Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (22 page)

He set the books down, then took a knife from his pocket and pried open the crate.

There they were. My books. My name on them. Handsomely bound.

John Peters picked one up, opened it. "Your likeness," he said.

"Yes."

He stood up, book in hand, and walked over to the window for more light. He read. Then he looked at me. "You know what they call you in the street?"

"No."

"The little Ethiopian poetess."

"I didn't mind that they called me anything."

"Oh yes. We should celebrate."

"'We'?"

He smiled and there were those even white teeth again. And that gleam in his eye. At once familiar and sassy. His hair was short and kinky. His face was round and strong. "You got someone else to celebrate with?"

"No."

"I feel as if I know you. I do know you. Heard enough about you from Cary May."

"You're the one who gave her the fresh oranges for Aunt Cumsee."

"Yes, and she sent me with the package."

"Oh! The package! I forgot. How rude of me." I set down my book and grabbed up the package, opened it, and exclaimed, "Tea! Oh, tea." I opened the lid and sniffed. "Good Bohea. Oh, thank you. My mistress will love it. But where did you get it?" I was babbling and he knew it. He was watching me with a warm gaze, taking my measure.

"I have my connections. And I can get more for your mistress. Also"—he lowered his voice and crossed the room to close the door—"you should tell Mr. Wheatley to have the groceries delivered directly to the house. And let you pay for them."

I did not take his meaning. "Why?"

He gestured his head toward the door. "She's cheating him."

"How do you know?"

"It's my business to know."

"But who would deliver them?" I asked.

He grinned. "Me."

"Will your master permit it?"

"I've got no master, Miss Ethiopian poetess," he said. "I'm free."

And so it was that that nice John Peters came to our house three times a week with the groceries. And Mr. Wheatley, on hearing my reasoning, gave me the responsibility of ordering them and paying.

Sulie rebelled, of course. But there was naught she could do. Mr. Wheatley might be old and addled, but he could conjure up his old firmness when the occasion warranted.

John came of an evening, after he closed his stall. One cold night in February when he delivered our vittles, I was distracted. I spilled hot cider while pouring some for him in the kitchen. I overpaid him.

"Things weigh heavy on your mind," he said as he put two shillings back in my palm.

I flushed. "My mistress is getting worse. And then there are the books. I must sell them myself, if I am to make a living. And I don't know how."

"Then why not ask someone who does?"

"You?"

"I sell things all the time."

"Books aren't sides of bacon."

"It's the same thing. You have a product the public wants, you must get the product out where the public sees it."

I was less than enamored, having him compare my books to three hundred sides of bacon, but I listened.

"I know Mr. Cox of Cox and Berry. Likely he'll take ten volumes. What do they sell for?"

"Mr. Bell sold them for two shillings in London."

"Ask three shillings fourpence."

My eyes went wide. "That much?"

"You'll get it. People have money to spend now. Wait for the war and they won't."

"What war?"

There was that insolent grin again. "The war that Sam Adams and the rest of the Sons are pushing for. Where you been keeping yourself, Miss Ethiopian poetess? Don't you know what's going on out there? The Crown is angered about the tea. There's talk Boston has to pay for it. You think they will? I heard there's five hundred barrels of gunpowder stored in Boston and Charlestown right now."

"Talk," I said. "There will be no war."

"The House of Representatives is going to impeach Chief Justice Peter Oliver for high crimes and misdemeanors against the people of Massachusetts Bay."

. "You know a grievous lot for a grocer."

"People talk when they buy; I listen. Some of them work in the houses of important men. What plans do you have for the rest of your books?"

"None."

"What friends do you have outside of Boston?"

I thought for a moment. "Obour Tanner in Newport."

He pondered. "There are about twelve nigras who can read in that town. Anybody else?"

"Reverend Occom in New London, Connecticut And Reverend Sam Hopkins in Princeton, New Jersey. But he hates poetry."

"Isn't he the one who's raising funds to educate two African slaves?"

"Yes."

"Write to him. He is soon going to develop an inordinate fondness for poetry."

"How so?"

"He needs your name."

"My name?"

"Yes"—and he grinned again. "You were a slave. Look what you accomplished with some education. Write to him."

"You playin' wif fire, cozyin' up to him."

I turned from the back door, having just let John out.

Sulie stood there in the shadows. I felt a shiver. And it was not from the cold draft of February air the door had let in. "If you have anything to say, Sulie, say it plain."

"I gots nuthin' to say to you. You wouldn't listen anyways, Miss Fancy."

"Say it! Or keep a silent tongue in your head."

She poured herself some cider. "All right I'll say it He's a ne'er-do-well. A bounder."

"How dare you?"

"Full of charm. Especially wif the women. But there's nuthin' behind it."

"He's hardworking. And he has intelligence."

She sipped her cider. She drained the mug dry, then set it down and sashayed away. "Knew you wouldn't listen. Only warnin' you, though doan know why I should. You'll learn."

Then she was gone. I stood in the empty kitchen. The fire flickered low on the hearth.
She's jealous because John has such charm,
I thought.
And Bristol is so morose. And she's still angry because we found out she was cheating Mr. Wheatley.

Aunt Cumsee died the last week in February, and my mistress on the third of March.

Two women, one nigra and one white, whose voices were part of me, whose hands had comforted, soothed, and taught. One a pine-knot torch and the other a scented beeswax candle against the darkness of my ignorance and fear. Both gone.

Where? I believed in Aunt Cumsee's Jesus and in Mrs. Wheatley's God of Deliverance, but I was hard put to say how either one of these ladies was now occupying her time. Unless Jesus had a side of mutton that needed turning on the spit. And God had any little nigra girls running around who must be taken in hand.

How could people be here one moment and gone the next?

I was not there when Aunt Cumsee died, but I was notified the next morning. I was at the bedside of my mistress. Mary and Nathaniel were not. Mary was in childbed. Mr. Wheatley was in attendance but of no earthly use. The poor man was so addled he had all he could do to pace and wring his hands.

It was me, her little nigra slave girl, she wanted.

I knelt beside her.

"You must make me a promise."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You must write no elegy for me, no poem."

"Oh, ma'am. How can I not? I am known for my elegies. To not write one for you, the woman who gave me so much!"

"Christian humility dictates that I forbid it. The Author of all good works knows what I have done. Do you think you can best Him at saying it?"

"No, ma'am."

"Another thing." She paused, resting. "That letter you wrote to Reverend Occom."

"What letter, ma'am?"

"Silly girl, did you think you could keep it a secret from me? The one on freedom. And the hypocrisy of Christian slaveholders. He wrote to me of it and how he wants to get it published. But you said no, until after my death."

"Ma'am, I didn't wish to disgrace you."

"Do you think so little of me, then?"

"Oh no."

She smiled weakly. "Well, you may publish it now. I wish you to. Do it with my blessing."

She died that night, with her eyes fully open and her hands reaching outward. "Come, come quickly!" she shouted. "Oh, I pray for an easy and quick passage."

There was a parade of mourners at her funeral. Boston prides itself on gala funerals.

Mr. Wheatley did not go.

Before we were to leave, I found him gazing out the window of the front parlor. "Sir, I have your heavy coat. The sun is warm but the wind is brisk."

He turned and eyed me quizzically. "Is there to be another riot, then? There is a crowd outside. Are the Liberty Boys gathering? Has the news arrived from England how they will punish us for the tea?"

Dear God,
I thought,
he has taken refuge in idiocy.
He'd been doing a lot of that of late. Times his mind was sharp as a saber. Other times he could not remember your name.

I sat him down in his favorite chair. "You wait here, sir. Your friends will wish to know where to find you." I fetched his paper and called to Sulie to bring him a pot of chocolate.

"You're a good girl, Phillis. Where are you off to?"

"I've an errand to run. I'll be back shortly. I'll send Bristol with another log for the fire."

All I could think of, as I wound along Boston's cold streets with the procession of mourners, was the day so long ago when the skinny little nigra girl, crawling with vermin and wrapped in a scrap of rug, was carried into the Wheatley mansion by Prince to meet the fair-haired goddess of a lady in her gray gown with rose fluff on it.

All I could think of was her eyes. And how they looked like she was just about to tell me something wonderful. And how I'd wondered what it was.

So long ago now,
I thought, with a pang of sadness for Nathaniel and his boyish kindness. For Mary and her girlhood giddiness—Mary, now a married woman, so worn down from bearing child after child that she could not even be here today. I thought of Mr. Wheatley's quiet power and dignity, now ground down to muddleheaded confusion.

White folk don't have it any easier than we do,
I minded.
They just think so. We all die in the end. That of itself is not so grievous to me. It's what comes before we die that gives me the quivers and quakes.

Nigras know what comes. White folk never do. It always takes them by surprise.

So, then, why is it I am fear quickened of a sudden? Because inside I've become white. They've treated me
white. I've trusted their soft words. I've been coddled by everyone.

Except Nathaniel. Nathaniel knew. He always knew I was still nigra, would always be nigra. Aunt Cumsee knew, too. So did Obour. But I fought them all.

So here I am now, come to a pretty pass—white on the inside, where nobody can see it, and nigra on the outside, where it's all anybody sees. Free, yes. Oh, I'm free all right. But all that means is that I must now earn my own bread.

A melancholy took hold of me as we passed through the gates of the Old Granary Burial Place on Tremont Street. Mary's husband, Reverend Lathrop, was saying prayers.

I looked into the yawning grave and was frightened.
My mistress and only protector is gone. What will happen to me now? Mr. Wheatley is half daft. War is coming. There is no telling what the British will do to punish Boston for the tea. I have three hundred more books coming in May and I must sell them in order to live.

Who will buy them? Who will care about the poems of a little nigra girl if there is war?

The sun, which had been milky weak, disappeared behind a cloud. A gust of wind blew some old leaves around.
I'm one of those leaves,
I thought,
discarded, of no more use to anyone.

Reverend Lathrop finished his prayers. We turned to leave.

Then the sun came out again. Or was it just the fact of John Peters standing there waiting for me at the cemetery gate?

The next day, Mr. Wheatley passed me in the hallway. "Phillis, where is my missus?" he asked of me.

"She is with the Lord, sir. We buried her yesterday."

Tears gathered in his eyes as my words took hold. He blew his nose.

"Why wasn't I told so I could go to the funeral?" he asked petulantly. "You must tell me these things, Phillis. I count on you to do so."

"You were told, sir. We decided it was best for you not to brave the raw March air. She would have wanted it that way."

"Oh yes, of course. She was a true Christian, Phillis."

"Yes, sir."

"I have a letter from Nathaniel. He plans a trip home soon. This is his house now, you know."

I felt something coming. I nodded.

"We shall prevail upon him to let us stay." He winked at me. "Else I shall have to remove to Mary's. I don't think I would care for that. Do you think he will permit us to stay?"

"I'm sure he will, sir," I said.

He patted me on the shoulder and went on his way. And I thought,
He is warning me, in the only way he can. I must plan. What if Nathaniel does not let me stay? What will I do?

But I did not plan. For I did not know how. A bat-eared fox could probably plan better than I. Added to which was the distraction of everyday life.

I had to sell my books. I had to sort out my mistress's things. I had letters to write. A thank-you to Reverend Hopkins, who had purchased twenty of my books. A refusal to John Thornton in London, from whom I'd had a communication asking me to become a missionary in Africa.

Then there was my master. I had to see to his everyday needs. Though he went out of the house each morning, turned out as if for a session in the General Court, I suspected he met friends at coffeehouses just to pass the time. When he came home he expected me to dine with him. And listen to him.

There was more poetry to write. I had decided to bring out a second volume. So I wrote. And I waited. I was confused.

Why, I did not know. But everyone in Boston seemed of the same mind. On the street, people who had always nodded hello to me now walked by with bowed heads.