by Peter Troy
His Daddy’s a storyteller. Spins a yarn like no one else anywhere near Les Roseraies can hope to. Isabelle’s just like him. Fixin’ to be the same kinda storyteller when she gets to growin’ up for real. But for now she just peppers Daddy with questions. Leaving Micah and his Momma standin’ like bookends. Either end of Daddy and Isabelle. Doing nothin’ but listening. It’s all right by Momma, who told Micah same time last year what a special day it was for Daddy.
Ain’t often a colored man gets to stand in a field with his family like this. Tellin’ stories, and feelin’ like a man, insteada a slave. She said. Still, Micah’s itchin’ something awful to get to work. It’s his number, after all, and ain’t he a man now too?
The day I see yo’ Momma get offa that wagon’s the day I know God’s got marryin’ in mind fo’ me. Daddy says.
It’s just the start of the same long story. Daddy’s gonna tell all about how he was gettin’ almost past the age of marrying. How he been so caught up in workin’, how there wasn’t more than a few women around Les Roseraies. How it didn’t matter even if there was a thousand of them. Wasn’t none of them gonna matter to him. ’Til Massa Leroux bought the place from his cousin. ’Til Massa Leroux come here from Louisiana, bringin’ all his things. Bringin’ twenny slaves. Bringin’ Momma. An’ work wasn’t all it usedta be to Daddy. Not with such a woman in this world.
Then it’s all about how they jumped the broom. How Massa Leroux got a good heart. How, when Micah was born, Daddy gone to Massa Leroux that night. Drinkin’ they wine. ’Cause Daddy ain’t like just some ol’ field hand, and Massa knows it’s Daddy that makes this place go ’round.
Well now, I see that Massa Leroux, he ain’t got no chillen of his own. An’ he sho’ seem like it bother him some—that he ain’t got no son to pass his lan’ down to. So I ask him that night, when it seem like he gettin’ that far-off look like he wisht he had a son o’ his own. I say t’him that if he let me work this here ol’ field on my own, I kin grow indigo like in th’old days. It wasn’t nothin’ more than a overrun fielda weeds an’ hedgerow when I ask him, so it ain’t like I’d be cuttin’ into anythin’ else ’at might get planted here. Last time this here field was used for anythin’ was when ol’ Massa Benton—two Massas ago—used to have us let them two mules graze in this here field. ’At a long time ago.
Then there’s Isabelle, askin’ questions like she always does. Being ten years old and gonna be a storyteller herself when she gets growed up, the way Daddy says. So Micah’s gotta listen all about the mules that usedta graze here. Long before she, or Micah even, was anywhere near born. And Micah gets impatient again, but Momma calms him down with just a look. Like only she can. Smilin’. Like this is just as important as the plantin’ an’ gettin’ at that number.
Mr. Finch an’ … what was th’other mule’s name, Daddy?
It’s like Bellie’s got no idea about what they’re really here for. The number. The planting. Still, she’s only ten years old. And Daddy’s stories were something special to Micah when he was ten. Finally Daddy gets to the point. Toward the number at least.
So I get to askin’ Massa what a white man’d give his first-born son. A inheritance, what he call it, even though I already know’d what it was called. So I ask him, knowin’ all the while where I was goin’, if he can let me work for somethin’ to give my son here. An’ Massa look kinda strange at me, but it was the day o’ my son’s birth an’ the Massa a good man anyhow. Massa Leroux say that he was twenny-one when he come into his own. ’At when his Daddy give him his inheritance. So I ask him ’bout tillin’ this piece of lan’ an’ growin’ indigo like we done way back. I tell him I’ll work dis here lan’ after I done all the work down in the paddies. Won’t nothin’ be left undone. I’ll work here after the work in the paddies all done—even work on Sunday if’n he an’ the Misses don’t ’spect it’d upset the Lawd too much. An’ he jus’ nod his head again. Then he ask why I wanna do all this extra work, an’ I swallows hard an’ tell him flat out, like I’s jus’ askin’ yo Momma t’pass a biscuit at the supper table. I say … T’buy my son’s freedom … just like ’at.
He always pauses at this part of the story. Showing what an important moment it was. And when he does start to talking again, it’s not about what happened next. No, this is the point in the story when he tells Micah and Isabelle that they should never talk to a white man or woman that way. Tells them that he could do that ’cause the Massa a good man. And he and the Massa almost the exact same age. And that moment was somethin’ more like they was just two men sittin’ around sippin’ wine on the day one of the men saw his first son get born. That’s the only reason he could be so familiar-like with the Massa. But don’ you all do that now, y’hear? And he waits for both of them to answer. Nod their heads, say it out loud. Makes Micah say it twice, like he’s the one needs to know it most of all. Only then does he go on.
An’ the Massa, he take a long sippa his wine an’ look me square in the eye like we talkin’ jus’ man t’man, an’ he says, okay, Samuel. This’ll be yo’ son’s inheritance.
An’ that’s when you figured out the number, right Daddy? Isabelle asks. Even though she knows the answer.
Yes Mad-em-wah-sell Bellie, that sho’ is. Daddy answers.
He looks over at Momma. Checking on his pronunciation of the French. ’Cause Momma spoke French back in Nawlins. An’ she smiles now, shakes her head a little at Daddy’s attempt at it. Like it’ll have to do.
Finally they’re to the point of the whole ritual. Micah’s itching to get to work, but Daddy has to explain how they came to the number. How the Massa sets a price on a good field hand like Micah’s gonna be. Then figures what the price of indigo is. The Massa takes out some paper and starts to writin’ out all the numbers. Calls it an even thousand pounds of indigo it’s gonna take to buy his freedom. Then the Massa says that a boy should have his inheritance when he turns twenty-one years old. Just like he did. Says it’s gonna take between forty-five or fifty pound a year to get that done.
But we grew sixty-five last year Daddy. Bellie says.
’At’s right, we sho’ ’nuff did, Sugarplum. An’ dat’s ’cause when I tell him ’bout that, I din’ know we’d have anotha set o’ hands helpin’ us wit’ all this here work.
Bellie’s gotta say the same thing every time she hears the story. Just so Daddy’ll say that and pull her close. Like she really did any of the work, Micah thinks.
But Daddy goes on about what that means, the extra they’ve been growin’ last few years now that Micah can do some real work. Do a man’s work, Micah thinks. It means he’ll be comin’ into his inheritance a year earlier. Maybe two. Might be just nineteen when he’s free. Nineteen when he can go to Charleston and get a job on the docks or maybe on a boat. Start savin’ money to help Bellie get her inheritance.
Only they don’t call it a inheritance for a girl, Daddy. What they call it again, Momma?
A dowry. But it’s not quite th’same, Honey. Ya have to get married to get the dowry, and it’s not you that gets it. It’s your husband.
Ohhhh, I’m gonna have to get married to get free, Daddy?
Naw Bellie. We’s gonna take care o’ dat. We gonna get this here field to put out sevenny eighty pound a year ’fore long, an’ wit’ the money Micah gonna make in Charleston, we gonna get you your dowry ’round the time you’s nineteen or twenny. An’ ain’t no man gonna get dat. ’At’s all yours, Sugarplum.
And she smiles at the thought of it. The way Micah used to when he was ten. Before he was getting so close to that thousand pounds that his inheritance didn’t seem like a country way off across the ocean anymore. Seemed like just the next county now. Like he could climb to the top of a tall tree and see it somehow.
Finally, with the ceremonies complete, they set to work. And Micah starts right in cutting down the tangle of hedgerow at the far end of the field. Attacks it like it’s his sworn enemy. Like it’s a wall standin’ between him and freedom. Tears at it with hi
s bare calloused hands. Clawing for another few feet of clear ground. Five maybe ten pounds more indigo this year than last. And that much closer to one thousand.
SUMMER–AUTUMN 1853
Momma was elegant like one of the white ladies in the Big House. She’d been lady’s maid to Massa Leroux’s Momma back in Nawlins. Said it was such a different place with plenty of free colored folks to go along with all the slaves. And then there were plennya folks with colored and white blood in them. Moo-lah-toes, she called ’em. So that things almost got mixed in together enough that it wasn’t such a big deal that Misses Leroux taught her to read. Had Momma read to her from the Bible most every day. Had her read from the white folks’ books too. Without Momma havin’ to hide it from most anyone. Even read books on her own when Misses Leroux wasn’t even listenin’. But that was Nawlins.
Momma always said, wasn’t any place like Nawlins. But South Carolina was about as unlike it as anything she could imagine. And that’s why Momma only taught Micah to read when he was old enough to know not to say anything about it outside their cabin. They even kept it secret from little Isabelle ’til she was old enough to keep it secret too. ’Course, with how much more Isabelle talked just by her very nature, Momma waited ’til Bellie was ten before she started in with her lessons. Micah’d been readin’ with her since he was about eight or so.
So it wasn’t ’til that summer that Bellie got brought in on the family secret. She didn’t have to go to sleep early anymore, or out for walks to look at the moon with Daddy when Momma was helpin’ Micah with his readin’. Instead it was the three of them readin’ from a little pocket-sized Bible Momma took with her from Nawlins. Said the Misses woulda given it to her anyway if she hadn’t died so suddenly. So it wasn’t like stealin’.
Bellie naturally took to any of the stories with animals in ’em, so long as they didn’t get killed. The Creation. Noah and the Ark. Jesus gettin’ born in the manger. Stories like that. And Micah had liked them when he was just ten, sure enough. But it was ’round that summer that he started gettin’ more interested in something called the Psalms. Momma smiled when he told her that he liked the way the meanin’ wasn’t always right there on the surface. That the words were like puzzles sometimes, ’steada just bein’ stories. That it only took a few words together to make up a whole lotta meaning.
That’s called poetry. She said. Then told him that back in Nawlins the Misses had whole books filled with nothin’ but poetry. And how they were sometimes ’bout God, like the Psalms, but mostly they were ’bout ladies or trees or the ocean. And love most of all. And Micah didn’t care much for that. ’Til Momma said that it seemed fittin’ that he would like them, since he was becoming a man of few words. But smart as he was, he’d have to make those words count all the more. And that sounded all right to him.
MASSA LEROUX TOOK SICK LATE in the summer. That was when Daddy and Momma set to arguin’ first time ever. Momma saying how Misses Leroux wasn’t any good. Saying how the only thing she ever had was a pretty face to draw the Massa into marryin’ her. Saying how the real Misses Leroux, the Massa’s Momma back in Nawlins, didn’t like the second Misses Leroux nothin’ a’tall. But Daddy wasn’t hearin’ anything like that. Said it wasn’t nice to talk that way, even if the Misses was up in Charleston all that summer. Didn’t even come back to nurse the Massa through his sickness. Momma asked why he think the Massa ain’t got no children of his own. Asked how that gonna happen when they ain’t shared a bed in goodness knows how long. How they ain’t shared a house even all this time. Even with the Massa sick.
How I got time t’think ’bout that? Daddy said. Up ’fore sunup workin’ in ’at field by torchlight, workin’ all day down on the levees, an’ den anotha hour or two by torchlight up in ’at field agin. When I got time t’think ’bout anythin’ but work?
It was the most cross thing he’d ever heard Daddy say to Momma. And Micah wished he’d been asleep the whole time insteada just lyin’ on his bed listening to their conversation.
Sorry ’bout that, Sugar. Daddy said, after a moment. I don’ mean t’be cross wit’ you. I’s jus’ over-tired’s all.
And that was the end of that argument. ’Til the Massa took a turn for the real bad not long after and the Misses finally came back to Les Roseraies. Too late to do any good. Like she come back just to watch him die. Momma’d say. And Daddy didn’t like hearin’ any of that, but he didn’t say it wasn’t true, either.
For all the things Momma said about the Misses during those days, there was no gettin’ around the fact that the Misses did put on a nice funeral. Folks came in from all around. Black sheets draped over the porch railings and outside the upstairs windows. All the slaves got the day off. Got to walk past the Massa’s coffin. Touched it. Threw flowers on it. Then he got stuck in the ground, and the white folks went to celebrating. The Misses most of all.
A week after the funeral was the start of the harvest. Took in a good crop of rice that year. Took four weeks to get it all in, set it to dry out. Bundle it up. Then Micah and his Daddy walked out to the indigo field late that first night after the rice harvest was all done. Resta them back celebratin’ the harvest like always. Momma and Isabelle too, ’cause Daddy said it was a man thing he gotta talk to Micah about. And there he was with Daddy, standing over that field, gettin’ ready to harvest it. That’s when Daddy told Micah how there wasn’t gonna be a indigo harvest that year. How he talked with the Misses, best as he could. How she didn’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’ when it come to that agreement he made with the Massa the day Micah was born. How there wasn’t gonna be no inheritance, least not like they’d figured.
But before first light the next mornin’ Micah went out to that indigo field anyhow. Started tearing up the indigo plants. Figured he’d finish what they started that spring. ’Course, first light brought Daddy out to the field to fetch his son. Still kind of dark, but light enough for Micah to see the tears rolling down his Daddy’s cheeks. First time he ever seen that. And it was like the world had got all turned upside down, then. This mountain of a man, everything Micah wanted to be someday. Left with just tears. Askin’ his son to come on home back to the cabin. This mountain of a man reduced to that. Askin’.
So Micah walked back with him. His Daddy’s great arm draped over his shoulders. And then it was Micah’s tears he was tryin’ to talk away through his own. Tellin’ him it was gonna be okay, Son. Tellin’ him maybe it weren’t the Lawd’s plan for him to see his son be free. That maybe that’s gonna be Micah’s thing to do. That someday he’d have a son. And maybe get to make him free. Give him that kinda inheritance sweeter than all Les Roseraies and all the plantations in Carolina put together. And when they got home Momma and Isabelle were there. Made a fire. Cooked some biscuits. And the four of them ate ’em with some of the harvest butter on top. Isabelle askin’ Daddy to tell some stories from way back. Something about them old mules that usedta graze in that top field. His field, the way Micah saw it. The one that was about to become useless. Again.
OCTOBER 18, 1853
The auction is held three days later. Les Roseraies buzzing even more than it did the day of Massa Leroux’s funeral. This time with visitors not dressed so well, some lookin’ downright common. All morning long they walk through the Big House and the stables. Even down to the rice paddies and slave quarters, just openin’ any door they please and walking in. The slaves are told to stay in their quarters that day. And it’s the first time Micah can remember hearing complaints that they won’t be workin’ that day.
Don’t take long to understand why. Once Mista Erlison, the overseer, comes ’round. Tells ’em all to come on out an’ stand in a line. And they walk up toward the Big House. Momma’s explainin’ to some of the others what’s likely to happen. Says she seen this sorta controlled auction before, back in Nawlins at the Massa’s old place.
Callin’ us in from the quarters mean’s they either sold the whole place and the new Massa wants to talk to us all. She says. Or it mean
s the auctioneer didn’t get the price the Misses wants and now they gonna sell parts off one by one.
Whachu mean “parts”? Someone asks.
Furniture. Massa’s piano. The silver an’ the good china. Summa the horses maybe. She says, pausing for a moment. And us.
When Mista Erlison asks the auctioneer, man named Mista Tilton, how he should divvy up the slaves, it don’t take much to figure that there ain’t no new Massa wantin’ to talk to them.
Bring ’em out seven at a time. Mista Tilton says. Nine groups of seven, perfect.
You wan’ the best ones up front? Mista Erlison asks. The strong bucks or the ones with special skills’ll draw the best price. Mista Tilton says.
Mr. Erlison starts lookin’ down at his sheet and shouting out names. Daddy gets called out in the first group, even though he’s more’n fifty years old. And Micah feels proud of him, standin’ there with men half his age. Then, when Micah gets called at the end of the second group, he feels even better. Standin’ there with the cook and the liveryman and four other field hands that got ten years on him mostly.
Whatta shame. Mista Erlison mumbles, lookin’ at Daddy. Knowin’ the man that’s done most of the real overseeing of this plantation might go up on the block soon. Momma gets put in the fourth group, and Bellie’s way back in the last one. And it doesn’t seem real to Micah until they get set in their groups ’round side of the Big House. And he can hear the auction goin’ on up front.
Mista Tilton said the Misses wanted eighty thousand for the place. No one offered more than sixty-eight. So now comes the real auction. And by the time Micah can hear what’s goin’ on, the price is down to seventy-four thousand. Piano and a whole buncha fancy furniture got sold. And all it did was cut six thousand off. Which means it’s time to sell off more parts. China set and silver service and more furniture only gonna do so much. An’ that’s all it does.
