by Carter, Noni
“I want an education, Mrs. Rosa,” I said truthfully.
Mrs. Rosa nodded at me. “I can see that, Anna. All right. Now, do you have a job?”
“Well, I work with Mama Bessie in the house with the children. She give me a place to stay, an’ a little bit of money each month that’s mine to keep. But that’s all.”
Mrs. Rosa nodded and searched my eyes for something I prayed that I had. Finally, she spoke.
“Most folks don’t know about me tutoring, and I prefer that it stay that way. There’s no danger in doing what I do, I just prefer to have as few students as possible.”
I nodded hurriedly. As long as you’ll teach me!
“But I think, Anna, that tutoring you would be a pleasure. However, there is one thing I need from you.” Inside, my spirit sprang to the rooftop, danced among the clouds, and shouted with joy. On the outside, however, I stayed as calm as I could, waiting for her next words.
“What I require is your dedication. I want you to focus on what I teach and to learn all you can. If it so happens that you are no longer interested in this education, I need for you to let me know. I do not tutor the blind.”
“Tutor the blind?” I asked with a frown.
“I can’t teach you if your eyes have closed to what I teach, rather. There is nothing wrong with that, it just means they have opened to something else. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I can’t tutor one who has no desire to be taught, especially around here. But I see the opposite in you and I believe that, if you can make it here by the time the sun has fully risen every Monday through Thursday, I might be able to tutor you.”
I threw my arms around Mrs. Rosa and thanked her with tears in my eyes.
“And what about you, Miss Florence, what have you got on your mind?”
Florence had been sitting silently, smiling, but quickly responded, “Oh no, no ma’am, I don’t want no education like that. I jus’ sew, Mrs. Rosa, that’s all.”
Mrs. Rosa studied Florence for a second as I reveled in the moment. Then she got up and guided us to the door.
“All right, ladies. I apologize for having to rush you off, but I must be getting back to my business. Anna?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll be happy to see you early in the morning next week.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As Florence and I walked back to Mama Bessie’s, my mouth ran fast with words.
“Flo, why didn’t you ask her to tutor you right along with me? You told me yourself you wanted to learn!”
Florence shrugged. “I got other things on my mind, Anna, and when I said that to you, I didn’t mean learning like this! I don’t think I could do that.”
“Why not?”
“It just ain’t for me. There are other things in this life for me. But you don’t understand how much it means to me to see you smiling like that.”
My smile widened. Another answered prayer.
On Monday, I was up bright and early. When I knocked, it took Mrs. Rosa a little while to answer the door. When she did open it, a small child sat patiently in her arms. The little girl gazed at me with eyes that looked like Mrs. Rosa’s.
“Hey, Miss Anna. Seems my baby’s up early today. Hope you don’t mind, but she won’t cause distraction.” She considered my puzzled glance at the child.
“I didn’t tell you about Little Sue?” she asked, guiding me through the door.
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, then, this is her.”
I waved my fingers at the small child, and she bent her fingers back in response, silently and solemnly. Mrs. Rosa set her on the floor with a wooden toy and led me to the table set up in the front room to the right.
“How are you today, Miss Anna?” she asked, seating herself.
I smiled. “I’m doing good, and very grateful to you,” I replied.
“You mean, you’re doing well,” she corrected without hesitation while pulling out a small piece of paper and her ink.
“Write your name for me.”
A wave of fear hit me. Would she judge the way I wrote? What would she think? But the anxious feeling faded just as quickly as it came. I put my excitement aside and focused.
I slowly drew the quill out and wrote the first letter. A. Then I paused, thinking about the next letter: y. Then, a-n-n-a. I wrote in large letters, glancing over at Little Sue upon hearing her mumble words to herself that I couldn’t make sense of. I looked up at Mrs. Rosa quickly, waiting for her remarks. She took the paper without any expression.
“Oh, Ayanna is it?”
“No, ma’am, just Anna.”
“But you wrote Ayanna.”
“I wanted you to know my real name, my … my African name.”
Mrs. Rosa quickly glanced up at me. She seemed, in that moment, ready to share some secret with me, but she said nothing. Her eyes returned to the book she had been reading.
Another thought swam into my mind. “Mrs. Rosa, why ain’t there any black schools anywhere? Newspapers say the city pays for white schools in different places, but I ain’t heard of any black school funding.”
Mrs. Rosa looked over at my seated figure and lifted two fingers to her lips as she thought about my question. “There are black schools, Anna. I haven’t heard of any in Ohio, but there’s a city—Boston—that has a school for black children. It’s a little different there.”
“But—”
“I think it’s time we started that lesson of yours,” she said.
I let my questions slip away, and we began.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that the woman who tutored was quite different from the kind, relaxed woman who had answered the door when I first met her. No badly pronounced word, uncrossed t, or spelling error I made ever swept past Mrs. Rosa’s scrutiny. Her lips remained pursed throughout the lesson, and every blunder of mine was met with a soft but firm “Try it again.”
“An educated mind is a quick mind, Anna. Listen closely the first time,” she instructed me that first day when I asked her to repeat herself. In every passage I’d read or copy, she’d bid me to dig deeper and find meaning in the words that I couldn’t find at first.
On that first day, Mrs. Rosa walked me through a lesson on how to put my thoughts on paper in an organized way. She jumped straight into reading, picking up books and directing me to read a few chapters aloud. When she had to attend to her child, she would give me an assignment so we wouldn’t lose any time. The process was slow with her constant interruptions to correct me. It was plenty of work, but the excitement that pulsed through me never wavered, even as I stumbled through everything she placed in front of me.
What could be greater than getting educated as a free person?
Mrs. Rosa was drawn to poetry, and I found I liked it, too. One of the poems she selected was by a black man named Jupiter Hammon.
“I want you to read one of the stanzas in this poem, Anna. It’s titled ‘An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly.’” She laid down a single stanza she had copied onto paper.
“Mrs. Rosa, you never told me ’xactly who Miss Wheatley was,” I said, pulling the page closer.
“She was a black woman who had her poetry and writings published. Not many folks know about her, but I made it my business to learn what I could.”
A black woman like me, published!
“Mrs. Rosa, how do you know all this stuff? How did you get their poetry? They seem like great folks! An’ yet, I ain’t never seen their stuff.”
She smiled a little. “You haven’t ever seen, you mean. I have my ways, Anna. I have my ways.”
I believe it was the moment Mrs. Rosa shared Miss Wheatley’s story that my world began to expand. My mind spun with the idea of writing well enough to have books published, but Mrs. Rosa quickly chased away my daydreams.
“Read it please, Anna.”
I nodded and bent over the page.
“‘O, c … coe-m … no, cuhm you pee … pee-usss’?” Uncertain, I
glanced up with knitted eyebrows at Mrs. Rosa.
“The i sounds like eye,” she said without looking up, scribbling the word on a sheet of paper. I waited for her to continue.
“It means very religious-like,” she explained.
“Oh. ‘O, come you pie-us you-th: ad … add-ore …”
“Try the other sound the a makes.”
“‘Uh-door.’”
“Know what it means?” she asked.
“I think so. Let me finish it. ‘O, come you pie-us youth! uh-door the wise … no, wizdum of … of thy God in br-breeng-eeng thee fruhm dist-ant shh-ore, shore …” I stopped, pleased at hearing myself speak the words, but Hammon’s message left me a bit confused. I looked over at Mrs. Rosa.
“‘O, come you pious youth! adore, the wisdom of thy God, in bringing thee from distant shore….’” She recited the stanza from memory, then waited for me to critique it.
“Sounds to me like Mr. Hammon’s sayin’ that livin’ on that distant shore was a sin. Sounds like he believed it was God’s wisdom that dragged loads of folks from that place through hell on large boats to this land, here.” I felt anger simmering deep inside.
Mrs. Rosa looked up at me with steady eyes. “I’m glad you’ve learned not to simply read the words but to make sure you understand exactly what it is you’re reading. That’s important, Anna.”
I looked down at the stanza again and back up at my tutor.
“Why would he believe that? You believe the words, Mrs. Rosa?”
“Many people believe that, Anna, even people like Mr. Hammon.”
“But what about you?” I asked her, interested. But she simply picked up the paper.
“Right now, we’re not learning about what I think. Here, let’s look at this. There are rules in writing you need to learn.”
The day continued like that. That afternoon, Mrs. Rosa gave me a book to take home. She told me to read the first chapter and write down any words I didn’t understand.
I held the book tightly to my chest as I walked back along the path to Mama Bessie’s. A small smile raced across my lips. I felt like someone new.
The second day arrived just as quickly as the first, and that morning I found myself knocking once again on Mrs. Rosa’s door.
“Good morning, Anna.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Rosa.” As soon as I stepped inside, however, the morning’s thrill drifted steadily away. As I stood in the arch of the doorway, I saw two other girls seated at the table. One was a good deal younger than I was. Her red curls jiggled as she turned to see who was entering the room. The young white girl smiled at me and waved. Anita, on the other hand, decided against lifting her eyes in greeting. She kept right on reading. I felt uneasy as I turned back to Mrs. Rosa.
“Anna, I also tutor two other girls,” Mrs. Rosa explained matter-of-factly upon seeing the questioning expression on my face. “Each of you has one private day and then you have three days together. Come in and meet them.”
“I’ve met Anita,” I said quietly.
“Well, good. Anita Jacobs has been with me the longest. She’s a wonderful young scholar.” At that, Anita raised her eyes but didn’t quite manage to look at me. I wondered why she had discouraged me from getting an education when here she was, learning herself! I looked at her set lips and resolved in my mind that she had never smiled in her life.
I silently sat down in the chair reserved for me, and Mrs. Rosa sat beside me. The seating was as imperfect as could be: a four-person table that seated four very different people.
“This is Peggy,” Mrs. Rosa said, touching Peggy’s hand.
“Yes, I’m Peggy, and I’m ten,” she said in a high-pitched voice.
“Hey, Peggy, I’m Anna,” I said, not knowing whether to hold out my hand or nod her way. But she held her hand out to me and we shook hands like friends. I wondered why she wasn’t in the white school I saw in Dayton.
“So that it’s clear and there are no questions,” Mrs. Rosa began, cutting into my thoughts, “Peggy’s mother believes in equality. It’s that simple. She also believes that Peggy will learn more quickly in a private setting rather than in a school with other students.”
“Yes, I like my teacher,” Peggy added, smiling excitedly.
Mrs. Rosa smiled and stood up to pull a book from her bookcase.
How I longed to dig in to those books!
She sat, crossed her legs, and handed me the book.
“We’ll read while Little Sue is sleeping. Later on, I have assignments for each of you to work on.” She looked over at Anita and Peggy to address them. “Anna’s just learning to read. She’ll start us out. When it’s her turn to read, listen to the story and translate it into French.”
I stared wide-eyed at Mrs. Rosa.
“I was born overseas, Anna. It was the first language I learned,” she explained. “We learn French, sometimes, just for fun,” she said with a smile.
Nervous, I cracked open the book and began to read, picking through words, struggling to sound them out, and feeling all eyes glued on me. Mrs. Rosa was there by my side, helping me out, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Anita cross her arms.
I felt embarrassed, especially when I passed the book and heard Anita and even Peggy read with little effort. When my turn came again, I tried running through the words like Anita and Peggy, but I only stumbled worse.
“Anna, slow down. You don’t have to read like that yet. Don’t worry, it will come,” Mrs. Rosa interjected.
But I wanted it to come immediately. As I sat through the writing part of the lessons, discouraged, I made mistakes I normally would not have made.
“Anna,” Mrs. Rosa said at one point, “I want you to stay a little longer after we’re finished.”
I nodded as my heart sank.
The hours passed, and we separated in order to work on our own assignments. Anita seemed inclined to spend time watching or playing with Little Sue, and Mrs. Rosa appeared to like that. It seemed to me that Anita changed while she was with the little girl. Although she never smiled, the deadness that sat in her eyes would be replaced with a bright aliveness.
We sat for many hours at the table, reading and working with numbers, taking only a few breaks to get some sunshine or to eat, but the lessons finally came to a close. As Mrs. Rosa walked Peggy out the door, I sat silently, tearing my gaze away from Anita’s as she slowly packed her belongings.
“I see you made it to your education,” she said after a while.
“Yes, I did,” I responded. “I don’t understand why you’d tell me education don’t do nothin’—anything—for folks, and yet here you are, learning yourself!”
She shrugged. “It’s what the old man wants. He’s a stickler for education—thinks everyone born has a right to it. I owe it to him.” She headed toward the door but turned back.
“You don’t need to push yourself so hard. You’re doing well.” With that, she walked out the door, tall, proud, and alone. My anger melted a little bit. She could be so harsh one moment, and then not so bad the next. I didn’t understand her.
I sat silently, waiting for Mrs. Rosa to return, and stared behind her when she glided back through the door. “Anna,” she said kindly, coming back to the table and setting Little Sue down on the floor, “you are a very smart young woman.” I looked down at my hands. “And for that reason, I never want to see you comparing yourself against the other girls. Now, I’ve only known you for a few days, but I can see that you are gifted and quick-minded. Nobody started out reading perfectly—nobody. You hear me? Please look at me.”
I obeyed her, lifting my head until our eyes met. “I know all that, Mrs. Rosa. Don’t know what got into me today.”
“That’s all right. This is your dream and you take pride in that. But you have as much potential as anybody else.” She placed a hand on mine and leaned in a bit closer. “Remember, not one of us other than you taught ourselves to read and write, and certainly not under the circumstances you were in.” She smiled,
a smile surprisingly filled with pride.
She went on. “Now, you keep learning and working hard. Keep your mind on you and what you are doing. Pretty soon, you’ll be excited with all that you’ve accomplished. Have you ever stopped and wondered why you want an education, Anna?”
“Of course I have!” I responded, my heart heavy, torn between Mrs. Rosa’s words and my fears about the overwhelming task—learning—that lay ahead. I didn’t understand why I felt close to tears.
“And what are your reasons, do you think?” she asked quietly.
I took a long breath. “Mrs. Rosa, what you call an education, I call freedom. It pounds through my chest like the longin’ a child has to fly away the first day they’re thrown into the fields down south to work. I wanna be free in the mind so maybe, jus’ maybe, I can bring some justice to this world.” I stopped short, wondering why I had allowed my imagination to whisk me away like it did. I felt embarrassed. “Don’t know if you understand me.”
“Sure I do. You have a lovely way of putting things—very flowery, very real, like a poet!”
I laughed at her comment.
“When one is placed in a situation like yours, Anna, where obedience and autonomy mean serving someone besides oneself, there is a natural instinct to find ways to prove to society and to oneself that the seemingly impossible can be accomplished. It requires courage, faith, a strong desire, and belief in oneself. Not everyone has that sort of determination, Anna.” Her words brought a smile to my lips.
“Mrs. Rosa, none of that would matta much if I wasn’t sittin’ here, learnin’. So, thank you.”
She smiled back at me. “This is what I do, Anna.”
Just as quickly as Mrs. Rosa’s words of wisdom came, they subsided. She returned quickly to business, saying, “Now here, I want you to read this to me.”
After that day, at the end of every group session we had, Mrs. Rosa kept me longer. I worked hard to do what she said, burying the desire to compare myself with the others, and struggled through passages, completed exercises with numbers, and practiced my penmanship. And when I began to feel discouraged, I thought about John—not the vision of him running or being whipped into submission or the blood and broken dreams or his sad eyes. I wouldn’t even allow myself to think of him running and trying to reach freedom. Instead, I thought about him sitting next to me, contented, as I told him I was going to be just like Phillis Wheatley.
