by Lynn Austin
“I’m going back to the house now,” I told her.
She looked over at Josiah. Their eyes met. “Then I going, too,” she said.
“No, stay as long as you like, Tessie. I can walk back by myself.”
I threaded through the crowd before she had a chance to follow me. But when I reached the last cabin I heard someone behind me say, “Peculiar little white gal, ain’t she?”
Chapter Four
Hilltop, July 1854
I awoke at dawn to the haunting sound of the conch shell, blowing to summon the field slaves. A few minutes later I heard a faint rumbling and recognized it as wagons rolling and the tramp of marching feet. Then, above the sound of roosters crowing and birds calling, I heard music—the song of the slaves. I never will forget that shivery, mournful sound.
Nobody know the trouble I see. . . . Nobody know but Jesus.
It was singing, yet it wasn’t—it was weeping. And when the sound finally faded away, I realized that I was weeping, too.
My grandfather died that day. Aunt Abigail arrived in the afternoon with her husband, a minister, and he conducted the funeral service the following day. The plantation yard filled with carriages and the house overflowed with neighbors, all coming to pay their last respects. I had no idea how they’d heard the news. Hilltop was so huge that neighboring houses weren’t even visible; the nearest town was miles away. But they came by the dozens, sharing words of consolation with my grandmother, embracing my aunts, somberly shaking hands with my daddy and uncle.
As I walked up the path through the woods to the family burial plot, holding my daddy’s hand, a hot wind rustled through the branches all around me, carrying the fragrance of pine. A white picket fence separated the graves from the woods, the tombstones shaded by a massive oak tree, with branches that spread above us like gentle arms. Dozens of weathered tombstones marked the graves of my ancestors—people I didn’t know. I did not feel any grief for a grandfather I’d never known. My daddy bowed his head, but his eyes, like his brother’s, remained dry. Jonathan tried in vain to emulate the men, but he wept silent tears like the women.
When we returned from the gravesite, the slaves had a huge meal spread out on trestle tables in the yard. The lunch, too, was a somber affair. I stayed close to my father’s side, listening as he discussed politics with the other men, until I grew tired of hearing about slave states and free states and a turbulent place called Kansas. Daddy didn’t talk about my grandfather at all. Later, as quietly as they had come, the neighbors began to leave. My grandfather’s funeral was the first I’d ever attended.
The next day was the Sabbath, and Aunt Abigail’s husband conducted a church service for us on the plantation. The servants carried chairs outdoors for our family, setting them up in rows beneath the trees. They even hauled the parlor piano outside so Aunt Abigail could play hymns. Tessie, Eli, and all the other slaves sat on the ground or on handmade wooden benches behind us. The Negroes made up a much larger proportion of the congregation than us white folks. We sang “Rock of Ages” and “How Firm a Foundation.” Then, after a prayer, Jonathan’s father came forward to say a few words.
“I know many of you are concerned about my father’s will,” he said, addressing the slaves in the rear. “You may rest assured that it has been read and that his accounts are all in order. No one will have to be sold.”
I looked over my shoulder to see if his words had relieved some of the tension I’d witnessed down in Slave Row a few nights earlier, but everyone seemed to be waiting for something more, as if collectively holding their breath. I nudged Jonathan, who was seated beside me.
“What’s wrong with all the servants?” I whispered.
“Some of them are wondering if Grandfather set them free in his will.”
“Did he?”
“Of course not. You’ve seen how big this place is. How could we run the plantation if we let the slaves go free?”
“I have inherited Hilltop and all its possessions,” my uncle continued. “Things will go on just as they have in the past.” I thought I heard someone behind me moan as Uncle William signaled for the service to continue.
The scripture text Aunt Abigail’s husband read, from the book of Colossians, was a very familiar one: “ ‘Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God . . . for ye serve the Lord Christ.’ ” I’d heard similar sermons preached in Richmond. But he surprised me by adding another verse from Colossians that I hadn’t heard before: “ ‘Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.’ ”
I wondered what the Lord would say about Slave Row, if He would think it was “just and equal.”
Cattle lowed in the distance as my uncle preached, leaves rustled in the treetops, my grandmother snored softly. My uncle told us that it pleased God when we obeyed His Word, that it offended Him when we disobeyed, and he reminded us that God’s Word commanded us to obey our masters. “Look upon your daily tasks as the will of God,” he said. “It’s His will that some of you are slaves. Your earthly masters are God’s overseers. Blessed are the faithful, those who are submissive, obedient. They will inherit the kingdom of heaven.”
He had just concluded his sermon with a prayer when an elderly Negro woman, as tiny and wiry as my grandmother, stood up in the back. “Preacher,” she called out, “you say if I believe in Jesus I go to heaven? That right?”
“Yes, that’s right.” He glanced around nervously, as if unused to having his church services disrupted.
“I still be a slave in heaven?” she asked.
“Well . . .” He cleared his throat. “No one has ever returned from heaven, you see, to tell us what it’s like. We have no way of knowing for sure—”
“But the Bible say heaven be paradise, ain’t that right?”
He hesitated. “Well, yes. . . .”
“It ain’t paradise for me if I still a slave.”
I heard titters of laughter behind me from the other slaves. The preacher smiled weakly. “Well . . . now. . .”
“And I know it ain’t paradise for white folks if y’all have to set down and eat that Marriage Supper of the Lamb beside us colored folk.”
The slaves laughed out loud at her words. Several of my relatives squirmed in their seats. Jonathan’s father stood, motioning for two of his house servants to remove the woman.
“Perhaps there’s a white folks’ heaven and black folks’ heaven,” my uncle said. “Then we’ll all be happy.”
Two Negroes had begun to lead the old woman away when she suddenly turned around and asked, “Then which heaven will all them little black children with white daddies be in?”
One of my aunts gasped. The gathering fell so silent I could almost hear the grass growing. Finally the preacher cleared his throat. He nodded to Aunt Abigail at the piano.
“My dear, the Doxology, please.”
“What was that old woman talking about?” I whispered to Jonathan as the congregation sang “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”
I don’t know if Jonathan heard me or not. He didn’t answer.
“Come for a walk in the woods with me,” Jonathan said when we finished eating our Sunday dinner. His invitation sounded much better than an afternoon nap.
Of all the places to explore on the plantation, I grew to love the woods the best—the soft path of pine needles beneath my feet, the lush green vegetation, the fragrant scent of mulch and pine, the buzz and rattle of insects in the summer heat. Jonathan took my hand as we jumped from stone to stone to cross a small creek, and we walked that way, hand in hand, down the winding path. I felt very brave and adventurous. When we reached a small pond, a half-dozen frogs that had been sunning themselves along the muddy shoreline leaped into the water at our approach. We sat down to rest, side by side on the grassy bank, and counted seven box turtles perched on floating logs. Jonathan tossed acorns at the close
st ones, trying to scare them into the water.
“I would have brought my pole and taught you how to fish if it hadn’t been the Sabbath,” he said after a while.
I tried to picture myself fishing and couldn’t. “I don’t think proper young ladies are supposed to go fishing—even when it’s not the Sabbath.”
“Who says?”
“The teachers at my school in Richmond. They would think it was scandalous for me to go hiking in the woods with you, much less go fishing. They’re always trying to teach us what’s proper and what isn’t. Above all, we’re supposed to remember that we’re delicate young ladies.”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun at all,” he said, laughing.
“It isn’t. Where do you go to school?”
“Me? Right here on the plantation. Father hired a tutor to teach my brothers and me. He’s away now for the summer.”
We rose after a while and continued our lazy hike. Jonathan pointed out many of the trees we passed—sassafras, willow oak, hackberry, sweet gum, Virginia pine, red cedar.
“Did your tutor teach you all those names?” I asked.
“No. Grandfather taught me.”
I wondered if Grandfather had once taught my daddy the names of all the trees. And if he still remembered them.
Suddenly Jonathan stopped. He turned to me with a very serious look on his face. “You’d better wait back here where it’s safe,” he warned. “See that pit up ahead? We use it to trap wild animals. Who knows? There might be one trapped in there right now.”
My heart leaped like a frog into a pond. “W-what kind of wild animals?”
“Oh, you know, wildcats, bears, panthers. . . .”
Fear froze me to the spot. The woods around me felt eerie and threatening. When something suddenly rustled in the bushes behind me, I ran into Jonathan’s arms, clinging to him. “Take me home! I want to go home!”
To my surprise, he burst into laughter. “Oh, Carrie, I’m sorry. I was only teasing. There aren’t really any wild animals.”
I didn’t want to let go of him until I was sure. “Th-then what was that sound?”
“I tossed a rock into the brush. I didn’t know you’d be this scared. Honest, Carrie, I’m sorry.” But it took him a minute to stop laughing. “You should have seen your face!” he sputtered. I managed to laugh along with him, mostly with relief.
“The pit is really our ice pit,” he explained. “Come here, I’ll show you. The servants cut blocks of ice from the river in the wintertime and bury them here, beneath the sand and leaves. They’ll stay frozen a long time under there. That’s how we have ice in the summertime.”
I had to sit down by the edge of the pit until my knees stopped trembling. Jonathan dug up a chunk of ice and chipped off a few pieces with his pocketknife for us to suck on, wiping them clean with his handkerchief.
“You’re a very pretty girl, you know that?” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen a girl half as pretty as you before.”
I didn’t know what to say. I also didn’t know why my heart suddenly started to pound again, just as it had after Jonathan scared me.
“Come on,” he said, reaching to help me up. “There’s one more place I want to show you. I promise it’s very safe.”
“Promise you won’t ever tease me again?”
“Well . . .” he said with a wide grin, “I promise I won’t tease you again today. How’s that?”
He led me a long way into the woods until we came to a small clearing in the middle of a grove of pines. The trees were very tall, surrounding us like pillars, the branches arching overhead like the nave of a cathedral. The atmosphere was as hushed and reverent as any church sanctuary back home, and every bit as beautiful. Even the wind seemed to whisper, so I did, too.
“I would love to live here.”
“Then why don’t you?” I looked up at Jonathan to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. “You don’t have to go home when your father does. We drive into Richmond every month or so for supplies. We can take you home at the end of the summer.”
I sat down on a fallen log to think about the idea and to enjoy the gentle beauty all around me. I couldn’t understand why my daddy would ever want to leave a wonderful place like Hilltop to live in Richmond. I decided to accept my cousin’s invitation and stay here a while longer. I liked the plantation. But even more, I liked Jonathan.
My cousin was handsome, kind, and lots of fun to be with. We’d already become good friends. But what I was beginning to feel toward him was very different from the childhood friendship I’d shared with Grady. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Jonathan was fast becoming my first adolescent crush.
I loved the feel of his rough hand in mine, the hard muscles of his arm as we bumped shoulders on the path. And as we sat side by side in the secluded grove, I wondered what it would feel like for Jonathan to kiss my neck the way Josiah had kissed Tessie’s.
“Want an adventure?” Jonathan asked suddenly. “The Negroes are meeting here tonight. Want to sneak out and watch them with me? Your boy is going to preach.”
“My . . . boy?” I was confused, thinking he must mean Grady.
“Yeah, your boy Eli. Don’t you know he’s the Negro folks’ preacher? They’re coming from all the neighboring plantations to hear him. But you can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.”
“Then how do you know about it?”
“I know lots of things.” He stood, pulling me to my feet beside him. “So, do you want to sneak out tonight and watch or not?”
I fell asleep waiting for Jonathan, but as soon as I heard his soft whistle I was wide-awake. My heart began pounding when I saw him crouching outside on the porch roof, motioning to me through the open window. I never dreamed that I’d have to crawl around on the rooftop in the dark. But I’d already agreed to go on this adventure, and I was still wearing my clothes beneath the bedcovers. I tried to push aside my fear along with the mosquito netting that encircled my bed.
As I tiptoed across the room, I peered over at Tessie to see if my movements had awakened her. The lump on her pallet didn’t move. In fact, she seemed unnaturally still. I looked closer and discovered that she’d padded her bed with pillows. Tessie was already gone.
Jonathan helped me climb through the window, and we crept across the roof to the ladder he had waiting. I closed my eyes and began to descend, careful not to look at the ground until I was standing safely upon it again. Then we raced across the dew-damp grass to the woods. I was excited—and terrified. The forest seemed much scarier at night, the sounds otherworldly. And walking down the narrow path in the dark was much harder, too. Jonathan gripped my hand tightly to keep me from stumbling.
“Are you sure there aren’t any wild animals?” I asked.
“Just deer and skunks and raccoons and such. Nothing dangerous. The worst we might run into are hogs. They run wild until slaughtering time. Sometimes the boars can be mean.”
“Do you think we’ll meet any boars?” I hated that my voice shook.
“I brought my knife,” he said, pulling it from his pocket to show me. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with me.”
We heard the sound of singing in the distance long before we got there. The Negroes were meeting in the same pine grove we’d visited earlier that day. When we were a short distance away, Jonathan steered me off the main path and we cut through the dense brush, careful not to be seen or to make too much noise. I saw flickering lights from two or three torches, but the meeting was hidden from view by a wall of quilts, strung on ropes around the perimeter of trees.
“What are the blankets for?” I whispered.
“To deaden the sound so it won’t carry back to the house.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you know? The slaves are forbidden to leave the plantation without their masters’ permission. And they’re strictly forbidden to gather in groups like this without white supervision.”
“Even for a church service?”
“For any reason. I
f they’re caught they could be whipped.”
I remembered the man with the lash-scarred back I’d seen down on Slave Row. The thought of someone doing that to Eli’s broad back sent a shiver through me. “You’re not going to tell anybody, are you?” I asked Jonathan.
“Of course not.” He started to move forward again, then stopped. “And just so you know, it’s against the law to teach them to read and write, too.”
I remembered once asking my governess if Grady could study my lessons along with me. She had been horrified. “Those people can’t learn things like this,” she’d said. “They don’t have the same minds we do. You can’t teach a dog or a horse to read, can you?”
“Grady isn’t a horse!” I’d protested.
“He isn’t white, either.”
“But why is it against the law for slaves to read and write?” I asked Jonathan. He looked astonished by my ignorance.
“Because if the Negroes can communicate in writing, they’ll plan all sorts of things—secret things. Next thing you know, they’ll write up some false papers and use them to run away. You have to kill a Negro if he learns to read and write.”
Eli had said they would kill a Negro woman if she told who the father of her child was. I didn’t want to believe that either one of them was telling the truth.
“Come on,” Jonathan said, “follow me.” He crouched down on his hands and knees to crawl forward. I tried not to think about snakes as I followed. Jonathan found a sheltered place for us under a bush, where we could see beneath the wall of blankets. Grass and insects tickled my arms and face as we lay down on our bellies to watch.
I can’t begin to describe the sheer joy I witnessed that night. I’d never heard such singing before—certainly never in a church. The sound of it took my breath away. It was so much more than mere singing—it was dancing, swaying, clapping, shouting. A celebration. I couldn’t stop my toes from tapping to the elaborate rhythms as the slaves clapped and stomped and drummed.