Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (21 page)

"'We'?"

"We're all giving the Hutchinsons a run for their money. I, John Hancock, Will Molineaux, and John Rowe." He went back to his scribbling.

"But you have no more shoppe," I reminded him.

"I'll sell the tea from my front parlor if I must." He winked at me. "Nathaniel isn't the only merchant in the family. There's life in this old boy yet. I'll show him."

So that was it. He had nothing to do with himself; Nathaniel had taken everything over. My master had no more life's work. He sat in this dimly lighted house with his wife sickly upstairs, pushed around by Sulie, lonely, ailing, and confused by the changing world around him.

"Sir," I asked, "where is Prince?"

"Prince?" He considered the matter for a moment. "He's taken up with the Patriots in Newport. While you were away he made a trip there and became involved in luring a royal schooner into shallow water, then boarding and burning her. I couldn't have that, Phillis, not with my son a London merchant. I gave him his freedom and let him go."

"You freed Prince?"

"Why, yes. I had to. Loyalists were after his hide. I could not have him connected with this house."

I felt for the letter in my pocket.

"And he'll come to no good. There are some people who just don't know what to do with this freedom. He'll end up on the end of a rope. Mark what I say."

I did not give him Nathaniel's letter. I could not do it in the face of the trust those two dear people had in me.

I tore it up.

There was too much to be done now for me to concern myself with freedom. Freedom, for white people, was there in the air they breathed the day the good Lord first gave them breath.

Freedom, for a nigra, was something you got when your master and mistress were finished with you.

The Wheatleys were not finished with me yet.

For the next three weeks I settled in to making things right in the house. I cooked special delicacies for my mistress. I bathed her and kept her in fresh bed linens. Nobody asked me to. I just did it.

One golden afternoon the third week of September, I was rushing home from a visit to Aunt Cumsee, across town at her sister Cary May's house. My spirit was sore. My head ached. It had taken every bit of mettle I had to hide my sadness from Aunt Cumsee.

That woman might be in the last throes of life, already talking to the angels, but she could still read my thoughts.

"How did you leave Nathaniel?" she'd asked.

"Parting sore afflicted us," I lied.

Her breath was shallow. "So he dallied with you, then."

"Of course not!"

"Sweet talk is all it was."

"He never sweet-talked me. Don't you remember how we used to fight?"

"Sweet talk has different voices. Does he know you're smitten?"

"Aunt Cumsee, I'm not smitten. Never was. And he doesn't know. I'd die before I'd tell him."

"Find yourself another, child. You're only a slave to him. Chattel."

"I don't want anyone, Aunt Cumsee. I don't need anyone."

"There's that nice John Peters who has the greengrocer stall at North End Market. He saves the best oranges for Cary May all the time. Said he could get us tea even though they don't let the fool ships unload when they come."

Her words echoed in my mind as I hurried through the September dusk. Of a sudden, a gang of young urchins came running toward me on King Street. We near collided. And a bunch of broadsides they were carrying fell to the ground.

"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry."

One especially ragged urchin handed me a broadside. "Take one home to your mistress," he said. "We gotta post the others." And off he ran.

I stared after him. I hadn't seen urchins running together like that since the time of the massacre. Then I noticed at least three groups of men gathered on corners, engaged in lively discourse.

At the same time I minded the smell of pine-knot torches and heard some names. Molineaux. Adams. Hancock. There was a tremor of excitement in the dusk. It passed through the air like Benjamin Franklin's electricity.

Boston is enlivened, again,
I thought.
For the first time since the massacre.
I hurried along. The town watch passed me, crying something about a meeting at Faneuil Hall.
I must pay mind,
I decided.
I must not let my own concerns blind me to what is happening.

But my own concerns did blind me. There was no help for it.

A few days later my book came out in London.

The only reason I became sensible of it was because Mr. Bell wrote to Mr. Wheatley and enclosed advertisements for it from three London newspapers.

The day we received that intelligence, I'd spent the morning making a chicken broth for my mistress.

Sulie had not given me an even time of it in the kitchen. She considered it her domain, though she allowed me to work there if it lessened her duties.

I heard Mr. Wheatley come through the front door and go into his library.
He'll want some cold meat and cider,
I thought. Then, after a moment, I heard the library door open and he called my name. I hurried, wiping my hands on my apron. A sense of foreboding went before me, along with my shadow.

"Your book has been published, Phillis."

"Oh." I put my hands over my mouth in disbelief.

"You will soon be receiving three hundred copies." But he was not smiling.

Something was wrong.

"There is a matter of grave importance that has been brought before me." He cleared his throat "Do you know what these are?" He was holding some papers up before me.

"No, sir."

"Reviews of your work, Phillis. They are most complimentary. At least a dozen newspapers and periodicals took note of your book. Here, let me read you part of one review."

He commenced reading. "'Youth, innocence, and piety, united with genius, have not yet been able to restore her to the condition and character with which she was invested by die Great Author of her being.'"

He looked at me, waiting.

"I do not understand, sir."

"Well, then, mayhap you will understand this one. 'We are much concerned to find that this ingenious young woman is yet a slave. The people of Boston boast themselves chiefly on their principles of liberty. One such act as the purchase of her freedom would, in our opinion, have done more honor than hanging a thousand trees with ribbons and emblems.'"

He set down the papers and sighed. "Do you understand now, Phillis?"

"Yes, sir."

"They chide us for keeping you in bondage."

I said nothing. Was he angry?

"Do you wish to be free, Phillis?"

I could not speak. My heart was hammering so that I had to put my hand on my bosom. I felt weak.

He drew forth some paper, a jar of ink, and his quill. He commenced writing.

For several moments all that could be heard was the scratching of the quill on the paper. Then he signed it and sprinkled some sand on it, folded it, and held it out to me.

I could not move.

"It is not that we do not have honor, Phillis. It is that we considered you as our own. And not as a slave."

I nodded mutely.

"Do you know what I have just done?"

"No, sir."

"I have hung a thousand trees with ribbons.'

"Oh, sir," I said.

"Take the paper, Phillis. Tomorrow I shall register it with the courts. You may hold it close for tonight."

I stepped forth and took it.

He got up. "I must go and pay a visit to my wife. You have been taking good care of her, Phillis. I hope you will stay with us. At least as long as my wife lives. Now that you are free, I hope you will not feel the need to leave."

"I will stay," I murmured.

He patted my shoulder and went out of the room and up the stairs. I minded his shuffled gait. He was old.

I stood alone in the room, clutching the paper against me. I was free!

Why did I feel no joy? Why did I only feel pain? Still, I must tell someone. I ran into the kitchen.

"I'm free," I told Sulie. "The master freed me." I showed her the paper.

She was turning a roast on the spit. She glanced at the paper. "Well, now, so what do it do for you?"

"I'm
free,
" I said.

She laughed. "Tha's nice. You is still black as me. Ain't gonna make no difference. But you always was one for fancy notions. You'll learn someday. Inna meantime, if it ain't too much to ask, could you get some taters from the larder? We still gots to eat."

She was right, though I'd die before I told her.

Free made no difference in my life. Nothing changed. No one took note of it. Mr. Wheatley registered my free papers with the General Court. All that meant was that he had to give fifty pounds to the town treasurer to ensure I would not become a public charge.

My life went on much the same except for the excitement over the arrival of the tea ships in late November. Mr. Wheatley was not one of the consignees and he was beset by that. To mollify himself he joined the citizens' night watch, which served to guard the tea ships so that the tea wouldn't be unloaded. It also served to beset his wife.

Her health was no better. But for an hour each day I got her out of bed and sat her in front of the fire in her room.

"An old man," she fretted one day, just as I'd gotten her settled in her chair, "out there in the cold. Has my husband gone daft?"

"He must do something," I told her. "He wants to still be part of the merchant community. It makes him feel useful."

She allowed that I was right.

I did not tell her the citizens were now armed. And that post riders had spread word to neighboring towns that the tea must not be landed.

My concern was that we would no longer be able to get tea. And she loved her Bohea tea. It seemed to restore her. What would I do? Our supply was dwindling fast.

In mid-December, when the wind howled around the house and the darkness descended early, the Patriots in Boston did their work. Hundreds of them disguised as Indians boarded the tea ships at Griffin's Wharf under cover of darkness and threw crates of tea into Boston Harbor.

Some held that it was a foolish move. Others celebrated. I didn't know what to think. The common folk were making themselves heard again. But to what end? What would be the profit?

I'm common folk. What's the profit in my freedom? Nothing has changed. I am still skinny and black. Sulie still mocks me, has more to say about how things are done around here than I do, and never lets me forget it. I cannot make my mistress well.

Yes, my book came out in London. But did Nathaniel write and say he was proud of me? No. Mr. Bell wrote. All about how my friends were having parties to celebrate. But this was not London. Here people scarce took note. All they could talk of was the fool tea.

I knew what my friends in London would say about that.
What harm would it do to pay the threepence a pound tax on the tea?
they would say.
It is cheap enough. Parliament has reduced the price from twenty shillings a pound to ten. You Americans don't know how precious good we're being to you.

As far as I could see, the only thing to come from this tea party was that we would no longer have tea.

I made our supply last as long as I could. Mr. Wheatley preferred chocolate. And I drank it, too. But Sulie had an inordinate fondness for tea, so I hid our last tin from her.

Sulie had an inordinate fondness for many things, I minded. She sent Bristol to the North End Market every day. And if he did not bring back the best cut of meat, the fanciest imported chocolate, she sent him back again. It seemed they were always asking the master for money and complaining about prices. Several times when I came upon them at their evening meal, I was taken with the lavishness of their board.

Well, I had enough to mind with the tea. I made our supply last until the beginning of January.

Then two things happened.

Three hundred copies of my book were shipped to me from London. And that nice John Peters, the greengrocer who had the stall at North End Market, came knocking at our door.

The day was bitter cold. Snow was falling. I was returning from the office of the
Boston Gazette and Country Journal.
They were going to publish my poem on the death of the Reverend John Moorhead, Scipio's master. I had taken up my poetry writing again, though I had not much time for it.

"What's this?" Sulie stood in the kitchen, waving a wooden spoon at the crate.

In the middle of the floor was a large wooden crate. It was addressed to me. I threw off my cloak. "It's my books! Arrived from London."

"Well, get 'em outa my kitchen. Now."

"I can't move the crate. Where's Bristol?"

"He's got better things to do. Master's got friends comin' for supper. An' I got enuf to do without worryin' 'bout trippin' over that box. Move 'em or I'll set 'em out in the snow myself."

At that moment the door knocker sounded. I opened it. A nigra man stood there, grinning at me. He had the whitest teeth I had ever seen. And his eyes were kind. I wasn't above noticing the broadness of his shoulders, either.

"Yes?" I asked.

"You Phillis Wheatley?"

"I am."

He pulled off his hat. "I'm John Peters," he said. And he handed me a package.

I took it and invited him in. Gingerly he stepped over the threshold. "I couldn't help hearing"—and he gave Sulie a quizzical glance—"I'll move the crate if you like. Just tell me where to put it"

"Oh, I couldn't prevail on you," I said.

Sulie laughed. "Prevail on him. Just get it outa here. Hello, John. You ain't never delivered any groceries for me."

"Hello, Sulie. This is different."

"Why?"

"Cary May sent me."

Sulie
hmph
ed.

Peters gave me a little bow. "I'm honored," he said, picking up the crate, "just to be handling the books of the famous Phillis Wheatley."

For a moment I stared. Then I came to life. "Bring them right in here," I said. And I led him into the back parlor.