Child of the River

by Wanda T. Snodgrass

  Josephus handed a sack of flour to his sons. “Get this down to our house. Run!"

  “No!” Logan yelled, shaking his head. “The flour’s for the big house.”

  “This’n goes to mine. Go on boys.”

  “You’ll be in a heap o’ trouble.”

  “Been in trouble since the day I was born. I ain’t a bit happy about it. Don’t wanta be took care of. I want to be my own man.”

  A loud clap of thunder made the cow kick. Agnes jumped. “Saw! Saw, cow!” She pushed on the milk cow's hip joint. “You ole heifer…better not kick that bucket over.” She yelled over her shoulder, “Ike, send one o’ the children. Tinsy is home asleep. She’ll be scared t’ death.” She struggled up from the stool. “Rosey, take this here milk to Cassie. Wish we could keep some of it.”

  Suddenly, Agnes moaned in pain. “That old sow Lucinda made a straw bed for ain’t the only one in labor…my water just broke.”

  Rachel rushed to the pregnant woman’s side, putting an arm around Agnes for support. “I knowed you oughten to be comin’ down here, far along as you are. I’ll help you to the house, honey. Ike, come with us. I need you to heat the water and calm the children when her agonizin’ starts. Mandy, we need you, too.”

  “Wait,” Logan told the women. “Ya’ll take Agnes in the wagon. This is the last of it. Charlie, tote this here whiskey jug. Zeke, take this other sack. You boys be careful. Don’t fall down an’ break that whiskey or Mista Ben’ll have your hide. Then, get yo’ tails to the quawters ‘n try t’ beat that storm.”

  The former slaves were soaking wet before all the chores were done. Josephus, Lucinda and the twins stayed in the shelter of the barn along with Mose and Rufus, rather than slosh through the mud to their cabin. The two old men huddled against a pile of cottonseed on the ground floor. Josephus and his family climbed the ladder to the hayloft. The rain pounded on the tin roof as the storm unleashed its vengeance, making it difficult to hear.

  Lucinda’s teeth chattered from the chill of getting wet, and she shivered. “Get them wet clothes off, baby,” her husband insisted. “I’ll cover you up with cotton sacks like I did Alfie and Jacob.” He smiled. “I’ll get you warm.”

  He descended the ladder and scooped up some cottonseed in a sack for his wife’s pillow and gathered an armload of cotton sacks for cover. The twins were already asleep. Josephus paused, looking down at the children in a flash of lightening. They look so much like Flora, he mused. Twin reminders o’ sweet Flora, sleepin’ like little angels. Your mother is a angel, darlings, but your Papa an’ Mama Lucy gonna care for you. Thanks to the Good Bein' your slave days is almost over. You boys gonna grow t’ be free men. Ever so gently, he added another cotton sack to their cover and tucked in the sides. Alfie clutched a wooden horse that Rufus had carved for him when he was three. The child felt insecure without it.

  “Won’t be the first time we played in the straw,” Lucinda whispered as he lovingly covered her slender naked body with the cotton sacks.

  “Heck no.” He peeled off sopping clothes and slipped under the cover, gathered his wife in strong muscled arms and kissed her tenderly. While the rain beat down in a deafening roar, the couple made love, oblivious to the storm that crashed around them. They found solace in the comfort of each other’s arms.

  The hard downpour slackened to a gentle, soft melodic beat on the roof. The wind let up, as well. The banging of loose tin on the unfinished barn ceased. Lucinda snuggled against her husband’s chest. “You know how to make a woman feel good.” She brushed her lips against his cheek. “You’re the finest man I ever knowed, Joe. The best man I ever had.” Her mind wandered back to Curlew Plantation and the years of backbreaking work, physical and sexual abuse she endured there. “Ole Man Stroud took me the first time when I’s barely eleven. Slapped my jaws and told me to shut up and be still. The pain…the awful pain. That old man’s eyes was crazy. He’d o’ killed me for sure if I screamed. I got up out of a pool of blood and thought for sure I’d die. Every muscle in my body hurt for a week.” Tears of remembrance welled in her eyes. Josephus’ arm tightened around her and he caressed her face, saying nothing, just letting her talk.

  “When I was thirteen, he…he called in the breeders. Didn’t allow a woman no shame. He’s always there t’ watch. That crazy look on his face…getting’ ready to take me hisself.” Emotional sobs stuck in Lucinda’s throat. She blew her nose on the corner of a cotton sack. “That mean old man worked me harder than the rest…up one cotton row and down the other. Hit me ever’ time he thought about it. Always cussin’ me…mad at me “cause I’s barren.”

  “Don’t think about it, baby,” Josephus soothed, angry tears spilling over onto the straw bed. “Ain’t nobody never gonna hurt you no more. I’ll kill ’em if they try.” He kissed her wet eyes and smiled, his words soft and tender. “I’m glad you’re barren. Don’t want no babies tuggin’ on them pretty paps.”

  The woman swallowed hard and smiled up at him in the darkness. “Then you came along and we fell in love at the turn row. It’s a wonder Miss Bess bought me off o’ that torturous old man…me bein’ barren. You’re the only man I ever loved, Joe. That’s the gospel truth.”

  Josephus felt the hard calluses in Lucinda’s slender work-roughened hand. His voice was husky with emotion. “We’re leavin’ Larkspur soon’s we get a hold o’ some money. Then you ain’t goin’ to a white man’s field no more. We’ll work this damned ole land one more time….”

  “Where we goin’?”

  “Texas, to homestead land. The gov’ment passed a law in ‘63 where a man what didn’t fight f’ the south can homestead 160 acres of free land. It costs close to twenty dollars t’ file. We gotta scrimp an’ save, Lucy, ’til we get it.”

  “I’ll go with you to the ends o’ the earth,” Lucinda murmured dreamily. “Think, just one more long hot summer. Then we’ll be really free…like the fowls o’ the air and the beasts o’ the fields. And we won’t have to bow to anybody.”

  “We both worked since we was little fellars, sunup to sundown.” Josephus added. “Toilin’ in that ole cotton patch, a-hoein’, an’ a-pickin’, an’ a-pullin’. Getting’ peach fuzz down our backs and itchin’ all over. Pushin’ that ole plow up one row and down the other.”

  “Yeah. Then like as not old Big Black River would come down and wash it all out, an’ we’d start smack dab over,” Lucinda added.

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “Goin where there ain’t a white massa or mista or whatever you call ‘em in a hundred miles.”

  “Sounds like the storm’s comin’ back,” Lucinda said sleepily. A crash of lightning lit up the loft and the thunder rolled again. “Makes f’ good sleepin’.”

  So wrapped up in his dreams and plans for his family, if Josephus heard his wife sleeping or noticed the return of the storm, he gave no indication. He continued to ramble on. “Logan’s a ole man. Slavery done broke his spirit long time ago. Seems satisfied to take a white man’s leavin’s. Well, I ain’t! Jus’ got more sense ’n t’ leave with nothin’ and nowhere to go. Lucy, I promise you, when we get the money, we’re leavin’ and Mista Ben can kiss my black ass.”

  “Lucy?” Her soft breathing told the man that she was sound asleep. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 7

  The lamp still burned in the library. Benjamin threw another log on the fire. He flipped the pages of the law book to the marker and tried to read, but his mind wouldn’t concentrate. His brain was too occupied with troubling events. He thought about Dayme’s ordeal with the soldier. Finances. Explaining emancipation to my former slaves will be most difficult, he thought. How can I save my pride?

  He put the books aside and stoked the fire, watching crackling sparks dissolve into curling black smoke and disappear up the chimney. It was doubtful, he knew. Remote, actually, that he could continue maintaining Larkspur without funds from some other source. There was no way he could stock the plantation or farm it. Returning to Harvard to compl
ete the law degree was out of the question at this time.

  He shuddered, thinking of his mother’s trunk under her coffin. I know Mums would have money along with the heirlooms Logan buried. No. No way can I disturb her remains.

  His mind returned to the girl and the fight with the soldier. The blue dress he bought for her was tucked away in the chiffonnier. It wouldn’t be appropriate to give it to her right now, he thought. I will wait until she is feeling better.

  He dreaded the meeting the next morning, but it was something he had to do. There were only a few days left to secure papers on the workers. He tried to plan what he would say to them. It had to be something to hold their respect and obedience. Words wouldn’t come.

  He thought about Molly. She has simply vanished from sight. As soon as the pressure lets up, he vowed, I must search for my beloved sweetheart. “Molly could be dead,” he said aloud. “No. She can’t be. She mustn’t be.” He covered the backlog with ashes and snuffed out the grease light climbed the stairs to his room. ‘Tomorrow,” he said wearily to himself. “Tomorrow must take thought of things of itself.”

  Sparkling raindrops on tree leaves and rose petals gave promise of a bright new day. The Negroes gathered quietly at the sitting place on the veranda. All were apprehensive about the meeting. Logan had told them what little he knew…that it had to do with wages. Even the children were rather quiet. Most stayed close to their parents.

  “I want my mama,” little fourteen-month-old Tinsy whimpered and pushed against her father’s knee. Ike was impatient with the child. He was tired. Agnes didn’t deliver until the wee hours of the morning. He had little rest. “Hesh up! Yo’ mama don’t feel like foolin’ with you. You g’won an’ play. Either dry them tears, or I’ll bust yo’ bottom good.” The baby snubbed, not understanding. Finally, she toddled out to an older brother who gathered her up in his arms.

  “Fine lookin’ little girl Agnes had last night,” Rachel remarked. “Gonna haft t’ get a baseball bat t’ fight the fellers off when that’n gets about twelve.”

  Ike smiled. “Little Sally is pretty, huh. She’s a mite lighter than me ‘n Agnes. We’s pitch black.”

  “Croppin’ out, I ‘magine,” Rufus said flatly. “Old Masta Atwood Farrington spent more time at the quawters than he ever did at the big house with Benjamin’s grand maw. Ain’t that right, Mose?”

  Mose nodded. He had a hand inside his belt, obviously in pain. “That old coot was jus’ like a stud hoss on the prowl. Had a whole passel o’ black fillies t’ fill his need.”

  “He took my wife, Delilah, rest her soul,” Rufus went on. “An” any of the rest of ‘em when the notion struck. We’s dassen to say nothin’. Mista John come a wandering down every now an’ then. He picked out Fern fo’ his leavin’s. Miss Bess, though, brung Benjamin up by the Good Book. Learned him t’ take after his own kind.”

  Josephus put a gentle hand on Lucinda’s knee. His voice was gentle, loving. “Coal black is the prettiest color I know.” She smiled up at him, saying nothing.

  “Ike,” Lazarus joked. “Somebody ought to tell you why ya’ll keep gettin’ them babies. You could at least holler ‘look out’!”

  “Shut your big mouth, Lazarus,” Rachel scolded. “Shame on you talkin’ about things best kept private. Ain’t no business o’ your’n how many babies Ike an’ Agnes get.”

  Her husband’s sense of humor wasn’t that easily quieted. The more laughs the man got, the more he antagonized Rachel. He snickered mischievously. “I gotta tell ya’ll this. Durin’ the worst o’ that storm last night, during the thunder an’ lightnin’… you know, while Agnes was agonizin’, Rachel got down on her knees a-prayin’ out loud, scared to death. That woman was drawed up so tight that she had t’ soak her butt in a tub o’ hot water before she could go to the toilet this mornin’. She was scared fartless.”

  The seamy story brought peals of laughter from the men and muted chuckles from the women while Rachel looked daggers at Lazarus. “I was not! Lazarus, I declare. Anybody’d be afraid o’ lightnin’ with you in the house! Way you talk, the Good Bein’s liable t’ strike you down any minute.”

  Time ticked slowly by for the former slaves who waited on the veranda. More than two hours passed and still no indication when the meeting would begin. Ike was especially nervous and edgy. He paced up and down, up and down, finally leaning against one of the columns. “Mista Ben is sure takin’ his own sweet time,” he muttered. “Wish he’d get this over with.”

  After what seemed an eternity, the wide door finally swung open and Cassie stepped out with an air of grandeur. “Mista Ben said all you grown people t’ come on in the great room. All you younguns stay outside. Go shuck corn. Clean that mud off’n your feet, Lazarus. Use that scraper, all o’ ya’ll. I ain’t got time t’ be moppin’ all day.”

  “My, my,” Mandy exclaimed with sarcasm. “Ain’t the new overseer’s wife gettin’ uppity.”

  Benjamin leaned on the mantel, staring aimlessly down at the hearth while the group filed in quietly. He finally turned and cleared his throat. “Now I know,” he said with a weak smile, “how a mother feels when she cuts the apron strings. You people are like my own kin. It’s not easy to cut you loose from my complete protection.”

  Logan’s bunch is kin to ye, Rufus surmised to himself. You just don’t know it.

  “I fought in the Civil War to protect your way of life here on the plantation, but for the time being, at least, the South is under Union control. The government has freed the slaves.” Benjamin’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. “Free to scrounge in the dirt for every bite you eat. No master to provide the niceties of life. It’s the law of the land.

  “You are free,” he continued. “Free to stay here on Larkspur and farm my land or go your separate way. I have enough seed for one more cotton crop. My land will be farmed on percentage…parts, that is. It is called ‘share-cropping’. I propose to give each able-bodied working man ten acres of his own land, complete with the deed to the property after a full year’s service. It’s an incentive for you to stay and work my land. Working families may continue living in the cabins free. You can plant your ten acres or let it lay idle. That’s entirely up to you.”

  He paused to recognize Ike, who was holding up his hand. “I heard talk that the gov’ment’s giving colored folks fawty acres o’ land and a mule.”

  “That may well be,” Benjamin replied dryly. “I’m not the government. By law, I’m not required to give you people a damn thing. Could you make a living on forty acres, Ike? You are so accustomed to the Farringtons paying your way…clothing, food, and dental work. What about a shanty on the forty acres? You going to make a teepee out of skins like the Indians? The government is dangling that offer like a carrot in front of a race horse for your support at the polls.” He looked from face to uneducated face. They don’t understand, he mused. Not one knows one political party from the other. The Yankee government plans to use our coloreds in a political game of chess.

  “My Negroes will take an oath to vote the way I say. I want that clear here and now. No politicking in town with the carpetbaggers will be tolerated. You can either stay and farm my land or take the government grant and hightail it out of here.” He puffed on the pipe and walked over to the window, staring into space for a time before speaking again. “If you’re planning on accepting that offer, Ike, tell me now and I’ll excuse you from this meeting. You can pack up your stuff and move.”

  Ike shifted his weight in the chair and looked terribly uncomfortable. “Ain’t gonna take it up, Mista Ben. I don’t want to leave Lawkspur. Just heard tell about the land.”

  “Anybody else? Just raise your hand, and you’re excused.” Benjamin eyed each man individually. All shook their heads. It galled him to have to explain all this. In the past, slaves obeyed without question. He felt a churning anger in the pit of his stomach, anger at the Union for causing him this humiliation and anger at the Negroes themselves. He didn’t like the look on Josephus’ face. So
mething foreign there he couldn’t define. “If you freed people choose to take the government offer, then by all means get out of here. Your shacks will be needed for other workers.”

  Logan glared at his son, Ike. “None o’ my bunch plannin” t” leave.”

  “As I was saying, other planters probably won’t give you any land.” He shook his finger to get the point across. “And understand this…any darkie who doesn’t pull his weight or stay the full year won’t get a deed. The land will revert to me. I will meet your barest needs this first year only. Staple groceries, two work overalls each, one pair of shoes. My responsibility will be over.”

  “The children’s feet grows all the time,” Mandy put in. “One pair ain’t….”

  Benjamin shrugged and laid it on the line. “That’s your problem. Let your pickaninnies go barefoot when they outgrow shoes. One pair, that’s it. Won’t be any more fancy town-going duds like you enjoyed before. No more circus tickets. That’s over. I will allow you to scrap pecans, walnuts and hazelnuts from the bottomland on fourths for extra money. Hunt wild game for your meat.”

  “Is just us four families expected t’ farm the whole o’ Lawkspur? More’n two hundred used to.”

  Benjamin grinned, knowing the task would be impossible. “Yes and no, Lazarus. The cotton fields will be divided into four parts. Each of you boys will be responsible for farming a fourth. Logan will oversee the operation and hire day help. Any more questions?”

  Josephus spoke up calmly, his voice belying the restlessness in his dark eyes. “Do our wives and children still have to work the fields, Mr. Farrington?”

  “Of course. Same as always.” Benjamin didn’t like what he saw. Josephus was always polite, yet there was something about him that Benjamin couldn’t pinpoint. Josephus was the only one of the lot who didn’t refer to him as “Mista Ben’. As a lad, Josephus was his playmate. They fished from the dock and played in the tree house. He called him “Benjamin” then until his mother insisted they call him “Mister Ben’ when he graduated from high school. It was necessary to hold their respect as they grew up. Their relationship had never been the same, but now, it seemed even more distant.