Asa sat up and scrambled closer to the basket. “I’ll take that last piece of sweet cake. It was supposed to be yours?”
“It was, but I…I’m not hungry.”
“Because I guessed who Travis was? I told you I was a good reporter.”
“No, because I’m sorry to hear that someone would have treated you that way.”
“I’m not, for the first time since it happened,” Asa admitted and her emotions were in a whirl again. “If he hadn’t shot me, I wouldn’t have felt as if my whole world had been lost. If I hadn’t felt that way, I wouldn’t be here with you, now. I would be out chasing down some other news story, instead of doing something that really matters. Just like you should be.”
“What I do, sir, is none of your concern.” She tried to keep the anger in her voice so that it wouldn’t shake or quiver.
“We’re the same. Your crutch is invisible, but you lean on it, just the same as I do and you use it to protect yourself from life. It’s stopping you from living, just as my attitude stopped me. I can help you with that.”
Mags stood up with the basket and brushed off her skirt. “I’ll put this in the car.” She got up quickly, too quickly, not showing the least bit of consideration for him now, and strode toward the car with sure steps. Behind her, she knew he was using the cane to help himself up from the blanket, but clearly he was capable of far more than what he had shown.
He knew how to shake up her world and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Chapter Seven
Mrs. Elodie Caldwell would have been scandalized at her son’s behavior.
The time in the grove with Mags was some of the most emotionally charged, connected time he experienced with someone. He never recalled feeling this way with any woman before, not even Aline, and he had asked her to marry him.
On this day, Sunday, in church, he loved sitting next to Margaret and noting the dignified tilt of her head, but he really had enjoyed the view of last week when he had sat behind her and noted the stately nape of her neck.
God will strike me down. Asa adjusted his legs, not exactly fidgeting in his seat in the middle of the pastor’s sermon. Was everyone being so nice to him to welcome him into the family? The Bledsoe family? Is this what Ruby meant when she said her sister was better than she ever was? The thought of being that kind of close to a woman as he was now made him sweat. He yearned to reach over and touch her another time, but knew he mustn’t. It would be better to run away from her as fast as his half-leg would carry him.
Run? A picture developed in his mind of what his jerky gait would look like and the picture made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. His running days were over, and now that they were, could he be a full husband to Mags? No. Better to stick to his plan, help her believe in herself and some other man would be able to see the pearl that Mags was. She deserved better than him.
This Sunday, the second Sunday of the month was set aside for the monthly church picnic. There would be even more wondrous delights at a lunch out in the church grove, but there also would be time to spend with Mags as she presented more of her delicious cooking to the congregation. He offered her his arm. “What did you make today?”
Mags smiled as they walked out of the church and she took his arm. “I’ve had enough of picnic food. So we just brought leftover pound cake that I made.”
“Good enough. Will you make sure that I’m free of crumbs after I finish it?”
They emerged into the bright sunshine of the June afternoon, and he was proud to see she was slightly embarrassed at his reference. Good. She should be shaken up much more often than she was. “I’m glad that I get to spend time with you this afternoon. I wanted to ask your mother or any of the ladies if they wouldn’t mind packing me a sandwich or some drumsticks to take back to the mill house today.”
“Why?” Mags let go of his arm and the sun of her touch went from his soul too quickly. Come back.
“You aren’t returning with us to the house?”
“I’m going to write up my notes from yesterday while they are still fresh and file them. I would love to be with you this evening, but it would be hard to do that all at once.”
Her jewel eyes shone brightly as she left off to pack up a tin plate of goodies for him. Thank God. How enjoyable it was to watch her slim figure maneuver around the table creating a special plate just for him. She covered it with a napkin and held it up for his viewing as she moved on to his car. “Here are the choicest bits for you. If it means that you will get back to your writing, you’ll have what you need.”
He called after her, so that she could hear him. “Thank you. With you as my muse, Mags, how could I go wrong?”
Her slim figure, dressed in deep navy today, retreated through the woods and his heart sank a little at her disappearance. Would he find his writing voice today when he needed it? His hand shook a bit. It was good to use the writing as an excuse to separate himself from her. He was beginning to care for her, maybe too much after just a few weeks time. He would see her in the morning for work.
Despite himself, he began to feel as if the morning couldn’t get there fast enough.
Asa, Mr, Thomas, ate her good breakfast of oatmeal and bacon on Monday morning, but he was quiet and didn’t talk much. When they drove on to the plant she asked him, “Did the writing go well?”
He shook himself out of his reverie, focusing his eyes on her almost as if he were seeing her for the first time. “Well enough. I was able to get the pages off this morning. It felt good getting down a story like that. Thank you.”
“Thank me?” Mags shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, you did,” Asa insisted and he got serious again. She didn’t want him to think that she was laughing at him.
Pulling up in front of the mill, she noticed there were five more cars than usual. “So many extra cars. Something going on.”
His brow furrowed and he said nothing as he escorted her inside. She took up her work at her machine, and worked in her usual methodical way, even as the shadow of Paul Winslow loomed over her. She took the pedal down, gently so that she did not mangle her hand, then looked up. Mr. Winslow stood there with five other white men with him, all dressed in suits and smelling of bergamot and hair oil. Their attentions made Mags a little faint, but she made herself keep her head while she was around her machine. Something terrible could happen if she were not cognizant of herself while she worked.
“This her?” one of the men asked.
“Yes. My little moneymaker,” Paul Winslow boasted. She bent her head to her work, trying to pay them no mind.
“She was running the plant before the other one came?”
“She does a fine job of being in charge of the other workers. They all listen to what she says. I just sit back in my office and marvel at what wonderful workers I have.”
The tips of her ears burned. She didn’t like the way they were standing around and talking about her. This kind of attention was…shameful. She had never thought of what she had done as making him that kind of profit.
“What about him?”
She knew they were pointing to Asa, who was at another machine with another worker. Asa looked up and started to walk over to the group, but they turned their backs on him. “Lost part of his leg in the Great War. He’s been able to teach the rest of them the way she does it. Even though he’s crippled, he can still work for a full day’s pay.” Paul Winslow gestured toward Asa.
She shifted the weft to start another edge. If she stopped to reach away from the machine, which was always dangerous, she knew she would feel the tips of her ears on fire for sure. Clearly, Winslow had no intention to introduce Asa as a skilled man, as someone who had really helped him. His omissions of Asa’s contributions, every bit as worthy as hers, laid there in her mind and gave her one more reason, one more thing that made her fingers it
ch to see him brought low. The Bible verse “Vengeance is mine” echoed throughout her mind, but her blood burned hot at the way that Asa had been treated.
Some of them were too far away for her to hear them, so she couldn’t understand what the other man said, but she heard Paul Winslow’s response.— “He’s got one of them degrees from a Negro college. You know what that means.”—and all six of the men started guffawing.
The comment sent Mags’s mind reeling. No, what did it mean? He was educated. He knew things. What did it mean to them? They stepped away from her machine at Paul Winslow’s invitation, ready to go back into one of the offices to talk further.
Despite her best intentions, the pace of her work slowed considerably. Now she understood why there was a certain slow pace of life in the South. She understood why Negroes did not work as hard. What would be the point of working hard and enriching someone else? She felt like the biggest fool in the world. Her vision obscured by big fat tears, which she wiped quickly away with the back of her hand. Crying? She never cried, not since Travis. And she swore she would get even with Paul Winslow.
The only thing new was Mr. Thomas had come into town and taken her job. That’s all. A handkerchief got stuffed into her balled up fist. Asa. Standing next to her with his eyes fixed on her.
“Take it. Wipe your eyes and get back to work.”
Mags bristled. Now he was going to be the big boss. “I would, but I don’t understand why I should if it just makes him rich.”
“Because…” Asa spoke slowly as he would to a child, “…you were singled out.”
“As if I were some cute pet or toy.”
Now with clear vision, Asa turned on her and fix her with blazing eyes. “No, what you saw was progress. They had to acknowledge you as someone who has a special skill. You can do something that Paul Winslow needs. The fact that you can do what you do elevates you. It shows them that we are not animals, but people who can do things when they have the skills in place to do it.”
Mags waved his handkerchief towards the departing company. “They were so mean about your college.”
The smiling Mr. Thomas came back and he chuckled. “You can’t get mad about that.”
Now she was mad. “Yes, I can. You have a degree. They should respect that.”
“The fact that I have a degree from a Negro college is what scares them. It means, once again, that Negroes can achieve too. That’s how you have to think about all of that.” He put a hand on her shoulder and she felt a shiver run down that side of her body. She remembered their time in the grove and she looked down at his hand on her shoulder and then up at him. His lips were perfectly formed. How odd that she had never noticed that before. They were beautiful, thick, lush and pink.
And how would that moustache feel on her mouth? Travis’s kisses seemed so long ago…had it tickled? She didn’t remember. She could write to Ruby and ask her, since Adam had a moustache, but his moustache was nothing like Asa’s. Adam’s moustache, as she remembered, was thinner, of a light brown shade and was very silky looking due to his white lineage. It was a copious amount of moustache, enough so Ruby could at least answer her question.
Still, somehow she knew that it would be different with Asa. His moustache was thick and bushy and relentlessly masculine. He also had hair below his lower lip and chin. More than enough for… She pocketed his handkerchief. “Thank you. I’ll wash this for you tonight. I need to get back to my machine.”
“Of course.” Asa stepped away and the warmth of his presence left her. She wanted to watch him go, but she had to get back to her machine and continue to enrich Paul Winslow. The thought enraged her, but allowed her to be calm, only because she knew that however indirectly, Adam and Solomon would benefit. Yes, Solomon would benefit, and would go to a college that those men couldn’t laugh at.
She would see to that.
How could those men come into the mill and make fun of her that way? Hold her up for ridicule and scorn? This would go in his article for sure. He didn’t want to inflate the incident because he could sense her feelings were hurt.
The entire encounter had upset Mags and that was one of the things that made him mad. Better to keep it to himself. He said nothing all while he escorted Katie home to her mill house and went home with Mags for dinner. He kept up conversation about inane things. At dinner, he repeatedly complimented Lona’s chicken and dumplings and ate two pieces of Mags’s peach cake. He kept it all to himself until after dinner, when the Bledsoe sisters went to do their piece work and John Bledsoe went out to the barn to check on his livestock. “I want to hear stories,” Delie asked about the Bible reading. “Let’s act out one. How about Esther and her king?”
Asa waved off the invitation. “You ladies set it all up. I want to have a word with Mr. John out in the barn.”
Behind him, he heard a great flurry of gabbing amongst the Bledsoe sisters and he shook his head as he hobbled out to the barn. They completely misunderstood what he had just said and what his intentions were.
Did they really think he was in a position to marry Mags after a few weeks of knowing her?
But why not?
Because, how could he do what he needed to do in supporting a woman, let alone a family with a leg like this? He certainly couldn’t travel and get stories as he used to. How could he play with a child or be its father? He didn’t understand why no one else could see these problems, as he did, but he couldn’t worry about that.
He approached John, who was brushing down a mule. “Mr. John.”
“Mr. Thomas. Asa. What’s going on?” John seemed surprised to see him there.
“There was an incident at the mill today, and I wanted to ask you some questions.”
“Is everything okay?”
Asa related to him what had happened at the mill and discussed Mags’s upset. “Well,” John stopped to think. “I wouldn’t have known it. You must’ve explained it to her really well, ’cause she wasn’t that upset. Her cooking didn’t reflect that anyway.” John chuckled. “You seem to have that kind of impact on her.”
“I thought she hated me because I took her job.”
“Maybe some. But she knows that you’ve come and taught her things that she didn’t know before. Mags always appreciates that. She’s what you call, a quick study.”
“She’s that, sir. I wanted to ask, although I think with my reporter’s instincts, I know already, that she had a former friend named Travis. What happened to him?”
John stopped his repair and put the bridle down. “Yes. Travis Flint. He always had a bit of a crush on Mags. She never paid him no attention right up until about a month before he died. She started to see him as a man and they began courting.”
“Was she going to marry him?”
John gave a little more thought to the matter. “Maybe. Maybe he had asked her. Never said nothing to me about it and by rights, he should have asked me first before he would have asked Mags. But then, he started protesting about his wages at the mill and several men went to his house and beat him up. Took a few days, but he died of his injuries. Sad.” John looked up at Asa. “She say something to you about Travis?”
“She mentioned his name when we were driving around last week.”
“Well, if you know what I know about how to relate to a woman, you would say nothing about what I said until she tells you. He was just the first one to look at her in that way. Part of what Mags feels is sorrow at his death, and the fact that she waited so long to respond to his courting.”
“She spoke about why Paul Winslow needed to be brought down. After what happened at the mill today, I’m inclined to agree.”
John looked worried. “That’s Ruby talk. We don’t need no more of that. This is that man’s town. I have tried to have as little as possible to do with him. I live out here on the edge of town so’s I can keep an eye on him. I only let my wife do the laundry
and carry it back here to do. I don’t want her working in that house, and none of my daughters.
“I didn’t want none of them going into the mill, but Mags, she insisted that was all the job she could get with her level of education. I keep wishing that I could do more, but it’s mighty hard. It was good when Adam came and showed Ruby and Mags how to get their high school diplomas. Nettie’s about to get hers and she going to bring the others with her. But once they have them, then what?” He patted the mule. “Maybe it was a mistake since Mags is unhappy and talking crazy talk about bringing down Winslow.”
“Why is it crazy talk?”
“He too powerful. She think them mobs is above lynching women, but they not. If Ruby hadn’t left out of here… She can’t even visit, because she promised the sheriff she was never coming back. I ain’t seen my grandson in years because of that.” John sniffled a bit. “Now, Mags is going to have to go if she can’t just keep her lip buttoned up. Lord, I told her to stay out of that mill.”
“Sir, Mags will be alright. In a few weeks’ time, when I’m done with my assignment here, I’ll take her to see Ruby. I’m sure that we will be able to find a better opportunity for her up there.”
John moved around to the other side of the mule and prepared to brush down that side. “That’ll be good for her. But bad for us. Don’t say nothing, but she’s the best cook of any of my daughters.”
Asa laughed. “There’s still time for the others to learn, sir.”
John shook his head. “None of them took to it like Mags. She the best one. You’ll be looking out for her?”
“As much as I’m able to, sir.” Asa looked straight ahead.
“What does that mean?”
“When Ruby called me down here to investigate, I was still trying to figure out what to do with my life, after my incident.” No need to mention that he had had thoughts of ending it. His thoughts just a few weeks ago all seemed so distant and selfish.
A Most Precious Pearl Page 8
