Amy, Beth, Jo, and Meg all studied him while he spoke—which he seemed fond of doing, or at least he was accustomed to a rapt audience—and he was able to tell them of his journey from Philadelphia to North Carolina in great detail, sharing anecdotes about Brigadier General Edward Wild, in whose company he’d come to explore the island and now the colony.
“This General Wild,” Meg began, finally interrupting Joseph’s storytelling. The glimmer in her eye was now notably dimmed.
“Yes, Miss Meg,” he answered, and there was perhaps the beginning of a glimmer in his—or at least two of the women at the supper table hoped.
“What’s his business in a freedpeople’s colony?” she asked. “There are so many officers here already, it’s intriguing to have another come from such a distance. And in the company of a free Black man brought all the way from the North?”
“It sounds,” Joseph answered with a handsome smile, “like you might be asking what my business is, Miss Meg.”
“If your business is the same,” she said, and now the worry was evident.
The young man must have been prepared for it. Jo could tell as much when instead of sighing, he drew in a breath, as though to steady himself, and squared his already distracting shoulders.
“We hope to enlist good freedmen to the cause.” He was afraid to leave too long a silence, because he barreled on at the sight of Meg’s disappointment. “There are some up north who question the abilities of negro soldiers, but General Wild is devout in his faith in our value.”
“I wouldn’t think that would need confirming,” Jo said, because it seemed Meg and Mammy wouldn’t. “We were valuable enough to be napped from our original lands, after all. And valuable enough to spark a war.”
“Of course you’re right,” Joseph said, inclining his head toward Joanna as though she were the schoolmarm, and he’d been warned to watch his p’s and q’s. “And it is our fight. It’s our freedom, after all.”
“I thought you were born free,” Amy chimed in. She’d been watching the molasses apple pie ever since Beth finished her last bite of fish, wondering when it would be cut and distributed, or whether it was simply to be table dressing.
“No one is free until we all are,” he answered, and around the table there was unanimous approval. There were sounds like something between a sigh of relief and an involuntary hum, and the glimmer snuck back into Meg’s eye.
“My husband is away, in Mississippi,” Mammy said when the moment was done. At her remark, her daughters’ heads bowed slightly, as though in reverence. It only took a moment to say a prayer for their father, and they’d gotten into the habit of doing so at least a hundred times a day. “There’s work to be done, making this place a colony and not just another camp, and in Corinth they’re further along. He’s gone to learn how they’ve done it, because you see, Mr. Williams, there’s more to it than forcing white folks to leave off our chains. We must build alliances, dependencies. We must be allowed to know our Black neighbors, the way we weren’t before, so that we can get along without the Union. There’s plenty of resistance, even to that. You must understand that we who needed this war to become free already know it’s our fight, whether we see battle on a field or only every day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Joseph said, which was the only appropriate response.
The conversation settled there for a while, and Mammy elected Amy to help her retrieve the kettle and tea strainers from the kitchen, if only because the girl could not be trusted so close to the pie unsupervised. For the few moments they were gone, those who remained around the table said nothing, Meg exchanging a timid glance with Joseph before seeing that both Joanna’s and Bethlehem’s eyes were on her, too. She was relieved when her mother came back … until she saw the tea leaves she brought.
“I’m sure you’ve never had yaupon tea, Mr. Williams,” Meg said, a flush warming her cheeks.
“I’m sure I’ve never heard of it, Miss Meg,” he said, and his curiosity was unfortunately piqued. “I must confess I tend to depend on coffee, though, and not tea, which may account for my ignorance.”
“Oh no,” she answered, with a slight shake of her head. “You’ll not have heard of it because folks don’t tend to drink it unless they must.” She thought of the missionary teachers who seemed prepared for a great many sacrifices—until they could not procure what food staples they’d taken for granted back home. Being reduced to drinking tea made from holly leaves seemed one injustice too many for several of them, and they complained about it often.
Probably when they felt unable to voice other less tasteful concerns , Meg thought.
“You’ll be grateful we’re not serving you what passes for coffee,” Jo quipped. “Believe me.”
“I’m aware of the many substitutions Southerners must acclimate to, and I’ve found I’m quite partial to sweet potato coffee,” he said. “Thus far I’ve been served coffee made of okra seeds, peanuts, and once—if memory serves—dandelion root.”
“And you tried them all?” Amy asked, while her sisters and Mammy laughed in a kind of relieved amusement. She bounced forward so that she was perched on the edge of her seat, one leg bent beneath her and her elbows landing on the table with a careless thud.
“We Northerners aren’t as heralded for our manners as you, but wartime requires a measure of graciousness. Beside which, when I’m a guest, I always eat what I’m given.” He looked then at Meg. “I will be delighted to try this yaupon tea.”
Mammy placed one of their two tea strainers atop Joseph’s cup and filled it with the dried and torn leaves of the yaupon holly. “Speaking of the war,” she began, pouring the piping hot water over it, “How many of our good men does your general intend to recruit?”
“General Wild has been authorized by President Lincoln to recruit four regiments from North Carolina, to contribute to an entire African brigade,” Joseph answered, his shoulders squared again, this time as though with pride.
“Four,” Meg said as frailly as if the wind had escaped her.
“What’s so awful about four?” Amy whispered.
“A regiment has ten companies,” Beth answered, leaning toward her younger sister so that their heads nearly touched. “And in each company, there are one hundred men.” She’d tried to speak as quietly as possible, but the rest of the table was silent and everyone heard.
“So Mr. Williams has come to take four thousand of our men,” Jo said without looking away from the young man who perhaps wished he did not strike such an imposing figure just then.
“We haven’t got four thousand men.” Once she’d spoken, Meg seemed the only March who could look elsewhere. In an effort to steady her hands, she stood abruptly and began cutting the molasses apple pie. When she’d finished, she seemed to remember that the supper plates hadn’t been cleared, and with Mr. Williams taking her father’s place at the head of the table, every available plate was in use. They would have to be cleaned before the pie could be served.
Beth stood next, taking hers and Amy’s plates, and followed Meg toward the kitchen. Amy grabbed the utensils left behind and went next. Jo took Joseph Williams’s plate and utensils, placing them on hers, and collected Mammy’s, too, before joining her sisters.
Mammy didn’t leave their guest. It was the benefit of having four daughters. One of them anyway. They consoled each other when one needed it. Whoever was downtrodden, she had three sisters to set her right again.
If it was Amy, they would shower her with attention, giving her an undistracted audience while she danced or sang. If Beth was feeling low, they would ask her opinion on a frock that perhaps was best tossed out, knowing she would have a host of remedies for making the thing seem new. When Jo was upset, her sisters told her stories that they made up on the spot, and which she would inevitably improve, or else be too amused by their intentionally awful telling. Tonight, it was Meg whose mood had soured, and that meant her sisters would mostly be silent, but they would help her in whatever task she undertook.
>
The worst times were when all four of her daughters were heartsore. That was when only a Mammy would do. She’d invite them all into her bed, even though there were beds enough for all of them now. Still, there was something about cuddling together, everyone held by someone, and all in the same place. It was the way they’d had to sleep in the old life, and then immediately after, at the confiscated big house. The family had taken refuge there, but the place had been stocked beyond capacity by all those looking for a safe haven now that they were free. It hadn’t been comfortable there, either, but it had been wonderful.
“You don’t know quite what it’s like, Mr. Williams,” Mammy said. “The moment after enslavement, because you have always been free. Don’t think that we are uninvested in this war because we don’t want someone coming and selecting the best stock. We’re only too accustomed to that around here.”
“I’m beginning to realize,” Joseph began, “that there were many thoughts that hadn’t occurred to me before coming south. I thought, of course, of all I’d be giving up.”
“Perhaps you didn’t think we had anything to lose.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I’m ashamed to admit you might be right.”
“Your General Wild, and General Burnside, and all the others—they think they are building this colony. That because they commission the leveling of trees, and exchange letters with the president, and permit missionary teachers to come, that this is their doing. But we pilgrimaged here.” Mammy placed her palm flat against the supper table. She used no force, and it made no sound, but it lifted her chin, and it caused Joseph to straighten in his seat. “We came from all directions, making those commissions and correspondences necessary at all. We had schools and churches before they designated any building, or permitted any white schoolmarms. We have constructed this place, and its community, as the founders built thriving colonies and then a nation. We are doing the same, Mr. Williams. And we need our men for that—free, of course, and alive.”
“It is something to behold, Mrs. March, and that’s the truth. I daresay I never saw a place I liked better than Roanoke Island.” When he said it, Joseph Williams was looking past Mammy, at the procession of young March women coming back down from the kitchen, carrying clean plates and cutlery. The first of them was Meg, and Joseph stood at her coming, and could not help but smile.
* * *
“What a strange day,” Meg whispered.
Jo hadn’t fallen asleep, though she could hear the soft snoring coming from Beth and Amy’s bed. She’d known Meg was still awake by the occasional sighing.
“It seems Joseph Williams came out of nowhere, doesn’t it?”
“It seems he came out of Pennsylvania to me.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Will you marry him and get it over with?”
“Joanna!” Meg exclaimed in a scratchy whisper. “Don’t be silly.” But even as she stared at the ceiling of their little house, she couldn’t help what she imagined. “I’m as boring as Amy says I am, aren’t I?”
“Amy says you’re dread fully boring.”
“She’s right. I want to teach, and marry, and that’s all. But to me, it seems like the world.”
Jo turned on her other side so that she was facing her sister. “Then it is the world.”
Meg turned, too. “Just like that?” she asked.
“Why should it need to be harder? We’ve had more than our share of difficulty in this country. You should pursue it, when you know what would satisfy you.”
“But you wouldn’t be so easily satisfied,” Meg whispered. Though they’d been speaking hushedly all along, with this whisper, she sounded almost ashamed.
“And you wouldn’t be tempestuous. And Beth would never be unkind. Nor Amy undramatic. We’re sisters, Meg; we aren’t twins. Why should you be what I am?”
“Is tempestuous what you think you are, Jo?”
There was only room for one sister to lay on her back at a time, so when Jo turned, Meg stayed on her side, watching the outline of her sister’s face.
“Only I know what I’m like inside,” Jo answered finally. “Finding all the right words in all the right order doesn’t calm the storm. Memorizing them isn’t enough anymore, and reciting them is a spell that never seems to last long enough these days.”
“I think that means you’re growing up, when what once satisfied doesn’t.”
“Maybe,” she replied softly, but her eyes didn’t stop searching the darkness.
“What about the building? You must enjoy that,” Meg said. “It’s the work you chose.”
“More women will have to choose it if General Wild and Joseph Williams get the African brigade they’re after. The freedpeople need proper homes, if we’re to be permanently settled.”
Meg didn’t answer that, and her eyes fell away from the shadow of her sister’s face for a moment. She wanted to remember the young man’s shoulders and his unblemished face. She wanted to think about his manners, and the feel of his soft hand when he took each of theirs to kiss goodnight and saved hers til last. She would always remember what he’d told Mammy at the table, while looking her in the eye—that he had never seen a place he liked better than here. Meg was sure he’d meant it had something to do with her, and she didn’t think she was being proud.
His one blemish—the thing she wished to forget—was why he’d come at all.
“Perhaps my unrest is just growing up,” Jo carried on, unaware of where her sister’s mind had gone. “Then what do I do?”
Meg thought on that for a few minutes, welcoming the redirection. She could think of a way to help her sister, if she couldn’t help herself. The answer that came to her might not have if she weren’t a teacher, and the thought made her smile when she put her head on Joanna’s shoulder.
“I think now you must try writing your words down.”
“Will that make a difference?”
“Words committed to paper can be shared beyond the five of us. They can challenge the ideas of people you might never otherwise meet. Create tempests in their minds to match the one in yours.” Meg poked Jo in the ribs, a broad smile on her lips. “I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
“Or would be,” Jo said, helpless to escape her sister’s repeatedly poking finger in the small bed they shared. “If paper were in grand supply.”
“The soldiers and the missionary teachers have a limitless store, and Mammy uses ledgers and notebooks every day. Just begin mentally composing your masterpiece; we’ll keep you in parchment and ink.”
“So begins the criminal second act of the March women.”
“I thought Amy was the dramatic one.”
“Please be considerate of others trying to sleep,” croaked the just-mentioned younger sibling, in a voice still hoarse and thick with slumber that caused the older two to snicker amongst themselves.
“Speak of the dramatic devil,” Joanna whispered, to Meg’s delight, and then they calmed themselves enough to drift away into their respective dreams.
IV
Meg had only one slate chalkboard for use in her teaching tent, and she stood looking down at it now because it was broken. She didn’t rage or weep, because neither was her way. Instead she breathed evenly, blinking slowly, as someone accustomed to misfortune might. She would have this moment of calm lament and then adjust, as one accustomed also to making due, and she’d carry on with her lessons tomorrow without chalkboards despite that in an apparent show of camaraderie, a missionary teacher had gifted her two—both of which were gone now.
The gifts had been considerate, emblems of good faith meant to signify that the missionary teachers didn’t wish to replace the “devoted negro teachers.” When asked directly, they insisted that “negro” teachers had their place, though they were women—and occasionally men—who’d been specially trained for the work of instruction.
She’d been specially trained, as well, Meg thought but didn’t say. By a wealthy Southern child’s governess. She couldn
’t know for certain, of course, but she doubted any of the missionary teachers had an upbringing like the girl she’d been made to shadow all her life, and—by forced attendance—the education Meg herself had received.
They hadn’t been friends, she and the wealthy Southern child. Yes, Meg had been treated like a plaything, but one could grow a devoted affection for a doll, so she did not doubt that the girl believed she loved Her Meg. When she threw tantrums that resulted in Meg being forced to stay overnight with her or when she insisted Meg be retrieved from the little shack where she would otherwise have slept happily amongst her family, the wealthy Southern child—who was permitted to act like one well into her debutante years—cooed to her that she loved Meg more than almost anyone.
Meg sometimes felt she’d had the strangest old life of everyone. Her education extended far beyond letters, and as much Latin as the wealthy girl could be forced to memorize. For one thing, she’d learned that things did not have to break in that house for them to be replaced. The wealthy girl would often insist that something was “worn clean out” and without investigation her parents would send for another.
In her teaching tent, Meg wrapped the shards of slate in a kerchief. She didn’t feel right disposing of it, when it was such a valuable thing. Perhaps the missionary teachers weren’t very unlike the wealthy girl after all, and they’d send it away to be replaced.
She sighed, untying her bonnet and closing her eyes in relief when she uncovered her hair and what little air didn’t hang thick in her tent touched the dampness on her skin. She’d better not get her hopes up with these Northern white people, she decided. They might be like their southern neighbors in more ways than she’d care to witness again. Because among the things Meg had learned as the living doll of a wealthy girl was what many genteel Southern women tried to disguise. Like their ownership of people. Their inheritance and profit of them. There must be things that Northern white women hid, too.
So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix: 2 (Remixed Classics) Page 3