Well … a slave didn’t have no court to go to. The Masters of the Land made the law … so the law could not hurt them. I bet you couldn’t live like a slave one hour even in a game. Well, my children was strugglin for survival in the day of no-win. Only slave. It was no game, it was their lives.
The day did come when Sun ran away. I followed him. That Loretta girl had give him some money she had been savin the hard way, cause the farm was not so prosperous now, the Master runnin round, and drinkin, cause he thought HE was unhappy at home. His home. Sun was most fifteen years old then, Loretta was sixteen. He passed for white and, in the end, it got good to him and he never passed back to his own mother’s color again. But, I done gone too far ahead of my story.
As all these other things was goin on, there was Always. Always was what you might call mean with responsibility. My daughter had tried to take my place in lookin after her brother and sisters. She scolded and fought them bout things they did, for their own safety. She was always tryin to keep Plum in hand, close to her.
Miz Elliz had asked for her to help in the child-keepin, so that was the work she did half the time. So she could be round her own family, you see? They let her, but that Ole Mistress said she was too young and strong to be just doin that kind of work, so she still had to do ALL her other duties at the same time. Her hard work grew so sometimes that chile only got two or three hours sleep a night.
I watched my children, always prayin, to keep them from the beatins, punishments, hunger, grief and misery that is soul and core of the life of a slave. To see my, or any child workin, slavin in that hot, heavy sun that falls on your life like a big ole weight.
Diggin in ground hard and full of weeds, snakes, and scorpions. To pull and drag things that strip the hands of flesh, make them to bleed. To never look up and say “Tomorrow … I can rest. This evenin, I can rest.” To bury hands to the shoulders in hot water boiling over a fire, filled with lye soap, to wash another person’s dirt, for no pay and no thanks. To cook and serve, sick or well, serve people that don’t care how you feel, never think of what is in your mind, in your heart. Them white people made hate. They made hate just like they had a formula for it and followed that formula down to the last exact gallon of misery put in. Well … that’s what they made and that’s what they got.
I’m tell you this. There was still some, a few, of them real niggas that loved them white folks! Loved them. Was proud of any job they had that would make them close to the Master. That they looked down on another slave just like them, as if they, themselves, was better cause they was close to the Master of all this misery. It’s some folks out there, in your world, right now, today, are like that. All colors. Watch them … cause they are fools. To kiss the hand with the whip in it … and scorn the hand of friendship with somebody like yourself … is a sign of insanity … to me. Now, I ain’t sayin be no fool.… What I am sayin is … don’t be no fool.
Now other people ain’t no fool all the time either. Young Mistress noticed that Sun didn’t walk and work like he had no hope, like he was in some misery all the time now. She watched Loretta closer. Natural it come up, in time, that Sun was goin to be sold. Sides that, things wasn’t goin too well on that farm. Land dryin up, wearin out. Slaves gettin old. So many cost so much to keep up. The talk of war which was sittin right on the tail of the South made slaves hard to deal with at that time. And people, white people didn’t take to slaves what was too light round there. Had to go down to New Orleans if you wanted to sell them.
Old Mistress was fussin and carryin on bout all the money the farm was losin with no good care, even while she ate her pecan fudgies, baked ham and chicken and rich stuffs. But it didn’t do no good with her son. She was so big and fat now, she didn’t hardly come out the house so she couldn’t see everything. But she knew there was sposed to be money out there in them fields and in them niggers.
What Old Mistress didn’t know was her son had picked up a dis-ease on one of them trips to somewhere tryin to sell some of the slaves. He had passed it round to some of his own women slaves at home. Them slaves didn’t know when they had nothin … so wasn’t nobody tryin to cure nobody. So sides all the money bein lost, other things—meanin money—was bein lost too! Oh, things was really goin down.
That’s when the special trip was planned for to go to New Orleans to sell more slaves, more human hearts. Loretta knew Sun was goin to go if he stayed there til the coffle left. As time had passed she felt of him more like a brother. I don’t know why, or what was really in her heart, cause she didn’t pay no mind to my other children too much, sides Peach, and that’s cause Peach worked good for her.
Loretta gathered money, much as she could squeeze and “borrow” out of her mama and grandmother. That chile took some of her father’s best clothes and a satchel. She got, someway lyin, Sun to carry her to the town in that carriage her mama had begged for and got. She bought Sun his ticket, helped him dress, and put him on a boat. She waved her hankerchief good-by to her “brother.” He promised he would write and let her know everything, using the name “Mr. Freer.” Wasn’t they just children?
But her daddy, his daddy, had him taken off at the very next stop. Somebody had seen and told. Probably somebody was a slave. Maybe not.
Anyway, Loretta got excused with a scoldin cause “that nigga had fooled her with his lyin tongue.” Sun got a hundred lashes with a whip what had metal tips on it. Got rubbed down with salty brine and cayenne pepper. Got chained to the plow, night and day, to pull right on long with the mule. Ate only bread and water for thirty days. Hadn’t been for Always sneakin him out some fruit Loretta had given her, now and then, that boy woulda died. Oh, and the care and medicine she put on him at night when she should have been restin from her work. She would fuss with him, then cry with him and hug him and call my name, “Mama … mama.”
When he came off that, almost dead, Ole Mistress said he needed cleanin out from all them runnin ideas. She gave him a dose of castor oil and more cayenne pepper to clean his insides out. They almost tore my boy’s insides out! Oh God, oh, God. How he made it, I do not know. I really do not know.
Three months after that, they tried again, Sun and Loretta. Only this time they darken his skin with somethin and he “passed” for Black. They wrapped his better clothes and things up in a large neat package and she told the train conductor he was takin a package to her brother in a city, was headin up North, and that her brother would meet him and send ole Joe back, “to be sure and see that ole Joe got there alright.”
Ole Joe was bent over, couldn’t hardly talk and just set all the way with his hat pull down mos over his face, sleepin. Sun’s last words to Loretta was that he would write soon as he saw “Mr. Freer,” and to take care of Peach. He didn’t say “all” his sisters cause I guess he didn’t want to weigh too heavy on the little lady who was helpin him to freedom. He knew Loretta didn’t like Peach so much cause he did love her. Well, sometime jealousy gets in even a kind heart.
I don’t need to tell you what all went on when they found that Sun was gone, this time for good. They advertised, they sent patrollers, they did all what they could with as little money as they could. They almos rather spend money tho, then have a slave out-do em. They watched Loretta, but she was so mean, slappin and carryin on with Peach, they stopped suspectin her havin anything to do with it this second time. Peach caught hell.
Bout six months later Sun’s first letter came. Said it was from “Reverend” and they knew Sun couldn’t write, so nobody paid no mind to it, don’t ask me why. He spoke so much bout how Peach could join him and he could take care of her til she found work and all like that, didn’t say nothin bout Loretta, cept thanks.
It’s the strangest things come outta life sometime. Loretta got her mama to get her daddy to sell Peach. My baby Peach! Peach was sold. Wasn’t hard cause she was pretty and with the good food from the big house, she had a well-formed body, even bein so young.
A man from somewhere cross the waters bough
t her, was rich. Now I can make this short. Peach was not no fool. She had fooled round in that big house and read them few books they had, much as she could. She had read somethin bout them Rabian Nights what had told her somethin bout men and women. Peach was scared, didn’t know nothin bout life but from that farm and them few books Loretta lowed her to read. But Peach worked on that man. He bought her nice things to wear and she looked good in em, so he bought her nicer things, beautiful things. She could cook, set a table, speak sweet and soft, and be quiet when she didn’t know what she and anybody else was talkin bout.
Now, the man had had a wife was a little older than him when he bought Peach. Don’t know why, maybe it was natural, but that wife didn’t live much more than seven or eight months from the time he brought Peach home. That man took Peach and moved back to Scotland or somewhere over there and … married her! Married my Peach.
I was tryin to watch my children, my blood, but it was gettin all spread out. Now some of my black blood was in Scotland somewhere. I understand tho, I understand. Peach used the only things she had to work with to escape the life of a slave. She changed her name to Peachel and pronounced it Pe-SHEL.
Now. I had wanted to stay round and watch my family blood, see my family grow, if it could survive slavery. And it was growin. But it was growin in so many different lands and colors. I wouldn’ta recognized my own children’s children, my own blood, if I hadda met them comin down the street right in front of my face.
Years later, when Peach’s, well, Peachel’s grandchildren was all round her and some were darker than the others, they ask her “Why?” That ole Peach just laughed and told em, “Cause I’m from America! We are all colors in America! And you are American because I am!” She never told the whole truth, but she never really tried to hide it or was fraid of it either. “Your grandmother, my mother, would have loved you.” That’s all she ever told them bout me.
Being rich, their children, Peach’s and her husband, went to college. Became things like doctors, lawyers, judges, and married doctors, lawyers, judges. Even into royalty. My blood ran like it was let loose from a stream into the river, into the ocean. It ran. It ran from the French wife Sun married, through his four children to theirs. Ran into the world, hidden, but THERE. But, I am ahead of my story again.
ALWAYS WAS LEFT with Plum, still slaves on the land. The land where the Master of the Land was destroyin the land … and the slaves and his pitiful little wife. I returned in time to see them buryin Ole Mistress. She died from sugar diabetes, high blood pressure, heart trouble, and somethin they now call hypertension.
The farm had fallen down so quick, in such a short time, til I hadn’t realized how far down they had gone til I saw the funeral for Ole Mistress. It was a shabby one. Not at all like the one she musta dreamed of.
Young Master had the coffin built right in the yard, front of the house by the slave carpenters. Didn’t get no fancy one from the town and didn’t send out no notices. Them people was maybe not comin anyway. Cause they was worried.
Sons talkin bout a war to preserve their way of life so they could keep destroyin the lives of slaves. Well, that’s what it was. Most of their land had done given out, just used up. And slaves was runnin off … and gettin away! Some masters was in debt. Deep debt. The rumors and wars was turnin things all up and round.
I don’t really know it all cause I wasn’t in their business so much, I just noticed all that in a glance at life. With the farm doin so poorly, all slaves what wasn’t more raggedy, was dirty and mos let to stay that way. Food was low. Young Mistress was grievin, tired and exhausted tryin to keep up a tradition of superiority. Takes money to do that and money was surely low and slow. I blive it was round 1844 or so.
The Young Master was dyin from his dis-ease, really body-old. His long yellow fingernails only plucked at the few pretty, thin slaves he had round there on that ole farm. Some of em even his daughters.
When he wanted favors from a slave now, since the slave knew he couldn’t complain on em, they made him pay some little somethin, some little favor in return for a feel. Shame to be said, but a small coin here, a small pretty thing there, counts! Specially when you ain’t got nothin. Them slaves wasn’t happy bout it, but when you ain’t got nothin … and don’t see nothin comin … See? A starvin man will eat dirty bread.
Someway Always had missed the disease. Too tired. Too busy. Not wantin none of them ole men left on the farm. I reckon she had some of her ancestors’ blood runnin through her mind. She was raggedy, but she was clean and still pretty in a thin kind of way. Plum was bout five years old now. My daughters stayed close to each other, workin most times.
Plum was a bit kinda sickly. Delicate. Nothin Always nor Miz Elliz could put a finger on, but somethin was there. The child had no appetite, didn’t eat hardly nothin. So she was extra dear to Always cause the link with her family was only gonna be as strong as Plum was. Sometime love is a hard thing to make in them kinda circumstances my children lived in, but they made a love and it held them together and probly kept em from goin crazy. I know Plum loved Always so much, she didn’t even-not always tell her when she was in pain. Just go off in some corner of that old chicken house, hide her face in her arms and suck her thumb til she could feel better. Such a little tyke … all alone. My heart yearned to be in that chicken house with her … to hold her, comfort her, make her well. I couldn’t. Then the time showed up to sell some of the last slaves, to keep the big house goin.
One of the men who showed up, Doak Butler, didn’t live too far away. Maybe eighteen miles or so. In his life his mama and papa had only had two slaves. The man slave died from overwork.
One woman, old but still livin, took care his sick brother, Jason. The brother was sick cause he had got struck down one day, sawin trees. Got hit. Had just ruined his spine, wasted his legs. His mind was mostly alright but he couldn’t talk clear, couldn’t walk.
This young man, Doak, was getting married. He wanted to make a showin and needed a slave for his young wife-to-be. To show he was some kind of class gentry. He already had a little land. He, this man, looked upon my daughter, Always. And he was pleased. I liked to died, again. And … he couldn’t afford my little Plum. Ohhh! Tear my heart up, life. Just tear my heart up! You done always done it! Just keep on, keep on … til I can’t even stand death.
Doak was gettin married to what he considered a genteel lady name Wanda Sue, but called “Sue.” In truth she was a hard-workin young woman, Christian upbringin, shy, reserved, delicate constitution as the times called for, about to be what came early in those days, a old maid. She did believe she was superior to the darker race cause it had been bred in her, but she was not cruel. She was a virgin and willin to do her duty by her husband and give him sons as her father and mother told her to do. She wasn’t so glad to get Doak but she was glad to get a husband and her own home.
As far as genteel ancestors, hers was like most of everybodies’. A female ancestor had been sent to America as a white bondswoman and served her seven years in hard work. Course, whatever she had done to get them seven years, poverty had done made her do it. She got to America and times was just as hard here, but more opportunity to work in a clean, growin land. And course she knew she would be free someday. In her years here, need turned to opportunity and a good solid marriage with a hard-workin man. Their family grew, always workin hard. They had a few slaves, worked them hard. Then some kinda trouble hit em hard and they lost a lot, long with the right to choose a better, more prosperous husband for Sue. She was now, like I said, goin to marry Doak and he was gettin a slave for her to show he was quality folks. And, like I said, he saw Always.
Doak also saw Loretta. For Loretta, the times was harder and men were few. But, bein like she was, she kept herself a distance from all what she thought to be beneath her, like poor white trash. It never seem to touch her that her family was gettin poorer and the farm in debt. Course, she wasn’t trash. She was well bred, got to give her mama that. She wanted her girls
to be ladies, and one was.
Loretta was also lookin more to hear from Sun. Not from lovin him as a man, I don’t think, but just to hope he found a way to get wealthy and send for her, pay her back and get her away from the empty country life she was livin. She dreamed of having beautiful things again and bein a beautiful woman too. Just like life, everybody dreamin.
Virginia saw him … and felt she had fallen in love as far as her hard little narrow heart would let her. She peeped through windows, peeped behind curtains, looked round corners, and found a hundred excuses to come through the front parlor when her mama and Doak was talkin business. Young Mistress had taken over tryin to run the farm, tryin to stay on top of hard times and life.
When he told Young Mistress he wanted a maid-servant for his future bride, “I am to be wed in the very short future. I wanted to buy … purchase the nigga woman in time to train her a bit fore my bride comes in to home.”
Mistress looked him over very carefully. She had two daughters, marriageable age. No suitor in sight cept some Reverend who had been writing Loretta for too long a time not to asaid somethin besides Praise Jesus, as Loretta reported he said. And this here man may not be rich but he was landed and had money enough to buy a slave, where THEY had to sell one!
Family Page 4
