The Brightest Day: A Juneteenth Historical Romance Anthology

by Alexander, Kianna

  Yeah. If Lona had been here, she would have stood for him in the Lord’s light, but without her, they felt free to reject the offer of himself to God. Just as his father had rejected him. Just as he rejected Katie and Addy.

  It was too much. He stomped up the aisle, as if to get the truth stamped into the ways of the church, and out of the door. He wasn’t going back until God got it right.

  Chapter 6

  Missy knew Arlo loved his niece more than just about anyone. She could tell by the look on his face as he left the church, watching her with tears streaming down her face at the way his offering before the Lord was rejected. There was no better way than to celebrate Ruby’s graduation time than to create a tableau for the girls to perform in. A moving one. And as it was just about the forty-fifth anniversary of the end of enslavement, what better topic was there?

  It took her most of an evening to write the parts for the script and to set it down, but Missy did it. She was a little bleary-eyed at school the next day, but she handed out the parts. The Bledsoe sisters, even little Emerald, all had parts to play. It was easy to center it around them since they made up about twenty-five percent of the students. After recess, they rehearsed their parts, and Ruby was thrilled.

  After they ran through it once, Ruby asked her a question. “Why wouldn’t they let us marry in slavery times, Miss Baxter?”

  “Allowing them to marry would have meant that the slaves were people. And one way to keep slavery going was to treat them as if they were less than people. So then you don’t let the slaves have the fullest human treatment. You let them have something that looks like it—jumping the broom, for example.”

  “We use a broom to clean, not jump,” Nettie pointed out.

  “Yes, dear. But jumping the broom also showed the intention of setting up a house together. The broom has long stood for domesticity, home and hearth.” Missouri smoothed the girl’s braids down checking on her as she did so. She just wasn’t as strong as her sturdy sisters.

  “Are you going broom jumping with Uncle Arlo?” Emmy asked.

  “Hush.” Ruby gathered her sister to her. “Don’t stick your nose into something that isn’t our business.”

  Missy gave a wry smile. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have these lovely young women as her nieces? Her coming baby would be a cousin and playmate to them. Maybe.

  “Come over here, Emmy.” Missy couldn’t put the young child on her lap, but she slid onto the school bench next to her and put an arm around the girl.

  “Just like me, one day, you’ll leave your home. It was hard to leave Milford, but when they told me that in this place they needed a teacher to teach beautiful girls like you four, I couldn’t resist. It made me miss my mama and papa. But I know God sent me here to Milford for a reason.”

  “Yes. To marry up with Uncle Arlo and get him on the right road,” Mags added.

  “No. To show you four there is a big, big world beyond Winslow. There’s more than this mill.”

  “There’s nothing more than the mill.” Ruby’s face was downcast. “That’s what everyone say. Even though Papa doesn’t want us there.”

  “He’s right. There’s more to do in the world. One day, you might leave here and come back across Georgia to Milford, get educated, and show some other children in the state that there’s a big world out there. It’s just time for me to go home. That’s all.” She shivered at the prospect of her father seeing her belly, and tears stung in her eyes. They would be so disappointed in her.

  “You are the best, the very best that this school has ever had, Miss Baxter. I don’t know if it’s right for us to let you go so easy,” Ruby said. “But at least I got some of your learning while you were here. These ones, I don’t know what will happen for them.”

  She shook her head. Dear Ruby. Always looking out for her sisters. “You make a way. There’s such things, like high school by correspondence. You can get what you need if you come to Milford.” She gulped. “If you have to work in the mill for a while, study at night to get your diploma. There are schools for Negroes to build themselves up. You don’t have to stay here. There’s work to be done to help our people.”

  The little girls were held spellbound. And she sat back and rubbed at herself again, a gesture she couldn’t help these days. This little one seemed so at peace in the bosom of its family. Missy insisted, “I know you can do it. You can help.”

  “And who is going to help us? If you aren’t here?” Ruby shook her head, and Mags patted her on the shoulder.

  “There are other teachers in the world. They’ll come and you’ll learn from them too. Didn’t I come?”

  “You did, but it took years,” the practical Mags said. “Years and years.”

  “Then you help the younger ones until someone comes. And when I go back to Milford,”—Missy searched for the right term—”I’ll send someone. Remember, a door may close, but a window will open. You’ve got to have faith and trust in the Lord. He’ll provide.”

  “Mama is just mean and hateful.” Ruby kicked at the floor with a well-worn boot.

  “Now, now.” Missouri lowered her head, eyebrows coming together. “Anyone knows what your mama is feeling these days, it’s me. You mind her. She’s got a lot on her mind these days.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ruby gave the rote response, but Missy could see the fire in her eyes. Ruby was not at all pleased, but she didn’t know what to say to the child. She had to leave, but Ruby had to live with her mother. She wouldn’t dare cause Lona trouble.

  “Honor thy mother and father—remember, children. Go honor them now. Get on home. And be back here in the morning for the ceremony. Thank you for keeping me company.”

  “You welcome.” Emmy hugged her. She hugged the child back, tears flowing freely. She cried so easily these days.

  “Go on now. Don’t dawdle.”

  “If we see Uncle Arlo, should we say anything to him?” Ruby didn’t miss a beat. Bless her.

  “Tell him to make sure he shows up at your graduation. Bright and early.” Missouri patted the girl on the shoulder and watched the group of sisters trudge home.

  Yes. So you can tell him what my heart cannot say.

  ~~~

  Horses, wagons, and carriages of all kinds pulled up to the little wooden school the next day, and Missy felt a thrumming in her belly that was not the baby. She had not realized the draw that the graduation ceremony at First Water School would be. She was enacting her problems with Arlo for the whole world to see, so much against her nature, but she had to let him know how she felt. If her words and feelings came from the mouths of his nieces, so be it.

  And he was on time. He was there as Ruby’s parental figure, since John did not dare leave Lona at home alone for too long in her condition. Ruby seemed somewhat disappointed, but her uncle being there made her happy.

  He wore a tan summer suit of a light fabric that she had never seen before. His slick brown hair was combed back from his hairline, and he smiled and greeted everyone as if he were co-hosting the ceremony. People were always taken aback at his friendliness, but that was the way he got through life, with a song and a smile. Her heart surged. What would he think of her tableau? She stepped forward, trying to suck in her growing shape, but unable to do so. She waved her arms to get their attention.

  “Welcome to our ceremony. Before we begin the ceremony, we have some history to show you, with a tableau. Children.” She moved to the back, ready to let the action happen.

  The group of children came forward, arranging themselves in three groups, lined up along the front of the classroom. The first group featured Mags and Ruby as slave masters, striking the chains of liberty from a slave. The next grouping was Nettie as a bride with another little boy and Emmy as a preacher, marrying them. Another child came forward, who would explain the tableau. The little boy moved to the end where Mags and Ruby were, and spoke as loud as he possibly could.

  “Once the chains of liberty were provided to the people, we were free.”
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  Mags moved and the chains fell from her hands. Ruby raised her hands in vindication.

  The audience clapped and whistled, and from her vantage point in the corner, Missouri could see that Arlo was more enthusiastic than most at the sight of his nieces as the center of the tableau.

  “At our liberty, we strove to do as people did. To vote, to live, to be free in this world as a people!”

  The child then lisped the words to Frances Harper’s ode to freedom, “The Fifteenth Amendment.” He nearly got it all right, too. Miss Frances would be mighty proud of the boy.

  Then the child moved to the next part of the tableau. “When our people were in chains, they could not marry. One of the first things they did was to take themselves to the courthouse, or better yet, to the preacher.”

  The audience laughed.

  The child tried to talk above the hoots and laughter, but Missouri gestured to him to let the moment pass and to be patient. Fortunately, he did what he was told. She breathed out. This was an important part.

  “Getting married before God showed everyone that we could be people too in the eyes of the world. Getting married made our families strong and whole and complete again. Without marriage, we are weak. There is no certainty, only darkness and sin.”

  Nettie fell to the floor, as she was supposed to do, but her frail countenance alarmed her uncle. He stood up.

  Oh no. Missy didn’t mean to make him feel alarmed about Nettie. He looked over to her with desperation in his eyes. She waved a hand to show him Nettie was all right. It was part of the tableau.

  The child carried on, reciting some of Harper’s love poetry: “To Mr. and Mrs. W.F. Johnson on their Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary” and “Advice to the Girls.”

  Did Arlo hear what was being said? Did he know what was in her heart?

  Nettie got back up, and the child groom and small minister Em cleared away. Ruby came back forward with another small child. Ruby held herself straight as she spoke. “Families make us strong and whole as a people. When we have our families, we have love and support.”

  Ruby and the small child arranged themselves as a mother and child. The narrating child began to recite Harper’s touching mother-child poem, “A Mother’s Kiss.”

  Everyone in the ceremony got very quiet. Missouri heard a sniffle or two.

  She felt on the verge of tears herself, thinking of what it would mean to kiss her own child.

  Arlo didn’t budge. When the child was finished, everyone burst into applause, and Arlo clapped the hardest and longest of anyone.

  Ruby stood up and waved, asking for quiet. The community, which had so lovingly lavished praise on her, stilled to hear her. “Thank you for coming to see me graduate today. I just want to say that none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the love and care of our teacher, Miss Missouri Baxter. I understand that she’ll be leaving us soon, but I hope and pray that’s not true. She makes Winslow a better place, by illuminating us in our ignorance, and I pray that she stays.”

  Em came forward with a bouquet of wildflowers picked from the woods. Missouri stepped forward to take it. Arlo gave a sly smile and nodded.

  “Thank you so much. I’ve enjoyed my time here in Winslow, teaching your children, and giving them the strength, courage, and dignity that we deserve as a people. Please know that as I continue to new journeys in my life, I’ll always remember this school and its inhabitants for several reasons. Now. For what we all came for. Ruby Jean Bledsoe. Step forward, please.”

  Missouri put her flowers down, reached behind the podium to hand the girl her diploma, and then leaned in to give her a kiss. Her uncle came forward and embraced Ruby. The girl’s face went pink with delight.

  John Bledsoe came through the door. With great big strides, he came up the aisle and embraced Ruby, who was still at the front of the room. “Honey, is Miss Annie here? Your mama needs you all now.”

  “Now? On my graduation day?”

  “Seems so. Come on.”

  Ruby hurried up the aisle. Miss Annie got up on her cane, moving up the side aisle, ready to go to Lona’s aid. No wonder they had to hurry; Mrs. Bledsoe was on something like her seventh pregnancy. They didn’t have much time.

  “Well,” Missouri said. “There’s cookies and punch to celebrate and congratulate our graduate, but it seems that life and its obligations have whisked her away. Thank you for coming.”

  In the rush to get to the cookies and delicious drink she was providing, she noticed that Arlo had taken his nieces back home to await the outcome of Lona’s delivery.

  Missouri said a small prayer and looked around the empty classroom, littered with the refuse of the ceremony. A crashing and hurried end. The end of her time in Winslow. She was no longer a teacher.

  She grabbed a discarded copy of the tableau program that she had carefully copied out to hold on to as a remembrance. She would never forget this place. Nor Arlo. No matter how hard she resolved to try.

  Chapter 7

  A tightening of his stomach caused him to do what he thought was the right thing. Round up the girls, and get them home to their mama.

  What if something happened to Lona? She had been through this so many times and made it through. Still, what if it was her time to go home to God? Just as with Ruth and Mary Anne?

  Lona was all he had left. Something happened to her, he would just fold up.

  Except that wasn’t true. He let the reins in his hands slacken just a bit. He had more than Lona as family now. He had his nieces and Katie and Addy and…Missouri Baxter. She was family too.

  She ain’t none of yours just because she carrying your son. Not yet.

  Somehow, the old way of thinking crept in, but it didn’t work. Something in him rebelled.

  Missouri’s warmth, her graciousness, sparkle, and strength showed him something else. Some other way to see things. Some other way to be.

  The mule knew the way to Lona’s house, so he didn’t have to guide it much, and Mags was doing a great job carrying for the little ones—frail Nettie, who still had on a bridal veil, and thumb-sucking Emerald.

  What would they do without their mama?

  Another sickening feeling hit him in the middle of his stomach. Was this how Katie and Addy’s mamas felt about their young lives without him? They were just about the age of Emerald. What did they do in their lives without any parents?

  Well, didn’t he know himself? His and Lona’s daddy was some white man, their mama a prostitute. You survive. However, you have to. Find love wherever you can find it whether it’s good love or bad love. Certainly, he had found enough bad in his day to know.

  The mule stopped right in the front yard of the Bledsoe house, and Lona’s pitiful moans caused Arlo to leap off the wagon box.

  John came out of the house with a halfway alarmed look on his face. “What you all doing here? Everything all right?”

  “I brought them to see their mama. You know. Just in case if…” Arlo swallowed hard, not able to speak the unthinkable.

  John clapped a hand to his shoulder. “They don’t need to be here. Ruby and Miss Annie have this down. And you…you look bad.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  “No. I mean, you don’t need to be here hearing this. I been through it enough with her to know, but take the little ones on somewhere. That’s how you can best help. They need something to do.”

  “Are you sure? What if something happens to…sissy?”

  His brother-in-law guided him out to the front. “We’ll be fine. Go on. Please. Don’t come back until it’s dark.”

  “Come on, sugars.”

  The girls piled into the back of his wagon again. John leaned into his daughters. “You be good for your uncle. Stork’s bringing a baby to your mama. When you all get back here, there be a fine baby for you to see. Go on with your uncle now.”

  John turned quickly and went back into the house.

  Arlo slapped the reins onto the mule in relief. Well that was something. He
surely didn’t want to cause any trouble, but he thought the girls should be at home at such a time. Where should he take them? Certainly not to his place. That was no place for girl children.

  The mule started stepping back where they’d come from, and he guided him there. That was it. To the schoolhouse. Back to his Missouri.

  “Where we going?”

  “Back to the school.”

  “Oh goody! We might get punch, after all,” Nettie said.

  Yeah. He had kind of snatched them away from getting the treats after the ceremony. Another sinking feeling. Was it ever easier being a parental authority over young ones? Did the guilt ever go away?

  When they pulled up to the schoolhouse, it was quiet but the door was open. When they stomped up the stairs, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Missy was pushing on the school benches to get them back to the right place.

  “You shouldn’t do that.” Arlo ran to a bent over Missy. “Come on in, girls, and help.”

  He helped her onto one of the school benches.

  “What’re you doing here?” She regarded him carefully but didn’t look like she hated him. That was progress.

  “I thought to take the girls home to their mama, but John said to take them somewhere until dark.”

  Missouri laughed. “Yeah, he doesn’t need them underfoot right now.”

  “I’m sorry I ran off. I thought if something happens to Lona, the girls should be there.”

  She peered at him and put a hand on his arm. “Nothing’s going to happen to her. Miss Annie and Ruby have the situation in hand.”

  Everyone says that. Everytime. “Look. I’m sorry I left out so quickly, but I was worried.”

  “I understand. Worried about Lona. Not me.”

  “That’s not true. I knew you were fine.”

  “You did? Do you always know that?”

  Missy had a way of putting it that got straight to the matter. Rather than press that wound of hurt, he turned to see his nieces hovering in the doorway and back to Missy. “How can we help?”