The Wedding Gift (30 page)

“Well, Mr. Adams, this may be the last time we see each other. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done, sir.”

“I’m merely God’s vessel. Remember to seek strength from the Lord. In your darkest hours, when you’ll want to surrender, look to the heavens and pray to Him and He will deliver you. Sarah, I wish you Godspeed.”

Mr. and Mrs. Allen’s families arrived about two weeks after Clarissa died. The servants now had to work as we did before Clarissa, Isaac, and I went to Talladega. Mr. Allen continued to drink excessively, and his own mother could not get him to stop. I attempted to clean Mr. Allen’s office one afternoon, but he told me to leave after I knocked. I went to the library instead, where I closed the door and spent about an hour reviewing a map of Alabama. When I returned that evening to Mr. Allen’s office, the door was open and he was gone. There was nothing unusual on his desk. The next two afternoons were identical to the first; he was locked in his office and told me to leave. When I returned in the evening and there was no evidence of his secretive labor, I decided to return to clean in the morning. I asked my mother whether she was going to Mr. Allen that night.

“I don’t know. Eddie ain’t said nothing yet. Why?”

“I can’t say, but I need you to go to him and make sure he stays in his bedroom tomorrow morning.”

The following day, I saw Eddie and he told me that Mr. Allen was still in bed. I went to the office and closed the door. I looked in the desk drawers and other places in the room, but I did not see any documents of interest other than pieces of burnt paper in the fireplace. That afternoon, my mother accompanied me to see Miss Mary. When we arrived at the slave quarters, I asked her to visit with Miss Mary’s neighbor so that I might speak to Miss Mary alone. Miss Mary was shelling peas on her porch. She said that we could speak inside her cabin.

“Miss Mary, I need your help and I need to know if you will keep what I say secret.”

“Sarah, I know everything you’ve been through. Your mother came here crying when she got back from Talladega, and she told me everything. She already asked me if I can help you. Sarah, you don’t know everything your mother do for all of us down here, do you? She’s the one that talks to Mr. Allen when us here in the fields and in the Hall need help. She’s the one who asked him to let me hire myself out to make some money. That’s how I bought my two oldest boys, the ones in Montgomery. So you know I’ll do anything I can to help Miss Emmeline or her girls. What can I do for you, baby?”

“Miss Mary, I can’t go back to Talladega. Things got worse after my mother left Talladega. Mr. Cromwell wants me back to be his…I can’t do it.”

“What about your husband?”

“Well, my mother and Belle don’t know this, but he ran.”

“And you want to do the same. You all going to try to meet up?”

“No, there was no way to do it because Mr. Cromwell didn’t let him come back here with us.”

“I’m sorry, baby.”

“Thank you, Miss Mary.”

“So how do you think I can help you?”

“Well, I need to get as far away as fast as possible. Do you think any of the men who take goods to other places could take me with them? I could hide in the back of a wagon.”

“Sarah, yes, they can do that, but what would you do after that?”

“I’ve already thought about it. It’s better that I don’t tell you the details.”

“But, Sarah, you is just a girl. Are you sure? What do Miss Emmeline say? Do she know?”

“She tried to get me to change my mind.”

“But she couldn’t.”

“No. I’m going to do it, no matter what.”

“All right, I do need to know what direction you headed to.”

“South, but I want to stay east of Talladega County.”

“All right. I know they’re getting shipments of leather goods ready to go to different plantations and to the boat landing. I’ll find out when the next ones is going south. I’ll let you know when I go up to the Hall to ask how Mrs. Allen doing. I’ll look for you.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Mary. Do you think that the wagon will leave within a few days?”

“It’s a lot of wagons, many more than one going in each direction. So you got a few days to be ready, but I’ll find out the exact day and let you know. Sarah, I know I don’t have to tell you this but I will. Please be careful. And I’ll be praying for you.”

“Thank you, Miss Mary. It’s like Belle said. You’re like our auntie.”

I was ironing when Miss Mary arrived one day later. No one else was in the room, but she whispered. “You got three days. There’s a wagon going to a plantation in Chambers County at dawn on Thursday. That’s as far as they can take you. They’ll load the wagon by sundown Wednesday. You’re going to need to get yourself to where the wagon is going to be, by the tannery. Early Thursday morning, before dawn, get inside the back of the wagon when it’s still dark, before the overseer gets there with the pass. All right, Sarah. May the Lord keep you and protect you.”

It was late afternoon when I finished ironing. My mother was in the kitchen, and I asked her to find a reason to get Mr. Allen out of the office.

“Right now, Sarah? I’m cooking and I can’t go to him in the middle of the day. You know I only go to him at night, and only when he sends for me.”

“This one time, Mama. I need you to get him out of that office. Tell him that you need to speak to him about me, that you’re worried about me. Ask him again to change his mind about sending me back. Belle and the others will finish supper. And, Mama, what I need to see is the papers he’s writing. Don’t give him the opportunity to put them away.”

She agreed to my request. I waited until she was gone about twenty minutes and I went to the Hall with my bucket. He was not in the office. The document that I was looking for was on his desk. My hands were shaking as I read. When I was finished, I left quickly because I was afraid that my mother would not be able to keep him in his apartment.

The following day, I took a small blanket from Mr. Allen’s wardrobe, and I took two of Clarissa’s dresses and a pair of her riding boots. I put those items in the sack that I used for collecting dirty clothing. My mother returned to Mr. Allen that night. She said that he had complained that he had a headache and pain in his chest. I went to the stables and asked Mr. Allen’s coachman if he had a knapsack that he could spare. I told him that I needed one for my return to Talladega.

“We got leather and canvas ones, but I don’t think I can let you have a leather one.”

“Oh, a canvas one is just fine. Thank you.”

I hid the knapsack in the washroom.

When my mother came home Wednesday morning, she said that Mr. Allen was sicker but that he still refused to let his family send for the doctor.

“What’s wrong with him, Mama?”

“He said his head hurt so bad he can’t even open his eyes. The room have to stay dark because the light makes it worse, and he said that his chest hurt too.”

“Did he at least stop drinking whiskey?”

“No, his mother and Mrs. Allen tried to take his bottle away, and he wouldn’t let them. He said it’s the only thing dulling the pain. Mrs. Allen asked me if there’s something I can give him, but I told her no, that he just got to stop drinking. His mother said, if the pain keeps up, she’s going to send for the doctor and tell him to give Mr. Allen laudanum.”

“Did he say anything about sending me back to Talladega?”

“Yes, he said he think you’ll be going back next week.”

I spent most of the day Wednesday in the kitchen to be with my mother and Belle.

“Baby girl, why you look so sad? You thinking about Isaac?”

“Yes, and you and Mama and the children. When I go back, I’m going to miss you all so much. Belle, tell the children about me. Don’t let them ever forget me, all right?”

“They won’t forget you, Sarah, and you won’t be that far. I’m sure Mr. Allen will let us go see you in Talladega or he’ll let you and Isaac come here.”

My mother and I had our supper in our cabin.

“Sarah, you’re sure you won’t change your mind?”

“No, Mama. I can’t.”

“I know, baby. I know you can’t go back to that. But I can’t help but worry about you. And…I’ll never see you again.”

“Mama, please don’t cry. And, Mama, remember what you told us when we were little? That we’ll see each other again in heaven?”

“Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? But it’s one thing to say that to a child who is afraid of losing you and another thing to say it to yourself when you is about to lose your daughter. Having faith is not always easy. But you’re right, I have to believe that, I really do. Still I’m going to miss you and worry about you, baby. At least, if I knew you was going to be all right, I would feel better.”

“All I can do, Mama, is promise to take care of myself.”

We prayed.

“All right, Sarah. I got to go. His mother asked me to watch him.”

“Mama, I’m going to need you to stay with him all night, all right? Don’t come back here before tomorrow. And, Mama, this is important. When you get here in the morning, tell the overseer right away that I’m gone. I don’t want them to think that you had anything to do with it.”

“Yes, Sarah.”

“Mama, before you go, there’s something I need you to do. Cut my hair as short as you can. Cut it to my scalp.”

“Oh, Sarah. This is it, right?”

She wanted to cry, I could tell, but she did not. She held my hair by the ends and cut it with her sewing scissors. I touched my head; the hair was just below my ears.

“No, Mama. I need it really short. You know it’s going to grow fast.”

She cut it until it was close to my scalp and I saw in the mirror that she had made me look like a man. She embraced me before she left, and when she was gone, I sliced and cooked bacon, made corn bread, and cut a piece of ham. I wrapped the food and took it, along with the clothing that Mr. Adams had sewn for me and my boots to the washroom, where I packed all my items into the knapsack. I went back to the cabin, where I bathed and put on Clarissa’s dark blue day dress and her riding boots. I wrapped my hair and waited until about two o’clock in the morning.

It was quiet and there were no lights on in Allen Hall when I went to the washroom, where I retrieved my knapsack. I stayed off the path. It took me about two hours to walk through the woods to the tannery, where I hid behind a bush near the wagon, which was covered, to wait for the men. I could see them when they arrived. They were looking for me. When I was sure that there were just two of them, I walked to the wagon. I recognized one of them, LeRoy.

“Morning, Miss Sarah. This is Arthur. Quick, get in the back. We’ll help you hide under some sacks. You’re going to have to stay there and be real quiet until after we leave the main gate. We’ll let you know when it’s all right to sit on top of the sacks. You got to always be listening to us because there’s patrollers on the road who want to look inside the wagon. When we see one, one of us will say, ‘Let’s stop soon and eat something.’ That’s when you need to get back under the sacks, fast; but in the beginning, stay under until we tell you it’s all right to sit up.”

The filled sacks were not as heavy as I thought they would be, but they did not smell good. When the sun had come out, I heard the overseer arrive.

“Here’s your pass. You boys know to get back here by Sunday at the latest. Don’t do like last time, getting back here a week after you left.”

The overseers at the main gate asked to see the pass and told the driver to exit. We had been riding for about thirty minutes when the wagon stopped.

“All right, boys, stop. Let me see your pass and I need to look in the back. What you all got there?”

“We’re taking leather goods down to Chambers County.”

“Where in Chambers?

“The Henderson Plantation.”

I was lying on my stomach with my knapsack next to me. My hands were shaking and I tucked them underneath me. The overseer did not lift any of the sacks, and the wagon was only stopped for several seconds. When we had traveled about an hour, LeRoy told me that I could sit up and stretch. We rode that way for another hour and then we stopped to rest. They said that they had packed enough food for the three of us and that I did not have to use my supplies. I ate by myself in the back.

“Miss Sarah, you can go in the woods and stretch your legs. We’ll stay here by the wagon.”

When we had traveled for another two hours, a patroller stopped us as we neared what sounded like a town. He did not bother to look in the back and was satisfied with looking at the pass. The men took turns driving. On the second day, I asked where we were and LeRoy said that we were about to cross from Randolph County to Chambers. They said that they would tell me when we were near the plantation. There was still light when the wagon stopped. The men went to the back and lifted the canvas and I climbed out.

“This is it, Miss Sarah,” LeRoy said. “Miss Mary said to leave you on the road by the woods on the other side of the plantation. Here’s the rest of the food. You can keep the sack, and keep that tin cup for water. And only drink from water that’s moving.”

“Thank you both so much, for everything. I know this was a big risk for you to take.”