by Joyce Hansen
Easter, I will try once again to build a life for us here because that is what you wish. I am even going to behave as the other people here do, and ask the men to help me. However, nothing will feel right inside or outside of me until we are together. I will try to be hopeful, but it is hard. It seems as though every time I feel a bit of joy, something happens.
By the way, I am waiting to hear from Jason, still. I wonder if he received the letter I sent to him. Maybe he’s afraid to write me back. Thinks that I will snatch him out of that theater and bring him with me—where he belongs. Then both of us can come to your doorstep, Easter, (laugh) Wouldn’t that be a time? Anyway, my love, that is all for now. Write back soon.
Your Obi
Chapter 16
The little baby gone home,
The little baby gone along,
For to climb up Jacob’s ladder.
—AFRICAN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL
January 2, 1869
“That spring weather was a fooler yesterday,” Samuel said as he and Obi watched the tree they’d just sawed fall to the ground. “You know, this a good time to put up a cabin. Before the spring planting.” Samuel began to saw the branches off the tree. “We have this cabin up in a couple of days if Brother Paul and James get over here like they promise.”
Obi picked up the other handsaw. He was still borrowing tools from Miss Fortune, but promised to begin to buy himself new tools again the next time he earned money from carpentry work. “I think more than a couple of days, Samuel. We have to build another foundation. When Simon come this afternoon, I going to start him mixing the sand and shell—”
“Use logs for the foundation.”
“The tabby looks better,” Obi said as he sawed the thick branches.
“Look better? You painting a picture or building a house to keep your hide out of the rain?”
“I want the house to be pretty like a picture and still keep me and Easter warm and dry.”
“I thought since you’re not buying logs this time that you just building a simple cabin.”
“I am. But it has to look in a pleasant way. Now I’m going to show you how to cure the wood so it fit just right in the joints. We make a rack and a cover and build a small fire under the wood and—”
“When is Easter coming home?” Samuel interrupted Obi’s explanation.
“In May.”
“This one or the next?”
“I ain’t having no jimmy swing cabin with logs piled up on each other and a tiny space for door and window.”
“Yes, but you want to get it up before the woman come home looking for a place to lay her head, Obi. You work a man harder than any slave master I ever know.”
Samuel threw the branches he’d cut into a pile of other leaves. “Look like we getting some more help, Obi.”
Obi looked in the direction of Rose’s cabin and saw Julius walking toward them. He sucked his teeth. “You a big jokester, Samuel. You know Julius ain’t coming here to dirty his hands.” Especially building my house, he added to himself.
Julius wore a finely made gray linen jacket with a waistcoat to match and a well-cut pair of trousers.
Samuel spoke first. “Brother Obi, I think Julius come to tell you why he can’t help you today.”
Julius ignored him. “We having a important meeting of the Beaufort Republican Club tomorrow, so I have to go there.”
“You walk over here to tell us that?”
“No. I have a message from your wife. When I walk past your house she ask me to tell you to stop by Miss Mary store and buy syrup for your little girl. Say Charlotte still have that cough.”
Samuel wiped his forehead. “That woman keep a man busy.” He smiled slightly, and Obi knew that a joke was coming. “Keep two men busy. Have an important man like Julius bringing me a message.”
“I always willing to help,” Julius said. “Now you help me and make sure you come to the next meeting.”
“Julius, don’t start speechifying. We have work to do. Obi needs a cabin,” Samuel said.
“This political work just as important as the work you doing.” Julius had tried to be cordial to Obi ever since the night he came to Rose’s cabin, but Obi could tell it took all of Julius’s politician’s skill to be friendly. “Obi, Samuel, I talk to you about this too. I still want us to form a militia on this island.”
“Be glad to,” Samuel said. “After I done building Obi’s cabin and planting and harvesting and making up for what I lost last year. The militia paying wages?”
“I told you before, Julius. I help protect the village, but I ain’t joining no militia,” Obi said. “I finish with army life.”
“You men think about it. You remember Jonathan Barnwell, the one you did that work for, Obi? He move back to Massachusetts. Sell his land to another Yankee couple. The Klan threaten him when he was in Edgefield, registering voters.”
“Well, he shoulda stay down here with us. Ain’t no Klan here,” Samuel said before Obi could answer.
Julius waved as he walked away. “See you at the next meeting. Think about what I say. All the other men are joining.”
Julius left, and Samuel smiled slowly as if savoring his own joke first before he told it to anyone else. He pointed to Julius in the distance. “He the biggest Republican since Lincoln die. They say the president use to split log when he a boy. Julius better split these logs, and maybe he be president some day. I ain’t got time for no militia. I already have my rifle, any Klan worry me.”
Several other men came later on in the day to help them. They cut down more trees, and Obi tried to keep doubts at bay and maintain the good spirits he’d begun the day with. But it was hard to do. His one possibility for carpentry work had been run out of South Carolina. Still, Obi decided to put another ad in the Santa Elena paper.
“They even running white men away from here. What chance for the likes of us?” Obi said to Samuel as he walked with him to Miss Mary’s store before dusk.
“Well, all these Republicans and politicians and Yankees need to stay away from them upstate places. Them Democrats and Red Shirts ain’t going to rest till they run all of us out of there. Obi, me and you is alike. All I want is to care for my family and for us to be safe and to live well, and for my little girl to get good schooling. Someday grow up to be a educated young woman, like your Easter. She and Easter be good friends, you know.”
When they neared the store, Samuel said, “I told my wife to get the missionary doctor, Dr. Emmy, we call her, the one who work with Miss Fortune. I don’t think this conjure syrup from Miss Mary be enough. Charlotte need real medicine.”
“People get colds. Especially the children. Charlottte look like a healthy girl,” Obi said.
Samuel frowned and rubbed his forehead. “Last year a lot of children had that bad whooping cough and die.”
“Most of the children who die from the whooping cough are infants.” Obi remembered reading an article about whooping cough in a newspaper once—when he was first learning how to read. “Your girl be about five or six years. It doesn’t do them as bad.”
Samuel tried to brighten. “She’s a big strong gal, like her mama. She’ll be all right. I get that syrup and the doctor medicine too.”
After Samuel purchased the cough syrup and Obi checked the mail, they walked back down the shelled road together. “Sam, tomorrow I show you how to cure them logs.”
“You a taskmaster. See you after day clean. I ain’t coming out in the dark of dawn like you.”
Patches of daylight were appearing in the dark sky when Obi left Rose’s cabin the following morning. He thought he saw a figure walking toward him, but he wasn’t certain. Until the person drew near. Samuel. Something terrible happen. Samuel wouldn’t walk to Rose’s to meet him. He’d go directly to the unfinished cabin.
“My baby die last night, Obi. Can you make she a coffin?” His voice trembled, and his usually smiling round face sagged.
Obi had never made a child’s coffin before. “This be
sorrowful work,” he said to Simon, who had offered to help him. All the while he worked he recalled how Charlotte would come into the yard to play with Little Ray and the other children—even with Grace, who didn’t play.
People remarked at the beauty of the coffin Obi had made, as if such a thing could be beautiful. He smoothed the wood, polished it with beeswax, and carved a heart with her name written underneath, along with the dates of her birth and death. Samuel tried to pay him, but Obi refused to take his money. “You been a friend to me.”
Charlotte was buried the following evening in the cemetery behind the church. They sang “The Baby Gone Home” while Samuel’s wails shattered the night. Charlotte’s mother, Laura, placed the girl’s treasured doll on her grave—a store-bought doll, not the corn husk dolls that most of the girls played with. She did not cry. “Most of these women’s tears dry up long ago,” Rose whispered to Obi as Brother Paul began to pray.
When Obi raised his head after the prayer, Grace was holding Araba tightly, as she used to do before Araba had started walking. And instead of squirming, Araba held on to Grace. Later on that evening Scipio begged Obi to let him sleep next to him on his pallet.
“Why?” Obi asked.
“I afraid.”
“You be okay. Nothing happen to you. I’m right here. Simon’s here, and so is Little Ray.”
While Simon, Scipio, and Little Ray lay across their pallets, and Rose and the girls slept in the other room, Obi wrote Easter a short, sad letter about Charlotte’s death.
January 4, 1869
My Dearest Easter,
I am sorry to have to tell you this bad news, but your little friend Charlotte has died. Someone told me that she was one of the first children you taught. Well, the poor little girl was buried tonight. I had the sad task of making her coffin. Her father, Samuel, has been a friend to me, so I tried to make it as beautiful as you could make such a sad thing. She had that whooping cough. It seems as though many children are falling ill. The weather has turned so cold, and many people still do not have enough food, fuel and the right kind of shelter. Rose is worried about keeping the children we have here healthy. So far we are all well. I know that you are busy so I won’t give you too much to read.
I miss you very much. I still have no word from Jason.
Love, Obi
Chapter 17
Early in the year one of my little scholars died.
—ELIZABETH HYDE BOTUME, TEACHER, FREEDMEN’S SCHOOL
Charlotte was only the beginning. The damp, cold, rain-drenched days of January brought many other deaths—especially for children. Each time Obi thought that he would continue working on his cabin, he had to make a tiny coffin instead. People from other parts of the island came to him. They’d heard of the young carpenter in New Canaan who’d made a beautiful coffin for the senator who had been killed, and for a little New Canaan girl.
He was paid with chickens, eggs, fish, boots from a man who knew the cobbler’s trade, and a pair of well-cut trousers made out of good broadcloth.
Obi continued to attend the New Canaan Republican Club every Friday evening. On an unusually cold and rainy Friday, when he returned to Rose’s cabin after a meeting, Araba was whimpering, cradled in Rose’s arms.
“What happen?” Obi asked.
“Just a cold, but we ain’t taking no chances. You better take some tea too. You wet from the rain. Look at you, Obi.”
Rose daubed the child’s forehead with a damp cloth. “It’s all right, baby,” she cooed. “You rest.” She rocked her in her arms.
Grace handed him a cup of tea, her face haggard and haunted again. Obi touched Araba’s forehead with the back of his hand. “She have a fever.”
“Only slight. But I not waiting for her to get sick. Give her some of this tea, and that keep the cold from getting worse.”
The next morning he was relieved to see Araba struggling over to him, determined to walk on her own, so that he could swoop her in the air as he’d done every morning since she’d started walking. Little Ray held his hands up for his ride through the air too.
“The weather dampish,” Rose said, “and she seem to have a slight fever still, but Grace will be with her while I begin to work on the kitchen garden.”
“Melissa brewing her up some sassafras root and some soup. I might even ask the missionary doctor to look at her. She’ll be fine,” Rose assured him.
Obi opened the door. “I’m going to Elenaville to put another carpenter’s ad in the paper. When I return, I’ll be working on my cabin.”
“Be careful, don’t snatch up any more white men in the collar,” Rose chuckled as Obi left.
The evergreens sparkled in the warm sunlight, so different from the rainy cold night before. A clear, fresh, hopeful morning.
Obi placed the identical ad in the paper that he’d put there before. However, this time he wrote it out beforehand. When he stepped into the newspaper office, the same man sat behind the receptionist’s desk. “I’m placing this ad for five weeks,” Obi said, putting the paper and five dollars on the desk.
The man picked it up, read it, and said, “Thank Mr. Booker for us.”
Obi smiled to himself as he left the office. If the newspaper man didn’t remember him, he doubted anyone else would. Can’t tell one of us from the other. Instead of going back to New Canaan, he walked to the end of the street. There were remnants of the storm in Elenaville too. Some trees were down, and others were bent in the direction the wind had taken. The houses, however, seemed to have withstood nature’s fury better than the cabins and lean-tos on other parts of the island.
He gazed at the house girded with the two porches, his favorite of all of the homes sitting on the bluff, and imagined Easter promenading around the porch of a house like that one. Perhaps he’d try again, especially if he got more carpentry work. He could put up the cabin temporarily, and carefully take his time to build a real home. Suddenly, as will often happen on clear sunny days, he had an idea.
He walked down the street toward the homes on the bluff, and spotted one that he’d previously called at, but no one had been there. Though the house wasn’t ramshackle, it needed work. Some of the boards were missing on the side of the house, and a shutter hung off one of the windows. The gate was loose and rickety.
Obi fought his shyness and walked around to the back of the house. He knocked on the door and a middle-aged gentleman answered. He stood tall but was beginning to stoop a little. His thick, white hair touched his shoulders and his lips looked like a grim line etched in his face. He was like the house, Obi thought. Not totally broken down, but needing some work.
“Yes. What do you want?” he asked abruptly. “I have no work for you, no food and no money.”
“Suh, I come here for my master.”
“Your what?”
“My master, suh.” It was all that Obi could do to not laugh as he watched the magical word change the man’s attitude.
The lines in the man’s face softened. “Your master?”
“Yes. I call him that. Just a habit, but I still serve him, because he always treat me right and I can’t desert him in his time of need. His name be Mr. Booker and he send me to the paper to put in a ad for him. But he also said that I should go about and advertise for him some. Let people know that he’s a master carpenter.”
The man folded his arms and relaxed. “So you’re his helper?”
“Yes, suh. Mr. Booker’s been feeling poorly, that’s why I can’t leave him. It’s me who do the work for him. He train me.”
The man studied Obi carefully. “So you the one who’s doing most of the work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But I’m paying Mr. Booker?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But it’s Mr. Booker who’s the master carpenter. Not you.”
“He train me.”
“I don’t know that. If I hire a master carpenter, that’s what I want.” He ran his fingers through his hair, and his brown eyes took on a mischi
evous glint, almost like a child. “Suppose I pay you directly. This business is between you and me. And what you give your master is between you and him. I can’t pay you a master carpenter’s salary. Three dollars to fix the gate, replace the spokes in the fence and the slats on the side of the house.”
“That seem fair to me, but I have to use my master’s tools,” Obi said, surprised at himself for this tomfoolery. “So I have to give him the whole three dollars. If I’m gone out with his tools, then he know I have work. I’d be pleased to help you, but can’t do it for three dollars.” Obi paused and rubbed his forehead as though he were in deep thought. “Six dollars be good. I give him four and keep two for myself.”
He studied Obi closely. “Five dollars. Three for your master and two for you. Be here first thing in the morning. What’s your name?”
“Jennings,” Obi said, “And your name, sir?”
“Richards. Master Richards.”
Them the days done. You never hear me say master, less I talking about myself.“Yes, sir, be here first thing in the morning.”
Obi rushed out of the yard before Richards saw him smile. He walked quickly back to Elenaville’s main street, where he blended in nicely with the vendors and farmers and other black folk. He laughed to himself for the entire trek back to New Canaan. He had the work he wanted to do until the man caught on to him.
Chapter 18
After the War we just wandered from place to place,
working for food and a place to stay.
—DELICIA PATTERSON, FORMER SLAVE
Obi was anxious to tell Rose what had happened. When he reached the cabin, Rose was cleaning her yard and the kitchen garden. Little Ray was underfoot and ran to Obi when he saw him. Obi picked him up and swooped him in the air. “How’s Araba?”
