A Perilous Proposal (33 page)
Read A Perilous Proposal Online
Authors: Michael Phillips
Tags: #Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865–1877)—Fiction, #Women plantation owners—Fiction, #Female friendship—Fiction, #Plantation life—Fiction, #Race relations—Fiction, #North Carolina—Fiction, #Young women—Fiction, #Racism—Fiction
About an hour later, Mr. Daniels galloped back into the yard on Miz Katie's horseâalone. Jeremiah, already sweating, ran a worried hand over his face.
“Easy, son,” Henry said and stepped forward to help the man dismount.
“You Henry?” Mr. Daniels asked.
“I is,” Henry replied.
“Kathleen sent me back, said you wouldn't mind helping me. Hope that's right.”
“Dat's right, all right.”
“Good.” The man smiled. “My niece wants me to bring back a wagon.”
“You found dem!” exclaimed Jeremiah.
“Yep. All three, no, four,” said Mr. Daniels. “Katie said Henry would know which wagon and which horse would be best.”
“Dat I do. Come, Jeremiah, gib me a han'.”
Father and son made short work of hitching up the wagon, and soon Mr. Daniels was climbing up on the seat board.
“Much obliged,” he said, then glanced at Jeremiah. “You want to come along, son?” he asked.
“Dat I would, suh!”
“I thought as much,” smiled Mr. Daniels.
I sat beside Katie on the grass, near the spot where she and her uncle Ward had found us, listening as she told us about all the excitement we had missed back at Rosewood when her uncle Ward had put such a sudden end to her uncle Burchard's plans. How quickly everything had changed!
We talked excitedly and Katie told us all about how her uncle had ridden up right at the last minute and about how mad her uncle Burchard had been. We all
laughed and asked so many questions that the time went by quickly. Before we knew it, we heard the sound of the wagon coming along the road. And there was Jeremiah sitting beside Katie's uncle on the seat board! Now I was even happier than ever!
I smiled and waved, and before Mr. Daniels had even reined in the horse to a full stop, Jeremiah leaped down from the wagon and caught me in his arms and swung me around. Then he seemed to notice all the others standing around and he stepped back a bit sheepishly.
He cleared his throat. “Uh . . . good to see you agin, Miz Mayme.”
Everyone burst out laughing, and William ran forward and jumped into his arms, saying he wanted to be swung around too.
Katie told her uncle who we all were. Then Mr. Daniels turned the wagon around, and we all loaded up and began the ride back home. Jeremiah sat with me and the others in the back while Katie sat up front with her uncle. Jeremiah didn't say anything, but he couldn't seem to stop looking at me and smiling. Content, I sat back and listened as Katie and her uncle talked.
“How did you hear about what was going on, Uncle Ward?” asked Katie.
“I read about the two of you in a paper up north. That's how I found out Richard and Rosalind were dead, and I figured I ought to come down and see if there was any way I could help out, you being kin and all.”
“Did you know about Uncle Burchard's saying Rosewood was his and having a new deed drawn up and everything?”
“There was just a mention of a brother of Richard's in the paper. But I didn't know any more than that till
I got to Greens Crossing. I saw a notice up on a signboard and I asked somebody about it. That's when I figured I'd better hightail it out there so I could have a say in the matter.”
“I'm sure glad you did!” said Katie.
“And just in the nick of time, by all appearances,” he said.
“I'm sorry about us using up all your gold, Uncle Ward.”
“I didn't come back for the gold, Kathleen. But tell me again what happened with it?”
“We used it for Rosewood,” answered Katie. “My mama had taken out two loans when my daddy was away at the war, and after they were killed, the loans came due. Mayme and I found the gold and paid off the loans.”
“Well, no matter. I'm glad it got put to good use. I came back to see if you were okay and to tell you how sorry I am about your ma. If my hard work in California helped save the place from some banker, well then, I figure maybe that's worth it.”
Suddenly, Katie's uncle Ward turned to look at me. “And what about you, Mayme?” he asked. “I read in the story in the paper that you lost your family too, just like Kathleen. You want to stay on at Rosewood too?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Daniels,” I answered. “Rosewood's my home. This is the just about the only family I've got left.”
I smiled at the man, then turned to Jeremiah and whispered, “I only just thought of itâhe's my uncle too!”
T
OGETHER
A
GAIN
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L
ife around Rosewood changed a lot after that, when Katie's two uncles, Mr. Templeton Daniels and Mr. Ward Daniels, finally came to live at Rosewood for good. Of course, first we had had to find my papa, who was still missing. Turns out he had run into some problems up north, when one of the men he wanted to repay had him thrown in jail instead. But after Mr. Ward and Katie made a trip up north, and with the help of a young deputy there, I finally had my papa back home with me again.
Mr. Ward said we could all stayâme, Emma, William, and Josephaâand that Katie could keep running Rosewood just like she had been. He didn't even seem to care that most of us were colored!
One of the biggest changes of all was Katie and me trying to get used to the fact that we were cousins. But other things were going to take longer to sort out. Knowing that Templeton Daniels was my father made me feel like I had to figure out all over again who I really was.
I reckoned the changes in me were similar to the kinds of changes that had come in Jeremiah's life,
finding his pa, realizing his past was different than he thought, and now suddenly having a place to call home. That was new for him too.
Even our names were new. Jake was calling himself Jeremiah now, to please Henry. And even though I had grown up as Mary Ann Jukes, now that I knew about my real father and how he and my mother had been in love, I began calling myself Mary Ann Daniels.
Once the two Daniels brothers were sort of in charge of Rosewood, though they let Katie and me mostly do what we thought best, there was no longer any need for Katie's scheme. Besides, everyone around Greens Crossing knew what had happened after Burchard Clairborne shared the secret with Mrs. Hammond. And, of course, the newspaper articles and all. Mrs. Hammond at the store tried to make like she'd known it all along!
After that our lives became a little more normal, if living on a plantation with three whites and four coloreds all together under the same roof could ever be called normal!
We were all growing upâKatie and me and Emma and Jeremiah. Katie and I had met when we were fourteen and fifteen. Jeremiah had come to Greens Crossing when he was seventeen.
But by the time the year 1867 gave way to 1868 and we began planting new crops for yet another year's harvest, Katie was seventeen and would soon turn eighteen, and I was eighteen and would be nineteen about the time of the harvest in August. Jeremiah was practically a grown man now at twenty. Even little William wasn't so little anymore.
We'd all changed a lot since 1865. To me, it seemed that Katie had changed most of all. She was tall and shapely, with that long, curly blond hair of hers, and
just about as pretty as anyone could imagine. She often wore her mother's dresses now. They fit her real good. Her mother sure knew how to pick pretty clothes. She must have been a real lady.
The South wasn't the same as it had been before the war. But if it had been, I could almost imagine Katie as a Southern belle at her daddy's plantation with all the young men clustered around her asking her for a dance at a party or ball, and trying to win her heart and ask for her hand. Of course, that South of plantations and balls and parties and slaves was gone forever now.
Katie's mama and daddy's plantation had changed more than most, I reckon. There were more blacks living under Katie's roof than whites. We were quite a mixed-up familyâblacks and whites and half of each, uncles and cousins and brothers and friendsâall coming and going and working together around the place. That made a lot of the local people, like Mrs. Hammond, pretty upset. But Katie was determined in her love and loyalty. She made all of us feel that we really belonged to the “family” at Rosewood. And four of usâ Katie and me and Ward and Templeton Danielsâ really were blood kin to Katie's mama. Emma and her son, William, and Josepha, were still living with us too. And with Henry and Jeremiah living at the livery in town but coming out to see us all the timeâno, the townsfolk didn't like the goings-on at Rosewood one bit. They thought it was scandalous all the mixing up of black and white as if skin color didn't matter at all.
But I didn't think it was scandalous. I thought it was right nice. It reminded me of the tunes Katie played on the piano in the parlor. All kinds of notes mixing together to make beautiful music.
Like the day I walked into the kitchen and heard
the strangest thing. Josepha was talking in what sounded like a foreign language! It was followed by the sound of Henry chuckling.
They glanced toward me as I entered.
“What was that, Josepha?” I asked.
“What wuz what?”
“Whatever you were saying. It sounded like some other language or something.”
“It wuzn't nuthin'. I wuz jes' tellin' Henry 'bout sumfin dat happened a long time ago, dat's all.”
I had heard and told plenty of slave stories in old “black grandpapa” languageâbut even I didn't understand what they were saying!
Josepha glanced toward Henry and they smiled at one another, like there was a secret they alone shared.