Never Too Late

by Michael Phillips

  Gingerly I reached my arm around her shoulders and eased her up from the bed. I couldn’t believe I was doing this! And sitting on Mrs. Hammond’s bed! But she didn’t seem to mind.

  “Here . . . prop those pillows behind my back . . . that’s it . . . oh, that’s better. Thank you! Now spoon me some of that nice broth. I don’t want to hold the bowl . . . I’m afraid I might drop it.”

  I took the bowl again, and even more gingerly took out a spoonful and set it to her lips. She took it and swallowed it, closing her eyes and sighing.

  “That is delicious!” she said. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I didn’t eat anything last night because I went straight to bed.”

  I gave her a second spoonful, then a third, and before long the bowl was empty.

  As I was pulling the spoon back from her mouth, Mrs. Hammond reached up with her hand that had been lying on the blanket. Gently she stretched out two fingers and touched the back of my hand. The look on her face was almost one of curiosity.

  “Your skin is brown,” she said.

  “I’m a Negro,” I said.

  “Yes,” she smiled. “I know. I’ve never touched colored skin before. It feels the same as white skin.”

  Her words reminded me of my first days at Rosewood. “It was funny for me when I first touched Katie’s skin,” I said.

  “When was that?” she asked.

  “When I went to Rosewood after my family and hers were killed.”

  “The two of you so remind me of Katie’s mother and her colored friend. What did you say her name was?”

  “Lemuela.”

  Mrs. Hammond nodded. “They were such good friends, just like you and Kathleen. I never had a friend like that.”

  “I’ve never had a friend like Katie,” I said.

  “It’s strange,” said Mrs. Hammond. “I know Kathleen bears a resemblance to her mother. But you—and I know what they say about whites thinking all coloreds look alike, but I don’t really think that—but what I was going to say is that—and I didn’t see her that many times, but if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me, it seems that you look a little like Rosalind’s slave.”

  “She was my mother,” I said. “She wasn’t a slave. She was from the North. She was free.”

  Mrs. Hammond gasped in astonishment.

  “You don’t say!”

  I nodded. “Katie’s father sold her to Mr. McSimmons . . . the older Mr. McSimmons, when he found out that my mother was carrying me.”

  “Well, I never!”

  “And your father . . .”

  “My father is Templeton Daniels,” I said. “Katie and I are cousins.”

  “Well, I . . . that does explain a great deal.”

  I went on to tell her the rest of the story.

  Mrs. Hammond was quiet a long time after I finished telling her about Katie’s and my families. I didn’t know what she might be thinking.

  “I didn’t know all that,” she said finally. “It must have been very hard on you and Kathleen.”

  “I reckon it was,” I said. “But we grew close through it and weathered it. God’s been mighty good to us to bring us a new family. I might not have met my father otherwise.”

  “Templeton Daniels is really your father?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “He seems a nice man.”

  “He is, ma’am.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t been as gracious to him as I ought to have been,” she said a little sadly. “But he always treats me kindly in return.—Is Mayme your real name?”

  “My full name is Mary Ann,” I said.

  “Oh . . . Mary Ann—that is a nice name. Do you think I could have a little more of that soup, Mary Ann? I’m feeling better already.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll get you some more.”

  I started to get up, and like she had done with Katie, she took hold of my arm. I paused and glanced down at her where she lay. She was looking at my brown arm, with her white fingers around it. Then she looked up at me, smiled, and released my arm. I stood up and walked back into the other room.

  SHOPKEEPER KATIE

  30

  When we got back to Rosewood that evening, Papa and Uncle Ward and Josepha were all worried about us, since we had been gone all day. Jeremiah rode up behind us on his way home from Mr. Watson’s, surprised to see us too. We rode the rest of the way together.

  “Where have you two been!” asked Papa as we clattered up in the buggy, Jeremiah on his horse beside us. “I was just about to go out looking for you.”

  “We went to Mrs. Hammond’s,” said Katie.

  “I know that . . . but all day?”

  “She was on the floor when we got there and was too weak to get up. So I ran her store for the day while Mayme took care of her upstairs.”

  “What!” laughed Papa, looking at me. “You took care . . . of Mrs. Hammond!”

  “It was great fun!” said Katie as we got down. “I was surprised how nearly everyone who came into the shop knew who I was. Most of the people were real nice.”

  “And she let you nursemaid her?” said Papa to me.

  “She was as nice as she could be,” I said. “I was surprised too. Later I went for the doctor to ask him to call on her. She seemed appreciative of our help, didn’t she, Katie?”

  “I would never have believed it.”

  “Sounds like you won her over, all right. Is she feeling better?”

  “Yes, but she’s still pale. The doctor said she needs to rest for a few days and drink as much as she can—and finish up Josepha’s chicken soup. We’re going back in tomorrow to help with the store again. Now that I know what to do, I’ll enjoy it even more!”

  “My niece, the shopkeeper!” laughed Papa. “—What about you, Mary Ann?”

  “I’ll go into town too,” I answered. “But I’m not sure Greens Crossing, or Mrs. Hammond either for that matter, is ready for a colored shopkeeper. Not that I wouldn’t like to try to help. Katie had the time of her life. She didn’t stop talking about it all the way home.”

  Katie laughed and we went inside and repeated the whole story to Josepha, Uncle Ward, and Henry, who were already at the table as Josepha was just finishing up supper preparations. Jeremiah had had a good day too at the mill and we were all in pretty good spirits.

  “Josepha,” said Katie as we sat around the table eating, “I’m sorry to ask so late in the day, but you wouldn’t mind making up another pot of soup for Mrs. Hammond this evening, would you? She enjoyed that broth so much. She said to tell you thank you.”

  Josepha nodded but said nothing. She didn’t seem in as good spirits as the rest of us.

  “What’s on your mind, Josepha?” said Uncle Ward. “Did something happen today that’s got this supper turning sour in your mouth? You look like you’re about ready to start grumping at us.”

  “It ain’t dat,” she said. “I just ain’t fond er da notion er sweatin’ over da cook stove fo da likes er dat lady.”

  “But she’s sick,” said Katie. “She needs our help.”

  “That’s what neighbors are for,” said Papa.

  “But we ain’t her neighbors.”

  “We’re neighbors to everybody,” said Katie, “at least everybody we want to be a neighbor to. And maybe her own neighbors aren’t being as neighborly as they ought to be.”

  “Well, she ain’t my neighbor, an’ she ain’t never treated me neighborly, nohow.”

  “We all know that Mrs. Hammond hasn’t been in the habit of treating anyone too neighborly!” laughed Papa. “But people can change.”

  “I don’t know dat she can,” muttered Josepha.

  “What are you talking about!” laughed Papa. “Look at me . . . Kathleen can tell you, when I used to come around visiting here I stole her mama’s money from the cookie jar.”

  “It was a coffee can, Uncle Templeton,” smiled Katie.

  “Well, there you are—from the coffee can! But gradually I changed and Kathleen forgave me, and her
e I am.”

  “We’ve all changed,” I said. “I can hardly imagine how different I am now than when I came to Rosewood.”

  “We’ve all grown,” added Katie. “That’s what growth is, isn’t it?—learning to change and live with people, and maybe forgive them too.”

  “All I know is dat dat lady ain’t never been nuthin’ but ornery an’ mean ter me an’ Miz Mayme, so why should I or any ob us be nice ter her?”

  “Maybe because she’s trying to change, like Kathleen says,” said Uncle Ward.

  “Den let her change an’ den maybe I’ll see.”

  “But, Josepha,” said Katie, “maybe people have to change together. What if she needs our help to grow?”

  “How you figger dat?”

  “Well, maybe we’ve got to match a little spark of growth in someone else with a little spark of growth in ourselves to keep the spark in them alive. I don’t think that explains it very well, but it’s something like what I’m feeling. Maybe it’s something inside us that makes the other person want to grow more, and then again we have to respond by changing some more too, and pretty soon two people are growing closer together because both were willing to change a little bit at a time. All growth comes a little bit at a time, doesn’t it, Uncle Templeton? Everybody’s got to be willing to do their share, or they don’t grow and change, and instead get stale inside.”

  “I think you’ve explained it about as well as anyone could, Kathleen,” said Papa. “Mary Ann and I had a struggle getting used to each other at first, didn’t we, little girl?” he added, turning to me. “We changed together, just like you say.”

  “Well, you an’ Mayme’s gone visitin’ her,” said Josepha, “an’ I done made da broff, an’ I’ll do like you say an’ make some mo soup tonight.”

  “But maybe Mrs. Hammond needs more from you than that,” said Katie.

  “Like what? What cud she need from me? I hardly know da lady, ’ceptin’ a time or two when I wuz in her store an’ she looked at me wiff her nose in da air like I wuz somethin’ dat come in on da bottom ob somebody’s boot.”

  “She might need something from you that no one else in the whole world can give her,” persisted Katie.

  “An’ what cud dat be?”

  “She might need your forgiveness, Josepha,” said Katie. “No one else can give her that—nobody but you. And maybe that’s what she needs so that she can keep growing inside—forgiveness . . . from all of us. If she’s trying to change, and we forgive her and grow and change ourselves, then she’ll be able to keep growing all the more.”

  We all sat quietly thinking about what Katie had said. I think we were as amazed at the wisdom she had as at anything she had actually said, although that was amazing in itself. She had really grown into a lady who understood life and people. Her mother would sure be proud of her! The look on Henry’s face was almost like he had known that wisdom was there all along. But when he glanced at Josepha, the look on his face changed. I could tell he was concerned about the things she had said.

  We went into Greens Crossing again the next morning about the same time, with another batch of soup and a loaf of fresh bread and butter. Katie had put a notice on the door of Mrs. Hammond’s store the day before, saying that the shop wouldn’t open until nine so that we would be sure to be there on time. And she told Mrs. Hammond to stay in bed until we got there. The doctor had said she needed to get at least two good days of rest before going back to work.

  We arrived and went upstairs. She greeted us almost like old friends. The change because of what had happened the day before was amazing. It was like seeing what Katie had said at supper the night before coming true right before our eyes.

  Mrs. Hammond was much better. We could tell that from one look at her. But she stayed in bed like Katie had said and let us take care of her like the day before. Katie helped her get dressed and I got the fires going again in her two stoves and made her something to eat while Katie went downstairs to open the shop. I swept the floors and emptied the chamber pot and brought clean water for her washbasin. Mrs. Hammond had her strength back enough to hold the bowl of soup herself this time, so I didn’t feed her. But she still wanted me to sit on the bedside with her. She talked to me like we’d been friends for years. My being colored never came up again. I think she had already started not to notice the color of my skin.

  “The week’s mail delivery should arrive today, Kathleen,” she said when Katie came back up after about an hour. “I will have to sign for it. Bring up the paper when the delivery man comes.”

  Katie went back downstairs, and Mrs. Hammond and I talked some more as she ate what was left of what I had brought her. The mail delivery came. Katie brought up the paper for Mrs. Hammond to sign.

  “You can take the mail out of the bag, Kathleen,” said Mrs. Hammond, “and sort it alphabetically by names. Then if anyone comes in and asks for their mail, you can find it easily.”

  Katie nodded and returned downstairs.

  “You and Kathleen are good friends, aren’t you?” said Mrs. Hammond. “I don’t think I’ve hardly ever seen you when you weren’t together.”

  “The best of friends,” I said. “We both say that we couldn’t have survived after the war without each other.”

  “No one knew you two were alone out there,” said Mrs. Hammond. “Everyone thought Rosalind was still alive.”

  I smiled. “We had to work hard to make it seem like everything was normal,” I said. “It was Katie’s idea. She thought if people found out, they would send us both away. Actually, I thought so too. We were both afraid for our own reasons. She was worried about her uncle. I was afraid of being beaten or sold or killed.”

  “I had my suspicions that something funny was going on, but—”

  Mrs. Hammond paused briefly.

  “Well, that’s not entirely true,” she said. “I suppose I was suspicious of everything and everybody. I haven’t been a very nice person sometimes. But,” she laughed sheepishly, almost like a little girl, “at first you fooled me too! Then after it came out, I tried to pretend that I’d known all along . . . but I really hadn’t.”

  I laughed and Mrs. Hammond laughed again along with me. I’d never heard her laugh before. Imagine—me sitting on the side of Mrs. Hammond’s bed serving her food, and us laughing together!

  “I always try to make people think I know more than I do,” she added. “It’s one of my worst faults. I know I shouldn’t, but I’ve been doing it so long—trying to make myself look good in other people’s eyes, that pretty soon it was second nature. But I don’t think I ever really fooled anyone.”

  “It’s hard to make yourself look good in other people’s eyes if you’re black,” I said. “Everyone looks down on you—whites, I mean, not other blacks.”

  Mrs. Hammond seemed to take in what I said thoughtfully, as though the idea of what it was like to be black had never occurred to her.

  “Were you a slave, Mayme?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. At the McSimmons plantation.”

  “Oh yes, of course. Was it . . . was it pretty terrible?”

  “I was young,” I said. “It was far worse for the older ones. But still, I was whipped four times and hung once. I would have died if Katie and Jeremiah and Emma hadn’t rescued me.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “That’s what they did to slaves, Mrs. Hammond.”

  Again she pondered my words.

  “Why don’t you talk like a colored?” she asked.

  “My mama was raised with Katie’s mother, so she spoke better. And Katie helped me after I came to Rosewood, and I practiced at it because I wanted to learn. Katie taught me to read better too, and now I can read pretty well.”

  “You’re lucky, being friends like you are.”

  “And cousins,” I said.

  “Oh yes, I almost forgot. I never had a friend like that.”

  “Did you have brothers and sisters?” I asked.

  “No, I was an only child,
” said Mrs. Hammond. “My parents died when I was young and I went to stay with an aunt in Charlotte. When she died I received a small inheritance, just enough to open this store.”

  “When did you get married, Mrs. Hammond?”

  An embarrassed look came over her face. “I’ve never been married,” she said. “I just called myself Missus when I came here so that people wouldn’t think I was alone . . . or maybe so I wouldn’t feel so alone myself.”

  All of a sudden we were interrupted by Katie’s steps running up the stairs from the shop.

  “Mayme, Mayme . . . guess what!” she cried as she reached the top. “There’s a letter from Emma and Micah!”

  Suddenly Katie realized what she’d done, running right into Mrs. Hammond’s bedroom like it was her own. A timid look came over her face.

  “I’m sorry for yelling, Mrs. Hammond,” she said. “I was just excited.”

  “That’s all right, Kathleen. It is nice to hear happy sounds. My house is always so quiet. Who is this letter from?”

  “Emma, the black girl who was living with us—the one with the son . . . who was drowned . . . she had escaped from the McSimmons plantation right after the war.”

  “Oh . . . oh, yes—that unpleasantness.”

  “She married Micah Duff, the black buffalo soldier who came to town a while back. I think you were the first person he saw in Greens Crossing. You sent him to Henry, and Henry sent him to us, and he and Emma fell in love and got married and are now on their way west to Oregon.”

  “Open the letter!” I said excitedly. “I wonder where they are.”

  Katie tore open the envelope, took out the single sheet, and began to read.

  “Dear Katie and Mayme and Templeton and Ward and Josepha and Henry and Jeremiah,

  “Emma and I are well and happy. We made it to Independence, Missouri, and there bought tickets on the railroad to California. Emma misses you all dearly and sends her love. Sometimes she doesn’t know whether to laugh for happiness at our adventure together or cry for the memory of how much she loves and misses William and you all. She does quite a bit of both!”

  I glanced over at Katie. She wiped a tear or two from her eyes and blinked several times to keep reading. I was fighting back the tears too!