Miss Katie's Rosewood (27 page)
Read Miss Katie's Rosewood Online
Authors: Michael Phillips
Tags: #FIC042030, #FIC042000, #FIC026000
A T
ALK
A
BOUT THE
F
UTURE
45
T
he night Rob arrived, Katie and I were together in Katie's room. Katie was in such a state like I'd never seen her. Rob was downstairs with her aunt and two uncles. We strained to listen but couldn't make out their words
.
“What do you think they're talking about?” I said with a mischievous smile
.
“Oh . . . I don't know!” wailed Katie, though she had been beaming ever since she'd heard Rob say at supper that he had something important to talk over with Aunt Nelda and the two men
.
Finally we heard a voice from below
.
“Why don't you two girls come down here?” It was Papa calling at us up the stairs. “That giggling is driving us crazy! You sound like a couple of schoolgirls!”
Katie didn't need to be told twice. She flew down the stairs three at a time!
“Rob here's been talking to us about a few things,” said Papa. “The first, like he told us before, is that he has taken a leave of absence from his job for a month or so to pitch in and help us with our harvest. We said we were grateful for his help and told him that he is
welcome as long as he wants to stay.”
He paused and glanced around at the rest of us
.
“Then there was one other thing he wanted to talk over with us, didn't he, Ward?”
“That he did.”
“You want to tell them about it?” Papa asked
.
“No, you tell them.”
“I'm not sure I'd be comfortable . . . kind of personal.”
“What about you, Nelda?” asked Uncle Ward. “You want to tell them?”
“Not me,” said Aunt Nelda with a smile
.
“Hmm . . . actually, why don't you tell them about it, Rob,” said my papa, throwing Rob one of his famous winks
.
Rob smiled and looked at Katie
.
“How'd you like to go for a walk?” he said. “It's a nice evening. I think there might even be a moon up by now.”
He led the way toward the door and they left the house together
.
I stood staring at Papa and Uncle Ward and Aunt Nelda
.
“Well!” I said
.
“Well . . . what?” said Papa
.
“Aren't you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Papa! Whatever it is that Rob talked to you about!”
“I think that's something you had better ask Katie.”
Katie and Rob walked out into the peaceful evening. As they left the house and barn for the fields, the night sounds of the chickens and cows and pigs faded. The stillness of the
night descended over them. All they could hear was the hum of crickets in the direction of the trees bordering the river.
As they walked Rob took Katie's hand in his.
“Your hands are rough,” he said.
“Sorry . . . that's the cotton.”
“Nothing to apologize forâI think it's wonderful. I admire you allâespecially you and Maymeâfor your hard work.”
“Your hands will be dry and rough and broken and blistered within a week too.”
“I will consider them a badge of honor to help get Rosewood's taxes paid.”
“Did Uncle Templeton tell you about that?” asked Katie.
Rob nodded.
“Those two dear men . . . they're remarkable,” said Katie. “They've grown to love this place as much as I do.”
“I can tell.”
“When I think of everything that's happened since Mayme first came, I can hardly believe all the changes. We were hardly more than girls then. Now . . . well, I suppose we're
almost
women.”
“You are indeed . . . though without the
almost
.”
“Maybe. But does one ever really feel grown-up?”
“I guess I'm still too young to know the answer to that myself.”
“You're older than me.”
“Only twenty-three.”
“That's still older than me. And you've done some brave and exciting things.”
“You don't consider what you and Mayme did here brave and exciting?”
“I don't know,” said Katie with a smile. “Maybe bravery is easier to see in other people. When Mayme and I did what we did, I felt more scared than brave. When I read your letter, I thought you were so brave. Not only in the things you
did, but also in the way you thought and the way you talked to God about wanting to live like He wants you to, and the way you prayed for Mr. Teague. At least . . . I don't know, don't you think
thinking
can be a brave thing too?”
“I never thought about that before,” said Rob. “But now that you put it like that . . . yes, I do think so. I suppose it does take courage to think boldly about certain types of things.”
Katie breathed in deeply. “It smells so nice, doesn't it? There's nothing like a summer evening.”
“I can see why you all love it here. This is quite a place. So peaceful.”
“At times like this,” said Katie. “But it's not always so quiet and peaceful. We've had trouble with the people in the communityâsome of them, I should say.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“There is a lot of resistance to what we've done.”
“You mentioned the Ku Klux Klan before. I've heard of it. But do they really do things like burn crosses on lawns and hang people? Nothing like that happens up where I live.”
“Mayme has a scar on her neck where some men tried to hang her. Jeremiah was taken from our barn in front of us all and almost hung. It was a terrible night I'll never forget. Papa and Uncle Ward just barely got there in time to save him. I could show you where they burned a cross in the grass in front of our home. Emma's poor little boy was drowned by men who work for one of the most important plantation owners in the county. Henry almost died last year when they burned the livery stable down. And like I told you, the local sheriff is part of it. It's terrible what they do.”
“Why do you stay?”
“Because this is home. Where would we go? I've never thought about being anyplace else. I've lived my whole life at Rosewood.” Katie sighed. “After what happened to Mayme on the way up to Aunt Nelda's, I have to admit that I
sometimes wonder why we stay. Why should we put up with it? I mean . . . I suppose it might be all right for the rest of us . . . but poor Mayme and Jeremiah and Henry and Josepha. Sometimes they are treated so awful if makes me furious. What kind of future can they have here knowing that people despise them just because they aren't white? Mayme is so wonderfulâI want better than that for her. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it, trying so hard to make things work here when people are probably never going to change. It seems to be getting worse. There's such hate in their hearts. I don't understand it.”
“Have . . .
you
ever thought of living anyplace else?” asked Rob.
“You mean . . . just me, without Mayme and the others?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don't suppose I have. Why would I?”
“Because . . . what if your life and Mayme's . . . I mean, up till now you've shared everything, shared every moment . . . but what if it can't be that way forever? What if a time comes when God has something different for each of you? What will you do then?”
“Different . . . how?”
“I mean . . . families, husbands . . . different lives.”
Katie's heart began to pound.
“What I'm trying to say,” Rob went on, “is that I want to spend my life with you . . . that I love you and want you to be my wife.”
A gasp left Katie's lips.
“Katie, I'm asking you if you'll marry me.”
“Oh, Rob!”
Tears flooded Katie's eyes. Rob stretched his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
“Is that what you were talking to Uncle Templeton and Uncle Ward and Aunt Nelda about?” asked Katie when she had recovered herself a little.
“They are your guardians now. I had to get their permission.”
“What did they say?”
“They gave me their blessing . . . they gave
us
their blessing.”
“I'm glad. I know they like you.”
“I asked you when we were at my parents' home to be patient with me. And you have been. I told you then that I was very fond of you. Now I want to say with all my heart, I love you, Kathleen Clairborne. Will you be my wife?”
“Oh, Rob . . . of course I will marry you!”
How long they walked without any more words passing between them, neither of them thought about. The moon, which had only been up past the horizon when they set out from the house was now well up into the sky. The crickets had gotten louder as they approached the river, then faded again as they turned toward the woods. At last it was Katie who broke the blissful silence.
“Is that why you were asking me about Rosewood and the future and if I could be happy somewhere else?” she said.
“Sure,” replied Rob. “It's been on my mind all this time. We do live several states apart. We have lives that are different and completely separate. What are we going to do?”
“Remember when you asked what I thought about being a sheriff's wife?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe I should ask what you think about being a plantation owner's husband?”
“You mean . . .
me
. . . make this cotton harvesting and cow milking and all the rest a lifetime occupation?” Rob seemed stunned by the thought. Katie laughed. “It's a good life,” she said. “Do you really own Rosewood?”
“Not exactly. My parents did, of course, but my mother signed it over to Uncle Ward and he split it up between the
four of usâhe and Uncle Templeton and Mayme and me. So eventually, I suppose, it will belong to Mayme and me. I always assumed when we married that we would build another house and that both of our families would stay at Rosewood.”
“But don't you see, the danger would always be thereâtwo families, one black . . . how could it ever work?”
“I thought that it would eventually get better. I guess I figured that it was because of the war and that eventually things would settle down.”
“You said yourself that it's getting worse.”
“I suppose you're right. That doesn't agree with what I said before, does it? But who says a girl has to make sense at a time like this!”
“What if white Southerners
never
accept that blacks are free, and
never
accept them as equal citizens? The things you tell me about what life is like here worry me. I'm not sure I would want to raise a family in such an atmosphere of animosity between races.”
“So what do you think we should do, Rob?”