by Carter, Noni
“What I tell you, boy, ’bout comin’ out here this late after dark? It ain’t safe, Ned, it just ain’t safe.” Ned began to cry, so the woman lifted him up with her free arm. Glancing at him, her eyes grew softer, but the tone of her voice didn’t change.
“What business you two folks have out here this late? What happened to my boy?” she demanded. If she was the least bit scared, it didn’t show. “Well?” she asked again as I stood still, trying to think of what to say.
“I’m Anna. I done walked here. Me an’ Sebastian, here, done walked all the way here from Dayton.” Daniel reluctantly stepped into the light.
“What are y’all doing out here?” she demanded to know in the same harsh tone.
“We was lookin’ for the closest black neighborhood we could find so we could settle down. We been freed.”
“Y’all married?”
“Married? No, ma’am. This my brother, ma’am.”
“Well”—the woman paused as if lost in thought, then turned and said—“you betta follow me, then. We can talk somewhere warm where it ain’t raining. Bet y’all are a bit hungry, too. It’s late, an’ you cain’t trust folks that closely round here. But a good woman don’t turn her back.”
For me, her offer was as sweet as sugar and honey, but I knew to Daniel, it was a step into possible danger.
“Sarah, I don’t know about this,” Daniel whispered to me as the woman began walking, but I simply followed her, knowing that Daniel would, too. I knew what danger smelled like, and the scent of this was not so sour.
But as we followed the woman, we stayed alert, ready to flee if necessary. The lantern light flickered, and in the shadows that sprang forth I imagined I saw snarling dogs and men lying in wait to snatch the two of us. I moved closer to Daniel.
How much longer is this walk?
Finally, we came upon a fairly large wooden house. We could just make out the clothesline in the yard. We moved along to the far side of the house to where three wooden steps led up to the front door. We followed the woman up the steps and inside. In the darkness, she lit three candles, and we soon saw that we were standing in a small room with a soft, long chair in front of us and two other, smaller ones to our left. There was something undeniably familiar about this place: It felt comfortable, almost home-like.
The woman silently placed the little boy on the long chair and gently tugged off his wet shirt. I could feel the water dripping from my own clothes onto the clean, wooden floor. She handed the boy a small towel and said, “Dry off your feet and legs. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do in the morning, boy.” Ned’s lower lip quivered. As if blind to his expression, the woman took off his pants and slipped a nightshirt over his head.
“To bed for now,” the woman ordered, smacking him on his bottom.
“Yes, ma’am.” Ned skipped away, relief showing in his movements.
Then she turned her attention to us. “Step on into the light, now, so I can see you good. Take these,” she said, handing us towels. We began drying ourselves. “Well, I’ll be. Y’all are young folk.”
I nodded.
“Where y’all say you from? Where you live? How come you out there in the middle of the night, sleeping under a tree? Come in here and talk.”
We followed her into what was the kitchen, where she sat us down and began busying herself at the sink.
“Ma’am,” I said, “wish we had some kinda story to tell, but really ain’t got nothin’ much to say. Figured—”
Daniel broke in. “Figured Ohio was a good place to move to for free black folks. Hope to settle down round here an’ get jobs an’ all.”
While he spoke, I studied this woman. Mama Bessie was large, with shapely hips, naturally painted large lips, and eyes that seemed to see everything going on around her all at once. She wasn’t smiling, but her expression was kind and genuine.
After listening and scrutinizing Daniel and me with long glances, she set out plates of food. My stomach had been churning with hunger, so the food was a welcome sight. She sat down with us, and we prayed over the food. I felt her eyes lingering on us as we devoured the meal. I noticed how still and quiet the room had become. I began to ponder over what more I could say, but as soon as I was ready to open my mouth, she spoke.
“Looks like you need a place to stay.” Daniel looked up at her with imploring, excited eyes. “My name is Mama Bessie. Y’all have reached one of three Negro neighborhoods on the outskirts of Dayton. People come around here all the time with different stories and different pasts. I take them in just long enough for them to get on their own feet and earn enough money to buy or build a house.”
“Is that why this place is so big?” I asked, before turning my attention back to the last of my food.
Mama Bessie nodded. “Yes. Church scrape up just enough for me to do what I do here. I have women stay here when they got no place to go. Give ’em three weeks to find some kinda stability. But mainly this place here is for them children. So many younguns don’t have any kin. Their parents are dead or gone. So this is their home. Grow up here until they get jobs and get enough money to live on their own with a family and all. That’s how it is here.”
“You say women and children,” I noted. “What about Sebastian?” I could tell from Daniel’s face that he’d been wondering too.
Mama Bessie nodded, studying Daniel for a moment.
“You sleep here tonight, and tomorrow I’ll give you the names of folks who have places to stay in exchange for labor.”
“I sho’ would appreciate that, ma’am.” His eyes flooded with relief.
“All right, then,” Mama Bessie said.
“Ma’am,” I asked, “you say I got three weeks here?” Instead of answering, Mama Bessie leaned back in her seat and looked at me searchingly. Under her gaze, I felt as if our identities had been revealed. If she suspected anything, however, Mama Bessie kept it to herself.
“I can tell y’all have had it rough. Anna, there’s another woman who lives here; her name is Florence. Does most of the work around here I can’t do. There’s some pay—it’s not too much. But we could use some help. Now, there’s plenty to do around here. Little children spill through during the daytime when folks out working. What you think?”
I smiled at her. “Sure wouldn’t mind, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. This means a lot to us,” I said as she stood up.
With a nod, Mama Bessie turned to Daniel. “You can come on this way, you’ll be sleeping over here.” Mama Bessie led him to another room.
Their voices lingered a while longer, then Daniel called out, “Goodnight, Anna, an’ thanks, Miss Bessie. We really ’preciate this.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, child. But don’t call me Miss—it’s Mama Bessie.”
“Yes, ma’am, Mama Bessie,” he said, making the correction. I could hear the words Mama, Mama Mary echoing all through his voice.
I began to consider how fortunate we had been to find Ned out by the tree. No. Ned found us. We were blessed.
Mama Bessie returned a few seconds later and led me down a hallway.
“Y’all look like you’ve been travelin’ for a long time,” she said softly to me.
“Yes, ma’am, we’ve been. Traveled a long way.”
She led me up a staircase and along a hallway, until we reached a white wooden door.
“Here, let me see if there’s space in here for you. Don’t worry, though, we gonna find you a spot.”
“Ma’am.” I stopped her before she opened the door, my inquisitive spirit biting at me with another question.
“Yeah, honey?”
“I wanted to know why you taking me in like this. I mean, you don’t even know nothin’ about us ’cept what little we told you.”
For the first time, I saw a small smile creep upon Mama Bessie’s face. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then looked back at me.
“Well, child, the world tosses to me what it fancies, and I give back what I can. God done brought me through so many tri
als to get this place so I can help others who are in need just like I was. I been around a long time, and I know the face of trouble. I can smell it from far away. Now, I don’t know what y’all went through before you got here, but I don’t smell or see any trouble on you, nothing like that. So you here now, and in the name of God, I give my home to you.” Her smile widened, and she placed her hands on my shoulders, “Plus, you different. I know your spirit.”
Then she slowly opened the door of the end room and showed me a pallet to lie on. “Don’t forget, it’s Mama Bessie, you hear?”
“Yes ma’am. I mean, yes, Mama Bessie.”
The room was too dark for me to inspect just yet: I could barely even make out my pallet, which sat right underneath the single window. The moonlight that seeped through the curtains, however, allowed me to find a place to set down my belongings.
“Thank you, Mama Bessie,” I said again as she headed back out into the hallway.
I climbed into what was my new bed, in my new home. Closing my eyes, I felt my thoughts carrying me back to the dark roads of our journey. My lips began to tremble, and a teardrop escaped one of my eyelids.
Gratitude. That’s exactly what I was feeling.
“Thank you . . . thank you . . .” The trembling grew greater, and I couldn’t form God’s name. But I felt sure he heard my spirit.
Then, unexpectedly, tears cascaded down my face, and my bliss was lost in a bottomless rage and overwhelming sadness. I thought of John. Slavery, my yesterday, was still his reality. Had he escaped yet? Was he headed toward freedom? Or was he bent low in the fields, buried in agony? Was his patience persisting, or did this hour mark the beginning of an irreversible revolt? Could he feel the tension in my chest that brought his name plunging through my lips in a harsh whisper?
Look ahead of you, Sarah, not behind.
“John?” I whispered.
Education, Sarah.
I thought his name again, allowing the burning to return, for the time being, to its shadow inside of me. I lay exhausted on a tearstained pillow. But then Mary’s image appeared, and it brought me a feeling of peace. My tears were replaced with a smile as I blessed her and thanked her.
The crickets chirping outside my window turned into song. The large tree at the river’s edge, the icy ledge, the healing hands: All these things that had helped me during my escape brushed past my consciousness. My ancestors . . . my family . . . Mama Mijiza . . . they were all singing to me . . .
Freedom, freedom, yes, freedom!
CHAPTER
29
AS I LAY ON THE PALLET, I THOUGHT I HEARD SINGING, A TWIST of odd notes mixed with a beautiful melody.
Am I asleep?
I wasn’t sure. I opened one eye and saw that the curtains had been drawn back to bring the sun’s rays down onto my pillow. They struck my body with warmth. I imagined that I would be turning fifteen pretty soon, maybe in a month or so. Then a cold breeze rushed over my body, so I wrapped myself tighter in the quilt. When had my mornings ever been this peaceful? It was almost as if an angel had come to gently awaken me.
The singing that relieved me of my sleep stopped. I heard some shuffling around the room. A figure appeared over me.
“Anna, you up yet? I’m Florence.” I opened both eyes. The high-pitched voice had come from a chocolate brown light-skinned girl. She was tall and fully filled out. Her smile gleamed in the sunlight, and her eyes seemed to giggle at me. Florence looked to be a few years my senior.
“It’s Ah-nna,” I said with a soft yawn, dragging out the first a to emphasize the ah sound I intended my name to have.
“Anna, Anna. That’s a nice name! But get up, would you! We have work to do, but Mama Bessie said I could show you around. Well, c’mon! Your clothes are right there. You see ’em? Mama Bessie put ’em there for you. Wash—the pump is outside. Dress. We’ll eat when we return.”
I slowly raised myself up as Florence, whose open personality was already becoming apparent, talked on and on about Mama Bessie’s place and what I needed to do to get ready for my day. Slipping on the clothes, I admired the purple dress that fit me almost perfectly.
“You ready yet? Well, let’s go!” Florence continued to urge me on. I followed her out of the room.
“Wait. Sebastian . . . where is he?”
“Sebastian?”
“Yeah. We arrived here together. Have you seen ’im?” I inquired of her.
“Oh, yeah, Mama Bessie sent him down to Rodney’s a few blocks from here.” She smiled. “Are you ready now?” I smiled back and nodded.
The Hadson neighborhood stood as a solitary place in the center of an expanse of fields and woods. Florence mentioned, though, that a few houses were scattered here and there between this neighborhood and Dayton. She also informed me that a wagon ride up to Dayton would take just around an hour. Walking away from Mama Bessie’s, I noticed that her place was indeed the largest around, and for good reason. Young children scrambled all over her house and the grass out front, laughing and playing. The dirt roads were like veins, branching out to other houses. Most of the small homes I saw were wood and cabinlike, with the exception of a few brick structures.
As I listened to Florence talk about the people and experiences of the neighborhood, I observed my surroundings. A few homes had small gardens with flowers and vegetables, and some even had trees. Everyone lived relatively close to one another. As we walked farther on, I noticed the roads becoming denser with people bustling around. Wagons rode rapidly past us.
“This is the business part of town. Ms. Tina over there.” Florence gestured to a woman selling goods. “She invented something to make people’s teeth whiter. Usually she sells door to door, but today she must be doing good business out here on the street.”
When we were passing Susie’s Stitching Shop, I glanced around me. My nose detected the scent of fried fish. The smell made my stomach grumble. Sure enough, we came upon a dark-skinned man with a thick and curly moustache and beard who stood over pans in which pieces of fish sizzled in grease.
“Come an’ get yo’ fish,” he called. I smiled distantly at the man. His demeanor reminded me of John. My mind broke away from Florence’s chatter as the image of John walking by my side with his hip bumping up against my own held my attention hostage. I felt unburdened as I saw him point this way and that, the light in his eyes reminding me that we were in freedom. I allowed myself to hear his voice, and as I did so, the commotion all around me ceased to be.
Look, Sarah! We done found a black community existin’ all on its own. How ’bout that?
But then the magic broke. I loosened my gaze from the fish seller’s and quickened my pace, feeling a warm sensation in my cheeks from slight embarrassment. I needed to shake my mind free of those thoughts, so I decided to ask Florence what had been swimming around in my mind since I awoke that morning.
“Where’s the school up here?” I anticipated her leading me toward my dream. Instead, wrinkles creased her forehead.
“School? What you mean by that? Blacks don’t have a school. They say we don’t need it.” I felt dizzy, like the wagon wheels spinning by.
“So, don’t no one here learn their numbers an’ letters?” I asked, left wondering how I would continue learning what I had taught myself on the plantation. It had never been in question: I had expected to reach freedom and continue learning. Now that hope was crushed.
“Seem to me white folks up in town just don’t like to see no black folks learning. Folks here in Hadson would be crazy if they even got close to that school. That’s just how it goes up here.” I listened with anger and a growing feeling of uneasiness in my belly.
“You mean, I come all the way to freedom an’ there ain’t no school?” Disappointment washed over me.
“You had a school where you come from?” I shook my head, turning from her. She didn’t understand.
“Well, I’m sorry, Anna, that it ain’t perfectly how you like it here in Hadson, but there just ain’t many p
laces for us that’s exactly how we like them to be.”
“I know. I just really wanna learn,” I said with a sigh. How free could freedom really be without that opportunity?
“Well, in all truth, Anna, I always believe that if there’s something you want that bad, there’s always some way to get it. Don’t be so down! It ain’t that bad here.” Her sincerity warmed my heart a bit.
“Where you from, anyway?” she questioned.
“I’m from Tenn—” I began, but stopped short.
Where am I supposed to be from?
“Kentucky.” I let the word tumble out of my mouth as I made a vow to stay aware of what I was saying. I prayed Daniel was doing the same.
“You sure about that?” she joked, laughing. “Where your folks at, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I lost most of ’em,” I said, hoping to change the subject.
“Lost? You mean, they passed away or something?”
“No, no, they was sold.”
“Sold! So you was a slave,” she said matter-of-factly. I nodded.
“An’ you was freed?”
Not really wanting to lie to Florence, I simply nodded again. Maybe someday I’ll tell her the truth.
“I mean, you just don’t see many slaves living here,” she said. I stole a glance at her face to see if she had guessed the truth that easily. It didn’t seem so.
“I ain’t no slave,” I said with a frown, cringing at the title I had run from.
“No, I didn’t mean that. ’Course you’re not. It’s just, most runaway slaves and freed blacks from the south run to Philadelphia, or they travel all the way up to Canada ’cause they think it’s safer. I reckon it is. A while back, I saw a slave that ran up here taken all the way back down south. I also heard of another man, one who had never been a slave in his life, taken down south too.”
Florence’s words set a deep, unsettling feeling under my skin. Even though I had known danger could be so close, even though Mr. McCarthy had spoken to us about this, I still suddenly felt afraid.
