Little Sacrifices (7 page)

Despite what Dora Lee said, I could hardly wait to turn twenty–one and get the chance to change things myself. That was one thing my parents and I agreed on. My own Ma was born when women didn’t yet have voting rights. We were only deemed fit to cast ballots in nineteen twenty.

‘Dora Lee, when were you born?’

‘I guess I’m somewhere over forty. I worked for the old Miss after the war and I wasn’t yet married.’

I found the notion incredible. ‘You really don’t know how old you are?’

‘No particular reason, is there?’

‘Well, how did you know when you were old enough to get married?’

She chuckled. ‘Child, you know, believe me, you know.’ She busied herself at the sink, humming as she rinsed the baking tray.

‘What about going to school? How did your parents know when you were old enough to start first grade?’

She stopped humming and stood quiet for a second. ‘I didn’t go to school. There wasn’t any time for that when I was growing up. We children worked from the time we were this high.’ She measured a spot near her waist.

‘You didn’t go to school? None of you?’ I held my glass out for more milk and she filled it.

‘Well, some children did some learning. Most folks can do figuring and some know their letters. But I got along just fine without.’

One of the most important things Dora Lee would teach me was that brains don’t have much to do with education. Some folks with all the schooling in the world go through life without ever really knowing a thing, and others who’ve never seen the inside of a classroom sure know a lot about the world. Education’s only a tool. Without the inclination to use it, it doesn’t do anyone much good.

Ma interrupted from the kitchen doorway. ‘It’s different now, though, isn’t it Dora Lee? There’re the Negro schools.’

‘Yes ma’am, that’s true enough. There’re schools for those that can get to ‘em. And we can here in town. But the farms are different. There’s a lot to do out there. I know, that’s where I came from. No sense having every able–bodied child in school all day when there’s plowin’ and plantin’ and harvestin’ to be done. Now my Eliza was different. Being a city child, she didn’t work the fields like I did.’

‘Dora Lee, you have kids?’ This was an exciting development indeed.

‘Why yes miss. Just the one, Eliza. She’s nearly your age. She came to us late in our marriage.’

‘And she’s in school?’

‘Oh no. She’s past learning.’

‘How much school did she have before she quit?’

‘A couple years.’

Ma was troubled. ‘Can she read?’

‘No ma’am, not too well. When my husband died, bless his soul, I had to take her in to work here with me. The Missus was real good about it. She probably wasn’t much use but the Missus kept her on even so. When she got big enough to work on her own she went over to the Milligans. Been there now for a few years.’

‘Dora Lee, could I meet Eliza one day?’ I asked.

‘Well, I suppose you can miss.’

‘Maybe she’d like to come over after school some time?’

‘Maybe so.’

Over dinner Ma told us about her plan to teach Eliza to read. Duncan deliberated slowly, and eventually said, ‘I don’t see why not. We should be doing everything we can to help Negroes here get a leg up. If she wants to learn, then you ought to teach her.’

Ma leaned forward with her arms on the table. ‘That’s exactly what I think. Maybe Dora Lee would like to learn as well. I could set up the extra bedroom to teach them. I’ll ask her about it tomorrow.’ Her eyes were shiny and wide.

As usual they weren’t even thinking about themselves, let alone me. ‘Now hold on a minute. Are you sure that’s okay? I haven’t seen any other white families jumping up to teach Negroes to read. Didn’t you tell me it even used to be illegal down here? Besides, they have their own schools. If they want to learn to read they can figure out a way to get to school like I do.’

‘May, for goodness sake. They don’t have the same chances and you know it. Sometimes doing things to help other people means we have to sacrifice some ourselves.’

‘But at what cost, Ma? What if everyone turns against us like they did in Williamstown? We’ll be outcasts just like before.’ My newly–found social life, spare as it was, would disappear in a flash if everyone got mad at us again.

‘Don’t overreact, May. Your Ma’s not going to call attention to what she’s doing. It won’t help anybody to announce it around town. But teaching Eliza to read will be good for her, and we can’t turn our back on another person who needs our help, can we?’

‘But she doesn’t know she needs your help, does she? What harm is there in just leaving things alone?’

Duncan stabbed his finger at me. ‘Shame on you! Leave them alone. Do you know what happens when we leave things alone? When we ignore the things that are right in front of us?! Let me tell you something,
I
–’ Ma put her hand on his forearm. He looked at her quickly and stopped. ‘How can you suggest leaving things alone, when you know that until Negroes here are educated, they aren’t going to have a ghost of a chance to improve their lot in life? Honestly, May, you know better.’

I did know better. I knew better than to count on them to put my feelings before the endless list of people they thought needed them.

Within the week Eliza began her education. When she turned up at the kitchen door I harbored a slight hope that, despite my objection to her presence, she’d want to be my friend. She showed no such inclination. She was quiet, not shy but sullen, lanky and very dark. We sized each other up in the kitchen and didn’t see anything we couldn’t live without. Being fifteen was our only point of communion.  School? She didn’t go. Work? I didn’t do any. Movies? I doubted she’d seen any lately. Books? We’d already established that she couldn’t read. The only prospect Eliza held for me was trouble.

Chapter 9

I wasn’t about to cave in on the matter of our new student’s education, though I was smart enough to plan my protest more carefully before giving it another try. I chose Sunday lunch, the Powell clan’s traditional forum for contentious dialog. We were all working up a good head of steam when Duncan exploded.

‘Fine, I’ve had enough of this. May, come with me.’ He held his hand up to Ma and she stopped with her mouth open. ‘Sarah, let me handle this. Come on. Now!’

Ma looked concerned, which wasn’t a good sign. Duncan had a lot to say but he rarely shouted.

What he needed to show me was too far away to walk. He kept himself entertained by muttering half sentences behind the wheel. ‘You want to see – I’ll show you – you have no idea – sitting there smug in our house – these people are – May, you just don’t – these folks – school. School? Hah!’ Whatever he had to say was sticking somewhere between his heart and his vocal chords.

Pretty soon I saw what he thought I ought to see. East of Forsyth Park was Fort Town. Its centerpiece was a school called the Beach Institute, built in the eighteen sixties by the Freedmen’s Bureau to give Negroes an education. It was one of the first in the South and enrolled six hundred students when it first opened. Over time other schools were built or donated, like the West Broad Street School and the Cuyler Street School, but Beach Institute was the first of its kind in Savannah. The school had been closed for almost thirty years but in its day a bustling neighborhood had settled around it. By nineteen forty–seven, the sun had firmly set on that day. We were in the slums.

I stared out the window as we crept along. Both sides of the street were lined with two story wooden houses. Most weren’t painted, and lots looked terribly unsteady. Windows were broken, many were boarded up, some gaped open. Hard–packed dirt skirted most front yards. Porches sagged or had crumbled and children played on their broken bones. Raggedy–looking dogs lounged in the dust or meandered hopefully amid the rubbish heaps.

‘Duncan, this is where the poor people live. Where do the people like Dora Lee live?’

‘May, this
is
where she lives. Right here in this neighborhood.’

‘How can that be? Dora Lee’s not like these people. She’s, she’s normal. Like us.’

‘This is where the Negroes live, the maids and the porters, laborers, everyone. They might work but they’re still poor. Black people don’t get paid nearly as much as white people do. You know that.’

I didn’t, actually, but if true it brought to mind an interesting predicament closer to home. ‘Does that mean you pay Dora Lee less than what a white maid would cost?’

It was Duncan’s turn to squirm. Something like guilt flashed over his face and I was glad. ‘We pay her more than the old lady did.’

‘But not the same as a white maid, right?’ I had him on the ropes and wasn’t about to let him off.

He muttered, ‘No, I suppose not.’

Good, we were even. We both felt lousy.

‘Duncan,I don’t need to see any more. Can’t we go home?’

‘No, we can’t. If you want to turn a blind eye to this, that’s your prerogative. But you’re going to make an informed decision, young lady. It’s too easy to ignore things when you don’t have to see them. You’ll keep your eyes open and look at what you’re suggesting we don’t do anything about.’

We drove back through town and out the other side. I let out a number of belly–deep sighs but they didn’t reverse our progress. If Fort Town was where working Negroes lived I didn’t want to think what the really poor people’s neighborhood looked like. But I suspected that Duncan wasn’t too concerned with what I wanted just then. We weren’t far from Savannah, but you wouldn’t know it. As the city receded, rural Georgia revealed itself. It could have been Mirabelle’s South, or her mother’s or grandmother’s. Out there in the farmland, nothing hinted at the decades. We drove through countryside for a long time. At each turnoff my father slowed, looking for something. A couple of times we bumped along a dirt track only for Duncan to cuss, hit the brakes and reverse back to the main road. Eventually he found what he was looking for and we continued to rattle along the pockmarked path. The weeds tightened around us. It was sweltering, my back sticking to the vinyl seat. The car churned up so much dust that my throat dried out, while sweat made shiny tracks down Duncan’s face. We stopped in front of a shack. It was unpainted and well–patched with wood, cardboard, and anything that looked likely to keep out the rain. Holes the size of my hand awaited repair. Most windows were shuttered against the elements and the flies. No glass graced the few frames without shutters, and the foundation sloped steadily towards the car.

‘What is this?’ But I’d had enough talks with Dora Lee by then to know what it was.

‘It’s the Negro school. Come on, there aren’t any classes today. We can go inside.’

I hung back, not wanting to see any more. But there was much more to see. Inside, the walls were also unpainted and the desks weren’t really desks at all. Whoever built the school had nailed together the leftover wood and called it quits. In one corner a handful of readers were neatly piled. Nothing about the place suggested its purpose except those readers and a handmade blackboard.

‘What grades go here?’

‘All of them. Well at least one through seven.’

‘All of them? At the same time?’

‘Yes. But they’re not all here at once. Only the littlest kids come during the cotton harvest. And the boys are excused when it’s time to plow and plant at the start of the season. There’re probably not usually more than ten or fifteen kids here at any one time.’

‘But Duncan, this is a farm school. The ones in town aren’t like this.’

‘Does that make this okay?’

It didn’t. ‘Where do these kids live?’

‘Over on the plantation.’

My mouth said O.

‘They’re not slaves. But they live in the old quarters there just the same. Come on. That’s where we’re going next.’

The shanties weren’t any bigger than our living room. Most had only a door and a window. All were built on pilings that flashed their uneven floors to the world. Assorted dogs panted away the afternoon in the dust beneath the houses. There weren’t many people outside. It had to be stifling inside those tiny boxes. All the doors were open to let in what little breeze kicked around, and, like the schoolhouse, most had quite a bit of unintentional ventilation. I could see faces watching us from the dim interiors.

‘May, this is all the South holds for most Negroes.’

It would be many years before I saw the inside of those hovels and when I did they confirmed what I had imagined that day. ‘The whole family lives in that little place? There can’t be more than one room.’

‘There isn’t. Everything, the beds, the stove, the table if they’re lucky enough to have one, it’s all in that room. There’s no running water and no toilet. And the whole family lives in there.’ Duncan looked at me. ‘Now how do you feel about leaving everything just as it is?’

I felt sick was how I felt. My throat tightened and I wanted to cry. I didn’t say another word in the car and I never again broached the subject of Eliza’s learning.

Chapter 10

‘Who’s Fie?’

‘She’s a girl in our class. She’s my friend,’ said Jim.

‘Your friend?’

‘Yes, May, is that so unbelievable?’

‘It’s just that I don’t remember who she is.’

‘She’s in history with us, and math with you. She knows who you are.’

‘Well, I guess you’ll have to introduce us.’

I was jealous. Jim was my friend. I’d taken pity on him and that made him mine. How he’d managed to attract a pal in the couple days I was gone was beyond me, considering that he hadn’t managed to do it in the first nine years of his academic career. But within a few minutes of meeting Fie I saw that I needn’t have harbored any ill–will. We took a real shine to each other. Being the only Northerner she’d ever met made me reasonably exotic. She was especially curious about the land of my forefathers and I admit I enjoyed my expert status as social commentator on the entire geography north of Virginia. I didn’t always know what I was talking about but she didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t mind. In return she filled me in on the lives of gentle Southern belles. Though she wasn’t anywhere near popular, she seemed to know all about them, and I enjoyed finally having a girl to gossip with.