As the editor of the Gazette, Eli continued a tradition started by Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, who’d founded the nation’s first Black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, back in 1827. Until that time sympathetic Whites had carried the standard for the race and been the voice for both slave and free. Although the Journal ceased publication two years later in 1829, the seed took root. Newspapers like the Colored American, the Boston Observor, and Detroit’s Excelsior rose to pick up the mantle. Now, all over the nation, Black newspapers did their best to keep their subscribers informed and to beat the drum for the justice and equality owed America’s darker citizens. Papers like the People Advocate in Washington, D.C., the Colored Citizen in Fort Scott Kansas, and the Freeman, published in New York were only a few of the monthlies and weeklies that continued to speak to not only the oppressive conditions its readers faced, but celebrated the successes of the race. The national papers owned by Pulitzer and the like were more inclined to highlight the race’s crimes and foibles while omitting news items that were uplifting or showed Black people in a positive light.
But for the small Black newspapers, keeping the presses going with limited finances was an uphill battle—yet the editors and publishers persevered because without papers of their own, the race would again have no voice, and men like Eli refused to let the clock be turned back. His dream was to have the Gazette be the newspaper of choice for all of the state’s Black citizens, so for now, he’d settle for getting it back in print. G.W.’s wealth and influence would handle the rest.
Eli drove his wagon down to the store, and with the help of some of the men inside, moved the printing press into the store’s cellar. When that was done, his work for the day was completed. Now, to search out his wife.
Jewel. As he drove away from town the thought of her made him smile. She was as multifaceted as a brilliant gem; hard one moment, soft as butter cream the next. He hadn’t planned on wanting her so intensely yet he did, in every way. Usually courtship took place before the marriage but in their case it was going to have to be the other way around. Not that he minded. In the past, he’d always eschewed virgins. Who wanted to waste time with a woman who knew nothing about the dance of love, but for some reason, Jewel’s inexperience aroused him, made him want to spend the rest of his days showing her, pleasing her, notching their bedpost. He’d have to ask Adam to build them a big fine bed because he wanted her first time to be in their bed. If the truth be told, however, he wasn’t sure he could hold off long enough for the Crowleys to get the small house up and ready to occupy. Personally, he was going to have trouble not making love to her when he found her today! After yesterday’s interlude on the bluff, all he wanted to do was pick up where they left off and show her just how ripe she was for pleasuring. Realizing he was making himself harder by the moment, he tried to put thoughts of her aside but had a hell of a time doing so.
When he reached the Crowley place, he saw her old beatup wagon parked by the house and assumed she was inside. It was too early in the afternoon for her brothers to be home, which pleased him immensely because he could visit without a crowd looking on.
He called to her through the screened front door. “Hey, Jewel. You in there?”
Jewel looked up from the fish she was preparing. Eli. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she rinsed her hands then went to the door drying her hands on the white butcher-type apron tied around her waist. The sight of him made her heart race.
For a moment neither spoke because they were both remembering last night. He was recalling the smell of roses on her heated skin and she the little death.
“May I come in?”
She nodded and pushed on the door so he could enter.
“I’m in the kitchen.”
He followed the sway of her denim-clad hips through the quiet well-furnished house. As they entered the kitchen he took up a position by the door and she went back to the fish and began to salt them.
“How’s your day been so far?” he asked, fighting the urge to fit himself against her and hold her close so he could smell the subtle rose fragrance on her neck.
“Fine. I went fishing.”
“Nice-looking catch.”
She nodded.
Eli usually preferred elegant sophisticated women, but Jewel had her hair pulled back in a loose tail and her bangs looked frazzled from the day’s heat. He also spotted two silvery fish scales sparkling like odd jewels in those same bangs and it made her all the more captivating. “Once the house is built you’ll be able to walk down to the shore and fish.”
“Yep.” Jewel knew she was answering inanely but she couldn’t help it. Memories of the Kama Sutra drawings were floating across her mind and she kept seeing herself and Eli as the entwined couples.
“Something wrong?”
A quick shake of her head. “No.”
“Then may I have my first kiss of the day?”
Her knees went weak.
“Yes? No?” he asked quietly.
Unable to meet his gaze because she was so overwhelmed, she finally gave him a quick peek over her shoulder and an even quicker nod. She tried to convince herself that sharing a kiss wouldn’t present much of a problem, but as he closed the distance between them she began to shake with anticipation. When he slipped his arms lightly around her waist and brushed his lips softly against her neck, her eyes closed in shimmering response. The fit of his body against hers, his clean smell and possessive hold, turned her brain into mush.
“I missed you today,” he murmured.
Deep down inside, she’d missed him, and lifted her lips for the aforementioned kiss.
And it was sweet, so sweet that she soundlessly turned her body to him so they could feast slowly and in earnest. His mouth was firm and beguiling; his tongue against the edges of her parted lips, tempting. Desire pulled her deeper and deeper into the maelstrom, and as he left her lips to lazily brand her throat and the shell of her ear, she could hear her own ragged breath against the silence. His lips captured hers again, and an urgency took hold. He kissed her everywhere: her mouth, her cheeks, the edge of her jaw, and she kissed him back, thrilled by the fire-tipped seekings of his tongue and the hands moving over her so beguilingly.
She was so lost in the kissing, she didn’t know he’d undone the buttons on her shirt until she felt his hot mouth burn across the bare skin above her white camisole. Had she known she was going to be doing this she might have worn something more feminine but it didn’t matter because he was pulling the undergarment down to bare her, and she felt her orgasm rising and gathering like clouds of a summer storm.
He took a straining bud into his mouth and the sensations shot through her like small bolts of lightning. “Lordy!” she whispered softly. Staggered by her body’s reactions, she braced herself against the edge of the counter to keep from sliding to the floor like a spilled pot of honey.
Her whispered exclamation made him smile and his manhood stretched and pulsed, but he forced his mind away from his own pleasure because her pleasure was his main concern. God, she’s gorgeous. Her sable-tipped breasts were like silk in his hands and the nipples twin aphrodisiacs. Gifting her with licks that set her afire and soft suckles that made her gasp and moan, he wanted to make love to her then and there. The male in him didn’t care if it was on her kitchen floor, but the husband in him knew she deserved better her first time, so he set aside his manhood’s hunger and raised his mouth to recapture the bliss of her lips. “Soon as the house is finished, I’m going to spend a month making love to you in every room.”
The hushed promise echoed through her like thunder, and in her mind’s eye she saw them coupling like the man and woman in the drawings, but then, after he again lowered his mouth to her damp, ripe nipples and dallied so magnificently, her vision fled. Feelings overrode sight—his warm mouth, his hand sliding over her hips, her body calling and crooning for more. The roaming hand came to rest between her denim-covered thighs and began to tease. Her legs parted of their own volition
so he could play, and a few moaning moments later, the orgasm grabbed her up and carried her away.
Her legs instantly locked on his hand. She came arching and curving, eyelids closed, mouth open, and he watched her with glowing eyes. His desire to tug down the denims and touch the damp lush spot in all the ways he craved was so strong he almost succumbed. Instead he leaned in and kissed her mouth until she slowly returned to earth.
She opened her eyes to his soft smile, and upon seeing his pleased male look, said, “You are so scandalous.”
“I’m not the one standing in the kitchen half dressed like an emperor’s concubine.” He gave her a suggestive little rub between the thighs and she playfully slapped at his hand. “Stop that.”
He saw the humor in her face. “You sure?”
She backed away from his hand. “Yes. You’re as bad as Maddie’s pictures.” Shock filled her. Had she said that aloud? A wail went up inside. She hadn’t meant to, but he had her so befuddled.
“What pictures,” he asked, curious, his attention caught.
Knowing that if she looked in his face she’d instantly die of embarrassment, Jewel kept her eyes low and worked on righting her clothes. “It was nothing.”
Eli grinned and reached out to coax her chin up. “Did Maddie give you some naughty pictures to look at, Jewel?”
She backed away. “I need to get this fish ready for dinner.”
“Jewel?”
“No, she didn’t.” Heat burned her cheeks.
“She did,” he countered, sensing the truth. She looked so embarrassed he almost laughed aloud. “Well, now.”
“Go home, Eli.” Hoping he’d do what he was told, and knowing he wouldn’t, she avoided looking at his grin as she pulled a skillet out of the cupboard and set it on the stove, all the while trying to keep her own grin hidden.
“Did you see anything you want us to try.”
Jewel took down the lard jar and using a long-handled wooden spoon scooped out a fat white mound and slapped it into the cast iron skillet. “I’m not talking to you.”
Eli was so filled with curiosity and amusement, he couldn’t resist prolonging the conversation. “Then I suppose I’ll just have to ask Maddie.”
Spinning to him, spoon raised like a weapon, she promised, “If you do I will shoot you.”
He began to laugh. The humorous fire blazing in her eyes offered him little choice. “Oh, sweetheart. What am I going to do with you?”
“You are going to leave my kitchen, Eli Grayson.”
“In a minute.” Arms crossed, he studied her. The realization that his virgin bride had viewed what had to be some of Maddie’s collected erotica made him hard all over again. “Those must have been some pictures.”
She huffed back around to the skillet.
He laughed softly. Walking up behind her, he fit himself against her back and held her close. He inhaled the rose scent rising from her so sensually and placed a soft kiss on her neck. “I’m supposed to be meeting Adam in town later to go over the plans for the Gazette. I’ll come get you after your meeting and take you home.”
In spite of acting bad tempered, she knew she wasn’t, and he did, too. “And suppose I don’t want to be taken home.”
“Then how about we go by Maddie’s and look at those pictures.”
She smacked him across the shoulder with her spoon. “Out!” she pointed, grin peeking out for him to see. “Take your smile and your kisses and leave me in peace.”
But of course he didn’t. Instead he turned her to face him and gave her a kiss that was so deep and sweet and filled with such arousal the spoon slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. Only when he was convinced that she’d melted completely and totally into her shoes did he reluctantly break the kiss. “See you tonight,” he whispered, and he was gone.
Breathless and brainless, the pulsating Jewel Crowley Grayson stood against the stove with her eyes closed for a very long time.
The monthly meeting of the Female Intelligence Society of Grayson Grove was called to order promptly at seven that evening. The society was named after the Female Intelligence Society of Boston, which in 1832 made history when it sponsored a speech by Black female abolitionist Maria W. Stewart at Boston’s Franklin Hall. Stewart’s appearance marked the first speech given by an American woman of any race to an audience of both men and women. In those days, it was thought unseemly for a woman to lecture to a promiscuous, or mixed gender, gathering.
The Grove’s meeting was presided over by President Abigail Grayson. Vice President Jewel Crowley Grayson was in attendance, as were Secretary–Treasurer Miss Edna Lee, and Sgt.-at-Arms Maddie Loomis. Local members like the Quilt Ladies and the Widow Temperance Moss, wearing the same black weeds she’d been wearing since her husband Emery’s death thirteen years ago, were joined by various women from Calvin Center, Dowagiac, and Niles in the chairs set in a circle in the back corner of the store. The meeting’s location varied from month to month, and this time it was Miss Edna’s turn to host. There were twenty-five women on the official rolls but twelve had shown up for that evening’s gathering.
First order of business was the secretary’s report. Edna read the minutes from the April meeting, where they’d discussed, among other things, seeking out similar women’s clubs to align themselves with in order to add more weight to their voice. Next came a recap of their ongoing campaign to provide books and other supplies for the Grove’s school.
Once the minutes were approved, Edna put on her other hat and gave the treasurer’s report. Just like last month, they had very little money. Pledges were on target but the Society spent it as fast as it came in on their charity work and other projects. They were having a fund-raiser at the end of June, their annual Sweetheart Dance, and hoped to make a significant profit.
The history of Black women banding together for the good of the race began in the United States as far back as the seventeenth century with benevolent societies that benefited the sick, the dying, and the poor. Many started as outreach groups of their churches. One particularly active group was the Female Benevolence Society of St. Thomas, founded in 1793 in Philadelphia at St. Thomas, the first African Episcopal church in the nation. Free Black women living in Newport, Rhode Island, formed the African Female Benevolent Society in 1809, because they could neither vote nor hold office as members of the community’s male society. Daughters of Africa, a New York group, was another cornerstone. Two hundred members strong in 1821, the Daughters, working as domestics and laundresses by day, pooled their extra pennies to loan money for funerals, pay doctor bills and death benefits, thus becoming one of the nation’s first insurance companies.
All over the nation women of the race counted themselves as members of societies that looked after orphans and folks unable to look after themselves, and fostered literacy. Black woman also supported suffrage and were as ready for the vote as their White counterparts. Black abolitionist and feminist Frances Harper put it best when she said, “The world cannot move without women sharing in the movement,” but with the White organizations limiting the seating of Black women at their conventions and other suffrage groups prohibiting attendance altogether, working for the betterment of women everywhere was being hindered by the friction.
One of the new items to be discussed at the evening’s meeting was whether to send representatives to a national suffrage convention being held in the fall in Chicago. Like most Black women, the females of the Grove supported the National Woman’s Suffrage Association spearheaded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in spite of both women having campaigned against the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. They and their supporters were angered by the thought of Black men being given the vote before White women.
Gail took the floor to voice her support for the measure. “Even if they do choose not to admit us, I say we go. If for principle alone.”
Jewel agreed. As women of the race, they were forced to hurdle the double-edged barrier of racial bigotry and femal
e discrimination, and they knew neither would be banished if they didn’t make themselves heard. “I’m with Abigail. If they don’t wish to seat us, they’ll hear what I have to say about their hypocrisy, even if I have to stand on the roof of the convention hall and shout it to the world.”
They all smiled because they knew how committed she was to the vote. At the age of fourteen, she’d accompanied Maddie, Gail, and Miss Edna to the county seat where the older women were determined to vote in the 1872 elections. Nationwide, women of all races had been encouraged by suffrage leaders to go to the polls, and the call had been answered. Among the most prominent were Susan B. Anthony, who’d been arrested in Rochester, New York, and fined $100 for what the court called, “knowingly and unlawfully voting.” Sojourner Truth, residing in Battle Creek, Michigan, also tried to vote, but her demands for a ballot fell on deaf male ears.
Upon hearing Jewel’s declaration, Edna drawled, “Make sure Adam knows you’re going so he can begin gathering his funds to pay your fines.”
An embarrassed but smiling Jewel dropped her eyes, then came to her own defense. “I made the local newspapers and I received many letters of congratulations for my daring.”
Gail offered wryly, “That’s not what your father called it. He chewed my backside when he came home from bailing you out. Made me promise to never take you on an excursion like that again.”
When the voting clerks refused to give Miss Edna, Maddie, and Gail ballots, and no amount of arguing would change the men’s minds, Jewel sat down in the doorway of the courthouse and refused to move. For over an hour the officials asked, cajoled, threatened and begged, but she didn’t budge. The police were finally called. They removed her but she didn’t go quietly so she was arrested and charged with assault and disturbing the peace.
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