Jefferson's Sons (16 page)

“I won't sound like Beverly. He's good.” Maddy had messed around with Beverly's violin, but it never sounded right.

“Jesse will fix you up,” Mama said. “You go down with Beverly this week. Work hard. Make your father proud.”

Maddy rolled his eyes. He couldn't imagine making his father proud. On the other hand, the next time James asked him what his father had given him, he'd be able to say, “Violin lessons.” James would think it was stupid, but at least Maddy would have something to say.

 

Two days later, when Maddy and Beverly set out for Jesse Scott's, Eston followed them down the row, whining. “Can I come?” he said. “Please? I want to come!” Eston was four years old.

“You can't come,” Maddy said. “We're walking all the way down the mountain, and then we have to walk all the way back up again. It's miles and miles. You're too small.”

Eston's face puckered up, ready to cry. “Oh, hush,” Beverly told Maddy. “You can come, Eston. Run tell Mama.”

“He'll be nothing but trouble,” Maddy said.

“He'll be fine.” Beverly handed Maddy the violin. When Eston dashed back, all smiles, Beverly lifted Eston onto his shoulders.

Maddy said, “You don't ever carry me.”

Beverly slipped an arm around Maddy's shoulder. “I don't have to, you're so big and strong. Tell me the story about catching that bird.”

“I don't want to talk about it,” said Maddy.

“A bird's not a person,” Beverly said, as if he could read Maddy's thoughts. “People and animals are not the same. We eat birds, and rabbits, and coons, and possums. All sorts of wild things from the woods. That mockingbird, he'd be glad not to be eaten, if he knew the difference. He'd be happy to sing.”

“Maybe,” said Maddy.

“Absolutely,” said Beverly. “He'll get tame, like the old bird. He'll ride on Papa's shoulder and take food from Papa's mouth.”

Maddy's eyes widened. Eston, from his perch on Beverly's shoulders, laughed aloud. “You said
Papa
!” Eston said.

Beverly smiled. “I can when it's just us together. But don't tell Mama.”

“I don't think of him as Papa,” Maddy said. “That word never comes to my head.”

“I know,” Beverly said. “I'm sorry.”

 

At Jesse Scott's, when Beverly opened the violin case, Eston grabbed the violin. His arms were too short to hold it properly, but he stuck the side of it under his chin, and he put the bow right by his face, and he played! He played a lot better than Maddy could. Maddy wanted to be annoyed, but Eston's face was so bright with excitement, and his eyes were so round, and what he was doing sounded so much like actual music that Maddy had to laugh.

Jesse Scott laughed too, and Beverly laughed loudest of all. “Eston,” he said, “have you been messing with my violin?”

“N-no,” Eston said, stammering with excitement. “N-no, no, I just watch when you play.” He turned to Jesse Scott. “I got to learn to play the violin, sir. My daddy wants me to.”

“He does, does he?” Jesse Scott raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, sir, he said so.”

“When did he say so?” Maddy asked. “Mama just said me!”

“He talks to me when I'm sleeping,” Eston said. “My daddy does. He comes in when I'm dreaming and he tells me how I'm supposed to play the violin. And I'm supposed to learn to make it go like this.” Eston started to whistle, exactly on tune, the song “Money Musk.”

Maddy didn't know what to say. Master Jefferson walked past their room on his way to the blacksmith shop or the garden, but Maddy'd never known him to step inside. He didn't visit Eston in the night. Maddy felt sorry for Eston, that he would make up a story like that.

Jesse Scott said, “Eston, if I had a violin small enough, I'd teach you to play right now. But I don't, so you'll just have to wait until your arms grow.”

Eston looked up, very solemn. “I
can't
wait,” he said.

Jesse Scott looked solemn too. “You come down with Beverly and Madison, every week. You pay attention, and see what you can learn. All right? Then, when your arms get long enough, I'll teach you.”

On the way home Maddy started to teach his brothers the alphabet. “
B,
that sounds like
buh,
” he said. “Like baby. Like biscuit.”

“Baby,” said Eston. “Biscuit. Board. Biolin!”

“Not biolin,” Maddy said. “It's
violin
. It starts with a
V
.
Vuh,
violin.”

“Can you spell the whole word violin?” Beverly asked.

“Not yet,” Maddy said. “But I know it doesn't start with a
B
.”

“Yes, it does,” Eston said. “
B
starts
biolin,
and that sounds like
violin
.”

Beverly put his arms around Eston and swung him around. “
B
starts
billy
and that sounds like
silly
and that sounds like
Eston
!”

“You're crazy, both of you,” Maddy said, laughing.

 

Eston was plumb crazy about playing the violin. He spent the next day climbing a mulberry tree and hanging from a branch until he fell off, over and over again.

Harriet said, “What are you doing, training to be a monkey?”

“He's trying to stretch his arms,” Maddy said.

“Pull on me!” Eston said. “Stretch me out! I can't wait to be big!”

 

A week after the mockingbird argument, James poked his head inside Maddy's cabin door. Maddy jumped up. He'd been writing on his piece of roof slate. He tried to hide the slate pencil in the palm of his hand.

James looked him up and down. Maddy knew he'd seen the pencil.

Maddy shrugged. He held the slate toward James. “I'm practicing my letters,” he said. “Want to try?”

James took the pencil and the slate. Maddy rubbed the slate clean. James said, “I came to see if you wanted to go fishing.”

“Sure,” Maddy said. “We haven't been all week.”

“I guess you've been busy,” James said, “going down to Charlottesville and all.”

“That was just once,” Maddy said. “I'll be going every week, I guess, but only once so far. James—”

“I'm sorry,” James cut in. “I shouldn't have talked bad about Master Jefferson to you. I'd be plenty mad if you talked bad about my father.”

“I couldn't,” Maddy said. “Nobody could say anything bad about your father.” He paused. “I'm sorry about what I said too.”

James looked at the slate. He carefully wrote a wobbly
J
. He handed the slate back to Maddy. “My daddy can write,” he said. “He writes his accounts. He doesn't have much time to teach me, but I asked him and he said he's going to try.”

“I know where you can get a roof slate,” Maddy said.

James grinned. Maddy loved James's grin. “Later. Right now, let's fish.”

One of the field hands, a man named James Hubbard, had run away the winter before. Maddy didn't know him, but Beverly said it was the second time James Hubbard had run. The first had been years ago. Maddy hoped James Hubbard got away. As months went by, it seemed that he had. But then someone found him, in Roanoke, caught him, and brought him back to Monticello.

Master Jefferson was angry. He said he was going to have James Hubbard flogged in front of everyone and then sold so far south he'd never see his family again.

Those were his words. “
So far south he'll never see his family again
.” Mama and Burwell both overheard.

Mama said her hands were tied.

Maddy knew Mama meant that she was afraid to stand up to Master Jefferson. She could do it for her children, or maybe for herself, but not for James Hubbard, whom she didn't know at all.

“No one blames you, Mama,” Harriet said. “No one else can help him either.”

So far south he'll never see his family again
. Folks said the Deep South was a terrible place. Field hands died like flies in the heat. If you went south, your days were numbered.

On the day of James Hubbard's flogging the overseers called everyone up the mountain to watch. Maddy argued with Mama.

“I don't want to,” he said. “Even if you can't make him stop it, you could make it so I didn't have to watch.”

Mama shook her head. “I'd rather you didn't have to,” she said. “But you do. It's something you need to understand, and even if I didn't think that, I'd still make you go.”

Beverly opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then shut it and looked away. Mama saw. She said, “What?”

Beverly said, “It's too hard.”

“It's very hard,” Mama said. “It's hard for everybody. Should I make a display of how my children get to have it easier? Everyone on this mountain would notice if you weren't there.”

Maddy didn't understand, but Beverly looked as though he did. He reached for Maddy's hand. Harriet took hold of Eston's. They walked together to where James Hubbard was waiting to be flogged.

James Hubbard slumped over the post, his wrists tied together in front of him. His head hung down. Old scars crisscrossed his bare back, the white and pink lines standing out against his dark skin. His muscles stretched taut beneath the scars. James Hubbard lifted his head and stared across the mountains, like he was searching for something far away.

“Where's his mama?” Maddy asked.

“Poplar Forest,” said Harriet. That was Master Jefferson's big farm in Bedford, a few days' ride away. “He came from there. Most of his kin lives there still. His brother's here—his brother used to be a nail boy too.”

The overseer came forward with the long, thin oxwhip in his hand. He cracked it once upon the ground,
thwack!
The crowd flinched. He raised the whip again.

Harriet covered Eston's face with the edge of her skirt. Beverly moved in front of Maddy and pushed Maddy back with his hand. “Don't look,” Beverly whispered. “It's bad enough to listen.”

“They should look,” Mama said. “They ought to see it so they understand.”

“No,” said Beverly, calm and firm. “It's too hard.”

Beverly almost never contradicted Mama like that. Mama didn't reply. She put her arm around Beverly's shoulder, and pulled him toward her. Maddy looked up. Beverly was taller than Mama now.

The first lash landed on James Hubbard's back with a smack that sounded wet at the end. James Hubbard moaned. In the crowd, a woman screamed. Maddy turned his head so all he could see was the seam of Beverly's shirt, and the curve of Beverly's arm, but he couldn't stop his ears from hearing.

When it was over, people moved to help James Hubbard, but the overseer barked at them to get away. “You'll never see him again, you understand?” he said. His face had turned bright pink, like a pig's face. “He's going down to the cotton fields. You'll never see him again. That's what happens to runaways. You all understand?” He waved his whip, threatening, and a woman who must have cared about James Hubbard began to sob. Beverly pulled Maddy's hand and grabbed Eston to his hip, and marched them back to their room, and it wasn't until he'd shut the door behind them that he reached under the bed, pulled out the privy pot, and was sick.

Beverly wiped his mouth with a rag. “I vomited the first time too,” he said.

“First time what?” asked Eston.

“First time they flogged James Hubbard,” Beverly said. “Didn't you see the scars?”

Eston nodded. He was sucking his thumb, something he almost never did anymore.

“He ran off once before,” Beverly said. “He was a nail boy then, not a field hand. He got flogged, but not sold. It was a long time ago.”

Mama opened the door and came in, Harriet behind her. Beverly turned to Mama. He was angry, Maddy could tell. “If I go away and live as a white man,” he said, “it'll be just like I was sold south. You'll never see me again.”

Mama surged forward and slapped Beverly hard across the face. “If you think being a white man is anything like being a slave in the cotton fields, you don't know
anything,
” she said. “James Hubbard's mama was
happy
when he ran. She was
happy
to know he was free.”

“He wasn't free,” Beverly shot back. “He just hadn't been caught.”

That winter Maddy truly learned to read. For a long time, when Miss Ellen handed him the primer, he had to sound each word out, one letter at a time. Then, all of a sudden, the sounds blended themselves together. He could pick up a book and read the words as they came.

One day he met Miss Ellen in the front hall. It was bitter cold there, with no fire, and wind rattling the panes of glass in the doors, so unless a visitor showed up they were likely to have a moment to themselves.

Miss Ellen pulled her shawl higher around her head. She looked around, anxious. She opened the primer to the middle, beyond the lists of easy words, to where the sentences began. She pointed to a section, and Maddy read: