Picking up the money with shaking fingers, she marveled at the strange currency. She had never seen so much money at once before in her life. “Thank you.”
“When is this baby due? You best be back after it is born.”
“The baby is due in August.”
“Yeah. Okay. August. You better be back before the end of August or you’ll lose your job. Permanently.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. There was no use in contradicting what he said. She had gotten what she wanted.
“You’ll be interested to know that I left that uppity Negro out there in the woods. I won’t ever be hiring someone like that again. I prefer old home folk.”
Her heart skipped a few beats. How had he left him? “What was he doing when you left him, sir?”
Paul Winslow laughed. “He probably trying to figure out how to get out of the woods. Couldn’t go far on that leg of his anyhow.”
Something in her died while Paul Winslow laughed and taunted a man who had fought for his country and all he had to show for it was a Bakelite leg.
Thank the dear Lord she had not enacted her plans of revenge against him. The words were right. Let God handle Paul Winslow and his unspeakable cruelties.
What had happened to Asa, though, and how would he meet up with her? Nettie’s words haunted the edge of her thoughts. Trust in God to help them find the way to help them be together.
Chapter Seventeen
All day long, Mags felt a pressure on her legs with Asa’s notebook and the money in her pocket. Still, she felt a triumph whenever she thought about her confrontation with Paul Winslow and understood how David must have felt when he triumphed over Goliath.
When she returned to Katie’s mother’s house, she used her organizing skills to help the woman handle the onslaught of visitors who were coming to convey their condolences at Katie’s death. It wasn’t all of the visitation that she would receive today, she knew, still, the numbers represented a measure of the generosity of the people of Winslow. She really wished that she could stay and help further, but her train left that night at 8:03 p.m. and she knew that she should be on it.
The mill housing wasn’t far from the train station and when it was time, at about 7:30 p.m., she said goodbye to Katie’s family and began the ten-minute walk to the train station. She ignored the suspicious looks that the trainmaster gave her when she presented her twenty-dollar bill to pay for her ticket, but she didn’t care. The first train would take her to Atlanta, and she would transfer to The Crescent Express, which would take her all the way through Philadelphia where she would have to change to a train going westward to get to Pittsburgh. She wished that she could send a telegram to Ruby and Adam telling them that she was coming early, but maybe there would be time when she reached Philadelphia. No doubt, this was a fearful thing, going alone, but she would do what she had to do. And pray for Asa to join her. She sat down on the platform to wait when, coming around the corner, were the Carvers.
“What are you all doing here? You should be at the revival.” She stood to greet them and they hugged her.
“Child, we felt it better to go on ahead to our son. We gave a brief prayer at the revival and then turned it on over to Nettie to do,” Brother Carver said.
Nettie—doing the revival meeting? Her mind reeled. She wished she could be there to see it. “We going to get on out of here. There’s so much hatred going around now.” Sister Jane threw her hands up as she saw Brother Carver step over to the trainmaster to exchange their tickets.
Her father stepped up onto the platform and she ran to him and hugged him another time. “Daddy, it is so good to see you. They said Net is doing the meeting?”
“She is.” John beamed. “She was wonderful, at least the part that I saw. She bringing some real healing to these folks who are hurting because of Katie.” The look on his face became stormy. “There weren’t no police there either. I think they thought people would be afraid to gather.”
“The attendance was low,” Brother Carver admitted. “But I think that’s because people didn’t know that Net was going to do the meeting.”
She smiled. “That’s wonderful.” She looked puzzled as Brother Carver handed her a ticket. “No, I have a ticket.”
“What? Did you go over to that mill?”
“I did. He gave me the money.”
John shook his head. “Your mama won’t be happy. Guess this ticket will have to be turned in for another passenger.”
Her father went back out and gestured around the corner. She followed her father and saw Asa come out from the back of the wagon, carrying his grip. She ran down the stairs to him and they embraced. “I made it,” he said.
“I’m so glad that you did.” The feeling was so full in her, she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t.
“I want to do as I promised. I told Ruby I was going to bring you and I am.”
“I was worried about how to let them know I was coming.”
“We may have time to send notice once we reach Philadelphia.” Asa kept a tight arm around her waist and she felt secure in his hold.
“Come on up to the platform now,” John called. “You all don’t want to miss the train.”
She watched as Asa adjusted himself and used his cane to climb up the stairs to the platform, carrying his grip by himself. She could see that he was winded when he got to the top of the stairs, but he made it. They could hear the train whistle in the distance. She gave her father one last hug and Asa shook his hand.
“We be seeing them to Atlanta, John. We change trains for Florida there,” Brother Carver informed them.
“Send word for safety as soon as you can,” John Bledsoe’s voice came thick.
“You go on now, Daddy. Take care. You need to get home before dark yourself,” she said, urging her father on.
“I’ll take good care of her, sir,” Asa said.
“I have no doubt that you will.” John smiled and they watched him as he got behind the mules and drove off. Her heart nearly leaped into her throat as she saw the train coming down the track.
But, was that Paul Winslow and the lawmen approaching them from the other side of the platform? It was and he came and stood in front of them.
“What are you doing here?” she shouted over the coming train.
“My boys want to make an arrest here. They are trying to see if they can.”
“This is ridiculous,” Asa said, linking his arm through hers. “You told me to get out of your town within twenty-four hours and I’m doing it. What do you want?”
“I want you out, but your lady, she needs to stay here with me.”
Brother Carver started praying out loud.
Sister glared at Paul Winslow. “We’re all leaving. The way you treats these people in this town is just shameful. I don’t know if we are coming back for any more revivals. It’s so terrible folks can’t come and go as they want.”
“This here is none of your affair,” Paul Winslow said smoothly. He grabbed Mags by her elbow and she startled. He had never, ever, touched her.
Asa stood right in front of his handhold. “I’m telling you kindly, sir,” he shouted as the train pulled up to them. “Let her go.”
She tried to wrestle herself from his grip, but his hold on her was like iron. “She ain’t going nowhere with you. You get on that train.”
The lawmen stepped forward and brandished their weapons.
“Jesus.” Sister Jane stepped forward. “Turn her loose, now, please.”
She stared up at the urgency in Sister Jane’s voice, but what made her really fearful was the strange look in Paul Winslow’s eyes. His eyes had no emotion, or feeling in them. They were just cold. Empty.
“Asa, please get on the train.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Inside her mind, she searched for an answer. “Mr. Paul,” she said
in the old time speak, “Miss Mary would be ashamed at this. I told you I’ll never leave Winslow. Not really. Please, let me get on the train and go to Ruby to help her. I got a feeling she going to have a girl and if she does, I’ll tell her to name her Mary, because of you being so kind.”
Then, the sorrow came back in his eyes, and she knew he thought of his dead wife. That slip of emotion, just that little bit of caring, made his grip less than strong and she eased out of his hold. “Let’s go,” she said to Asa and they all climbed up, taking time to see that Asa got on. They had to board on Jim Crow cars, at least until they got into Pennsylvania, which had rough wooden benches. She had heard and read a lot about Jim Crow cars, but being able to leave made it look like a paradise to her.
They sat down on one spare bench and Asa put her inside by the window, so that she could hear Paul Winslow still yelling after her. “You best be back. I know you for a good Christian girl. You wouldn’t lie, now.”
“And we know you for the very devil,” Asa muttered under his breath in her ear. “You’ll never come back here. Ever.”
She gave a quick prayer of gratitude that she was on the train, despite the conditions. When she lifted her eyes, she saw the desperate looking face of Paul Winslow who had kept her in his sights following the train little bit by little bit.
And she knew God had his vengeance.
That man didn’t know it, but his entire world had changed. The powerful Paul Winslow looked small and desperate. Something in her heart felt sad at this pitiful display. The great Paul Winslow was following a Jim Crow car down the train platform.
“I’ll tell you one thing.” She slipped her hand into the crook of Asa’s arm. “I bet he has never been to a train to see any Negroes off. Times sure have changed.” She laid her head on his shoulder and breathed out, reveling in each breath. This time spent with Asa was indeed a gift from God to be very thankful for.
Traveling Jim Crow was hard, and the wooden benches were a reminder that they had no soft places in their existence. Also, not having access to the same accommodations as others did made him want to punch things. Still, everything was made easier by being accompanied by Mags, who never having been on a train before, and saw everything from new eyes and perspectives.
When they left Brother Carver and Sister Jane in Atlanta, her last touch of home, they spread out because the Jim Crow car emptied out. She laid down on one of the hard, wooden benches and went to sleep. He stayed up all night and watched her. In some ways, she seemed so young and naïve at twenty years old. Did she really understand what she was getting into with him? Still, his Pearl deserved credit. She had shown such poise and strength of character over these past few days when there had been a lot of trouble. He was proud of her and so proud to be with her. He hadn’t realized that he had gone to sleep because when he woke up, he saw that she was looking at him.
“Philadelphia’s still a few hours away and I’m hungry.”
“Your mama gave me lunch.”
“Miss Katie’s mother let me make one up out of all of the food that came to the house, so I guess we are both well prepared.”
The two of them came to the conclusion that they liked Lona’s chicken the best. There was a piece of pound cake, though, in her lunch that was pretty good, and they both came to the consensus that it would be hard to come across some pound cake like that, even though Mags did a pretty good job when she made it.
The recollections made her sad, so he tried to distract her. “When we get off of the train, just stay with me. I’ll make sure that we get word to Pittsburgh somehow to have someone meet us. We can eat another lunch in Philadelphia if we want.”
“I won’t know where I’m going. It sounds pretty good to me.”
When they disembarked from the train, he could see Mags was pretty overwhelmed by the largeness of the Philadelphia train station. He went to a desk and sent a telegram message to his mother and to Adam Morson saying they were coming in. He certainly hoped that Adam would meet them, even as he knew it was a risk since the doctor could be busy.
After they had lunch in a restaurant where the diners were not separated by race, they got on the train where there were plush velvet seats for them to sit on. If all went well, they would be in Pittsburgh in time for a late supper. He could see that she was pretty wowed by everything, even by the conductor taking her ticket and calling her “Miss.”
“He called me Miss. A white man.” Mags shook her head after the conductor had walked away from them.
“That’s how it is up here. Some of the time.”
“It’s amazing. You get used to being treated a certain way for so long, that when someone is nice to you, it’s shocking. It shouldn’t be like that.”
“No. You deserve nice treatment all of the time.”
Mags patted her hair. “I hope I can freshen up a little more before I get to Pittsburgh. I wouldn’t want them to see me looking country.”
“You look lovely.” He meant every word of it. He only hoped his mother would be able to understand how he felt from his point of view. It didn’t matter and he didn’t care what she said. Mags was his.
He could see that she was entranced by the Pennsylvania countryside of his birth. Mags sounded as if she had learned something from her schooling when she said, “It’s still part of the Appalachian mountain range, so it’s hilly. But it’s all brown and green instead of red and green.”
He smiled at her comment. “Yes that’s true.”
“How does the brown come out of clothes?” Mags wondered.
“I think that people from up here wonder the same thing about your Georgia red clay.”
“Will there be church tomorrow?”
“Oh yes. There is always church. We belong to one of the biggest and most prominent Negro congregations in Pittsburgh. My mother and your sister run just about everything in the church.”
“I just can’t believe it. Ruby was never one for church leadership—she always made fun of mama, who is the one at First Water in charge of things. You saw.”
“I did. You’ll have to see for yourself tomorrow.”
When they got closer to Pittsburgh, the air got thicker and foggier looking. Mags was disappointed that she couldn’t get a better view of the city as they came closer. “It’s the industry,” he said. “The steel mills. They fire all of the time, day and night and make the air like that. I’ve been in the clear, clean, country air for so long, I forgot about this. Still, it’s better where we are in the Hill District because we are up on a hill. The train station is down in a valley, I suppose and that’s why the air is thick.”
When the train stopped, he gathered their luggage up and steered her out to the front where all of the hansom cabs were lined up. He craned his neck and saw that across the street from the train station, there was a single gray hansom cab with an elegant initial on the side—the old intertwined “EM.” His mother sure knew how to travel in style. “She’s across the street,” he gestured and dear Mags patted her hair again as if she were nervous, following him carefully.
Elodie Mason Caldwell was sitting in the back of a double-seated hansom cab and held her arms out to her son. He fell into them with a warm embrace in return. “Mother, it’s good to see you. Thank you so much for coming to get me.”
“You had to have the proper ride back to be able to rest your leg. You look different. Who is this?” His mother drew back in surprise.
“I told you that we were coming together. This is Ruby’s sister, Margaret.”
“Ruby? Ruby Morson?”
“That’s right. She’s come to help her with the baby and the house.”
“Her sister?” Elodie Caldwell looked as if she had lost all of her senses in her confusion. “But she looks nothing like her.”
Shrinking up and sliding away in between the Pittsburgh cobblestones seemed like the best alternative to hav
ing to hear his mother’s words. He knew precisely what his mother meant, although he wasn’t sure that Mags did. He needn’t have worried. She stepped forward and offered her hand.
He quailed a bit. While he loved holding Mags’s hands, they weren’t the hands of a lady. Her hands were the hands of a worker and she was not wearing gloves. He doubted that Elodie had shaken the hands of a worker often. “I look like my father, Mrs. Caldwell and Ruby favors our mother. So good to finally meet you.”
“Yes.” The limp handshake that his mother offered was not very welcoming. “Welcome to Pittsburgh.”
He handed her into the carriage. Mags sat on the opposite side from Elodie and moved over to make room for Asa. “Oh no, dear. It’s better for him over here, there’s his leg you see.”
He got into the carriage and sat next to his mother, where his leg was cramped, but he knew that Elodie was asserting her authority as she always did. He didn’t want to say anything just now, but he would soon. His mother put her hand on his arm and leaned in. “Your telegram didn’t come in time to alert your sisters, but they’ll be at church tomorrow and will see you then. Oh son, it is so good that you are home and away from that dreadful place. It just isn’t safe for a son of a prominent family to travel down there anymore. Promise me that you won’t.”
“I’m going to be in Pittsburgh a bit to do some writing, so I’m not looking to go anywhere anytime soon.” He tried to make eye contact with Mags, but she wouldn’t look at him. She seemed sad somehow, deflated, and he wanted to let her know that everything was alright.
“We can drop her off, um. What’s your name again, dear?”
“Margaret, ma’am.”
“Oh yes. We can drop her off at the Morsons’ before we go home. It seems as if the month that you have been gone was so long and we heard so little from you.”
“It would be dangerous to send mail, Mama. It’s hard to know who is reading the mails that go in and out.”
“That’s terrible. Imagine a place like that where you can’t even send a letter. Dreadful.”
A Most Precious Pearl Page 18
