Sarah had also heard Missus Anna complain about how Delta had been cut off from the river, leaving the former river town hidden behind a sandbar and wildly growing young willow trees. To Sarah and Lou, the change meant they had to struggle to fill their tubs with water from the shallow bathing creek not far from their cabin, which seemed shallower all the time, or else beg a ride on Missy Laura’s mule-drawn wagon to travel several miles to the river.
“So I’m leavin’ today,” Alex announced brightly. “Goin’ west like Papa wanted to.”
“We goin’ out west?” Sarah shrieked, no longer the least concerned with the Mississippi River and its fickle course. She was so full of joy, she thought she might faint.
Alex’s buoyant face deflated. “ ’Til I got a good job, don’t make no sense me tryin’ to feed y’all,” he said. “Shoot, I may need to come back. We can’t be givin’ up this house.”
At first the disappointment threatened to drown Sarah—even small disappointments still drove her to tears much more often now than when her parents had been living, since she couldn’t help thinking that any setback might not have happened if Mama and Papa had been there—but she swallowed back the bitter taste in her throat and clung to her brother’s sleeve. He had grown so much taller, he was probably taller than Papa by now. “But you gon’ send after us when you gots a good job? You promise, Alex?”
“I’ma do my best, Li’l Bit,” Alex said, but it didn’t gladden her to hear her brother call her by her favorite pet name because he did it so rarely, and only when he was trying to convince her not to argue with him. Even when he did make promises, he couldn’t always be held to them. He’d promised them new shoes last spring, and they were still waiting for their shoes in the fall. Sarah’s shoes pinched her growing toes so badly that she usually went without them, preferring to chafe her bare soles on rocks and soil.
“Don’t be callin’ her Li’l Bit,” Louvenia said to Alex, annoyed. “She ain’t little no mo’. ’Sides, that’s Papa’s name. An’ you ain’t Papa, cuz Papa woulda took us all.”
At that, Alex looked hurt. Quickly he swiped at his brow and turned his eyes away. “If Papa woulda took us, wouldn’t none of us be here now, would we?” His voice was low, but the words were like a gunshot.
Louvenia snorted, humph, sounding like Mama. “Sound like you think you a man jus’ cuz you big like one,” she said. “If you goin’, then git. You ain’t gon’ stand here in Papa’s house talkin’ bad ’bout him.”
“I didn’ mean nothin’ by that, Lou. . . . When you gots young’uns an’ such, you gotta be where you know you gots work, even if it ain’t much. But I got a chance to look roun’ an’ see what else a colored man kin make o’ hisself, not jus’ haulin’ an’ pickin’. I might even go out to them Dakota lands an’ find me some gold like the white folks, since them Injuns that kilt that Gen’ral Custer done give up. Folks gittin’ rich out there! Papa couldn’t do that, see? I promise I’ll send y’all money through Missus Anna,” Alex said. “Now . . . do I git a hug good-bye?”
Louvenia cast him an evil look, then she walked to him to give him a weak hug. Many times Louvenia had complained to Sarah that Alex had so much more freedom than she did because he was a man. Men didn’t have to be careful and stick close to home the same way women did, she said. Louvenia’s envy was naked in her jutting lower lip as she hugged her brother good-bye, and Sarah could guess what her sister was thinking: Maybe a colored man can make something of himself, but what about a colored girl?
Sarah hugged her brother tightly, even though tears gleamed in her eyes. To her, Alex smelled like the river, sweat, and the promise of a new life far away, hidden from her. In all the time since their parents had died, Sarah was no closer to fulfilling her promise to Mama to learn how to read. She hadn’t had time to learn even a single new letter of the alphabet; and even if she had the time, where would she learn it? She didn’t know any colored children who went to school. But maybe if she went out west . . .
“You promise, Alex? You gon’ send fo’ us?” Sarah said.
“Promise,” Sarah’s brother said, and Sarah closed her eyes. Sarah gave Alex a long, hard squeeze, remembering how she’d hugged Papa on the porch the day Mama died. Already she’d forgotten what Papa had smelled like that day, and she hadn’t wanted to forget a single thing.
As infrequent as Alex’s visits had become, she and Louvenia still relied not only on the money he brought, but the comfort of having a brother in the cabin to tell them stories of Vicksburg, with all its people and excitement, and help them with heavy work they couldn’t manage on their own. Besides, with Mama and Papa gone, Alex was the only family they had.
“Y’all take good care of yo’selves, hear?” Alex said, tugging at the rim of his dusty cap. “Treat each other good.”
When Alex Breedlove set out west, he was eighteen years old and Sarah wasn’t yet nine. Sarah would be a grown woman with her own child before she would see her brother again.
By the summer of 1878, a new plague had begun.
No matter how much the sharecroppers frantically picked at the little pink worms nestled in the plants’ blossoms, mashing them dead between their fingertips, the bollworms kept coming back, feasting on the cotton-seed in the bolls. So, despite ample rain and sun during the growing season, by the time the fields should have been awash with white cotton ripe for picking, there were only occasional spots of white in acres of empty, worthless bolls. Day after day, no matter how long Sarah picked, her bag dragged virtually weightless behind her because it was so empty. She and the other croppers walked listlessly through the fields like grave robbers looking for trinkets to steal. “Lawd, what we gon’ do?” she heard the croppers agonizing. Many, in fact, had already left in search of other work in hopes of paying off their debts to the growers.
The yield was everything to a sharecropper. If there was no yield, there was nothing.
Sarah was ten and Louvenia was fourteen, but their hardscrabble lives had given their eyes an ageless quality defined by their toil. The cabin had slowly fallen into disrepair because Alex wasn’t there to mend it and neither of them had the time or the spirit to keep it tidy. Able-bodied men nearby who might have cleaned the chimney or nailed new wall planks where the old ones sagged had families of their own to care for; besides, Sarah had noticed their women neighbors had cooled off toward Louvenia ever since her face had lost its baby fat and her chest was sprouting breasts already the size of grapefruits. ’Fraid they gon’ lose they man, Louvenia had explained to her with a hint of pride.
Alex sent them money three months after he left—it was only two dollars, granted, but it was welcome—and they were sure they could expect a letter from him again soon. Missus Anna told them whoever had scribbled her address on the envelope for Alex had not enclosed any note inside with a return address, or any news of his doings. Still, Sarah and Louvenia hoped Alex’s next letter would say something about when he would be sending for them, and they especially hoped he would send more money. A lot more. They hoped there would be enough to pay their rent and help them buy the seed they would need for the next planting season, which was bound to be better than this year’s. As she gazed helplessly at the naked cotton plants that seemed to mock her, Sarah began to realize that Alex was their only hope.
For the first time in a long time, Sarah felt vivid pictures stirring in her imagination: She saw Alex married to an Indian squaw, swinging a pickax against a rock until he threw his cap in the air and hollered, “Gold! I done struck gold!” She imagined Alex mailing them a box full of money, and new dresses besides. And Alex’s big house with two stories, just like Missus Anna’s, where Sarah would have her very own room.
Louvenia might have been having the very same fantasies, because one afternoon she said cheerfully to Sarah, “Time to go over Missus Anna’s an’ see if she heard from Alex.”
“Same thing been on my mind, too,” Sarah said, and they set out on their mile-long walk.
It was l
ate August, and the full heat of the summer sun slowed their progress. As they made their way up the neatly bordered pathway to Grand View, they could see Missus Anna sitting on her huge porch with the whitewashed wooden rails (her ve-ran-da, she called it) in a white summer dress with short sleeves. This dress wasn’t nearly as fine as the one Sarah remembered from Missus Anna’s visit to their cabin, but it was still much daintier and prettier than any dress Sarah had seen on a colored woman. Missus Anna was sipping from a glass.
“You think she drinkin’ lemonade?” Sarah whispered as they approached.
“I hope so. I want me some, too,” Louvenia said.
Grand View, to Sarah, was like a house in a made-up story about kings and queens and princesses in faraway kingdoms. It stood sturdy and tall, with all its windows glistening. The back part of the house had been burned by Yankees, Papa had told her, but Mr. Long had fixed it up again. Luckily Missus Anna was on the porch in front; otherwise they would have gone to the kitchen door in the back and talked to her cook, Rita, who never let them even peek inside. Rita just passed the messages, or gave them Missus Anna’s laundry, and never cracked a smile. Biggity housenigger, think she better than us cuz she ain’t a cropper, Louvenia complained. Sarah was glad they wouldn’t have to talk to Rita, not with Missus Anna out in plain sight. But Sarah didn’t stay glad long.
Missus Anna watched them approaching without moving. As they walked closer to the porch steps, Sarah could see the expression on her face she despised so much: pity and sorrow. Before they said a word, Missus Anna was shaking her head.
“You ain’t heard from Alex, Missus Anna?” Louvenia said.
Missus Anna sighed. “No, Lou. I think you two had better come take a seat. I’m glad you came by today. George was going to send someone out to you in the morning, but I told him I’d rather talk to you myself. I feel I owe that to Owen and Minerva, God rest them.”
To Sarah’s astonishment, she saw tears in Missus Anna’s eyes. Louvenia took Sarah’s hand, squeezing so tightly it hurt, and led her to the white bench in front of Missus Anna’s chair. Louvenia didn’t let go of Sarah even once they were seated, waiting in silence for bad news.
“I know it’s not your fault the crops were lost. Everyone worked so hard, and it just breaks my heart. But I can’t keep you on the land, girls. George says we just can’t afford . . .”
She talked on and on, but for a moment Sarah felt as though a steamboat whistle had sounded in her ears because she could no longer hear what Missus Anna was saying. She didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until she suddenly felt a need to take a big gasp of air, and then the noise in her ears seemed to vanish. “. . . hard on everyone. I wish I could keep you here, especially little Sarah, but it’s just out of the question.”
“Missus Anna,” Louvenia said, surprising Sarah with the businesslike calm in her voice, “you ain’t got no work roun’ here? We both can cook, an’ we could clean up—”
“Sweetheart, I already have a cook, as you know,” Missus Anna said, still looking forlorn. “And neither one of you has ever worked in a house, even if we could afford it. And the fact of the matter is, girls, we can’t afford it. I know we may look rich to you, but we’re struggling alongside everyone else. These cotton worms have made a big mess of everything, and we had the flooding on top of that.”
Now there was a hard silence that tugged on Sarah’s throat. She couldn’t move. How could Missus Anna say she wasn’t rich? What did she think rich was?
“You can stay until the end of the month—that’s two more weeks—but then I really think the best thing for you is to go to Vicksburg. Rita wants to give me some names of Negroes there who might be able to help you find work doing washing. She’s always saying how you’re so good and thorough with the wash, both of you. And I’ll see to it you have those names before you go. I won’t send you away empty-handed, neither. I’ll give you some money to start, and it’s a gift, not a loan. That means you won’t have to pay it back. It’s not much, but I think you’ll be able to make do.”
“How Alex gon’ find us?” Sarah blurted, forgetting to address Missus Anna by her courtesy title. Mama would have cuffed her for that.
“Believe me, girls, any letters I get from your brother will be kept safely for you. Y’all can come back anytime and ask me if there’s been any word. I owe you that, too.” Suddenly she paused, breathless. “Oh, my, I forgot my manners. You girls want some lemonade?”
Sarah looked at Louvenia, who was slowly shaking her head. “Thank you, ma’am, but no,” Louvenia said in a scratchy voice. “We got to go now.”
“Are you sure? After that long walk—”
Louvenia had already stood up, tugging on Sarah’s hand. Sarah gazed at the cool, sweet yellow liquid in Missus Anna’s glass, which was beading through in fat droplets of water. Sarah would have given just about anything, in that instant, just for one tiny sip. Missus Anna had offered them lemonade on a visit once before, and she thought maybe it would have made her feel just a little better. But Louvenia was ready to leave, and Sarah had no choice but to follow.
Louvenia was walking swiftly, nearly running, and it wasn’t long before Sarah heard sobs catching in her sister’s throat. The awfulness of the sound reminded Sarah of the few times she’d heard her Mama crying, a sound that had made the world stand still.
“Guess that ol’ biggity Rita do too like us, huh?” Sarah said, trying to make a joke.
It didn’t help. Louvenia sobbed on, inconsolable, wiping her face with her arm as she walked. She nearly stumbled into a tree trunk, until Sarah guided her past it. Louvenia was murmuring the same helpless words she’d heard falling from so many other croppers’ lips: “What we gon’ do now?” The words tried to burrow into Sarah’s heart and make her cry, too, but she refused. Wouldn’t make any sense for both of them to be crying all the way home.
“But jus’ think, Lou. What if we do really good in Vicksburg? You know how you been talkin’ ’bout gettin’ out the fields.”
“Not with no damn money!” Louvenia screamed at her.
“But Missus Anna say she gon’ give us—”
“An’ how long that gon’ last? Girl, we ’bout to go to that city with nothin’. You heard Alex say he couldn’t find no good work. An’ now we don’t even . . .” Her words were interrupted by an anguished sob. “. . . we don’t even know where he at.”
Maybe Louvenia was right, Sarah realized. She’d been imagining life in Vicksburg as a grand adventure, a chance to change their lives for the better, but maybe the same cold and hunger and endless work were waiting for them there. Maybe they would starve.
The more she thought about it, the more Sarah’s heart began to plummet with terror. What if they hadn’t heard anything from Alex because he was out starving somewhere, too? Louvenia was crying because she was scared, she realized, not because she was sad.
In her mind, Sarah could see the fear rolling toward her, she could hear it like a cold drumbeat, and she thought about the first time she jumped in the river over her head when she was little because Louvenia had dared her; how she couldn’t hear anything or see anything, hardly, and she’d never been more scared in her life, but she knew if she screamed she would drown. So she hadn’t screamed.
She’d looked up toward where the sunlight was glowing above her, and she’d kicked her legs and flung her arms alongside her just like Papa had shown her, and she kept doing it even though she’d felt like she wasn’t moving, she’d kept doing it even when she was sure she was about to die because her lungs were tight with hot air, and then just as she’d felt like giving up, her head had broken above the surface and been kissed all over by the air. She could breathe.
Maybe going to Vicksburg would be like that, Sarah thought. Maybe it would seem like they were drowning at first, but they would be just fine if they kept swimming. The thought brought a tiny smile to Sarah’s face even as Louvenia sobbed. Sarah wished she could explain it to her sister to help her stop cr
ying, but it was hard for her to explain the pictures and ideas in her head sometimes.
Instead all she said was, “We ain’t got to be scared, Lou.”
And she believed that, even as their cabin appeared in the distance and they both stopped walking as they gazed at it, realizing simultaneously that they would have to leave their memories of Mama and Papa inside those ramshackle wooden walls. If new people came to live there, they wouldn’t know how Papa had cussed every time he tripped over the loose board just inside the doorway, and they wouldn’t know how Mama had once had a fit of anger and thrown a whole kettle of stewed tomatoes against the wall, leaving stains that had never gone away. And the new people wouldn’t remember how Mama giggled late at night when Papa sneaked over on her side of the pallet and they woke everyone up even though they thought they were being so quiet, Papa saying, Hush girl, hush girl as his panting voice grew louder all the time. Once when Sarah had asked Louvenia what Mama and Papa were doing, Louvenia had shushed her and whispered back, “That be how grown folks love.” The new people just wouldn’t know. And maybe one day she and Louvenia wouldn’t know anymore either, Sarah thought. Maybe Mama had forgotten so much about her mammy and pappy because she’d left their house and all the memories inside it.
A single tear wound its way down Sarah’s cheek, but that was the only one she allowed. Crying might let the fear in, and Sarah was determined not to drown.
Chapter Four
VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI
1879
(ONE YEAR LATER)
“Sarah? It’s your turn.”
Miss Dunn’s voice broke into Sarah’s thoughts. Until she heard her name, Sarah had been transfixed by the portrait of Jesus in prayer hanging behind Miss Dunn on the wall, with his eyes gazing piously skyward and his flowing light brown hair cascading across his shoulders. She’d been gazing at the portrait for more than six months now, but it still captivated her; in all the years Mama and Papa and Preacher had talked about Jesus, the blue-eyed man in the painting on the wall was nothing like she’d imagined Jesus to be. It was hard to believe any white man would love her so much he would die for the sins of a colored girl.
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