by Wendy Lawton
“No, ma’am.”
“Where was I before you interrupted? Oh, yes, the scones. Bring them from the kitchen and put them over there.” She pointed to a place on the table. “No, wait. Hold the plate by the right side of each of my guests. Or is it the left side?”
Minty was getting confused. How could she hold the plate if she also had a dish of clotted cream? She knew if she asked it would only make her mistress angry. Perhaps she would have time to ask Sadie.
“After you’ve passed the scones, hold the dish of cream for each guest. Make sure you serve the master first as he is particularly fond of clotted cream.” She paused. “No, better not serve him first.
Serve the ladies first, but make sure they don’t take too much.” Serve him first. Don’t serve him first. Put the scones on the table. Don’t put the scones on the table. Minty knew trouble was brewing. Miss Susan fluttered about the table, giving orders and changing orders. She didn’t know what she wanted, but Minty knew who would be blamed for any mistakes. Whenever Miss Susan was nervous, Minty could do nothing right.
The guests began to arrive. Minty stood by the dining room door. She caught the scent as each lady swept into the parlor. Lilac water, orris root, the spicy smell of lavender, the delicate scent of rose water, and finally, the masculine smells of leather, cigar smoke, and sandalwood joined Miss Susan’s jasmine.
Miss Susan visited with her guests. Her voice sounded musical as she talked and laughed. So different from her day-to-day voice. Minty knew anger simmered under the surface.
Please, God, let me do it right. Of course, it didn’t really matter how well she served—she’d get whipped before the day was over. Whenever Miss Susan got all worked up like today, she lashed out. Minty sometimes wondered if Miss Susan’s whippings were a way of easing the anger building up inside herself.
The guests finally made their way into the dining room. The French doors were both opened so the ladies didn’t have to squeeze their huge hoop skirts through the doorway. The men pulled chairs out for the ladies and waited patiently while hoops were arranged. If a lady sat too quickly, her hoop might swing up in front like a bell, allowing petticoats to show. To make room for hoops, dress, and petticoats, each lady could only perch on the edge of her chair.
No wonder the Missus and her friends don’t do any work. It is hard enough for them just to move. Maybe they figure they have work enough arranging their silk dresses and keeping their shawls from slipping down their shoulders. Minty couldn’t help thinking about the women in the Quarter. Old Rit and the other women moved with a rhythmic swing to their hips. It was a natural grace.
Minty brought the plate of scones in from the kitchen. Talk and laughter around the table held everyone’s attention. Minty slipped in beside each guest. Without even looking at their server, each one took a scone from her plate. Miss Susan took hers last. Though she laughed and talked with the rest of the guests, Miss Susan’s eyes never left Minty.
Minty put the plate of scones on the sideboard and returned to the kitchen for the clotted cream. She paid close attention to balance since the footed bowl only had four tiny crystal feet resting on a slippery crystal plate. The slightest tip would send the bowl crashing to the floor, or worse yet, onto the silken lap of one of the ladies. For the second time that day, she successfully made it around the table.
She brought in the bowl of crushed strawberries and placed it on the table near Miss Susan, just as Sadie said. Next the teapot. Sadie had her pick it up in her right hand and use a fancy napkin to hold the lid.
As she slid in next to the lilac-scented lady in yellow, Miss Susan asked, “Eugenia, do you care for tea?”
When the guest answered that she did, Minty carefully poured the tea. The routine was repeated with each guest. When the empty teapot was taken to the kitchen, the thudding of Minty’s heart eased a little. She took the cream pitcher and sugar bowl into the dining room and again went around the table, pouring cream or using the tiny tongs to drop sugar cubes into teacups.
“Araminta, you may retire to the kitchen,” Miss Susan finally said. “I will call you if we have need of your services.”
“Sadie,” Minty said as she sat down near the sink where the cook was working, “I did it without spilling a drop.” She felt fluttery and worn out all at the same time.
“You done fine.” Sadie seemed troubled.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not ’bout the way you waited table. You done jes’ fine, chile.” Sadie took her time. “Jes’ watch out, Minty.” She lowered her voice. “That woman’s wound tighter’n a pocket watch.”
“What do you mean?”
“I seen her like this b’fore. She gets herself all worked up ’bout company…like, do they talk ’bout her, or flirt with Master, or maybe they don’t pay ’nough attention to her. Don’t matter what. When they leave, jes’ watch out.” Sadie let a big breath out through her lips. “That’s all I got to say ’bout that.”
When Miss Susan walked out onto the veranda to say good-bye to the last guests, Minty went into the dining room to begin clearing up. What a mess was left. Napkins lay in the crushed strawberries, and cream was left on the plates. Tea was sloshed onto saucers. Scones were half eaten and broken into bits. To someone who never quite had enough to eat, Minty felt shame for Miss Susan and her guests, looking at the waste.
Even the sugar bowl had been knocked over. The tongs lay on the cloth beside a sugar cube. Minty had never tasted real sugar, but she knew it tasted like the cane Old Rit once let them chew. How Minty loved the sweet taste of cane. As she righted the sugar bowl, she took the spilled cube and dropped it into her pocket.
“Well, I never!” Miss Susan had been standing inside the doorway. “I positively will not stand for a common thief in my household, Araminta Ross.” Her voice had risen in pitch and volume until everyone in the house could hear the accusation. “I saw you steal that cube of sugar. Even my husband saw you!”
“Now, Susan.” Master used the same soothing voice he used with his horses. “Don’t you be taking out your temper on—”
“You stay out of it!” She was stamping her foot like a child. “I will manage my property any way I see fit.”
Her property? Her property! Minty clamped her mouth shut, letting the air come out her nostrils. She was sick of doing it Old Rit’s way. I hate slavery and I hate Miss Susan. I worked so hard to please her and… Minty began backing out of the dining room as Miss Susan continued to scream. Once out of the room, she turned and ran, pumping her legs as hard as she could, out the back door and down toward the creek.
With Master’s friends still close at hand, Minty knew Miss Susan would not come running after a slave. Besides, she could hear Miss Susan and the master arguing.
As her feet beat a rhythm on the thick grass she began to hum a tune deep in her throat:
Oh, freedom. Oh, freedom. Oh, freedom, over me.
And before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be free.
Oh, if I could just find that freedom train, Minty thought as she ran farther and farther away from Miss Susan’s screams.
Steal
Away
Wade in the water, child.”
Minty looked around to see who spoke. Nobody was there. Who said the words then? They must be runnin’ through my head from the song, Minty thought as she ran beside the creek trying to get far away from Miss Susan’s whip.
“Wade in the water.”
This time Minty realized the words were not spoken. They just whispered in her head and sort of came out her lips. Could it be the voice of God? Angels? The devil himself? She quickly dismissed the devil. The words were whispered with love and it was the same voice she had known her whole life. Though Minty wasn’t sure she ’d ever heard the voice aloud, it often sort of hummed underneath her fear and loneliness. She heard it in her dreams. Yes, she knew that voice.
“Here I am, Lord,” Minty said. She fe
lt funny saying that, but she remembered hearing her father tell how God came to Moses in the burning bush. That was Moses’ answer to God.
“Here I am.” She reached down and untied her shoes and slipped them off her feet, just like Moses did. She took off her apron and laid it alongside the shoes. Her chest hurt from running. There’s no way I can outrun them. I don’t know what else to do.
She slipped down the creek bank and began to wade up the stream. It wasn’t deep like the river where Mr. Cook ran his trapline. It only came up to her waist. The stones under Minty’s feet were smooth from being tumbled by the stream. She waded close to the high bank cut away by last winter’s torrents, under a kind of overhang formed by roots and grassy turf. Spotting her from the direction of Miss Susan’s would be impossible without leaning way over the bank.
She hadn’t waded far when she came to a crevice caused by a tangle of roots and deadfall. Her knees were still wobbly and her chest tight from fear. Wedging herself into the crevice, she rested. Before long she felt her body getting lighter, as if she could fly.
“Master, look!”
Minty woke with a start. She had been flying like a bird above the Brodas Plantation in her dream, but she woke to find her body still firmly wedged into the crevice. At the sound of excited voices on the bank downstream, she froze.
“It’s the girl’s shoes and apron, alright.” This was the voice of the master.
There was a long silence followed by the master’s voice again. “I’ll be jiggered. Whatever was the girl thinking? Nigras can’t swim and this water is swift. How do I tell Brodas that my wife’s uncontrollable temper sent his slave off to drown herself ? Lord, have mercy.”
“Want me to take up these shoes and things, suh?”
“Of course. They can be used again.” Master sounded impatient. “Look around a little upstream, just in case, while I have someone back at the house fetch the patrollers to bring their dogs. They need to look downstream for the body.”
“Yes, suh.”
“Don’t stay out here too long because you don’t have a pass.”
“Yes, suh.”
The buzz of mosquitoes was the only sound Minty heard. She strained her ears but couldn’t catch any movement at all. After what seemed like a long time she heard a deep voice softly singing from the place she’d last heard the master:
Steal away, steal away,
Steal away to Jesus.
Steal away, steal away home.
I ain’t got long to stay here.
The voice got even quieter. Minty strained to hear.
Steal away, steal away,
Steal away upstream.
Minty listened close. That wasn’t how the words went.
Steal away, steal away now,
I ain’t e ’en fixin’ to look here.
And one more verse:
Steal away, steal away,
Steal away to freedom.
Steal away, in the creek,
Dogs can’t even follow.
Minty understood that the slave was giving her a message. She slipped out of the crevice and continued upstream, keeping close to the bank. Thank you, friend.
It was hard work wading against the current. How’d I know to head upstream? It was that voice. The patroller’s bloodhounds can’t follow scent in water—but I if I hadn’t obeyed the Lord to wade in the water, I’d have left an easy trail to follow.
Minty continued moving through the stream. Her legs ached from pushing against the current. Her ankles felt so cold that her teeth began to clatter. She just kept moving through the stream, knowing each step took her farther away from Master and Miss Susan.
To keep her mind off the cold, she began to sing a song in her mind. Oh, freedom, oh, freedom. The words kept repeating in her mind as she pushed forward.
Minty’s plight hit her all at once. Why am I singing about freedom? She didn’t even know how to get to freedom. She was Araminta Ross, Old Rit and Ben’s little girl, and she was a fugitive slave. If the patrollers found her they’d whip her and return her. Master would also whip her. Fugitives were often sold South.
A fugitive . She continued to wade upstream but no further songs marked her way.
She’d been wading upstream for what seemed like hours. She came to several forks where she could have taken another downstream fork and headed off in a different direction, but she kept remembering the slave’s advice to head upstream. A bridge crossing the stream gave her a place to hide out of the water in order to rest. Pilings had been driven deep into the streambed. Cross timbers gave her a dry place to hide. She poked around with a stick to make sure she ’d not be sharing her hidey-hole with too many spiders. Just the thought made her shiver.
As soon as she wedged herself in, she began to feel sleepy.
Rackety, rackety, rackety! The noise of a wagon crossing from the far side of the bridge woke her. She pulled herself into an even tighter ball. Could anyone see her?
“Pull up, Saul. Ain’t Master gonna know if we stop off for a smoke. Jes’ get over the bridge and pull up by that tree.” The voice came from almost over Minty’s head as the wagon rackety-racked over the wooden bridge.
“Reckon it won’t hurt none. Whoa, whoa, boys.”
The wagon had crossed the bridge, but Minty could hear the men talking plain as day.
“No one ever gonna find out. Good thing the missus is so fussy ’bout smells. T’Master Stebbins builds the pigsty near a mile from the Big House.” The man laughed and continued, “He doesn’t think that it takes us near an hour to bring slops out ever’ evenin’ after supper.”
The old man called Saul laughed along with him. “I call it dee-vine providence, that’s what I call it. Ain’t no overseer gonna trouble hisself to come out this far. You one lucky man, Rufus.”
“Haulin’ water outta the creek at first light and muckin’ the pen takes me a good hour or two. I get back with only one hour, mebbe two in the field till the bell rings for dinner. I have to work with the hands in the field till supper, but when all the slops and leftovers been collected, I take off in the wagon and head back out here.”
“That so?”
“Summerime I get here long ’bout twilight, slops the hogs quick-like, and I can ride by the ol’ Cole place to see my kids and my woman, if I hurry.”
Minty heard the wagon rattle off. They must have finished their tobacco. She needed to remember the direction so she could find that pigsty.
She remembered the story Ben told called “The Prodigal Son.” Jesus first told it a long time ago—it was in the Bible. Her father could spin that story till you could hardly breathe for waiting.
The part she remembered now was when the runaway son lived with the pigs and ate right alongside them. Her stomach growled so loudly she’d been afraid the slaves would hear. They said they were taking slops to the pigs—the leftovers from supper. Perhaps she could get enough to hold her over until she figured out where to go. With the pigsty so far from the rest of their plantation it could be the safest hiding place of all.
Minty waited under the bridge until the wagon carrying the two slaves came back over the bridge. When it was safe to climb out, she quickly found the wagon tracks. They were easy enough to follow even though night had fallen. She heard grunting long before she could see the pigsty.
She hurried toward the noise, hoping they hadn’t slopped in all the leftovers yet. In one pen lay a big sow with a whole row of newborn piglets. The sow looked too tired to get up to eat.
Minty slipped through the rails and started to move toward the feeding trough. She never considered it dangerous, but the huge sow shot to her feet, spilling baby pigs as she charged. The grunting of the sow and squealing of piglets ripped through the quiet evening. Minty managed to scramble back through the fence just ahead of the angry pig. She let out her breath in a whoosh. Did the men hear the noise? Minty sat motionless as the minutes ticked by.
The angry sow continued to weave back and forth across the pen. Sor
ry for disturbing them, Minty watched as the sow just missed stepping on her babies several times. I wonder if Jesus’ Prodigal Son had this problem?
She came around the far side of the pen and slipped into the tight space where two pens joined. I hope there are no spiders here. But she was so hungry she didn’t even poke around to see. By sitting on the ground and reaching into the sow’s pen all the way up to the shoulder, her arm could stretch into the trough. She couldn’t see a thing since, in order to get in far enough, her head was turned away and her cheek pressed against the rail. She’d have to feel her way to any edible scraps.
Deep in the trough was just wet stuff. The thought of it caused her stomach to lurch, but she was so hungry that she ached. She had to stop acting like a baby.
The dry slops seemed to be toward the sides. There. That feels like sweet corn. She brought out a partly eaten cob. It looked perfectly good except for two or three rows around the cob. Must have belonged to someone with only a few teeth left who was too tired after a day in the field to work at eating corn.
She put the cob in her lap and stretched her hand back into the trough. The sow had settled down with her babies again. This time Minty hit a pan-shaped hunk of what must be corn pone. She pulled it out and looked it over. The bottom was blackened. Minty laughed out loud. “Thank You, Jesus.” She pictured the cook in the Big House. She must have been distracted and allowed the cornbread to burn. Rather than cut the bottom off and risk a whipping, she hid a perfectly good pone in the slops bucket.
Minty slid out of the crawl space between the pens and sat out on the grass under a tree to eat. She wiped the food off as best she could, but she didn’t let herself think about where she got it. I’ll just think about it as manna—the food God gave to Moses in the wilderness. Just like the children of Israel, I won’t worry about tomorrow’s food either.
With the sound of the hoot owls and whippoorwills hollering at each other, Minty crawled back into the crawl space to sleep. This time she took a willow switch and checked carefully for spiders.