This Strange New Feeling

by Julius Lester

  I didn’t hear the quiet when it started. All of a sudden I noticed and it was like the whole world was still. I listened to the silence and wanted it to last forever. It felt like somebody was touching me all over with hands as soft as dandelion fluff. I didn’t want to fall asleep, but I must have, because the first thing I know I am hearing the overseer ringing the bell. I get up and stand at the window until I see Forrest riding up through the slave quarter. I go out to the kitchen and tell Mammy.

  “When did she die?” Mammy says sorrowfully.

  “Just now.”

  “Poor thing.”

  I don’t say anything, but go and tell the overseer. He stands a minute looking like Mistress’s dying is an insult to him. He squirts tobacco juice on my feet and walks off to the slave quarter. It wouldn’t be proper to have the slaves work in the fields until after her funeral. Overseer walk like he don’t know what to do today with no slaves to whip.

  When I get back to the house, Mammy has awakened Master. I bring him his breakfast in bed. There is no sadness in him. He sends me back to the kitchen for another helping of bacon and more biscuits. He says he wants to bury her this afternoon if Charles, the slave carpenter, can get a box made that soon. I tell him that folks might talk if he puts her in the ground so quick. He wants to know, What folks? She didn’t have no kin and no friends. Won’t be nobody to the funeral except Master and us slaves. The overseer be the only one to shed a tear, because he won’t have a job soon. Least I hope not.

  After I carry Master’s dirty dishes back to the kitchen, Mammy and I go up to Mistress’s room to wash her body and put her in her laying-out clothes. Her body is so smooth. There are no marks on it, not even warts or pimples or birthmarks. Her breasts are round and big, and I don’t know why, but I start crying and can’t stop. Mammy puts her arms around me, thinking I’m sorrowing because Mistress is dead. But that’s not it.

  I run down to the stables, and when Forrest sees me, he puts down the bellows he’s using on the fire and holds me close to him. I cry and cry, and feeling his big, strong hands on my back shames me so much. I break out of his arms and run and run until I cross the road and am in the forest. I lie down beneath a pine tree and cry and cry, and up in the tree I hear a squirrel squawking at me.

  Mistress is laying in the box what Charles made. She is laying in the front parlor and there are big white candles at the head and foot of the box. Master stands at the head of the box in a black suit.

  I stand in the doorway between the parlor and the dining room. The last of the slaves file past to pay their respects. They pass me on one side going in and on the other coming out. They look serious and sad as they file in, stop to look at Mistress, then shake Master’s hand and say a few words to him. I’m the only one who sees the smiles on their faces as they go out.

  Forrest comes in, Jim following. Master sees them and he rushes forward to shake Jim’s hand and to welcome him back to the plantation. You would think that Jim was his very own son. He’s not. Master ain’t like some slave masters who got a lot of back-door children. He just like Jim, ’cause Jim loves horses much as he do. He like Jim the way he like me. If Master like you, don’t make no difference your color.

  I wonder if Master knew that Jim was hiding at Forrest’s house. Probably. Some other white man would’ve had Forrest arrested for hiding a runaway slave. Not Master. He know. He understand how it is.

  The house is empty now. Master sits in a chair at the head of the box. It wouldn’t be right for him to go up to bed and leave his dead wife all alone in the night. I don’t think it’s right for him to have to keep the deathwatch all by himself, though, so I walk quietly across the polished floor and sit down by his chair.

  He tells me that I can go to bed, but I say that’s all right. I’d just as soon stay there with him. He don’t say nothing for a long time. Maybe he’s remembering, like I am, remembering the times he used to come to the house to court Mistress. I remember the second time he came and brought flowers to her and a paper sack of candy for me. He used to give me little notes to give her after he was gone.

  We’ve known each other a long time, me and Master. He don’t know much about me, I guess, but there ain’t much to know about a little slave girl. Except I ain’t little now.

  I know a lot about him and I think he appreciate that I haven’t ever told what I know. I didn’t even tell Mammy when Master and Mistress stopped sleeping in the same bed, and that’s been more than three Christmases ago. Even before that, I never told what they talked about in the night. We’ve known each other a long time, me and Master.

  “Was there something I could’ve done different?” he asks me.

  “No, Master. Not unless you could’ve brung her momma and poppa back to life. I think that’s the only thing that would’ve made her different.”

  “And she made both of us suffer for it.”

  “She the one what suffer. We just hurt from time to time.”

  He don’t say nothing for another long while. When he does, he says what I was afraid he would say.

  “How would you like to come to Richmond and cook and wash for me? There won’t be nothing for you to do around here anymore.”

  I look up at him. He has that shy man’s look in his eyes, the way a man looks when the question he’s asking is not the one he spoke. We’ve known each other for a long time, me and Master, and he ain’t like a lot of masters are with the slave women. It ain’t because he might not want to be. He just don’t know how to do it and make it seem all right.

  “That ain’t a good idea, Master,” I say.

  “You’re right, Maria,” he says quickly, almost like he’s glad I said what I did. “But what’re you going to do now? I’ve been thinking about selling all the slaves and the house too. I’m not the man to run a plantation. And if I leave the overseer in charge, I’m afraid he’ll whip everybody half to death in a year’s time.”

  “Yes, sir. But David Allman, the slave driver, know as much about running this place as Mistress did. In fact, whenever she had a decision to make, she didn’t talk to the ol’ overseer. She talk to David, even though he is a slave. He could run the plantation for you, and me and Mammy could help him.”

  He chuckles. “You and Mammy figure this one out together?”

  “No, sir. It’s my idea.”

  He laughs at that. “Maria, if you weren’t a slave, there’s no telling what you could’ve been.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  III

  It has been a month since Mistress died. Before Master went back to Richmond, he told me that I could sleep in Mistress’s bed and that I didn’t need to do any work, except to see that everything was kept dusted and cleaned. I thanked him, but I moved into an empty cabin in the slave quarter. Mammy tried to shame me by saying I was scared to sleep in a dead woman’s bed, but it’s not that. I guess I’m just afraid that if I sleep in a soft bed too long, I won’t know how to sleep on the floor when I get moved back there.

  There is not much work. I dust and sweep and help Mammy in the kitchen. Master told her that it was all right for her to cook lunch to carry to the slaves in the field. Ol’ overseer got mad about that, say Master’s slaves eat better than white folks. I told him they ought to since they work harder. He turned so red I thought the blood was going to pop out of his face.

  Mainly I wait for the evening. Forrest rides in about sundown. Sometimes I wait by the road and he’ll ride up, reach down, and lift me on his horse. I’ll wrap my arms around his waist and we’ll ride to the top of a hill and watch the sunset.

  Since that first morning when I walked into the kitchen and saw him sitting there, I don’t suppose there’s been a day when he hasn’t come. I thought he was coming to tell Mammy how Jim was doing. She said I must be thick in the head not to know why he kept coming around.

  That wasn’t it. I know why I want him to come, but I don’t know why he wants to come. He don’t ever say and I don’t ever ask. He comes and sometimes we sit in t
he kitchen and talk and drink coffee, or take a walk down by the creek. He tells me about all the different plantations he works on and all about the houses of the rich white people in Richmond and how he keeps their horses shoed and the wheels on their carriages repaired. I don’t have much to say. I ain’t never been anywhere and don’t know nothing except what happens on this plantation. He don’t seem to mind, though.

  He’s the most different man I’ve ever seen. He reminds me of Master. Forrest don’t seem to be afraid of anything in the world. That must come from being born free. He can read and write and once he took a little twig and wrote my name in the dirt. He spelled out the letters to me, pointing to each one, and that was the most wonderful thing. I didn’t see how them little up-and-down marks could be me, but it was wonderful anyway. He say that one day he’ll teach me to read and write any word in the world. I shook my head and said that was more than I wanted. I didn’t tell him that all I wanted was to learn to read and write his name. Then I’d go all over the world and write it on everything I passed. That would be a silly thing to do, but it feels nice to think about.

  Master is back from Richmond. All us slaves are worried. We think he has made up his mind to sell us and get out of the slave-owning business. For three days now he has had me packing up all of Mistress’s clothes and putting them in boxes, packing up the fine china and silverware. He’s had some of the men slaves taking the best furniture to his new house in Richmond. All the while he look serious and don’t talk except to give an order. Mammy said she tried to ask him what was going on, but he just told her that she would find out when the time came. We all know what that means.

  The slaves what been taking the furniture to Richmond say that Master got a big, fine house there. They believe he must be going to marry again, ’cause wouldn’t no single man need a house big as that. If that’s true, then I’m not worried. I know Master wouldn’t sell me or Mammy or Jim.

  I’ve finished packing all of Mistress’s belongings and I go to Master’s study to tell him.

  “I suppose you want me to put all them boxes in the barn tomorrow,” I say, standing in the doorway and looking at him sitting behind his big desk.

  “I don’t reckon you’ll be here tomorrow,” he say, calmlike.

  “Sir?” I say, feeling a large wound opening inside me. I blink my eyes rapidly, trying not to let him see me cry.

  “I sold you today.” He is smiling. I don’t understand how he can say something like that and smile. I suppose his new wife-to-be told him to get rid of me and don’t show no feeling about it.

  “Yes, Master,” I mumble. I notice my hands playing with the hem of my dress, like I’m some little baby.

  “Your new master is waiting out back for you. I’m sure you’ll be happy, Maria.”

  “Yes, sir.” I stand there, waiting for him to say something else. I don’t know what. Maybe that he’s sorry or that he appreciates all I’ve done. But he lowers his head and goes to reading some papers on his desk.

  “That’s all,” he says, looking up. But he’s smiling. “Your new master is waiting for you.”

  “Yes, sir.” I walk out of the study slowly and for an instant think about running out the front door, across the road, and into the forest. But I don’t. I walk through the parlor and the dining room and out the back door.

  I don’t see anybody except Forrest, and I rush into his arms, sobbing. I don’t want to tell him that I’ll never see him again, but finally he quiets me and I tell him that I’ve been sold.

  “Where’s your new master?” he asks.

  “Master said he was waiting for me out here.” I look around but don’t see anyone. “I don’t see nobody.”

  “You don’t?” Forrest asks.

  I shake my head.

  “I suppose I’m nobody,” he teases me.

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” I say, wondering how he can make a joke at a time like this. “Maybe Master meant to say that he was waiting in the front of the house.”

  We go to look, but there is no one there.

  “Now, what exactly did your master say?” Forrest wants to know.

  “He said I’d been sold and that my new master was waiting for me in the back.”

  Forrest takes my hand and we go around the house again. No one is there.

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “Well, your master wouldn’t lie to you.” He is smiling at me.

  I’m about to lose my temper and ask him how come he think my being sold is so funny, when he starts to chuckle.

  “You got to call me Master now,” he say.

  I can’t believe it. “Forrest?” I say softly.

  He has a grin on his face that’s so big I’m afraid he’s going to break his jaw.

  “Forrest!” I shriek loud enough to wake the dead and all the angels in heaven. “Forrest!”

  Laughing, he picks me up and whirls me around and around, and I’m laughing and crying and shrieking all at the same time. I still can’t believe it, and when he puts me down, I demand that he tell me everything.

  “Well, I went to him right after the funeral and asked him would he set you free because I wanted to marry you. He said he couldn’t do that, because it was against the law. If he set you free, you would have to leave the state of Virginia. But he said there wasn’t any law against a free black man owning a slave. Fact is, I know several who own their wife and children. By the law, they can’t marry. But ain’t no law say they can’t live together as a family. They slaves on paper and that don’t mean nothing. He said he had to go to Richmond for a while, and when he came back, he’d sell you to me. So pack your things, because you coming home with me tonight.”

  “Mammy! Mammy!” I scream, and run into the house, almost knocking Master down. “Oh! I’m sorry, Master. I didn’t see you standing here in the doorway.” Then I throw my arms around his neck and hug him so tight I get scared I might break his neck. “Thank you, Master! Thank you!”

  He doesn’t hug me back, and when I let him go, he is smiling. It’s not his real smile, but more like the one he would give Mistress whenever there was company around.

  “I’m going to miss you,” he says.

  “Yes, sir” is all I can say, and he knows that I won’t miss him.

  IV

  Forrest rises early. Sometimes he has to ride a ways to the plantation where he’ll be working that day. He tells me to go back to sleep, that he’s used to getting up and fixing his own breakfast and packing a dinner. Even after two years he tells me that. I tell him what I’ve been telling him for two years: He can get used to letting me do it.

  So we do it together. He starts the coffee boiling on the cookstove while I start frying up some pork chops and put the potatoes in the hot ashes in the fireplace. He goes out to the barn to give the horse he’s going to ride that day some fresh oats and to brush him. I watch him through the window, and every morning it’s like that first time when I saw him riding up through the slave quarter, riding slow and easy, like he was brother to the sun. I sweep out the cabin and make the bed while he’s down to the barn. By then the coffee is ready, and I pour two cups and take them down to the barn. We sit on the railing of the corral and watch the sun come up.

  Our house is at the top of a small hill and I can almost see the plantation where I lived. Sometimes I see smoke rising from behind the stand of pine trees that blocks the big house from my view, and when I do, I know that Master and his new wife are back from Richmond and Mammy is cooking up breakfast.

  Forrest asked me once if I missed the plantation. I asked him if he had lost his mind. It don’t make no difference how good a master is, you still a slave. Time I said it, however, I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

  That’s the one thing me and Forrest argue about sometime. He say if he set me free, we would have to leave Virginia. I say, Let’s go. He say that he don’t want to, that he got plenty of work around here. I tell him that a blacksmith can get work up North. He say he don’t k
now nobody in the North and he was born and raised in Virginia and for me not to worry. He say that he has already made out his will, and in there it says that I’m to be free when he dies. He say that is how his mother got free. He ask me if I trust my old master. I tell him that I do. He say that Master has the will and Master knows I’m to go free. I tell him I understand, but I’d rest easier in my mind if I wasn’t a slave on paper.

  I don’t want to think about that this morning. Forrest is going into Richmond today, and he say I can come to go shopping if I want. He’s going to see a man who has a pretty horse for sale. We got three horses now. I don’t see why we need another one, but Forrest loves horses. He say he want a fine new horse just to pull the new carriage he wants to buy for me. I tell him the wagon is good enough for me. He say I don’t understand.

  Forrest leaves me off at the dry-goods store while he goes to buy the horse. Now that I’m here, I wonder why I came. I look at all the people walking up and down the street and wonder where they came from and where they’re going. It is hot and the dust hangs in the air like laundry put out to dry. I go in and out of stores, but don’t buy anything. I could make better dresses when I was eight years old.

  I am walking down the street when I see a large crowd. I go toward it, hoping it’s the puppet show I happened on the last time I came to town. I look around eagerly at the crowd, thinking that I might see Mammy, Jim, or somebody from the plantation. I don’t see any black people, however.

  Suddenly the crowd starts applauding and hollering. I look toward the front. There on a stage is a long, tall white man. Standing next to him is a black girl who looks no older than I was when Forrest came and took me. Her head is bowed.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” shouts the thin white man in a shrill voice. “Now this here is one of the finest girls you’ll see in the state of Virginia. She has worked in the fields, but with the proper training can work in the house. Obedient, docile, and there’s not a mark on her body.” He looks at the girl and says, “Take it off!”