I lowered my head. My prayer was simple and short. “Almighty, help me see Mama’s side of things, and help Mama see into my heart just a little bit, too,” I whispered.
When I finished, everyone else was still praying.
Rosco prayed with his chin rested on two fists.
Clem’s eyes were squeezed shut with concentration.
Mama had bowed her head the lowest of all, and tucked it toward her chest. A tiny frown knotted her forehead. She was praying hard.
Was Mama’s prayer the same as mine, that she and I would find us a patch of common ground? I wondered.
When service was over, Mama left quickly and spoke to no one at all. She went right to her prayer bench, which stood at the far corner of our sleeping quarters, facing a small window. The bench was tucked back in an alcove that was closed off with burlap draping. It was like Mama’s very own little room, her private place. Her Sabbath place, she called it. The place where she said she “takes her solitude.”
You could always find Mama on her bench after Sunday service. Sunday evenings were the only times she spent there. “The Lord, he’s given me a slice of time on his seventh day, and for that I’m thankful,” she said.
That night, as I lay on my pallet, staring hard into the darkness, a sure and sudden ache filled me. And a shiver rose through my insides. Even with the small fire that burned in the central pit of our quarters, the nights had grown so cold. Winter was just a short time off, and the thought of winter’s wind-licks—the mean slapping wind that whips its tail into the quarters at night—filled me with a heavy dread. I knew as certain as I knew my own name that the return of Mama’s kindness toward me was what I needed to send my shivers away, and to endure the harsh nights of winter.
I curled Walnut into both my arms and held her as close as I could. Her little body was a welcome comfort. I slid my clenched fingers under Walnut’s muslin petticoat, hoping to find a snatch of warmth. (Mama wouldn’t let me take Walnut to Sunday service, so I’d been missing her this night.)
I stroked Walnut’s bald, nubby head as if she had the silken hair of one of Missy Claire’s china dolls. “Walnut,” I whispered, “something’s changin’ here at Parnell’s. And somethin’ new is coming, too. I don’t know what’s changing or what’s new, but something is. I can feel it. Same way I can feel winter pokin’ its icy fingers around the corner.”
Whenever I whispered to Walnut, I did it right at the place where Walnut’s ear would have been—if she’d had ears—just like Rosco had shown me how to do. I was beginning to think Walnut had grown some tiny ears. She’d been listening to me for weeks now, and I truly believed that somehow she was hearing my every word. Sometimes I didn’t even whisper. I just moved my lips like I was speaking, letting Walnut feel the pattern of my words forming on my lips. This worked best at night, when Mama was sleeping near me, and the quarters were as quiet as a tomb. Tonight the fire’s crackle made it okay to whisper without being heard.
I told Walnut, “Oh, how I miss the way Mama used to wrap me in one of her hugs, and thank the Almighty for me, the way she’d done on my birthday.”
A tiny snore rose from Mama’s pallet. It was deep-sleep breathing, which hardly ever came from Mama.
Sometimes, when I spoke to Walnut, I gave a moment’s pause and let myself wonder what she’d say to me if she could speak. Tonight was no different. I settled for a moment, thinking on what answers Walnut would share with me if she had a mouth and a voice for speaking. I could feel my hands growing warm beneath Walnut’s petticoat. “Walnut, you’re a sweet baby-doll friend,” I whispered.
Soon my hands were fully warmed. I still had that ache, though. An ache that had turned to a stone in my belly. An ache that now rested in the place where the goodness of Mama’s tea cakes settled after I’d enjoyed eating them.
I soon fell asleep, dreaming of sweets and walnuts and Mama and me.
When I woke, Mama had left the quarters. I hadn’t heard her rustling in the dark. I’d missed the dim light of her lantern.
When Rosco and I met near the cypress tree, I told him I wanted to take today’s lesson in Missy Claire’s parlor. Rosco looked at me sideways. He swung his lantern in my direction. The lantern wick started to sputter, flickering its light onto my face. “You gone dim-witted, girl?” Rosco asked.
I held Walnut close. Her dress was still keeping my hands warm. “My wit ain’t nowhere near dim, Ros, that’s why I’m askin’. You’re the one who said we could go to the parlor to see Missy Claire’s sampler. This is the only time of day Missy ain’t parked at the parlor window, stitching.”
Rosco’s breath rose in little puffs that billowed up in the cold air. When he spoke, the puffs shot from his mouth in spurts of white. “All right, Summer,” he said, “we’ll go to the parlor, but only to look at the sampler. Things ain’t as risky with Parnell being sick and Missy growing so timid. But it still ain’t a good idea to be having a whole reading lesson anywhere near the house.”
I nodded.
Rosco set out a better plan. “We’ll gather wood from over near the toolshed first, then take it to the parlor and make like we’re doing the Missy a good deed by starting a fire in the parlor for her.”
“Missy’s morning fire is Clem’s doing,” I said.
“I know,” Rosco said. “But Clem builds her fire after he bathes Parnell. He sets the flame while Missy’s taking her final cup of breakfast tea. Believe me, Summer, I’m sure Clem won’t mind us leaving him with one less chore to do.”
Without another word, I was on my way to the woodpile, with Rosco following after me.
When we got the parlor, it was black and cold and silent. Rosco crisscrossed the logs and lit them. He watched the fire logs catch, then knelt at the hearth to blow at the small flame. Slowly, the fire grew, bringing its amber light to the room.
I’d been standing at Missy’s sampler hoop, holding the lantern up to its letters.
“Summer . . . flowers . . .” I read the words slowly and with true pleasure. Missy Claire had marked a new word onto the muslin, a word she had yet to stitch. I moved closer to the sampler to get a better look. I waved Rosco to me. “Ros, what’s this say?”
Rosco kept his eyes on the fire. “You tell me what it says.”
“But this here’s a long word, Ros—a whole mess of letters!”
Rosco glanced up briefly. “They don’t look that messy to me. Start with the first letter and go from there.”
I began with the two words I already knew, then went on to the new word. “Summer . . . flowers . . . blo—blos—blossom—. . .”
The fire was burning fully now. Rosco was still kneeling at the hearth to tend the fire’s rising flame. “You’re almost there, Summer, but there’s more to the word. Stay to it,” he encouraged me.
The black twilight sky was beginning to go light. Chief would be crowing soon, and our lesson would be over.
I kept with my new word. “Blo—blossom—bl—blos— blossoming!” The word came to me in a burst, with the same sudden beauty of a fresh new blossom. I knew there’d be more words for Missy to stitch to make the sampler a complete verse. But these few words were enough beauty to fill me up for the day.
I read all the sampler’s words again and again, as if they were a fine declaration: “Summer . . .flowers. . . blossoming. . . summer. . .flowers. . . blossoming. . . summer. . .flowers. . .”
When I turned my gaze away from the sampler to recite without even looking at the letters, there stood Mama, her solid frame filling the doorway. She wore a strange, tight expression. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?” she demanded. She was staring straight-on at me.
I felt myself flinch. Rosco stood up sharply. “Now, Mama, don’t go getting all out of sorts.” Rosco was working to calm Mama by talking slow and easy. He tried to explain. “Summer and me, we thought it would be a kindly favor to get a fire going in Missy’s parlor before the day even begins.”
Mama was shaking her head. She still had
her gaze fixed to mine, but now she’d narrowed her eyes. “You telling me a lie,” she said. Her breath was heaving and angry in her chest.
“Rosco ain’t lying, Mama,” I said. “I’m the one who made him fix a fire. It was my idea.”
Mama stood real still for what seemed like a long time. Then, in three long, quick steps, she came to where I was standing at the sampler. She didn’t speak a single word. She was as close as my own shadow. She was staring hard into me. Then she said, “Takin’ that book from you ain’t made a bit of difference, has it? You’re a thickheaded child—pig-skulled, that’s what you are. Gots to learn the hard way.” There was heat in Mama’s eyes. It was rage.
“Mama,” Rosco said, still trying to calm the squall that was budding fast.
“Hush up, Rosco. I know both you kids been dabbling in letters, but Summer still ain’t got the sense to keep it quiet.”
Mama turned her sights on me—on me and Walnut. In one sudden snatch, she tore Walnut from my hold, turned on both feet, and went for the fire.
“No, Mama, no!” I wailed.
But it was too late. Walnut flared up in a sudden flame. All that was left of her was her head, which went black right away.
Outside, Chief’s crow told us morning had come.
18
Rosco
November 30, 1862
WHEN A TREE DON’T BEND with a storm, it snaps. That’s what happened to Mama this morning. She’d surely known about me teaching myself letters, but, like she said, I didn’t ever risk waving it around the way Summer did. Seeing Summer explore words openly was just too strong a wind for Mama, and something in her buckled and broke. That’s why Mama punished Summer so.
It was a soul-sorry shame watching Summer’s dolly burn. Later, after Mama and Summer went off to prepare Parnell’s breakfast tray, it was hard to keep my mind on much else. Even when Miss McCracken came for Lowell’s lesson, I was thinking about Summer and Mama and Walnut.
Miss McCracken was late. When I answered the door dapper to let her in, she was panting lightly. Her bonnet surrounded her face like petals surround the face of a flower. She was bundled in a woolen shawl. Her cheeks were flushed with the pink that cold days bring to the skin of white folks.
Lowell must have heard the clapper, too. He came to the door right behind me and greeted Miss McCracken, who unwrapped her shawl hurriedly. “Pardon my tardiness,” she said. “My father’s coach has been in need of repair. Doc Bates had promised to bring me today, but the good doctor never came to pick me up. I fretted for a time, fearing he’d forgotten me, then I started out walking here on my own. Walked at a good clip, I did.”
Miss McCracken secured a hefty brown book under her delicate arm. She held the book firmly at her elbow, lifted her cupped hands, and blew gently to warm her palms. Suddenly remembering that she still wore her bonnet, she swept the bonnet quickly from her head. Like always, Miss McCracken’s hair was twisted neatly at her nape. But her bonnet had messed the hair near her face, which now fell in wisps the color of honey.
Lowell and me, we stood side by side, listening politely to Miss McCracken. She spoke with a hefty dose of apology. This was the first time she’d ever been late for a lesson. Seemed she needed to spill the details of her delay.
She tidied her hair as she spoke. “I soon passed the Bates plantation, and thought it only proper to make certain the doctor himself had not fallen ill,” she explained. “But Doc Bates was not at home. His wife, Miss Penelope, told me the doctor had been out since deep in the night hours making rounds to see patients who were sorely ailing, and that he had not yet returned. She said he’d recently made these late-night rounds part of his practice.”
Miss McCracken draped her shawl over one arm. It covered the book she was holding. There was more to her story. “Miss Penelope suspects the doctor is assisting with the delivery of Jacqueline Greely’s baby, over in Rudville.”
Miss McCracken was fully warmed now. I could see it in the ivory that had come back to her cheeks. She placed her free hand over her heart as she continued. She wasn’t looking at Lowell or me. “He’s a dear man, that doctor,” she said softly. “When my time comes to bear a child, I’ll take comfort in knowing Doc Bates will gladly make a visit in the darkest night hour.”
Then, suddenly, Miss McCracken came back to herself. She unwrapped her book from the shawl that covered it. “Well, enough time has been wasted,” she said. “Let us begin our lesson.”
Lowell took his teacher’s shawl and bonnet and handed them to me. The shawl gave off the gentle scent that was Rose McCracken. It was the smell of woolen fibers, with a dash of barley soap thrown in. I never knew white folks had it in them—a fine scent, I mean. I folded the shawl and carefully placed it in the front hall closet.
Right away, I made myself like a quiet, out-of-sight bird. I set my attention to the cobwebs that draped from the baluster. (Mama had been on me for nearly a week about cleaning out those cobwebs. I was saving them for today, for Lowell’s lesson.)
Miss McCracken turned open her book right there in the front hall. “We’ll start with oratory,” she told Lowell. “And since you’ve made such fine and prodigious progress, we’ll take your lesson to your pa’s study and recite for him there. It will make him most proud, I’m sure.” Miss McCracken wasn’t asking a question. She was giving Lowell her lesson plan for the day.
But Lowell, he wasn’t having it. A dry little cough flew out from him, followed by two hard sniffs. “Ma’am?” was all he said.
“We’ll give your pa one of our favorites, Emerson’s The Snow-Storm.’” Miss McCracken stepped past Lowell, toward Parnell’s study. “Come now.” She gestured with her head. “We mustn’t waste any more time.”
I twisted my dust rag around my finger and poked real good at the cobwebs. But I couldn’t help but turn my eyes toward Lowell. His arms were folded tight around him, as if he were bracing himself against a cold wind. A second cough escaped from deep in Lowell’s chest. “My pa’s s~s~s~sickly, m~m~m~ma’am,” he said.
Miss McCracken went to Lowell and gently placed her hand on his forearm. “I know all about that, lad,” she said. “But fine oratory is balm for the ailing.”
Lowell lowered his head. Then he shook his head twice. “My pa doesn’t regard me, ma’am. I’m shame to him,” he said softly.
Miss McCracken lifted one of Lowell’s hands and held it in hers.
“I know about that, too,” she said. Now, if Miss Rose McCracken were holding my hand, I’d feel I had been blessed with the touch of an angel. But Lowell, he started wheezing as if someone had snatched the breath right out of him. I let my dust rag drop, and went to Lowell’s side. I led him to the spindle-back bench that stood in the front hall. “He needs to sit,” I told Miss McCracken.
“Indeed,” she said obligingly, helping me settle Lowell onto the bench.
Lowell groped for his breath. He took several shallow sucks of air. Miss McCracken gathered her shawl from the front had closet and draped it around Lowell’s shoulders. “It ain’t a chill he’s got,” I explained. “It’s an attack of nerves that’s calling up his sickly condition.”
Still, Miss McCracken, whose eyes were filled with concern, kept fussing with the shawl. I stood up from the bench, about to call Mama, when Lowell spoke through a raspy ’bout of coughs. “I’ll recite for my pa, Miss McCracken, if you come with me and stay close,” he said weakly.
Miss McCracken’s eyes met mine, then we both looked at Lowell. “Of course, Lowell, I’ll be right there, nearby, the entire time,” she said.
Lowell was breathing easier now, and his coughing had calmed.
I licked my lips. As soon as Lowell and Miss McCracken left the front hall, I fetched my rag and quietly followed them to the door of Parnell’s study, where I stayed out of sight. Days before, I had found a new sheath of dust nestled near the lower hinges of the door to the master’s study. This was as good a time as any to clean it.
It had been nearly two months
since I’d seen Gideon Parnell up close. When I got to the study, the room was chillier than usual. A draft came from the large, arched window near the desk. Right away, I adjusted the drapes to ward off the chill, then went back to the dust at the master’s door.
Mama had already begun to decorate Parnell’s study for Christmas. She’d roped a garland and some Yule ribbon from the windows. In years past, Parnell’s study didn’t get no decorations. That’s because every holiday, Parnell said the same thing. He believed “frills are best left to public parts of the house.” But with Parnell spending all his days in the study, and Missy Claire spending all hers in the parlor, there were few “public parts” for the Parnells to share together in their own home.
A breakfast tray with a half-eaten bowl of hominy sat to the right of Parnell’s armchair. Lowell was standing to the left of the chair, in full view of his pa. Miss McCracken stood right behind Lowell, just outside the circle of window light that surrounded the master and his son.
Gideon Parnell was a sight! He’d gone from a hefty feed-bag of flesh to a measly sack of bones. He sat slumped in his chair, his shoulders folded in around him, his feet toe to toe. The master’s hands lay feebly in his lap. One of them, his left one, was all gooseflesh. It was a limp curl of fingers. And the master’s eyes. They’d gone blank. Not a wink of expression to them. Parnell had become a spook.
He struggled to speak. “Git—out . . . Out—now,” he stammered. The left corner of Parnell’s lips tugged abruptly downward. And he slobbered when he spoke. “The boy . . . ain’t got—ain’t got no . . . business here,” he managed. He was putting the cold shoulder to his son, as always.
At least the master was clean. Newly shaved clean, thanks to Clem. His hair, which before his stroke was usually mussed, lay obediently oiled and combed.
Lowell stood real still in front of his pa, letting his pa’s uncivil words drift on by. Parnell refused to look at Lowell. Miss McCracken smoothed her skirt. “With all due respect, Mr. Parnell,” she said, “I do believe Lowell has good reason to be here. He’s come to share his lesson progress with you.”
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