The Triumph of Grace (18 page)

A
hhhh!" Samuel Shaw sighed. He stretched his arms over his head and leaned back in the comfortable wooden chair next to Macon Waymon on Macon's side porch. Samuel closed his eyes and breathed in the fragrance of the first magnolia blossoms of the season.

"You said our partnership should meet with success, Macon, and so it most certainly shall," Samuel said. "Next week I begin my service with the grand jury. Merely a first step along the road to political success, I realize. Yet a most encouraging first step, would you not agree?"

"That I most definitely would!" said Macon. "I congratulate you on conquering the locked door of our fair city's governmental body."

Samuel laughed out loud. "And what of the cotton gin business?" he asked. "Does that continue to proceed well?"

"Absolutely," said Macon. "That lame slave of mine, name of Caleb, set out to fix the broken gin box. He actually took that cotton engine of Eli Whitney's completely apart. And when he put it back together again, he refigured it just enough to make it stand legally as a new machine. Whitney would be a fool to try to sue us about it. He could never successfully claim it as his own."

"This Caleb, does he crank the machine himself?" Samuel asked.

"Did at first," said Macon. "Worked day and night, that boy.But the baskets of cotton came in too fast for him to do it all alone. Now I have four slaves on the job. They all take their turns on the crank. That machine does not get one moment's rest, day or night!"

Samuel let out a long whistle. "I wouldn't have thought all that reworking possible from a darkie," he said.

"Why not?" asked Macon. "Plenty of plantations make good use of slave craftsmen, Sam. Why, Jonathan Weeks, two places over from here, has him a slave that makes wood furniture nice enough for Jonathan to sell on the open market.Negroes can be taught to do many things."

Macon Waymon leaned back in his porch chair and breathed in the fragrance of his success.

"I knew I had a good slave in that Caleb right from the start," he said. "Soon as I saw how he fixed his broken hoe, I knew it. Soon as I saw him put together a new plow for Juba."

Samuel gazed up at the blue sky. "Just so you don't let that good slave forget himself," he warned.

"Forget himself? Not Caleb! Caleb is a right mild slave, obedient and willing to work hard. Of course, I do reward him with a bit of pocket money and such. And I reserve the best of the garden plots in the slave quarters for him. So don't you worry about Caleb. He is one happy Negro."

A horse-drawn cart turned off the road and onto the carefully manicured sand lane that led up to the house.

"You have company," Samuel said.

Macon squinted at the newcomer. "Looks to be that new preacher man in town," he said. "Wonder what he wants way out here?"

Evidently Preacher Knight caught sight of the men watching him from the porch at about the same time they saw him, because he drove his cart all the way around to the far corner of the drive before he stopped and got out. A tall young man, straight as a pine tree, he unfolded his legs and stretched himself.

"Morning, Preacher," Waymon called out. "Will you join us for sweet apple cider?"

"I will do that," Preacher Knight answered. "Thank you kindly."

Waymon leaned toward the open door and called into the house, "Anniebelle! We have us a guest. Bring apple cider and tend to us!"

Wasn't the day sunny and bright, Preacher Knight commented as he settled himself into a chair on the far side of Macon. Macon allowed that it was, indeed. Preacher Knight asked after the cotton planting. Macon assured him it was progressing exactly as expected.

When Anniebelle brought the apple cider, Preacher Knight thanked her most kindly, just as if it had been Macon's own wife who served him and not just a slave. Macon and Samuel exchanged glances.

"What can I do for you, Preacher?" Waymon asked.

Preacher Knight cleared his throat. "I have made it my mission to visit with each plantation owner in the area, such as yourself," he said. The preacher lifted his cider glass to his lips and took a long drink.

"I am not myself a man who condones the practice of slavery, either as a moral pursuit or as a Christian one," he stated as he set his glass down on the table. "However, I do recognize that slavery is the law of the land. Therefore I can do no more than to ask you to examine yourself through the eyes of God and to judge yourself as He might judge you."

Macon Waymon took a long drink of his cider, wiped his mouth, and set his glass down.

"Surely you do not suggest that I abandon my livelihood, sir," Macon said. "As you yourself said, I am a law-abiding citizen.Samuel Shaw, himself newly appointed to the grand jury, will tell you as much."

"Indeed I will," said Samuel. "A law-abiding citizen he is, as well as an upstanding member of the church."

Preacher Knight afforded Samuel no more than a cursory nod.

"Several of the slave owners around Charleston allow me to hold Christian services for their slaves," the pastor continued to Macon. "I would kindly request your permission to include your slaves in this mission. Perhaps you will allow me to come out here one Sunday afternoon each month. Or I might even—"

"My slaves are already guided toward Christianity, sir," Macon interrupted, a brittle edge to his voice. "I allow them to stop work early on Saturdays in order to get themselves cleaned up and settled into a reverent state of mind. They are permitted to hold their own worship services every Sunday after their own fashion."

"I see," said Pastor Knight. He lifted his glass to his lips and took another long drink. "And do you treat your slaves well, sir? Do you keep at all times in your mind that some among them are your brothers in Christ?"

"Brothers!" Samuel exclaimed, jerking himself bolt upright."May I remind you, sir, that those slaves are Africans! They are Negroes!"

Macon cast Samuel a warning glance.

"If it is true that they be brothers, Reverend," Macon said, "then they are brothers who are my property. If my slaves desire to pray and sing on this Lord's Day, they have my permission to do so. But they will stop by nightfall. Tomorrow is a work day, which they well know. I am a businessman. I know to keep worship in its place, just as I know to keep slaves in their place."

"I will be most pleased—" Pastor Knight began, but Macon cut him short.

"Most kind of you, I am sure. But I have no need to prevail upon you in this or any other matter."

Pastor Knight sat for a bit longer, but as there was obviously nothing more to say, he soon bade farewell. Other plantations awaited him.

"They are my slaves," Macon said to Samuel. "I do not need a preacher to tell me how to be a good master."

"Nor to tell your slaves how to be dissatisfied with you," said Samuel.

The cooking fire at the slave compound had burned low, but even so the women took care to put the potatoes into the coolest of the coals to bake. They lay the cornpone in to roast alongside the potatoes. Already chicken bubbled in the pot that hung on a crane over the hottest part of the fire.

Posey stopped stirring long enough to dip her long-handled spoon into the pot so she could get herself a taste. "Ummm, mmm!" she exclaimed. "Dere never was no better tastin' somthin' to eat dan dat!"

Usually on a Sunday, Caleb took his dinner alone, over at the far side of the compound next to his garden patch.Many of the slaves looked forward to preaching time after the food was dished out, but all that was awkwardly unfamiliar to Caleb. He didn't trust the white man. Why should he trust the white man's God?

"He isn't really dere God," Jeremiah told Caleb. "De white folks just think he dere God."

Jeremiah acted as preacher for the slaves. Massa Macon had bought him from another plantation, where a white preacher had come every Sunday for years, so Jeremiah knew more about the Bible and its stories than any of the others did. Even though he couldn't read, even though he had never actually seen a Bible, he knew a lot about God and how God did things. "God, and his son, Jesus Christ, dey be freedom for us," Jeremiah said. "Freedom for our souls."

On the slave ship, Caleb had spent hours and days and weeks begging the ancestors for help. But they didn't help him. Now here he was, a slave in a foreign land. Here he was alone, his brother dead and his son dead and his wife gone away from him forever.

"We knowed about the creator when we was in Africa," Jeremiah told Caleb. "We just knowed him by his other name."

But Caleb didn't want to hear what Jeremiah had to say.Mama Muco had trusted this God, and look what had happened.Look what had happened to all of them.

As the women began to gather on the logs closest to the fire, and the men on the logs behind the women, as the children scrambled to get the best places on the ground up in front and Jeremiah took his place, Caleb moved back toward the security of his garden plot.

One voice began a mournful tune, and others picked it up: "
Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus . . ."

It was time for the worship to begin.

Actually, Caleb liked the singing. No drums in the slave complex, of course. Massa wouldn't allow that. But everyone clapped their hands and stomped out the rhythm with their feet.

"It weren't enough dat ol' Daniel have to be a slave!"

Jeremiah had started his sermon. Caleb turned his back and set to work pulling weeds from his garden bed.

"Daniel have to be a slave locked up with a angry lion who had nothin' to eat for too long!"

Daniel in the lion's den. Caleb had heard Jeremiah tell that story before. Not as many times as Moses and the Egyptians, but often enough so that Caleb knew what happened.

"A slave with no way out, dat was old Daniel. No way out but to die!"

Caleb clenched his jaw, grabbed up a handful of weeds, and ripped them out of the garden with a wicked vengeance. No way out but to die! Turn the wheel of the cotton gin every last day of his life. Every last day unless massa lion rip him to pieces first.

"But Daniel didn't die!" Jeremiah announced in triumph."God saved him from dat lion!"

"Dat's right!" someone yelled.

And someone else cried out, "Praise Jesus!"

Deliverance. That was the message Jeremiah preached. But this time, Jeremiah pressed further. This time he said, "Does we suffer?"

The people cried as one, "Yes, we does!"

"Jesus knows dat we does," Jeremiah said. "He suffered, too.Dat's why he understands. And he promises if we come to him, he will give us his rest."

"Preach de word, brudder!" someone called. From all around, others responded, "Amen! Amen!"

"Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel?" Jeremiah called.

All around, men and women shouted, "Yes, He did! Yes, God!"

"Didn't he shut dat old lion's mouth?" Jeremiah called.

"He did!" the others answered. "Dat's de truth!"

"Den why we cryin'?" Jeremiah called. "Why we mournin'? Why we lettin' our hope fail us? God ain't done with us yet! God liberates his children. God saves dem from de lion's teeth!"

"Yes, yes!" the people shouted. "Praise Jesus!"

And then everyone was singing again. Only now their cadence of despair swept up into a tempo of assurance. Clapping hands and stomping feet beat out a whole new rhythm.

A God who shuts the lion's mouth. A God who leads his people to victory, in this world or the next.

"
Goin' home, goin' home. Goin' home, Sweet Jesus,"
the slaves sang.

Caleb shook off the garden dirt and wiped his hands on his pants. He moved in a bit closer so he could better hear the words of the songs.

"
Jordan River, I's bound to go. Bound to go, bound to go . . ."

Clap, clap, clap, measured and sweet.

Stomp, stomp, stomp, beat out the rhythm.

"
Brudder, sister, I's bound to go. Bound to go, bound to go . . ."

"Carry me, Jesus, I's bound to go."

Caleb moved closer until he was just behind the men at the back of the circle. A strange, unknown feeling moved through him. Slaves sobbed now, swaying backward and forward.

"Bless de Lord!" the man just in front of Caleb shouted.

"Yes, God!" echoed another.

Suddenly, Caleb could contain himself no longer. He leapt forward, up in front of the cook fire. He ripped off his shirt and waved his strong arms over his head. And he lurched into the old dance of limping beauty.

The slaves closed into a circle around him, shuffling around and around. They clapped as they sang, one song after another after another. Words of struggle and pain. Words of overcoming and of faith and of hope. Around and around they danced and sang.

Someone shouted out words of praise.

Another raised his voice in prayer.

Many cried out words of burning desire for God.

S
kin agreeably silky and a creamy shade of pale brown, yet hands rough enough to prove their familiarity with hard work.A body slender and supple, yet surprisingly strong and resilient.Capable of intelligible speech—a particularly attractive feature in a part of the country where so many slaves spoke in the gullah dialect of
de
and
dat.
Sparked with a striking glint of fire through her dark hair.

Oh, yes, Grace showed exceedingly well on the auction block.

Yet, invariably, it all came around to one question: "Why do you wish to sell such a fine specimen of a house slave?"

No matter how delicately Pace Williamson attempted to word his answer, no matter how positive a twist he applied, the response still ended up the same: "She can read." And so each prospective buyer—though he made his decision about Grace with regret—shook his head, replaced his money in his pocket, and walked away.

"Perhaps you are right, my dear," Pace Williamson said to Eva as they took their afternoon tea together in the sunny parlor. "It just may be that there is nothing to it but to turn Grace over to Asa and his whip."

"It would serve as a worthy lesson to the other slaves," Eva said.

"Ah, but a most dear lesson it would be," Pace mourned."And with a grievous cost to my purse."

"Perhaps it would serve a greater good," Eva said. "After all, someone taught that slave to read. And we can be most certain it was not another slave!"

After the tea setting was cleared away, after Eva retired to her chambers for an afternoon rest, Pace lingered alone in the parlor. He was quite fond of that room, especially on afternoons in the early summer. Wispy trails of wisteria hung down over the open window slats, and the gentle breeze carried sweet nectar inside. Pace stretched out his long legs, tipped back the chair, and let his eyes drift closed.

"Massa," Honeysuckle called from the doorway.

Pace awakened with a start.

"A visitor be here to see you, sir."

Pace hurriedly straightened himself into a more genteel position.

"Who is it?" Pace demanded more irritably than he had intended.

"Name be Mister Hull," Honeysuckle said. "He wants to see you 'bout that slave you be sellin'."

"Grace?" Pace said. Suddenly wide awake, he jumped to his feet. "A man wants to see me about Grace? Well, show him in, Honeysuckle. By all means, show the man in!"

Had Pace Williamson seen John Hull drive up to the plantation house in his deep-sided wagon, thoroughly splattered with mud and pulled by a yoke of lumbering oxen, he might have been less enthusiastic. Or perhaps it would not have made any difference. Being a peaceable man, Pace was not at all eager to see a healthy young slave girl whipped to death on his plantation, even if her beating did serve as a lesson to the others.

Honeysuckle showed John Hull to the sitting room. In one quick glance, Pace took in the rough cut of the stranger's wrinkled coat and trousers, his badly scuffed boots, the mussed look of his untrimmed hair, the two-day stubble on his cheeks.Hull was a slight man, but he was sturdy and well-calloused. A small-time farmer, no doubt.

"Do sit down, sir," Pace Williamson said after John Hull had introduced himself. "You have come to inquire about my slave, Grace?"

"Yes, sir," said John. He started toward a chair, but changed his mind and positioned himself uncomfortably on the edge of the fine red camelback sofa. "I looked in at the slave market in Charleston, but I couldn't find what I wanted. Some fellows there told me I ought to come up here; that you had a slave girl you might sell for a goodly price."

"I do, indeed," Pace said. "And a fine slave she is, too. Fair to the eye and a right good worker as well. Bred to be a house slave, she was, but nevertheless strong and capable enough for fieldwork. She would make a good breeder, too, should that be your desire."

John shifted uncomfortably. He fixed his eyes on his hat, which he shuffled back and forth in his fidgety hands.

"You do have other slaves, do you not?" Pace asked.

"As a matter of fact, no," said John. "I am not actually a slave owner."

"In that case, Grace would be a perfect choice for you, sir," Pace insisted. "Not only can she cook and clean, but she can also keep up your kitchen garden. As for your missus, Grace can most certainly do for her, too."

"Yes, well . . ." John stammered. "Well . . ."

John Hull stopped talking and stared in silence at his hat.

"I see," Pace sighed. He slapped his hands down onto his knees and stood up. "So, you have heard the talk in town. You already know about Grace. Well, you must still have some interest in her, or you would not have come all the way out here, would you? Is it a good price you're after?"

"I am not a man of means," John admitted.

"Yes, that I can clearly see," Pace said. He quickly added, "No offense intended, of course."

Pace walked to the fireplace and paused. When he turned back to John, he said, "Do not think you can take advantage of me because of my business success."

"Oh, no, sir," said John. "I most assuredly do not think that.Fair is fair. It's only that . . . Well, you see . . . the difficulty is that—"

"I am perfectly aware of the difficulty, sir," Pace stated, his words suddenly clipped and short. "Do you think you and I would be meeting here in this fashion were it not for the difficulty?"

John stared at Pace.

"No, sir," John said hesitantly.

John Hull felt as though he had somehow missed a most important part of the conversation, although he was not at all sure where the gap occurred.

"Mister Hull," Pace said, "you have an interest in purchasing my slave. I am most desirous to sell her. I'm certain we can come to an agreement that will satisfy both our needs."

"Is it true that your slave can read?" John Hull asked.

Pace took a deep breath.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it is true. But let us not dwell on the negative. Other than that one defect, Grace is an excellent slave. May I be candid with you, sir? I paid thirty English shillings for her at auction."

John Hull gasped and paled. But Pace didn't seem to notice.

"That's more than I ever paid for any other slave. And yet I am willing to look favorably at the price you offer me. So, I ask you, what is your price, sir? Three hundred American dollars?"

John, still confused, struggled to collect his thoughts.

"All right!" Pace said. "Two hundred fifty, then?"

John stared at the tall, red-haired aristocrat. He fit so well into this fine mansion of a house. John, on the other hand, was obviously so very out of place.

"Two hundred dollars," said Pace. "But I shall not go one dollar below that price!"

John Hull finally found his tongue. "Yes," he said. "Yes, two hundred dollars. That's a fine price."

"Sold!" Pace stated. "Stand up, my man, and let us shake hands on the deal."

It was Honeysuckle who told Grace she had been sold.

"Sold?" Grace cried. "But I must not leave this place! My Cabeto is close by here. Where will I go, Honeysuckle? Will it be far away?"

Honeysuckle said she had no idea where the new master lived. And it made no difference, either, she said. When the white folks makes a deal, the colored folks goes where they's told.

"It don't do you no good to have a man you cares about," Honeysuckle said to Grace, " 'cause if you does, you always gets sold away from him."

Tucker jumped up into the back of Mister Hull's already overloaded wagon. He pushed crates of chickens to one side and stacked them as high as he could. He shoved sacks of seeds and flour and such over toward the opposite side of the wagon bed. Between the two stacks was just enough room for Grace to squeeze in and sit upright.

"Bind her hands and tie her fast to the wagon stays, Tucker," Pace Williamson ordered. "Mister Hull is going all the way to Georgia. He doesn't want his slave to escape before he gets her home."

"Thank you kindly, sir," John Hull said as he climbed up to the wagon seat. He called to the oxen, "Hip, hip!" They pulled together in the wooden yoke and the wagon inched forward. "Haw!" John Hull called, and the oxen turned left and lumbered slowly down the lane.

Grace twisted and pulled at the ropes that bound her to the wagon. She jerked her arms and yanked with all her might.And she kept it up until her wrists were raw and bleeding. But all she accomplished was to upend one crate of chickens and send them into a commotion of wildly flapping wings and loud cackles.

"Cabeto!" Grace moaned in despair. "I am sorry! I'm so, so sorry. Oh, what have I done?"

As the plantation disappeared into the dusty distance, so did Grace's hopes of ever seeing him again.