The Wedding Gift (16 page)

“Poor Belle. I’m sure that you tried to get him to change his mind.”

“No, I didn’t, really. I got to be careful about what I say to him, especially when it got to do with saying when any of his slaves should have babies.”

When I spoke to Belle, she was resigned about having to get an abroad man.

“Sarah, it ain’t no secret that Mr. Allen want us all to have babies. At least Mama got him to agree that I can see if I like the man first, and if I don’t, I can say no and try meeting another one.”

The blacksmith, Zeke, arrived the following week, and he escorted Belle to a gathering at the slave quarters on a Saturday night. Belle invited him to meals at the kitchen after that, and he met her girls. He remained at Allen Estates for a month. When he left, Belle told my mother that she consented to him as her abroad man. My mother relayed the information to Mr. Allen, who ordered the Hall overseers that a cabin be built and equipped with furnishings for Belle and her daughters. Once Belle was in her own cabin, Zeke returned and they established a pattern whereby he spent Saturdays and Sundays with her and returned to the Atkins plantation Monday mornings.

Two months after Zeke became Belle’s abroad husband, my mother made arrangements for my marriage to Isaac. She obtained permission from Mr. Allen to have a celebration in the meal room where Isaac and the other skilled slaves ate. He consented and agreed to pay all the costs. Dottie, Mrs. Allen’s seamstress, made my wedding dress. My mother and the rest of us who worked in the Allen kitchen cooked and baked the morning of my wedding. Some cooks from the other kitchens were brought in to help, as the Allens’ meals for the day also had to be prepared.

Mr. Allen permitted Bessie, Dottie, most of the Hall servants, and Miss Mary and her family to attend. My mother said that I did not have to wrap my hair. She made two braids intertwined with blue stars from her garden and tied them in a knot on top. Her smile told me that I made an acceptable bride.

There was no ceremony because the preacher was not allowed to marry us. After we ate, Isaac and I went to his cabin. I was anxious about the night, but when Isaac kissed me, I forgot my worries. When he undid my braids, the flowers fell on the floor. Then he helped me with the buttons in the back of my frock. While he was undressing himself, I turned my gaze away at first, but then I saw that his body was as beautiful as his face. He lay next to me, kissing my lips, my neck, and each inch of my skin. When he was inside me, I could not separate the pain from the exquisite sweetness that spread to every area of my body.

With the exception of our nighttime coupling, our lives continued their routine of working from dawn until ten o’clock in the evening. As any new bride, I wanted to make our cabin pretty. Mrs. Allen ordered the seamstresses to sew linens for us and the furniture makers to build a table, chairs, cabinets, and a new bed. I planted vegetables in the little garden. Soon I had made a home for my husband and me.

My monthly bleeding ended when Isaac and I had been married for two months. When I realized that I was expecting, Isaac had been hired out to a plantation and would be away for another week. I spent the night crying. In the morning, when I went to the kitchen, my mother asked why my eyes were swollen.

“Because I miss Isaac.”

She seemed satisfied with my answer. At the end of the day, I asked my mother and Belle if Belle could sleep in my cabin that night because I did not want to be alone.

“Yes, and Emmie and Ruby can stay with me. I don’t have to go to Mr. Allen,” my mother said.

As soon as we were in my home, I told Belle that my bleeding had not come down. “Belle, I lied to Mama. I think I’m going to have a baby, and I don’t want to because if I do, I can’t ever run away.”

“Sarah, you’re a grown, married woman now but you’re still talking like a child about running away. I thought you was happy with Isaac. So why do you want to run?”

“I am happy with him, but I’m not happy here. It’s not like anything has changed just because I got married. We still live in fear that Mr. Allen is going to do something to us, that he’s going to get tired of Mama and sell us all. Did you ever think about that, Belle? What if he decided to sell…no, I can’t even say it. But really, what if he gets tired of Mama? What’s going to happen to all of us?”

“Sarah, what’s going to happen is going to happen. Ain’t nothing we can do about it. Yes, I do think about it, all the time, but all we can do is be obedient and pray that he won’t do something like what he did to me again. And anyway, even if you ain’t got no baby, you can’t run. Look at what happened to my own papa. Look at what happened to me. You can’t run, Sarah, that’s just a dream. And anyway, if you try to take the baby out, you could die.”

“What? What do you mean take the baby out?”

“Nothing, never mind. I’m just talking foolishness.”

“Belle, what did you mean take the baby out? Tell me.”

She did not answer.

“Tell me…Belle.”

“All right, but don’t say this to nobody. When they had me at Master Reynolds’, they said a field hand died when she got another girl to help her try to take her baby out.”

“But what do you mean, take the baby out?”

“They told me they put a knitting needle or something like that inside that made her bleed and that made the baby come out.”

“That sounds like it would hurt too much. I couldn’t do that. The only thing I can do is…never mind.”

“The only thing you could do is what, Sarah?”

“Kill myself. I won’t spend the rest of my life like this.”

“Sarah, don’t even talk like that.”

“Why not, because it’s a crime for slaves to talk about killing themselves? If you think about it, Belle, that’s the only power we have over Mr. Allen, and that’s why it’s a crime. If I want to kill myself, I’ll go ahead and do it because it’s my life, not Mr. Allen’s.”

“Sarah, I don’t know what Mama and me would do without you. Please don’t say that again, please. We love you so much. Baby girl, promise me that you won’t do that.”

“All right, I promise. Besides, I don’t think I’d have the courage to do it anyway. And it’s a sin. I wouldn’t see you, Mama, and the girls in heaven. But I need to do something.”

“This is what I’ll do. I’ll go by the field tomorrow and see Miss Mary. I know she ain’t going to say nothing to nobody if I ask her if there’s something she can give somebody to bring down the bleeding. Sarah, you do know that if Mr. Allen finds out anybody is asking for something like that, they could be beaten and sold? But Miss Mary, she won’t say nothing because she’s like our own auntie, that’s what she is.”

The next day, Belle whispered to me when we were alone that Miss Mary had given her four herbs, three of which she already knew. She taught her about the fourth and gave her instructions for preparation of all four together. Belle had placed the herbs at the bottom of a basket and covered them with a cloth. On top of them, she had placed ordinary cooking herbs that Miss Mary had sent to our mother, whom we told that I still needed Belle’s company that night.

“You all go ahead. Mr. Allen ain’t back yet.”

That evening, after our work was done, we went to my cabin. We lit a fire, and Belle brewed separate teas from the three herbs: goldenseal, pennyroyal, and cotton root bark. The fourth herb, blue cohosh, she placed in a jar and poured rum on it that I kept in the kitchen for cooking. She covered the jar and hid it amongst my cooking wares. The blue cohosh, said Belle, had to sit until the next evening. Once the teas had cooled, I drank each, grimacing as bitterness stung my mouth and throat. I felt nothing afterward, other than a horrible taste that lingered on my tongue.

The following morning, we learned that Mr. Allen had returned to Allen Estates. Mr. Davis, one of the Hall overseers, told my mother to go to the Hall that night. Belle told me that we had to continue with the remedies for the next two nights and that she would not be able to sleep in my cabin because she needed to care for her girls. She told me to take the herbs, including the jar with the blue cohosh, and sleep in her cabin.

The next two days, I still felt nothing and my days were uneventful, but the third evening, while we were cleaning the kitchen, I felt jabbing pains in my abdomen. I told my mother and Belle that I had to go to the outhouse. I returned to the kitchen and continued my work. As I was washing a pot, I felt an ache so strong that I tumbled to the floor. My mother and Belle helped me to my mother’s cabin. I told them that I felt something on my legs and lifted my dress. Blood had soaked through my undergarments and had flowed past my knees. The agony in my abdomen intensified. My mother asked me why my bleeding was so heavy and whether I had missed my last monthly.

“Yes, ma’am. It didn’t come down last month.”

I tried not to cry as the pain worsened, though the bleeding seemed to ebb. My mother sat next to me on the bed, periodically feeling my forehead and throat. She asked Belle to make me camphor tea. After a while, my mother felt my forehead again and told Belle to ask Mr. Davis to find someone to take her to the slave quarters to bring back Miss Mary.

“Tell her what happened and that the bleeding stopped but the pain is still bad and she got a fever.”

Belle left and my mother tried to comfort me. The ache throbbed, and I screamed every so often when I thought I could not stand the pain a moment longer. It took about two hours for Belle to return with Miss Mary, who brought a carpenter’s satchel. She felt my forehead and throat.

“She’s burning up. I got to give her something for the fever.”

“Can you give her something to make all the blood come down?”

Miss Mary looked at Belle and me. “I thought you had sent Belle down to me the other day. I gave her herbs to bring down the bleeding, but I thought it was for her. If I give Sarah more now, that could kill her, like poison.”

“But if it don’t all come out, she’s going die. What’s still left in her is going to rot inside. Please, do what you got to do to take it all out.”

“I can’t do that here. She’s going to scream too much from the pain, and I’m going to need the girls who help me with these things. We’re going to have to take her over to a cabin that I use in the fields. If Mr. Davis ask, we got to tell him she’s sick but for me to take care of her she’s going to have to come with me because I got to look after some girls who about to have their babies. Get her ready and let’s go. Bring all them clean rags, more if you can find any.”

They helped me to a wagon, and a slave took Miss Mary, my mother, and me to the slave quarters. I felt a torturous pain every time the cart’s wheels rolled over a small stone. They took me to a well-maintained cabin where, I later learned, the field hands gave birth. Miss Mary left us there and returned about thirty minutes later with two other bondswomen. My mother helped them to remove my clothing, and someone brought me a cup of whiskey and told me to drink. I almost choked on the liquid, but after the first cup, they made me drink another. I became lightheaded. Someone put a rag that had been soaked in tea in my mouth. Miss Mary told me to suck on the rag and to bite down on it because it would ease the pain. As soon as I sucked the tea out of the rag, they gave me another one. After I was done with the second rag, I was floating above everyone. I heard Miss Mary speaking, giving orders to my mother and the other women.

“All right, Miss Emmeline and Cissy going to hold her down by the shoulders and waist. Diana and Fanny, you all know what to do, hold her down by the knees and feet. She’s going to ask you to let go, but you can’t. If she move, the needle can go right through her.”

Fear overtook me and I began pleading. “Please, no. Just let me go. Don’t stick a needle in me. Let me go. Let me go, please. Let me go.”

They did not release me but placed a folded cloth under my buttocks and spread my legs wide.

“Sarah, Miss Mary’s about to put a knitting needle inside you. Don’t move, Sarah. You can’t move at all, you hear me?”

“Mama, make her stop. Don’t let her, please. I beg you—don’t let her. I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this.”

“Shush, my darling. It’s going be over soon. She’s got to do it, Sarah. If that blood stays inside you, you’re going to die.”

When the tip of the needle reached my insides, my body tried to jerk, but the women held me down. The rag fell from my mouth and I screamed so loudly that I was sure they could hear me at Allen Hall. I had never felt a pain so fierce. I momentarily lost consciousness when Miss Mary began moving the needle inside me in a circular motion. When I regained my senses, I could not speak, not even to petition for mercy. I could not cry because I had no tears left in me.

When Miss Mary finally withdrew the needle, her hand was covered in blood. After wiping me, she asked for another rag soaked in tea, which she folded into the shape of a tube and inserted inside me. Someone wiped me with cool cloths and dressed me in a long blouse. Miss Mary told Cissy, Diana, and Fanny that they could leave. My mother thanked them for helping us. Throughout the night, I vomited various times and my mother brought me ginger and cinnamon teas to ease the nausea.

In the early morning, before dawn, one of the slaves took us back to my mother’s cabin. Belle brought us food and stayed with me so that my mother could return to the Hall to work. Belle and my mother took turns caring for me for the next several days. My mother explained my absence to the Hall overseer by saying that I had a fever. Belle assumed my duties as Clarissa’s maid. When I was strong enough to return to Allen Hall, I still felt quite a bit of pain and continued to bleed, heavily at times.