seats. When her eye caught mine, the smile on her face faded.

“I'm afraid you're in the wrong school, boy,” she said, shocked at the sight of me.

“Oh, uh—I come wi Miz Anna an Thomas an John an—”

“Anna, dear, take your seat,” the lady instructed.

Anna obeyed happily after depositing her lunch box with the others against the wall by the door.

I stood awkwardly by the door holding the corn bread wrapped in brown paper in two hands, digging my toes into the cracks of the wooden floor. The children took their seats and were quiet. The teacher rose to her feet. She was a stout woman and wore a blue dress with puffy sleeves and a black shawl over her shoulders. She peered at me over her glasses.

“Are you going to stand there all mornin, boy?” she asked.

“No, Ma'am.”

“Well, you know you can't stay here, don't you?” Somebody in the room started to giggle. I searched for Anna with my eyes.

“I uh—”

Somebody else began to giggle and then others joined. I couldn't find Anna. The other Beal children stared at their desks and didn't look up. I wanted to assure the teacher everything was okay and tried to explain how Massuh gave his permission for me to go to school. The teacher pounded the desk to quiet the children. There was an empty seat near me, and I inched toward it. The teacher sprang at me and pointed to the door. I thought she was going to hit me. I cowered against the desk and sat down.

The teacher turned her head to John and Thomas. “This boy says he come with yoll?” Nobody said anything.

“John, Thomas?” After what seemed like ages, Thomas said, “He's ours.”

“Well then, would you please explain to him this is not a school for Coloreds?” the teacher said, glaring at him. Thomas stood and came over to me. “Didn't you hear Miz Roland? You can't stay here.” He gave me a shove with the palm of his hand.

I rose from the desk with my eyes on Thomas. This boy, almost the same age as me, who I lived in the same house with and knew better than his own mama, this boy I could whup easy, was acting like he never saw me before in his life. I was confused.

“You gots to go,” Thomas said, looking like he swallowed something bad. The teacher stood in the aisle, hands on her hips, waiting. Thomas put his face close to mine. “Stay outside til school be over,” he whispered.

I knew better than to argue, so I moved toward the door with my eyes on the floor. “Yessuh,” I said.

Outside in the sun I stood by the hitching post and listened to the voices of the children inside. My face burned. I walked to the edge of the school yard as the voices inside recited some words all together, “I pledge allegiance . . .”

When the children came outside to play later I hid behind the trees in the piney woods so they wouldn't see me. I didn't want to be laughed at or maybe pounded on. I saw Anna, and she ran all over the school yard from one end to another looking for me. I knew that's what she was doing, looking for me. When the children went back inside, Anna was the last one on the wooden steps. She lingered there for a brief moment stretching and looking with her hand cupped over her eyes. She was worried about me, I could tell, and she wanted to know where I was. I remained unmoving in my hiding place, my heart pounding and my disappointment turning to anger.

That evening at home the boys wouldn't look at me. Anna fell asleep until suppertime, and I swore I would learn reading and writing one day. Furthermore, I'd put in a book all that happened to me and to my people on this plantation.

I kept trying to forgive Master and Mistress Beal like Miss Ceily had told me, but bitterness had begun to take hold inside me. I obeyed and acted like a good nigger, but I wanted to get back at them. I studied on it and finally chose stealing as my weapon. At first I stole little things—small coins, trinkets. I sneaked into Master's bedroom and stole pennies from the dresser, a wool sock on the floor, and I carried my loot down to the quarter and tried to give it away. Nobody wanted it.

“Don't you be carryin yor devilry down here from the Big House an git us killed, chile! What we gone do with this here sock? Massah ketch us with what be his and Lord have mercy! You ain't nothin but a fool, Robert!”

I decided I'd bury what I stole until I met two brothers, much older than I, named Mitt and Waxy Edwards. They recognized my talents and suggested a deal.

I was to bring them what I stole and they'd give me cash for it. They would, in turn, sell the stuff to a certain private source, so it would never be discovered in our possession.

It sounded like a good idea. I told nobody about it, especially not Miss Ceily, who would talk me out of it in an instant, and Big Mac, who would probably whup me for even thinking about stealing.

One day I stole a porcelain vase, the next day a silver pitcher. I stole a watch, a ring, handkerchiefs, more socks.

Money meant nothing to me. A dollar bill could have been a knee patch. I had never seen cash and had no idea what to do with it, so I tucked my earnings into the drawer of my little dresser and forgot about it.

On an early morning with a grey drizzle outside, I was upstairs cleaning the washroom when I heard a commotion coming from downstairs. Not paying any attention, I continued my cleaning. The commotion became louder. Soon I heard Mistress Beal's shrill voice call from the hallway.

“Roberrrt, get on over here!”

I hurried out to the hall, and without warning Mistress walloped me across the face. My head spun. Then she hit me again across the ear, and I felt something pop inside my head. My ear burned with a ringing sound. Again she hit me on the head.

“You been stealin, hunh!”

“No, Ma'am—” I lied.

She ordered me into the children's room. She opened my dresser and pointed at the little wad of money I had collected. Also, there was a paperweight in the corner of the drawer that I had gotten off Master's desk and hadn't sold yet.

“If that ain't stealin, boy, what is it?”

My head ached with the ringing in my ear. I didn't dare answer her. I could be killed for this. I remembered what they did to George Murphy and what they had planned to do to John Henry, and I started crying.

“Lord, have mercy—”

Mistress Beal was furious. Her face was bulging with red blotches, and her eyes were little fiery holes in her head. She found Thomas's belt on the floor by his bed and picked it up. She struck me again and again on the head and shoulders with it; then she ordered me to sit on the chair by the door until she returned with Master Beal.

I was dizzy with fear and the burning pain of the belt's lashes. My ear and head ached and the ringing noise grew worse by the minute.

I wanted to pray, but I was afraid Jesus wouldn't hear me. I had been a bad boy, I was a thief, and now I was going to be punished. Maybe they'd hang me, or tie me to a fence post and let me starve to death. I thought of running away, but that was impossible. I'd be caught sure enough. I was helpless in my predicament and frightened out of my wits. “Lord, have mercy!” I pleaded again and again. I was sorry for stealing, truly sorry, but I knew there was nothing I could do to make up for it, and I'd have to take my punishment.

The day wore on. I was still sitting on the chair by the door when the children came home from school. Big Mac unhitched the pony and put the wagon in the barn for me. I didn't dare move.

The talk in the kitchen was noisy. I could hear the angry voices from where I sat. There was arguing, cursing and bad words, and tempers were riled up good. Big Mac said something about uppity chillren not livin to be growed up. Mary Webb clucked like a mad hen, “He's ruined it fuh all of us, that chile done ruined it fuh all of us. They oughter dress him up good and if'n the white mens don't, the niggers oughter!”

The Beal children gloated over me when they heard what I had done. Virginia stood before me, hands on her hips, and sneered, “How could you steal from my daddy, Robert, when he's been so good to yoll?”

“Yeah,” added Juanita, “Daddy took yoll in this here house when you wasn't nothin but a pickaninny baby. He's done tuk care of you, fed you, and put the clothes on yor back. Even carried yoll to the dentist when you was ailin. Now yoll goes and steals him blind!”

“You ain't nothin but somethin bad, Robert. Yoll jes plain bad!”

“My daddy treat you like one of his own chillren, Robert. Yoll even sleep in the same room with his chillren. Yoll thank him by stealin from him!”

The only one who didn't berate me was Anna. She seemed detached from everything going on and stayed in the music room by herself trying to pick melodies out on the piano.

The hours passed and I sat on the chair waiting.

The pain in my ear became so bad I felt dizzy. It was evening when I heard the sound of Master Beal's heavy boots in the hallway. I could smell the whiskey on him from where I sat.

He stood in the doorway, and at his side was Mrs. Beal. She was scowling and waving her finger in my face. “There he is, the devilin thief! I told him to sit there and wait for you to come and punish him.”

“I oughta kill you, boy,” he growled. “I oughta kill you. You ain't only a damn thief, yor damn dumb!”

Mistress Beal opened the drawers of my little dresser. “Look here what he's stolen, Sam. He's been stealin yoll blind!”

Master Beal looked in the drawer with all the money and the paperweight I had taken from his desk. He turned to me, eyes narrowed. “You steal from me, boy?”

I lowered my head and whispered, “Yessuh, I done it, suh.”

Grabbing my face in his hands, he said, “What were you figurin on doin with this money, boy?”

“I dunno, suh. I didn't have nothin figured.”

“You got three dollar here, boy. You planning on goin somewhere on three dollar?”

“Nosuh, MassuhBeal, suh.”

He hit me hard on the cheek. “Yor lyin! Now you tell me the truth.”

I was so panicked I told him the truth. “I'd give it away, suh. Ah'd give it to the folks who is hongry, thas what I'd do!”

Master hit me again. “But you never took this money from me, boy, 'cause I ain't never missed no three dollar! You been stealin from mah house and
sellin
stuff to somebody. Now who you sellin to?”

I started shaking. I trembled from head to toe. I couldn't tell him about Mitt and Waxy! I couldn't! I just couldn't!