Not wanting to mention the ring, and trying to lighten the air, Sarah said, “Oh, I’m just thinking about the get-togethers for the big feeds after harvest. When the music from the spoons, washboards and calabashes got our feet to stirring. Do you remember ol’ Plenty Fat, what a good dancer he was? That slave sure could make the dry earth crack with his stepping.” She envisioned the man’s high jumps and twirls and how he could kick up his heels like a crazy mule, and she chuckled.
“The Lord will remember all that carrying on. He sure will. He cannot step his sorry self into heaven. There’s none of that allowed up there.” Grandmother let out a turkey chuckle. “Yes Lord, none of that goin’ to be allowed up there.”
With that, Sarah stopped her chatter. Surely freedom was not so narrow—some stuffy old woman smothered in snarls and fear. Sarah wondered if Grandmother had ever felt the belly-shaking joy of laughter in her pitiful and cruel life, always with child and nothing but work.
The pair tramped along cautiously, crossing Ackers Brook. Now walking with baskets swinging, Sarah joyfully turned her thoughts to the Charles Town slave, as she called him. It had been several weeks after their arrival in Nova Scotia before she’d had a sighting of him. The first had come after finishing a day’s work for Mrs. Atkins. She had been making her way up a dusty road past the Anglican Church when she spotted him several yards away. She’d hurried to catch up, but making her way along a street packed with folks rushing back to Birchtown proved difficult. When the crowd thinned, he had vanished. It upset her that folks had to rush, but she did not want to be found in Roseway after the six o’clock curfew. Just two months earlier, the white residents of Roseway, accusing the Negroes of lowering wages, formed a huge mob and rioted. With clubs and arms they wandered the streets for days, pulling down or burning Negro houses and chasing them out of town. Finally, the magistrate imposed a curfew from dusk to dawn to keep order. Thinking about it made Sarah cringe. It was so unfair to use a curfew to punish the Negroes instead of those who caused the trouble.
Another time she had seen him at the Roseway Wharf, where she had gone after work to look for fresh fish for Grandmother. He gave her a quick nod with a tip of his cap That was the day she learned his name—Reece Johnson. On this September morning, his name played a thousand times in her head. Perhaps today she would run into him again.
She and Grandmother had walked a good distance when Sarah stopped to watch a blue heron gracefully swoop down and skim across the bog. She looked kindly at Grandmother. Why it was so difficult for her to enjoy life or to talk about the past? Papa had been right. All her living was balled up inside.
Unbeknownst to Sarah, Grandmother had been keeping a close eye to her. Grandmother’s mouth squeezed to the side of her face. “You best let go of the past and think on getting ready for this life in Scotia,” she exclaimed. “It won’t be soft candy.” Surprisingly she added, “Good times do come around once in awhile, but don’t be thinking the way some folks do. Look over there, Girlie, lying in the grass. My, my. Such a pitiful sight.”
“It’s just Cato.”
“Yes, and drunk no doubt from the poison and goings-on last night. How is acting like that going to raise us up? Good times, all right. Being strong is better than being weak. You remember that, Girlie.”
The noise of an approaching cart forced them to the side of the road. Four Black Pioneers sent out a loud greeting as they moved slowly past.
“The Pioneer uniforms remind me of Papa,” Sarah said.
“Fortune joining the Red Coats was a sad day. No need to be talking about him now, Girlie. I swear your mind is like a bee going from flower to flower.”
“Maybe Papa made it. Maybe he is somewhere in the colony. No one is saying he was killed.”
“Maybe so, but Colonel Black has already made it clear that he has no knowledge of the missing soldiers. They got scattered, the healthy and the wounded, and put on different ships at war’s end. So slow your hopes down, Girlie. Don’t you get carried away with the tide.”
After rounding a huge boulder, the pair came across some men raising the rafters on a small hut. Sarah’s heart raced when she saw that one of the men was Reece Johnson. She stole quick glances in his direction, knowing that if the old woman had any inkling of the thoughts in her head, she would drag her down to the river for a confession and a quick baptism. Reece was busy passing poles to one of the men. Sarah was thinking she must look a sight with a big blue bonnet pulled low on her face and a long grey coat in need of cleaning.
“Look,” she suddenly said after spying the fish man. “Over there. Is that Enos? I hear folks saying the mackerel are running. Maybe he will come by, if you ask.”
“I believe so,” Grandmother said, wasting no time in leaving the path to hail Enos.
“Where are you going today, Miss Sarah?” Reece asked as Sarah approached the men.
“I’m going down to Roseway. I see you’ve found work.”
“Work, yes. Pay, no. I was hoping I’d be able to use my trade.”
“Trade?”
“I forged nails for the blacksmith, Steppin’ John, back home.”
“I saw you with him in Charles Town, but I never saw you on the plantation.”
“That’s because pretty girls weren’t allowed around the blacksmith shop.”
Sarah warmed to his compliment. “There aren’t many jobs now. What will you do?”
“I’ll head up north, go whaling … there’s good money in that.”
Sarah sighed. “I see. Do you plan on leaving soon?”
Reece chuckled. “I’m waiting for a spot to open up.” Reece twisted his stout shoulders and wide frame uncomfortably, like a little boy. “I can’t talk now. Rod’s giving me the eye. But I’ll be at the camp meeting on Sunday.”
A smile as long as the Mississippi stretched across Sarah’s face. “I’ll look for you.” Sarah tingled in the bizarre feelings taking charge of her. Well, well, the Birchtown girls would wag their tongues on that since they all had their eyes on Reece.
Grandmother took several drags from her pipe as she made her way back to Sarah. She stared long and hard at Reece and cast a sour sneer in his direction. Then she turned her head and looked at her granddaughter, her face hardening with sternness. “Be careful about getting friendly with strangers, Girlie. Do not get lost in foolish feelings.”
Sarah frowned and said nothing. Little did Grandmother know that she was already hopelessly lost.
Six
THE DOOR AT BEULAH’S HUT STOOD AJAR. LYDIA AND Sarah stood on the wobbly step of the crumbling shack, while Lydia bowed her head in prayer.
Fibby, Birchtown’s midwife, sat at the table cutting out coloured squares from old rags for her quilt making. Her face was drawn and thin. Her short black braids pointed in every direction like the spines of a sea urchin. “She’s resting now, waiting on her time,” Fibby said, pointing to a narrow wooden bunk in the corner of the room.
“And Prince? How is Prince?”
Fibby pulled Lydia aside. “Hush, Lydia,” she whispered, putting a finger to her mouth. “Beulah is taking it hard. Quiet now. Best not to excite her again. It will be two days. No one came by to take you word that Prince passed on. Come, I’ll show you the pile.”
Lydia followed Fibby quietly to the rear of the hut. Sarah trailed behind. There they saw a pile of rocks just barely covering a body. Lydia knelt beside the pile. She covered her face with her hands and sought comfort in weeping. Sarah knelt beside her and put her arms around her grandmother. Then followed the long moans and praying. And when all the suffering subsided, she and Sarah quietly went about gathering rocks to deepen the pile, making it so neat and high it looked like a tomb.
Back inside, Lydia let out a long, disturbing sigh and patted her chest several times as though she was preparing for a huge event and wanted to be ready.
Lydia looked at Beul
ah, who was sitting up now, and said softly, “You’re carrying low. That is a good sign. Oh my, it will not be long.” The old woman’s fat fingers rolled around the mountainous belly. Her voice was gentle. “Everything will be alright,” she cooed. “Yes it will.” She continued rubbing Beulah’s belly, staring, trance-like, far off, in a different world … A stout wench, broad and strong, good breeding stock, the auctioneer had said.
She turned her face to Beulah and spoke in a low murmur, “I have to go now. I got to stop at Cecil’s and then go down to Roseway this morning.” She patted the belly once more saying, “I asked the good Lord to keep His eyes on you. He hears ol’ Lydia.” Then in a tender voice that was thin and not so matter-of-fact, she said, “This baby has a special calling, Beulah. It will be the first one in this family to be born free. Imagine that. Born free. A miracle, that’s what.”
“It’s true, Mother Redmond. But it’s not right that the child won’t have a papa.” Beulah pushed her tangled hair back. A tiny smile unfolded as she said, “Prince and I got married as soon as we got here. We had plans. We dared to dream. This place was going to be a new beginning. We planned to raise our children … like proper folks.” The soreness of her loss made her lips quiver. “Why did the Lord have to take Prince after getting free … after all we came through?” The tears streamed down her face leaving long salty stains on her brown skin. “I keep trying, but I don’t know how much more I can take.” Beulah swallowed hard and her misery forced her to sob, and then more pain, and more sobs.
No one spoke. They waited for Fibby to get up and get some rags and the washbasin of warm water. But no, she sat tight and Beulah kept sobbing until Lydia broke in saying, “Fibby, best get things ready. This must be her time.”
“Not yet, Lydia,” Fibby said. “I know the birthing pain. Those wails are not about the baby. They come from a dark place. She’s heartsick, always thinking on Prince.”
Lydia stroked Beulah’s face. “Hush now. It will not be long before you are holding your child. There is joy in that.” She was silent for a minute and then she said, “We made it this far. We got through the first winter. This family is growing.” She looked at Sarah and smiled, “There will soon be four. We must always give thanks for that.”
She placed her hand gently on Beulah’s hair, patting it with her cupped palm as gently as a mother bear. “Don’t you be worrying. This family sticks together. You won’t have to raise your child alone, no Lord.” She cradled Beulah’s head in her lap and wiped her wet face with her coat sleeve. “Oh yes, Beulah, everything is going to be alright. You will see. God is good.” The strains of old spirituals drifted from her lips.
Beulah dabbed away the tears with the edge of the blanket. She was ashen and pale and kept rolling the coarse blanket in her fingers as she rocked back and forth. The old woman squeezed her tightly, with joy hiding somewhere in the creases of her mouth, but her happiness did not last. For a second, she caught a strange look in Sarah’s eyes. The girl was studying her intensely with a look of loathing. She knew the reason and felt guilty for withholding such tenderness from the young one. She knew it was another custom, a slave’s way of avoiding attachment. She shrugged off Sarah’s venom with a smile, for deep down she knew the girl could never hate her.
She turned back to Beulah and as much as she wanted to stay, she said, “Oh my, Beulah, we got to be on our way. The longer we stay the further Roseway gets.”
“You’re leaving?” Beulah asked.
“We will stop on the way back. You just might be a mama ’tween now and then. I guess that child is taking its good old time, but it cannot stay back forever. The Lord is good. Put your faith in Him to see this through.”
Beulah’s eyes strayed to the corner of the room. She turned to one side. Her face became mean and she said, “There’s no God, Lydia. They made God up to keep folks like us from having our rightful place on this earth.”
The old woman’s eyes stretched three times their size and she said, “You rest, Beulah. You need more rest.”
Beulah continued to stare away. “Your God makes no sense to me. Why would God allow so many folks to have so little and all this suffering? Why should we believe that we have to wait until we get to heaven when everything for our joy is right here? All this religion, it was the master’s way of controlling the slaves, but who controlled the master?” Her eyes lit up like a firefly. “We were sent here to die, to rot in this hell.” Beulah’s head fell on her chest. “Say what you like, this place is going to be the death of us all.” Her voice was sharp and angry. “You can have your God, Mother Redmond.”
Fibby spoke up. “She gets this way. Oh my, ever since Prince passed she has been ranting and cursing God. The dear soul even curses me. I don’t know how much more I can take, but after that baby comes, Old Fibby will be gone. I will see that the baby comes into the world, but after that, she is going to need someone to come and stay and help with the child.”
Lydia was stunned. “Cursing God?” Her hands shook as she raised them up to heaven. “Sweet Lord,” she said, “Pay her no mind. She is tired and angry, Lord. You got to be patient with this one. Amen.”
Beulah’s sudden change frightened Lydia. Maybe she was scared. Giving birth was a worrying thing. She thought about losing children, about Dahlia. How on one jet-black night she had awoke from a deep sleep to horrible screams. Screams so loud they could crack bones. A horrible birth, the worst see had seen. She saw Dahlia’s newborn briefly, before the midwife declared the tiny bundle was off to Glory. She recalled that it was One Eye and Soldier who took Sarah’s mother and the child away in a rickety cart. All the slaves in the quarter gathered in the yard and wept hard until the cart disappeared into the night.
Lydia turned to Fibby. “You do your best for her. She’s not herself and needs your patience. This is her first.”
On the trail, Lydia lagged behind, struggling with her thoughts. The sun was brighter now and the autumn leaves glistened. She looked through the trees up at the patch of blue sky and gave her fears and aching heart to the Lord, for the pain was too severe for her alone to bear.
Seven
THEY WERE MAKING GOOD TIME. STREAMS OF BLACK smoke from the hundreds of crooked shacks streaked the sky. The busy sounds of wood-chopping, hammering and sawing hung in the air as they neared the Roseway Road. They waded through a stream where the women and children usually filled buckets, but this morning there was a line of men that stretched beyond to a nearby hut. “The water brigade,” Grandmother said. Sure enough, within minutes, they could see wild flames shooting through the roof and walls of one of the shacks. It was devoured even as the men tried to dose it with water.
“I don’t know why they bother trying to save these shacks,” Sarah said. “They go up like pieces of paper, a couple every week. You never know the cause with so much hatred goin’ on. I hope no one was inside.”
“Not likely at this hour. Whoever it was has probably left for Roseway.”
“Mrs. Atkins was saying last week that in Roseway someone started a grass fire during high winds and burned down two homes.”
“Oh Sweet Lord, where are the people’s senses?”
As they strolled through the centre of Birchtown, Sarah pointed to the men working on a large structure. “The new meeting house is going there. Everyone gets charged up on Sundays at Reverend Ringwood’s camp meetings and then pours out the spirit during the week in their singing. Finally, there’ll be a place for worship.”
The old woman grunted. “Singing to the Lord to cover their sins.”
“Still, maybe we could go to a camp meeting and get some of that spirit.”
“My religion is between Lydia and the Lord. That’s all I got to say on that.”
Sarah held her tongue. She was accustomed to Grandmother’s thick demeanour — a wall of bricks, tightly cemented without a crack. To Lydia, people were either God fearing or godless. The
Birchtowners disliked her attitude and so they kept their distance, acting formal in their greetings, but always polite, respecting but not embracing her. They held their dances and drinking parties on the other side of Birchtown. “Sinning,” Grandmother called it. A strange thought came to Sarah. She wondered if Grandmother had ever sinned. Sarah blurted out, “A good sermon could cheer you up. The Lord wants us to be happy.”
“Don’t you worry about Ol’ Lydia. She knows the Lord better than any Christian.” Her chins wobbled as she held her head back and let go a turkey chuckle. All the while, the empty clay pipe held steady on her lip as she sucked the stem like an old man sitting on a porch veranda in Charles Town.
Sarah’s face brightened and broke into a wide grin. She laughed at the crazy sounds coming from the old woman. Grandmother had her own way of appreciating the Lord. She called upon Him when things got rough and she called him out when He went against her grain.
The sun suddenly drifted behind a span of dark clouds. From the top of a high knoll, Cecil MacLeod’s store stood in full view. He was a respectable Roseway Associate now and proud of the new store he built shortly after arriving.
Lydia lowered the vegetables from her head. She put her hands on her hips and straightened her back. “I want you to stay out here with these vegetables and laundry, Girlie, ’til I tell you to come inside. Whatever you might see or hear between me and Mr. MacLeod, you keep it to yourself.”
Sarah did not trust Mr. MacLeod, even now. She hated the very sight of him. A grubby squat man, balding with sparse grey hair and a cruel smile that cradled a bully’s sneer. And his eyes. Oh, those narrow, cold eyes that peered through puffy pockets of fat.
The air felt magically warm. She unbuttoned her coat and breathed deeply, delighting in the strange aromas drifting outside from the store. Through the open shutters, she saw kegs of West Indian rum and molasses, barrels of corn meal, flour, beans and wooden containers of loose tea and coarse salt. There were tools, guns, dishes and cloth. On the counter were blocks of dark brown chewing tobacco. She could see Papa ripping chunks from the hard plug with his teeth, see the yellow drool as he spit the big mouthfuls of tobacco juice far out into the yard. “A farmer’s gold. Good stuff for killing Boll weevils,” he would laugh. “It keeps the little critters from chompin’ down the cotton.”
Chasing Freedom Page 4