A Light to My Path

by Lynn Austin

  “Then one day your daddy’s massa die, and in his will he’s saying that George and all his other slaves can go free. Seems like a real good thing, being free—but it ain’t. White folks hate to see Negroes going free even more than they hate us when we’re slaves. They say free Negroes get uppity, and the whites are always worrying that the freedmen gonna give slaves the notion that we should all be free. So the white men pass a bunch of laws saying that free Negroes can’t be living in town, and they can’t own no property, and they can’t be staying in any one place too long. If the freedmen break that law, the white folks throw them in jail and charge a big fine, then sell them back into slavery when they can’t pay the fine. They’re trying to drive all the free Negroes away from here—or else get them back as slaves again. Either way, they don’t want freedmen like your daddy hanging around.

  “So, poor George was free now, but he’s wearing himself out trying to help your mama, especially after you was born. He gets himself a job on a steamboat in Charleston, loading wood and coal and such. He’s working hard as he can so he can earn enough money to buy Lucindy. But even when he’s saving up all his money, Massa Goodman ain’t selling her. Poor George finally decides ain’t nothing left to do but take his wife and child and run away. That’s because your daddy’s wanting your mama and you to be free, just like him.

  “Everybody try and tell them they’re making a big mistake. Things gonna go real bad for them if they’s caught. ’Course they ain’t listening. Your daddy’s trusting Jesus to help him, and one night, he and Lucindy steal away. Soon as Massa Goodman find out that Lucindy’s gone, he’s calling the paddyrollers together and they’re sending the dogs out after them. Your folks never even make it out of South Carolina, poor souls, before they was caught.”

  Kitty’s dream came back to her, vivid and strong. She knew, then, that it had really happened. The dogs had come tearing at mama and papa’s legs until they couldn’t run anymore. Then the white men came on horseback with guns. But what was the end of that dream? She never could remember the end. Her mouth felt so dry she could barely speak.

  “What happened after they was caught, Mammy?”

  “Oh, child … you don’t want to know,” she said, shaking her head. “Some stories is best left untold.”

  Kitty shivered even though the night was warm. “I do want to know, Mammy Bertha. Please tell me.”

  Mammy sighed. She hesitated such a long time that Kitty was afraid she would never tell. When Mammy finally spoke, her voice was very soft. “They whipped your poor daddy and hanged him for a thief, right out there on the Great Oak Tree.”

  For a long moment Kitty couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow. That tree had always seemed like her friend, her place of refuge. Now she felt betrayed. The Great Oak Tree had helped them kill her papa. She closed her eyes at the thought of him hanging from its branches.

  Bertha wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. “Massa Goodman’s saying your daddy stole his property when he’s running off with your mama and you—which I suppose is true. They make all us slaves stand out there and watch so we’d learn what would happen to all of us if we try and run off. Whipped your mama, too, then they sell her to a slave trader. She’s begging and pleading with Massa to sell you along with her instead of leaving you here all alone. You was still just a little thing, toddling all around. But Massa Goodman ain’t listening.” Bertha slipped her arm around Kitty’s shoulder and pulled her close. “That’s how you come to be all alone in the world.”

  Kitty slumped against Mammy Bertha and wept, pouring out years of loneliness and loss and a deep grief she hadn’t known she’d had. She was sorry she had asked for the truth, sorry she knew. The Great Oak Tree would be an emblem of horror and death to her from now on, instead of comfort and refuge. And she would never be able to look at Massa Goodman the same way again, either. Why wouldn’t he sell Lucindy to George? He had plenty of other slaves. It was Massa Goodman’s fault that her father had died, his fault that her mother had been sold, leaving her all alone.

  And Kitty knew she could never look at Claire the same way, either. Claire still lived with both of her parents. They gave her everything she needed or wanted. Kitty’s parents had loved her, too, but they had been punished for trying to be free—trying to live the way all of the Negroes in Delia’s story had once lived.

  Mammy held Kitty tightly, rocking her. “It don’t pay to be falling in love, child. Only leads to heartbreak if Massa’s selling you or the man you love or taking your children away from you. I seen it happen over and over again too many times—way too many times. Slaves are put here on this earth to work, not to be loving somebody.”

  Kitty’s tears gradually died away, but she stayed in Mammy’s warm arms, needing to be held.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” Mammy said after a while. “As hard as this here life is, folks have to be fools to try and run away. They say you can follow the North Star to freedom, but that land’s way too far away from here. And the price you pay is much too high when you’re caught. And folks is always caught. Them paddyrollers are the devil’s own horsemen.”

  When Kitty finally left the comfort of Bertha’s arms and returned to her pallet, nightmares filled her sleep. In the morning she carried her sadness and loss like a huge burden that she couldn’t seem to lift from her shoulders. The grief Kitty felt didn’t fade with time, either, but grew stronger each day, especially when she happened to glimpse the Great Oak Tree. And she couldn’t avoid seeing it. The tree dominated the view from Missy’s bedroom windows.

  Massa Goodman’s guests finally departed, leaving Missy Claire grumpy from all the excitement and Kitty exhausted from the extra work and restless nights. Tears she couldn’t control filled her eyes at unexpected moments, and she could no longer find the energy to amuse Missy Claire and Missy Kate with her antics.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Claire demanded to know when she caught Kitty wiping her eyes one afternoon. Kitty should have known that it wasn’t concern that had prompted the question, but irritation. Claire wanted her to snap out of it and be happy, again. Kitty should have known better, but she made the mistake of telling her the truth.

  “Oh, Missy Claire, I can’t help feeling sad when I think about my mama and papa. They’re both gone, and now I ain’t got no family.”

  “Why are you thinking about them? You’re supposed to be playing with me, not pouting about people who aren’t even here.”

  “But … but I can’t help wishing I had a family like you do.”

  Claire’s face went rigid with anger. “You don’t want to be with me? You want to be with your own kind? Fine! Then I don’t want you moping around here, either. Go back down to Slave Row where you came from.”

  Kitty’s knees went weak with fear. “But my family ain’t down on Slave Row, Missy. They—”

  “Too bad. I don’t want you in my house anymore. Get out.”

  “You don’t mean that. Who’s gonna play with you and—”

  “I’d rather play alone than look at your stupid droopy face. Get out right now. Go live with all the other darkies since that’s what you want.”

  “But Missy Claire, that ain’t what I want.” She dropped to her knees to beg. “Please! I got no family down there, and no place to sleep, or—”

  “That’s your problem, not mine. Go on, you heard me—get out!” Claire’s voice had risen to an angry shout, and Mammy Bertha hurried into the room with the baby in her arms.

  “Hey, now. What’s all this shouting about, Missy Claire?”

  “I’m sending Kitty back down to live with all the other darkies. I don’t want her up here anymore.”

  “No, please!” Kitty begged. “I promise I’ll be happy again. I promise!”

  “Well, it’s too late,” Claire said. She smiled, as if pleased with the power she wielded. “Daisy will be my maid from now on. And I don’t want Kitty to help you, either, Mammy. She’s a crybaby, and I don’t want her in my house.” />
  Mammy gripped Kitty’s arm with her free hand and pulled her to her feet, then steered her out of the room. Claire slammed the door behind her. “You heard what Missy say. You best be doing what you’re told, girl.”

  “But, Mammy—”

  Bertha shook her head. “Go on, now.” She turned her back on Kitty and shuffled away to the nursery. Mammy couldn’t help her. Neither could any of the other house slaves. There was nothing Kitty could do but obey.

  She cried all the way down to Slave Row, barely able to see where she was going through her tears. Nor did she know what to do once she got there. It was early in the afternoon, and the other slaves hadn’t come home from the fields yet. The yard was deserted except for three small children digging in the dirt. Kitty found Old Nellie in her cabin, fanning four little babies who were sleeping crossways on the bed.

  “What do you want? What’s wrong with you?” Nellie asked when she saw Kitty’s tear-streaked face.

  “Missy Claire send me away. She don’t want me working for her up in the Big House no more.”

  “What’d you do wrong?”

  “Nothing! She said I was moping around and she didn’t want to be playing with me no more.”

  “If you’re crying and carrying on like that, I can see why. I don’t want you around here, either. Got enough crying babies to take care of.”

  Kitty struggled to get a hold of herself, drying her tears and drawing a deep breath. She knew that slaves were never allowed to be idle, and that she would have to find some kind of work to do to if she wanted to avoid being sent into the rice fields. “I been helping Mammy Bertha take care of the white children up in the Big House,” she said hopefully. “I can help you, too, if you want.”

  “Ain’t up to me where you work, and you know it. I’ll let you help me today, but you’re big enough to work the rice fields tomorrow. I reckon that’s where they gonna send you.”

  Kitty’s eyes filled with tears. “I got no place to live, Nellie. I got no family down here.”

  The old woman eyed her silently for a moment. “Your name’s Anna, ain’t it?”

  It took Kitty a moment to remember that it was. She hadn’t been called by that name in a year. “That’s the name my mama, Lucindy, gave me,” she said. “But Missy Claire’s been calling me Kitty.”

  Nellie shrugged. “Don’t make no difference to me what you’re called. Here, you fan these little ones for a while,” she said, handing Kitty the palm branch. “I could use a little rest.”

  Kitty worked as hard as she could for the rest of the day, hoping Old Nellie would put in a good word for her and that she’d be allowed to help her again tomorrow. When the other slaves came in from the fields at dusk and gathered around for their rations, the black foreman noticed Kitty right away.

  “Where’d you come from?” he demanded. He was a huge, towering man with a scowling face. His massive arms and shoulders seemed to burst out of his homespun shirt. Kitty was so afraid of him she couldn’t reply.

  “She been working up at the Big House,” Old Nellie said. “She been sent down.”

  “What’d you do wrong?”

  “N-nothing!” she stammered. “Missy Claire got mad ’cause she said I was moping. That’s all, I swear!”

  “Guess you have to work like the rest of us now,” he said with a grunt.

  Kitty ate the meager supper she’d been given and went to bed hungry. Nellie gave her a threadbare blanket and she slept on the dirt floor of the cabin with mice scurrying around her all night. The horn blew in the morning, just as the sky was growing light, and the foreman himself took Kitty out to the rice fields and assigned her a row of plants to hoe. The two girls she labored alongside had once played with her in Old Nellie’s yard, but they seemed much older than Kitty and already worn out from hard work. Kitty’s lack of experience with a hoe didn’t matter; she was expected to keep up with the others as they worked their way down the rows, making sure she didn’t overlook any weeds or accidentally chop a rice plant. Blisters had formed on her hands by noontime and had begun to bleed and ooze long before dusk. Kitty felt the sting of the lash, falling harder and more often across her shoulders as the day wore on, punishment for making a mistake or failing to keep up.

  But as each day merged with the next, it wasn’t the hunger or fatigue or constant fear that made Kitty’s life unbearable—it was the drab hopelessness of her new surroundings. Everything seemed devoid of color: the dingy cabin, the dirt floor, the slaves’ faded clothes and lifeless faces, their dusty bodies aching with toil. She wasn’t allowed to gaze up at the blue sky and white clouds or off into the distance at the green forest; only down at the dirt, at the endless row that must be hoed, her view a monotony of rice plants and weeds. At night she curled up on the cabin floor, too exhausted for nightmares, let alone dreams.

  By Sunday afternoon, her only day of rest, Kitty felt close to despair. She decided she would rather jump into the river and drown than face a lifetime of such hopeless labor. She left the barren slave yard and walked to the edge of the plantation yard, intending to cross the broad swath of green grass and just keep on walking—down to the pier, off the end of it, and into the water. But as she neared the Great Oak Tree, Kitty saw Missy Claire and Missy Kate seated on a blanket beneath it, playing with their dolls. They were alone. If Daisy had taken Kitty’s place as Claire’s chambermaid, she was nowhere to be seen.

  Kitty dropped down on her hands and knees and crawled across the lawn toward the girls, meowing loudly. When she reached the tree, Kitty rubbed against Claire, purring, trying to smile as she fought desperate tears. More than a year had passed since the summer day when Missy had adopted Kitty, and she hoped Claire would remember.

  At last she stole a glance at her face. Claire was trying not to smile, but Kitty could tell she was amused by her performance. She took hope.

  “Of course, some folks would rather have a dog,” Kitty said, forcing a wide grin across her face. She pretended to be a puppy, barking, sitting up on her haunches to beg, her tongue lolling happily. Missy Kate began to giggle.

  Kitty hated what she was doing, but she had nothing to lose. The alternative was so much worse. She would never survive as a field slave, especially when fall arrived and the rice had to be cut and threshed and winnowed. The foreman would expect her to do as much work as the adults, day after day, and anything less would mean a whipping. Her life was little more than an animal existence as it was. It was better to live as Missy Claire’s house pet than to die as a beast of burden from overwork and slow starvation.

  “Woof! Woof!” Kitty repeated bravely, trying not to think of the dogs that had attacked her parents.

  “No, I think I’d rather have a kitty-cat,” Claire said with a smug smile. Kitty dropped down on all fours and meowed. Claire laughed. “Come on then, Kitty. Time to go inside.”

  Kitty knew she should feel ashamed and degraded. But as she made her way inside the Big House, still crawling on all fours, she felt only relief.

  Chapter Six

  Jacksonville, Florida 1853

  “Hey, Joe! Massa Coop’s calling for you.”

  Grady set down the bucket of slops and slowly turned to face William. It was the first time Massa had sent for Grady since the night of the beating two weeks ago. Dread shivered through him. “He’s wanting me?” he asked.

  “That’s what he said.”

  Grady drew a deep breath. “You know what for?”

  A look that might have been pity flickered briefly across William’s face, then disappeared in a scowl. “Bunch of rich planters coming to Massa’s hotel room. You gonna help me wait on everybody. That’s the reason Massa Coop buy you.”

  Grady’s stomach rolled as if he stood on the deck of a ship in tossing seas. The bruises he’d received from his beating were gradually healing but still visible against his light brown skin, fading from deep purple to greenish black. The pain was slowly fading, as well, but he still felt a dull, throbbing ache whenever he moved. H
e’d been confined to slave pens and ships’ holds during the past two weeks as Massa Coop had traveled down the coast from Georgia to Florida, selling some slaves, buying others. It had been Grady’s job to clean up after everyone, emptying the slop buckets, shoveling straw, scrubbing filth from the decks. He worked as hard as he could, but the pens and holds where the slaves were kept were nearly impossible to keep clean.

  “I brought a bucket of clean water and soap,” William said, pointing to where he’d left them near the gate. “Massa says for you to wash first, before the others do. He says to make sure you don’t stink. And he send some clean clothes.”

  Grady glanced around at the crowded yard, then closed his eyes. As much as he longed to get washed and change out of his bloody clothes, the thought of stripping in the open air in front of men and women alike filled him with angry humiliation.

  “Better get moving,” William said, pushing him toward the bucket. “Massa’s customers be coming soon.” If William felt any pity at all for Grady, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed relieved to have another slave sharing his own plight, sharing a portion of their master’s abuse.

  “What do I have to do?” Grady asked as he removed his shirt. William glanced at his bruised body, then looked away.

  “You got two jobs from now on: serving Massa Coop and his customers, and taking care of his slaves down here in the pens and on the ships.”

  “Like I been doing?” Grady asked. He splashed water on his face and wet his hair, then worked the soap into a lather.

  William exhaled. Grady couldn’t tell if it was from anger or impatience. “There’s more to it than what you been doing. You listen carefully to every word I tell you, now—you hear?”

  Grady nodded, unsure if the tremor that shuddered through him was from the cold water or from the warning that he heard in William’s tone.

  “Every minute of every day,” William said, “day and night, it’s our job to watch and make sure nobody ever escape. Gotta keep their chains on, locked up tight all the time, hand and foot, so nobody’s getting away. They been known to try and jump out the portholes when we’re sailing or jump overboard near the shore when we’re getting on and off. They won’t try it if they all chained together, but sometimes one of them works his shackles loose when we ain’t looking, and that’s when they escape.”