Slave Girl

by Patricia C. McKissack

  Miz Lilly counts the cans of perserves and the dried vegetables ’gainst the recipes, makin’ sure we don’t eat extra food or give it away to the people in the Quarters. In the Quarters, they don’t never get enough to eat or enough time to eat it.

  But Aunt Tee been cookin’ here at Belmont since Mas’ Henley married Miz Lilly sixteen years ago. She was the onlyest slave he owned when he come here. Everybody else b’longed to Miz Lilly’s family. They was the one’s rich. Mas’er come from Tennessee, po’ as a church mouse, but he wooed the widow Lilly until she married him. Aunt Tee say Mas’er married the money and not Miz Lilly. He was hopin’ that if ’n he owned Belmont it would make him a gentleman. He aine no gentleman though, no matter how much money he got.

  Aunt Tee got her own way of doin’ things in the kitchen, and it makes Miz Lilly mad. “I aine ’bout to cook and not eat,” say Aunt Tee, laughin’. She knows how to pinch and save back, so we most times got a-plenty to eat. Sometime, she skims off enough to slip food to a sick child or a nursin’ mother in the Quarters. What we’re all hopin’ is that Spicy can be trusted not to tattle.

  I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think Spicy is a tattler. She aine talkin’ much to nobody. So we just been leavin’ her be.

  Monday again

  Spicy been here a week, already. She’s as big as a man and just ’bout as strong. But Lord that girl is clumbsy. She’s forever stumblin’ over things, droppin’ things and knockin’ over things.

  “She been used to hard work,” Aunt Tee say, with a little less suspection in her voice. Spicy got on the good side of Aunt Tee when she helped wring the water out of big ol’ heavy sheets like they was just hand towels and never once complained – even when her hands was all red and sore. Spicy can lift hot pots and even chop wood. Her hands is rough, but even so, she’s right pretty. Hard to get a look at her square on, ’cause she holds her head down all the time.

  She’s older than me and bigger than me. For some reason, though, I feel like she needs takin’ care of. Maybe it’s her sad eyes that make me feel that way.

  Later

  “That gal b’longs in the fields,” say Mas’ Henley when he saw Spicy servin’ the table with me.

  “She’ll be a great help here in the house,” say Miz Lilly. Say she bought her for a little of nothin’.

  Spicy don’t know it yet, but she’s in the middle of a big mess here at Belmont. Mas’ Henley and Miz Lilly always be on the two ends of a stick. One say up – the other is bound to say down. Miz Lilly bought Spicy, so Mas’ Henley is sure to find fault with her.

  It goes like that all the time – them two havin’ silly fights ’bout one thing or another. Miz Lilly say Aunt Tee is uppity and needs a good beatin’. Mas’ don’t like Uncle Heb. Say he’s useless. “Diggin’ ’round out there in them roses don’t put meat in my storehouse.” He cain’t see that Belmont is a pretty place ’cause Uncle Heb cares so much ’bout the flowers. Mas’ Henley cain’t see pretty ’cause he’s too mean inside.

  If mean was a tree, it would grow tall here at Belmont.

  Tuesday

  Durin’ lesson time, the Missus gave William a smack on his ear. “And you, Clotee! Come closer,” she snapped at me, as if I had somethin’ to do with the heat. “Move that fan faster.” But that’s ’xactly what I wanted her to say. Move closer. Standin’ directly behind William, I can look over his shoulder and see the words in his book.

  Sometimes when I’m fannin’, I make out like I done fell asleep – I let my arms drop. Then when Miz Lilly yells at me, I jump like I’m wakin’ up. This makes her think I’m not interested in what’s goin’ on.

  I have to be careful doin’ that though. I don’t want to get caught learnin’, but I don’t want to lose my job neither.

  Next day

  The noon meal was broke up when twenty riders stopped by Belmont lookin’ for a man what they say is a northern abo – somethin’ I aine never heared before. The compression on Mas’ Henley’s face say to me that whatever he is, the man is in deep trouble.

  Mas’ Henley sent Hince to ring the plantation bell, callin’ everybody to the front of the house. Mas’ counted heads to make sure all 27 of us was there. He showed ’round a drawin’ of a white man with a tangle of dark hair. He had a patch over his left eye.

  “You ever see this man, you come straight and tell me. I’ll make it sweet for whoever helps us catch him.” He looked at the picture, spat, then crumpled it into a ball and throwed it away. Again, he called the man an abo-abolistine, I think.

  When no one was lookin’ I picked up the crumpled-up piece of paper and hid it under my dress. I want to know what this abolistine is.

  Thursday

  Spicy and I helped Aunt Tee make ginger cakes. Spicy spilled more than she got in the bowl. She’s just natural-born clumbsy. Right after the last meal, Hince and Uncle Heb come to the kitchen for dinner.

  Aunt Tee had fixed a two layer cake with strawberry perserves in the middle for Mas’ Henley, or at least he thought it was for him. Aunt Tee had saved out just enough batter to make me a little cake ’bout the size of my hand. She say, “A bird flew by and told me there’s a girl livin’ ’round here who’s been in this world near ’bout twelve years.”

  Nobody knows the real day I was borned, but Aunt Tee say, “You come here when the dogwoods bloomed.”

  “Yo’ mama loved the very breath you took. All us did,” say Uncle Heb. He handed me a doll he’d carved out of hardwood, no larger than two thumbs.

  I’ve named her Little Bit, ’cause she so small. Mama knew Aunt Tee and Uncle Heb. In fact when she got sent away, she put me in their care. That all happened when I had just come to the age of rememberin’.

  Hince made me a sun hat out of field grasses, and put it on my head. He had to tease me ’bout it, sayin’, “If you lose it, I’m gon’ bus’ yo’ head.”

  These words seemed to upset Spicy somethin’ fierce. She snatched off her apron and ran out the door. I started to go after her – tell her Hince didn’t mean it. He wouldn’t hit me. “Let her be,” said Aunt Tee. So we did.

  Spicy is totin’ a basket full of sorrow on her head. Been beat down so much, I ’spect. When somebody raise they hand, she covers her head. Mostly I been lettin’ her be. She don’t say much, so I don’t say much back to her. At night when we lay side by side on our sleepin’ pallets, I can hear her cryin’. I wonder can she hear me cryin’ sometime, too?

  Friday

  Seen Mas’ Henley’s calendar today. It’s Friday, April 15, 1859. Been practisin’ my writin’, too. I just wrote R-I-V-E-R. I sees the James River out in front of the Big House. Wonder what’s down that ol’ lazy, movin’ river? I aine never been away from Belmont. Maybe one day Miz Lilly will take me ’long with her when she goes to Richmond to shop and visit.

  Saturday

  This mornin’ Hince and Spicy got into the worse spat. She’s real touch-ous ’bout her name being Spicy. Hince found out, and that was good for a tease. He asked if Spicy was more cinnamon or more nutmeg? Lord, what did he say that for! Spicy hauled off and whacked him right in the mouth. “You half-white dog,” she screamed at him. Hince went sprawlin’ out on the ground.

  “You addled, girl?” he shouted back. Hurt took over his face. None of us ever say much ’bout the way he looks. Spicy’s eyes filled with tears and she stomped off in a huff, sayin’, “You might look like ol’ mas’er, but you aine really white. And I aine got to put up with you devilin’ me!”

  Words said cain’t be taken back – even if they is true. Hince could pass for anybody’s ordinary white boy – a member of the Big House family. He’s got grayish-lookin’ cat eyes and curly, sandy hair. There’s talk in the Quarters that his daddy is a white man – Mas’ Henley’s brother, maybe, or even Mas’ Henley, hisself. I don’t care who his daddy is. Hince is like my brother and I know it bothers him that he looks white, but he is black.

  Later

  Whenever I’m troubled ’bout somethin’, I go fi
nd Uncle Heb in the roses and help him weed. ’Fore I know it, the troubles don’t seem so bad.

  I told Uncle Heb ’bout what Spicy said. “Colour of yo’ skin don’t matter when you’re a slave,” Uncle Heb s’plained to me real easy-like. “Virginia law say, if the mama be black, then her chir’ren be black. If the mama be a slave, then her chir’ren be a slave. Hince looks white but he’s black ’cause his mama Ola was black. Never mind who his daddy be.”

  Aunt Tee never say who Hince’s daddy is, and I dare not ask. Cain’t help but wonder though. Does Hince know who his daddy really is? And if it is Mas’ Henley, then, how do it make him feel, bein’ the slave of his own daddy? There’s somethin’ deep down wrong ’bout such a thing. But it go on all the time. Lots of white-lookin’ black folks live in the Quarters. They’s daddys be white, but they mamas be slaves. So they be slaves, too. Aine right!

  I aine never seen my daddy. Mama told me his name was Bob Coleman. He drowned in the river ’fore I was borned. We all live right here on the river, but cain’t none of us swim. Mas’ won’t ’llow it – say we run away. Thinkin’ ’bout my daddy makes me think ’bout my mama. I miss Mama so bad it hurts ’cause I knew her, touched her face, seen her smile. But in a strange way I miss my daddy, too, even though I aine never, ever saw him.

  Midweek

  Sunshine skies, blue skies so far this week. Spicy and me been piecin’ a quilt ’bout a hour or two every night – patches from old rags the Missus throwed away. Aunt Tee is always busy scrubbin’ old pots with river sand, or shellin’ or snappin’ some kind of bean. If Uncle Heb aine down in the stables with Hince or drivin’ the family to or from somewhere, he sits with us. We tell stories to pass the time.

  My favourite story is how Uncle Heb and Aunt Tee got married.

  Uncle Heb starts the tale, but Aunt Tee puts in along the way. When Aunt Tee got to Belmont, Uncle Heb was livin’ here over the kitchen where she was put to live. She caught his eye right away, she bein’ so fine-lookin’ and all. “She put me in the mind of you, Spicy, but she was real skinny. Didn’t weigh more than one hundred pounds soakin’ wet. I says to her for fun one day, ‘How can you be a good cook thin as you is?’”

  Aunt Tee took one look at Heb, and says to Mas’ Henley, “I aine gon’ live in sin with no man, never-you-mind how old he is.” And she just wouldn’t cook for a day or two.

  Uncle Heb picks up the story again. Miz Lilly was put out. In her mind, slaves stayed where they was put, and that was that. Left up to her, Aunt Tee woulda got a good beatin’ for havin’ the nerve to rebel. But Mas’ Henley is particular ’bout who fixes his food. Aunt Tee done been with him for years. When Miz Lilly tried to get one of the women from the Quarters to cook, he wouldn’t ’llow it.

  Finally, Mas’ come upon a perfect salvation that was good for everybody – ’specially Uncle Heb. One Sunday mornin’ durin’ the Christmas Big Times, the preacher man come to Belmont. “Mas’ announced that Aunt Tee and me was to jump the broom.”

  “Didn’t ask us. Just told us,” said Aunt Tee. “I wouldn’t have chose this old man, myself,” she always say, smilin’. “But over time, I done warmed to the idea of havin’ him ’round though.”

  “Come Christmas it will be our sixteenth year together,” Uncle Heb say. At that point, Aunt Tee always pats him on the back of his hand. That’s the way the story always ends, everybody smilin’. Them smilin’ at each other. I love that story and the way they tell it. It makes me feel good all the way through and through.

  Friday

  The days is gettin’ longer, and that means we have to work longer, too. In the summer, Miz Lilly bath almost every day. This evenin’, Spicy and me carried water up the steps in buckets and poured it in Miz Lilly’s bathin’ tub. Then when she got through, we had to drain the water into buckets and take them down the steps and dump it. Spicy spilled water all up and down the steps comin’ and goin’. I got tickled at her, and she got tickled at herself. ’Fore you know it, we was laughin’ so hard. It felt fine to laugh. And it felt even finer to see Spicy laughin’. I didn’t think she knew how.

  Next night

  It’s a clear night. Good moon. Good night to write.

  The upper room was too stuffy to sleep, so I brought my mat outside. We sometimes do that. Spicy followed me. It was just the two of us girls. We just laid there, lookin’ up at the stars. We had laughed together, so it was easier for us to talk together.

  Come to find out, Spicy is motherless, too. And, just as I thought, she been mistreated somethin’ awful – beaten and yelled at by her ol’ mas’. Say he’s meaner than Mas’ Henley. I cain’t demagine.

  “If I could, I’d run away from this place so far they’d never fine me,” she blurted out, lookin’ like a cornered cat. “You won’t tell on me, will you?”

  “None of us is tattlers,” I told her.

  “I aine either,” she said. I believe her.

  Fourth Sunday in April

  Sunrise will be here soon, but before startin’ the day, I want to write “freedom” again. It is such a strong word to so many people. F-R-E-E-D-O-M. Freedom. No picture comes to my mind. It just aine got the magic. It shows me nothin’.

  I’ve looked at the drawin’ of the one-eyed man over and over. His face don’t show me nothin’ neither. One thing for sure – if the one-eyed man is doin’ somethin’ that makes Mas’ Henley mad, then I figure he cain’t be all that bad.

  Monday

  Miz Lilly favours her daughter Clarissa and I see why. She’s all growed up and married with children of her own near ’bout the same age as William. Aunt Tee say Miz Lilly thought she was through havin’ babies, when along come William. She almost up and died tryin’ to get him borned. If it hadn’t been for Aunt Tee they say Miz Lilly would have done died. The fancy doctors from over in Richmond had done everythin’, but Aunt Tee fixed up a potion and the next mornin’, little William come into this world feet first.

  “The tree with all its won-won-won” William was tryin’ to read a poem and got stuck on a easy word. His face turned all red. “What’s it say, Mama?”

  Miz Lilly is short tempered and quick to hit in good times. Today wasn’t one of her better days. She whacked William’s knuckles with a stick. “Wonderful!” she shouted. “Wonderful. That’s a plain English word used by millions of people. Wonderful. Look at it. Say it. Won-der-ful!”

  William threw the book over his shoulder and stomped away. Miz Lilly followed close behind, threatenin’ to skin him alive. The lessons ended on that sour note.

  I looked in the hedges and found the book William had tossed away. I’ll give it back to the Missus in a bit, but not before I’ve had a chance to finish readin’ the rest of that poem.

  Tuesday

  Wonder what a new pair of shoes feels like? It’s warm enough to go barefooted now. My feet are glad to be out of William’s old throwed away shoes. The ground feels good comin’ up through my toes all soft and cushy-like. Maybe that’s how new shoes feel.

  Wednesday

  Mr Ben Tomson’s Betty came to Belmont to finish fittin’ a dress for the Missus. Betty is a good seamtress. Her mas’er hires her out to make clothes for people far away. Makes weddin’ dresses, fancy party dresses – everythin’. Good as she is, though, Betty cain’t hold a candle to my mama when she was the seamtress. Here at Belmont. Everybody say so.

  The ugliest dress in Virginia is bein’ made right here at Belmont for Miz Lilly. It is a shade of light green that looks washed out – no colour. I’d rather wear this little plain cotton shirt I got on, with nothin’ underneath it, than all that grand mess she’s havin’ made.

  After Betty finished in the Big House, she stopped by to speak to Aunt Tee in the kitchen. I listened, careful not to jump into grown folk’s talk.

  Betty say Jasper and Naomi from over at the Teasdale Plantation runned away several weeks ago! The dogs was on they cents, when all of a sudden, they got all befuddled – went to howlin’ and carryin’ on.

  �
��Heared red pepper will do that,” say Aunt Tee.

  Then Betty say somethin’ that make me listen real close. “Word tell, it was a white man that helped them get ’way on a railroad what runs under the ground – a one-eyed white man, they says.”

  That set me to thinkin’. If the one-eyed man helped Jasper and Naomi run ’way then he must be what they calls a abolistine.

  Day later

  I cain’t stop thinkin’ ’bout the abolistines. Seems some white folks don’t want slavery. They be the abolistines. I can hardly demagine that – but it makes me happy to know that them kind of people is out there somewhere. The white folks that is mas’ers wants to keep slavery. I know ’bout them. I want to know more ’bout the abolistines. Where do they live? How many is it? Do they all wear patches over their eyes? Are they all men? One thing for sure is that the abolistines is helpin’ slaves to get to freedom, and knowin’ that is good for now.

  Friday evenin’, April 29, 1859 (I think)

  Spicy and I was dustin’ the large parlour. Spicy broke a vase and Miz Lilly gave her a bad whuppin’ – ten hard swats across the back with a switch – look more like a tree limb to me.

  Aunt Tee rubbed her wounds with a paste made from powdered oak leaves and rain water. Takes the sting out and keeps the sores from festerin’. It almost made me sick when I saw Spicy’s back. It wasn’t the new cuts, but the old scars. She done been beat many, many times before – and hard, too. Now, I see why Spicy is so deep down hurt – been beat on so much. I aine never come under the lash like that, and I don’t want to either. Miz Lilly beat Spicy bad just for breakin’ a vase. What would she do to me if she knew I could read and write? The idea makes me tremble.