Jefferson's Sons (4 page)

Mama grabbed his arm, hard. “Don't go down that road,” she said. “I told you it was a secret, about you and Master Jefferson. It's a secret about me too. That I go up there at night. What kind of secret would it be if I took you and Harriet and Maddy along?”

“It can't be a secret,” Beverly argued. “Fanny comes here—everybody on Mulberry Row knows that. And Burwell lights the fires every morning. And Miss Martha sleeps right upstairs.”

“Miss Martha doesn't know anything,” Mama said. “Nor Burwell neither. Master Jefferson lights his fire himself in the morning. Burwell's not allowed into the room until after breakfast.”

Beverly knew this didn't make sense. Burwell was sure to know about Fanny even if he didn't know anything else. But Mama looked so fierce Beverly kept quiet. Mouth shut, ears open, that was what Mama said.

 

A few days later, Beverly said, “I've been studying Miss Martha, Mama. She's not stupid.”

Mama shook her head. “Don't study her. She's not stupid, but she only sees what she wants to.”

Beverly thought about this. “She doesn't want to be my sister, does she?”

“No,” Mama said. “She does not.”

“But she is my sister, isn't she?”

“She is,” Mama said. “But she won't ever admit it, not this side of heaven. If you're smart—and I know you are—if you're smart, you'll leave Miss Martha alone.”

“Doesn't she like you, Mama?”

Mama sighed. “She likes me fine. She doesn't like—I don't know the words for it. She'll never admit she's kin to us, let's leave it at that.”

Beverly tried to play his violin on his own, but he couldn't make it sound right and he was a little afraid he might break it. He thought he'd die of impatience before Mama finally took him down to Charlottesville to see Jesse Scott.

Mama waited for a day when Davy Hern had business in Charlottesville, so she and Beverly could get a ride in the wagon. It was a pretty morning, soft and warm, and all the leaves on the mountainside were just popping out. In the woods the redbuds bloomed. The wagon circled slowly down, and Beverly, his violin on his lap, felt too happy to speak. He would learn to play beautiful music. He would make his father proud.

Jesse Scott was a kind, friendly man. When Beverly made the violin squawk and screech, Jesse laughed. He taught Beverly four notes, one for each string. He told Beverly to practice a little every day. “But not too much,” he said, “or you'll drive your mama crazy.”

“Master Jefferson used to practice for hours,” said Beverly.

“When you're older you can practice for hours,” said Jesse. “Right now you can practice a little each morning, and a little each night. Come back for a lesson next week if you can.”

Mama told Jesse to keep track of Beverly's lessons and send Master Jefferson the bill. Beverly beamed.

 

He practiced as much as Mama would let him. He played for Mama, Harriet, and Maddy. He played for Joe Fossett in the blacksmith shop, Uncle John in the woodshop, and Uncle Peter in the kitchen. More than anything, he wanted to play for his father. He waited for Master Jefferson's door to be open again, but it never was, and pretty soon both Mama and Burwell started shooing him out of the great house every single time they saw him there. They sent him on errands to the stables or gardens and kept him busy all day long.

“You need to stay away from the great house,” Mama told him.

“I need to see Papa,” Beverly said. “I need him to hear me play.”

“Don't call him Papa,” Mama said. “You call him Master Jefferson, you hear me? Same as everybody else.”

“I'll only call him Papa to you.”

“No, you won't,” she said. “You'll forget and let it slip sometime.”

Beverly said, “I don't see why it has to be a secret.”

Mama bent over him, sparks of anger flashing in her eyes. “I don't care whether you understand it or not,” she said. “I care whether or not you obey me. You keep your mouth quiet or I'll give you something to help you remember. Now put that violin down and go help Uncle Peter with the dishes.”

Beverly didn't move. Mama pointed to the door. “Go.”

“I need him to hear me,” Beverly said. “Please.”

“Go,” she said.

Beverly went. But later, after dinner and just before Mama left for the night, she called him over to the cabin door. “Stand just here, in the doorway, and play your notes. Master Jefferson said he'd stand by his bedroom window and listen.”

Beverly could see the open window, and the thin white curtains softly fluttering against it, but he couldn't see through the curtains into the dark room.

“Is he really there, Mama?”

“This is the only chance I'm giving you. Play.”

Beverly played his best. It sounded like music, even though it was only four notes. Then he waited, watching the curtains. They fluttered once more. Maybe Master Jefferson was waving to him.

“Did he like it, Mama?” Beverly asked the next morning.

“He did,” Mama said.

“What did he say?”

Mama sighed. “Let it go, Beverly. Let it be.”

A week later Master Jefferson returned to Washington. Mama stayed home at night. Everything went back to normal, until one of the nail boys, James Hubbard, ran away.

James Hubbard was a big boy with heavy arms and a fierce temper. He was smart and hardworking, and Beverly admired him. So did Master Jefferson. A few years back Master Jefferson gave James Hubbard a fancy red suit of clothes as a reward for making the most nails of all the nail boys over an entire year. James Hubbard still wore his red shirt sometimes.

Joe Fossett broke the news. It was dinnertime. Beverly was sitting on one of the long benches in the kitchen, between Harriet and Fanny, eating a bowl of stew. Field hands cooked for themselves in their own cabins, but mountaintop people ate their meals in the kitchen in one big noisy group.

Joe Fossett came through the door, looked around, and cleared his throat, loudly and on purpose. Suddenly, before Beverly could understand why, the entire room went still.

Uncle Peter raised an eyebrow. Joe Fossett turned and checked that the kitchen door was latched tight behind him. You never knew when an overseer might come in. Then Joe turned back and said, “James Hubbard's run.”

Nobody moved. Beverly stopped his legs swinging. He heard Fanny catch her breath. Joe said, “He didn't come to the shop this morning. Stewart sent a boy to fetch him. Cabin was empty. All his things were gone.” Joe shrugged and took a bowl of stew from Uncle Peter. “That's what I know. He's gone.”

Beverly started to ask where James had gone, but Fanny smacked him. “Hush,” she said, so fiercely that Beverly obeyed.

All afternoon he felt sick and strange. If he hadn't known James Hubbard was gone, he probably wouldn't have noticed, but he did know, and he couldn't stop thinking about him. What did it mean, “run”? Where had he run to? Why?

In the cabin that night, Mama said, “The less said, the better.”

“Why?” Beverly asked. Harriet wanted to know too.

“Might be some folks know more about James Hubbard than they're letting on,” Mama told them. “Might be some folks around here helped him. We don't want to know. It's better if we all stay quiet.”

“But, Mama,” Harriet said. “Where'd he
go
?”

“To freedom,” Mama said.

“Where's that?” Beverly asked.

“Depends,” Mama said. “For James Hubbard, it's pretty far away.”

All that week no one so much as whispered James Hubbard's name. It was as though he'd never even lived. The silence made Beverly feel quivery inside. Then one of the overseers, the new one, came up through Mulberry Row. He called all the workers together, even making Harriet fetch Mama from the great house. “Jamie's in jail,” he said. “He didn't get far.” The overseer held up a scrap of paper. “Which one of you wrote this?”

Nobody moved. “Anybody? Any of you all? I know some of you can read. Some of you must be able to write.” The man waved the paper in the air again. “This here is a forged pass,” he said. “Jamie was carrying it. Too bad he can't read, because he'd have known what a piece of trash it was. It's the worst-spelled mess of a fake pass I ever saw. Wouldn't have fooled a white man's dog. Just so you all know. I find out one of you wrote this pass, I'll have you whipped alongside Jamie. You hear?”

He crumpled the pass in his hand, dropped it onto the ground, and strode away.

Harriet pulled Mama's skirt. “Who's Jamie?” she whispered.

“James Hubbard,” Mama said. “Jamie's just what the overseer calls him.”

 

The overseers nosed around Charlottesville and pretty soon the details came out. Beverly learned them in bits and pieces, by listening in the kitchen to Davy Hern and Joe Fossett and others who traveled and could pick up news.

James Hubbard had worked for pay on his own time, which meant Sundays and late at night. He'd cleaned out privies and burned wood for charcoal, nasty jobs, but the only work he could get for cash. He spent some of the money on real breeches, a fancy shirt, and a coat, to replace the loose pants and long shirt that would have identified him as a slave. He spent the rest—five whole dollars, Joe Fossett said—to bribe one of the overseers' sons to write him out a fake pass. The boy was a poor scholar. He spelled the words on the pass wrong. The first person James Hubbard showed his fake pass to had had him arrested.

Five dollars! A year of cleaning out privies earned six. Beverly imagined working that hard for a piece of paper the overseer could just crumple in his hand. He didn't know anything about passes. He'd never heard of them before.

Mama explained in the cabin that night. If you were a slave, you were not supposed to travel anywhere without either a white person or a pass. When Davy Hern went by himself to Washington, he carried a pass signed by Master Jefferson that said who he was and what he was doing. “What about in Charlottesville?” Beverly asked.

“In Charlottesville everyone knows Davy Hern,” Mama said. “They won't bother him. Anywhere else he goes, he'd better have a pass.”

A slave caught without a pass was thrown in jail. Black people who weren't slaves had to carry papers saying they were free.

Beverly stared at Mama. He'd never heard of free papers either. “Even Jesse Scott?” he asked.

“Even Jesse Scott,” Mama said.

“Mama,” Harriet said, “why are we slaves?”

Mama looked at Harriet. Then she did something strange. She lifted Maddy from where he was playing on the floor, took off his shirt, and set him in the middle of their bed. Maddy waved his hands at them. He was a pretty baby, with soft brown curls, big gray eyes, and cheeks as round as apples. Harriet bounced the bed a little, and Maddy laughed.

“Look at Maddy,” Mama said, “both of you, and tell me, does he look like a free baby or a slave baby?”

Beverly looked at Maddy, then back at Mama. “A slave baby,” he said. It made his heart sink a little. He'd figured it out—the people who lived on Mulberry Row, and the people who worked in the fields—they were slaves. The overseers and the people who lived in big houses were not. Maddy was a slave, and so was Beverly; when they were older they would need a pass.

Harriet nodded. “Slave baby.”

“How do you know?” Mama asked.

“'Cause he is one,” Beverly said.

“But how can you tell?” Mama persisted. “Look at him. What do you see?”

“He's a boy,” Harriet said, after a pause.

Mama pounced on that. “Yes. He's a boy. If we took off his diaper we could see he was a boy. So. Since he's a boy, he must be a slave, right? Because all boys are slaves?”

“No,” Beverly said. “Plenty of boys aren't slaves. Miss Martha's boys aren't.”

“Ah,” said Mama. “Then why would this boy be a slave?”

Beverly didn't know what Mama wanted them to say. He took Maddy's hand and rubbed it. “He's kind of dark,” Beverly said. “I mean, not really, but his skin is a little bit darker than mine.”

“So, dark skin is what makes you a slave?” Mama said. “Everyone with dark skin is a slave.”

Well, that wasn't right. “No,” Beverly said. “Jesse Scott's got dark skin, and he's not a slave.”

“That's right,” Mama said. “So here's a baby, and he's not a slave because he's a boy, or because of the color of his skin. Why do you say he's a slave?”