A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton (4 page)
A well house sat to one side of the barn, though with the pump inside the kitchen, we only used the pump there to keep water in the troughs for the pigs and cows and horses. There were two wooden troughs connected to each other but angling off into two different directions, one that the pigs could get to from their fenced-in pen, the other for the horses and cattle at the edge of the pasture that sat next to the barn. When the cattle were out grazing in the fields for the day, they drank from the stream that ran through it, the same stream that went through Katie’s woods on its way to the river.
Besides the well house, there were several other little wood buildings and sheds I hadn’t paid much attention to—a tool house, a gardening shed, the smoke house, and a little shed that sat on top of the ice cellar. Besides the main big barn, there was a smaller barn that housed more tools and equipment and the blacksmith shop. Connected to the main barn were the stables for the horses. The horses came in and out by themselves, usually staying out in the field that the stables opened to when it was sunny, and coming in under cover of the stables and barn when it rained. The horses took care of themselves pretty much, though we fed them oats every day.
There was so much equipment, and so many different parts to the plantation that neither of us knew about, I didn’t see how we could ever make it seem like things were
really
normal.
I
KNEW WHAT WE NEEDED TO DO WAS GET A WORK
routine established to make it seem like Rosewood was really a plantation with folks running it and taking care of it. I doubted Emma would be much help, ’cause she needed all her strength just to keep her baby fed and cared for. So I figured me and Katie were likely gonna have to work the plantation ourselves.
The next morning when I got up, I went outside and walked around for a bit, just looking at everything.
Then something struck me. It was like one of those things you suddenly notice, and then you can’t think of anything else, and you can’t imagine why you didn’t see it before.
This whole place didn’t
look
right. It looked run-down and abandoned. There was stuff lying around. Several windows of the house were broken—the one Katie’d shot out with the rifle and a few others that must have been broken by the marauders who had killed her family. There were a few boards lying around, and the pile of broken dishes I’d cleaned up that first day was still there on the ground outside the kitchen door. A little flower garden was growing beside the wall of the house, but it was getting full of weeds. Nothing looked kept up.
And it was too quiet. Except for baby noises coming from the house every once in a while, it all seemed deserted. If anybody was to come and take a look around, they’d figure nobody lived here, though having Emma around would keep it from ever being altogether quiet!
We had to figure out a way to make it look more full of life. Somebody would come again as sure as anything, and we had to make it seem like a normal place where people lived and were doing things.
After Katie and Emma were up and as we fixed our breakfast, I told Katie what I’d been thinking.
“We gotta make the plantation
look
right, Miss Katie,” I said. “Sometime more people are gonna come, and eventually somebody’s gonna realize it feels all wrong.”
Talking about people coming around set Emma right off.
“Dey be lookin’ fer me too, sure as sin! What’s gwine become ob me when dey come?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Emma,” said Katie. “We’ll hide you if we have to.”
“Who do you think’s gonna come for you, Emma?” I asked, still hoping to get to the bottom of what her predicament was all about. We’d asked her questions about it several times, but she hadn’t ever been too eager to tell us much. But for some reason, on this day she started talking more than before.
“Some frien’s er da master’s son.”
“Was one of them the father of your baby?” I asked.
“No, none er dem. It was der master’s son himse’f.
When he come back from da war an’ foun’ me fat wiff his baby from wen he’d come visitin’ one time, he took one look at me an’ I knew what he wuz thinkin’, ’cause he was ’gaged ter be married ter some rich white lady from some plantation roun’ ’bout dere somewheres. An’ I knew dat da wedding wuz supposed ter be soon ’cause everyone wuz talkin’ ’bout it in da big house. I don’ know what dey thought ’bout me gettin’ so fleshy, but nobody said nuthin’ till he came home.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He figgered me fer a loose-tongued fice, dat’s what I heard him say ter his frien’s. He said dat if his father—dat’s da master—wuz ter fin’ out, he’d cut him off wiff no money or lan’ nohow, dat’s what he said, an’ dat dere’d likely be no weddin’ either. So he tol’ his frien’s ter git rid er me. He said not ter hurt me none, but I knew dose frien’s er his wuz bad. But all dere talk din’t matter, ’cause den da master, he foun’ out anyway. Somebody musta tol’ him I was fat wiff his son’s baby. He dun flew inter a wrathy rage. Dey din’t know I wuz listn’n, but I heard ’em from da other room. Dat’s when I heard what dey wuz fixin’ t’do ter me.”
“What did they say?” asked Katie, her eyes getting big as she listened.
“Der master, he was shoutin’ at his son, callin’ him a fool fer rapin’ a dumb nigger girl, an’ den he say, ‘You git rid ob dat nigger an’ her bastard baby!’ Wen I heard dat, I got plumb skeered outta my wits.”
“What were they going to do to you?” asked Katie.
“I listened real careful da next day, skeered fit ter faint,” said Emma. “I wuz in da house ’cause I wuz a house slave, an’ I heard William say dey gwine preten’ ter take me down ter da colored town ter clean up after what had happened, though all da others wuz dead by den—”
My ears perked up as I listened. What had she meant—that all of the others at the colored town were dead! Had it happened to more plantations than just where I lived?
“—an’ on da way,” Emma continued, talking fast and excited, like she was scared all over again just from remembering, “his frien’s wuz gwine nab me an’ take me somewhere far away. But I knew dat dey wuz gwine dump me in da river in a sack full er rocks, in a deep place where nobody’d eber fin’ me. But dat night, I got up an’ snuck outta der house, an’ I hid in a wagon full er some cotton from las’ year’s crop dat wuz headin’ fer town da nex’ day. An’ jes’ when da wagon pulled outta da yard in da mornin’, I heard someone callin’ my name. I wuz skeered dey’d stop the wagon and search it, but dey din’t. An’ when we got close ter town, I jumped out an’ ran fer da woods. An’ I kep’ runnin’ an’ runnin’ fer my life. I knew dey’d be after me come midday wen dey hadn’t nobody seen me. An’ so I ran an’ ran an’ kep’ hidin’ in da trees, an’ I got wrathy hungry so I cud hardly keep goin’, an’ skeered too—I wuz so skeered. An’ two or three days went by, an’ I hid in da woods an’ drank water when I foun’ it. An’ I thought I’s a goner when dat dog er yers came a’chasin’ me dat mornin’ wen you two wuz walkin’ across da field an’ I was hidin’ in da trees an’ here come dis ole dog barkin’ up a racket.”
Katie couldn’t help laughing to hear her tell it.
“I remember that day,” she said. “I thought Rusty was after some critter in the woods.”
“Dat critter wuz me, Miz Katie!” said Emma. “An’ den I stole yer bread, ’cause I wuz like ter starve, an’ snuck inter yer barn. I’m sorry ’bout dat bread, Miz Katie.”
“Don’t think anything of it, Emma,” said Katie. “I’m just glad we found you, that’s all.”
“An’ den you came ter da barn totin’ dat big gun, an’ my heart wuz poundin’ so hard I thought you wuz gwine ter kill me yerself.”
Now I couldn’t help laughing. Katie’d told me about it, but I still had a hard time picturing her with that gun!
After she and Katie talked awhile more about when William was born, I tried to ask Emma more about where she’d come from. I was mighty curious as to how far she’d wandered and how likely those men she was talking about were to wind up at Rosewood looking for her. But she said she didn’t know where it was or how far she’d come. And trying to squeeze information out of Emma was like trying to squeeze meat drippings out of a turnip, and so I finally gave up trying.
L
ATER THAT DAY, AFTER HEARING HER STORY, I
got to feeling real guilty for being so hard on Emma when she’d first come. She was in the same fix as I had been. I was glad Katie’d taken her in and was ashamed of how I’d behaved. But all that was behind us now.
“How’s you gwine make dis place look right, Mayme?” asked Emma that evening when we got back around to talking about what to do next.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “First thing, we gotta clean everything up so it looks more tidy—the junk that’s around, the weeds in the garden.”
“Elvia used to weed the garden,” said Katie.
“All right, that’s good,” I said. “And you gotta try to think back to other things your mama and the others did. We gotta do things to make the house look lived in too, like making sure a fire’s always burning. On warm days we don’t even build a fire. But maybe we should have one burning every day so there’s smoke coming from the chimney. And the slave cabins all looked deserted too.”
“But no one’s there. How can we make it look any different?”
“I don’t know, maybe building a fire there too, so it’ll look like somebody’s cooking.”
“Just build a fire for no reason—we can’t do that every day.”
“Why not?”
“It seems like a waste of time.”
“Not if Mrs. Hammond comes again, and it keeps her from getting too nosy.”
“Who’s Miz Hammond?” asked Emma.
“A busybody white lady from town,” I answered. “She’s a suspicious type who we don’t want asking too many questions.”
“I don’t think she’ll come again, Mayme,” Katie put in.
“But she might. Didn’t you see how she was looking at us when we were in her store? She was mighty curious, I know that much. And she didn’t like me no how.”
“I don’t think she likes anyone who’s black.”
“That’s all the more reason we gotta be careful. You never know about somebody like that.”
“Then we’ll put clothes out on the line to dry and maybe have a horse tied in front … I don’t know, Miss Katie. It was your idea to pretend to make the plantation look like your mama and the slaves were still here. And I’m telling you it looks mighty deserted. So we gotta find things to do to start pretending, like you said that night you thought of it.” Katie was quiet a few minutes.
“You’re right, Mayme,” she said, starting to look around herself. “I hadn’t realized how much work it would be. We’ll have to start doing those things every day.”
“What else do we needs ter be doin’?” said Emma, already starting to think herself one of us and getting excited too as she began to catch on to Katie’s scheme. “I kin help. Please let me help!”
“You need to get yourself strong again,” said Katie, “and take care of William,” she added, nodding to the little bundle asleep in her lap. “When the time comes, you’ll get to do plenty of work around here—won’t she, Mayme?”
“I reckon so,” I said, smiling over at Emma. “Don’t you worry none, girl—there’s gonna be plenty for us all to do.”
“I kin work, Miz Mayme. I’ll work real hard!”
I turned again to Katie.
“You lived here with your mama, Miss Katie,” I said. “You know what it was like. So you have to remember the things we need to do.”
“I’ll try, Mayme.”
“We’re gonna have to go into town again too. We’re gonna need things, and we need to keep Mrs. Hammond thinking that everything’s normal.”
“The first thing I’ll start doing is to weed the flower garden,” said Katie. “I’ll do that today.”
“And I’ll clean up the broken dishes. You’ll have to show me where you put the garbage.”
The next day we both worked pretty hard. Emma tried to help some but was mostly in the way, pestering us with her scatterbrained talk all the time. I must admit, she tried my patience! But we were a little excited now that we had a plan and knew what we needed to do. It wasn’t much, but even by the end of that day I thought the outside looked a little tidier, and Katie had made the flower garden look real nice.