The Emancipation of Robert Sadler

by Robert Sadler

  I knew it was a very serious matter for a slave not to show up for work. They could get whupped bad for that.

  I dropped the sticks in my hands. “Buck!” I called, “Where’s Pearl?” Buck looked down and said in a low voice, “She be ailin, son.” He moved away before I could ask more.

  I hurried to light the fires and fill the woodboxes, and then I told Big Mac, “I’m goin to Pearl!” not caring whether I got whupped or not. I ran out of the house as fast as I could to the quarter.

  I arrived at Buck and Corrie’s shanty out of breath and scared to go inside. I rushed through the door to find Pearl lying on Buck and Corrie’s cot making awful rasping sounds. I remembered those terrible sounds when Mama lay dying. I remembered those sounds.

  Corrie saw me and tried to turn me away. “No, son. Sister’s ailin. You ought’n see her jes now.”

  I screamed and threw myself at the bed. I could form no words with my mouth. It was as though I had never spoken. She was little more than a skeleton as she lay there gurgling and glassy-eyed.

  “The rains,” Corrie cried. “The rains done did her in. They sent her to the fields with her ailin. We begged for a doctor—we begged for a doctor—” She buried her face in the folds of her skirt and sobbed.

  Pearl lay half-conscious in the darkness of the shanty. It was damp and cold in the room, and she was shivering. Her feet were wrapped in rags. She had still not gotten any shoes. I could see the scars on her body from the beating she had last autumn. There were shiny grey pits and holes on her arms and legs, like I had.

  Her once beautiful face was now just a few bones with skin stretched across them. Only fourteen years old and she looked like an old lady. She wore a rag of a dress and was clinging to the thin blanket covering her. I could tell she was suffering terribly. For a brief moment, her eyes focused on mine. She struggled to speak.

  “Every . . . thing . . . gonna be . . .” Her lips turned upward in the tiniest smile and she reached toward me with her small hand. “Yoll be . . . a big boy . . . now, chile—”

  From somewhere in my mind I heard laughter and saw again her black eyes sparkle in the sunlight, and we were tumbling in the grass as she tickled my nose, then my chin and neck. Her smile fixed itself on my face, and it was once again summer somewhere—somewhere, my Pearl and I frolicking, laughing, and she telling me with her sweet kisses and squeezes there was hope, there was hope.

  The hours of the morning passed by, and I stayed by Sister, never taking my eyes from her face. I gasped with each painful breath she took. And then they stopped.

  Her eyes were wide with a look of peace when it happened. Her mouth sprung open in surprise. There she lay—everything pure, beautiful, and loving that I knew. Pearl’s tortured body lay still now. I kissed her face and held the lifeless hand to my cheek. The grass was gone, and the sun in my life had gone out.

  11

  Summer 1918 arrived without my knowing it. I didn’t feel the air turn warm, didn’t see the trees bloom, didn’t hear the sound of the birds playing around the windows. I didn’t see or feel a thing. Pearl was dead.

  Somewhere in the dense fog of those days, however, a particular day stands out. It was a Sunday afternoon and the Beals must have been on an outing, because there was nobody around and it was very quiet. I was sitting on the wooden steps outside the kitchen door in the heat of the afternoon with nothing but the sound of flies buzzing around me. I looked up and saw a large-boned, barefooted Negro wearing tattered work clothes coming across the yard. It was a dangerous thing for a field slave to come up to the Big House like this. He came nearer, and then he was standing before me with his face close to mine.

  “It’s me, chile,” he said softly, “Buck.”

  I said nothing.

  He smiled a kind smile. “How y’doin, chile?” I stared blankly. Then after an awkward pause, he said, “I had to come up here because I done promised Pearl I would. You hearin me? Yoll be seven years old now, chile. You was born June 27, 1911. Hear me, boy?”

  I said nothing.

  He spoke to me with tears in his eyes. I watched his mouth and his wet, creased face without interest. Then while he was still talking, I stood up, turned my back to him, and went into the house.

  ———

  Summer passed and the autumn came. A new duty was given me by Master Beal. I was to hitch up the buggy for the white children to go to school every morning after I brought in the wood and lit the fires.

  I did this vaguely and stupidly. It didn’t matter to me what they had me do or what they did to me. I went along with it all and felt nothing, thought nothing, and said nothing.

  12

  The grueling days of spring and summer passed. Autumn was gone, and winter was settling in on the plantation. I thought of Pearl continually. It seemed that everything reminded me of her. Winter reminded me that she had no shoes when she died.

  I was still wearing the same shoes they had given me over a year ago, and my toes were bent and crushed in them. I wore them without socks, and I wore my only trousers and shirt night and day.

  My new chore of hitching up the wagon for the children to go to school became the most interesting point of my life at this time. I decided I wanted to go to school, too.

  One day I gained courage enough to ask Master Beal if I could go to school. “Please, Massuh, suh,” I said in my best speech, “can I go to school, suh, please?”

  Master Beal rocked on his heels in laughter. “You? You? You nigger slave boy, go to school? What work would they have for you to do there?”

  I was lucky I didn’t get the back of his hand or the heel of his boot for annoying him with what he said was “dumb nigger botheration” and “damn uppity.”

  Every morning I helped the children climb into the buggy with their lunch baskets and their books. I wanted to go to school more than anything.

  I would wait for them to come home in the late afternoon.

  “Teach me about book learning,” I’d beg Thomas, whom I played with the most because we were the same age. He would tell me what he had learned each day. He was the teacher and I the pupil. I drank every word in hungrily.

  Juanita and Virginia would play school with me, too, and once in a while John would even join in. He was ten years old now, and his meanness was growing with each new year.

  It was not long before I could count to ten and write some numbers. Juanita taught me how to write my name, which I thought was the most wonderful thing to be able to do. I would write ROBERT a hundred times a day in my mind.

  They were good days. I can truthfully say that we enjoyed each other as children. I had no rights, but I enjoyed their wanting to play with me. I didn’t care about their hurting me—they were playing with me right then, and I liked that.

  The winter of 1918 enfolded us. Sometimes the temperature dropped below freezing and twice that winter we had snow. I would go out to the woodpile to bring in the wood with my feet squeezed into my shoes, without socks, hat, or covering for my hands.

  It was during the coldest part of the winter that Daisy, the house girl who helped Harriet, died. She had given birth to her third baby, and a few days later she was back working in the Big House and doing the laundry outside. Harriet didn’t want her doing heavy work and told her to rest. I watched Daisy as she burned up with the fever, and finally she couldn’t stand up on her feet. Big Mac carried her to the granny who delivered her baby in the quarter and I followed behind. Harriet and the granny boiled rags to keep hot on Daisy’s stomach while I held a cold rag on her head. They fed her thyme tea and corn silk, but the infection took her over, and a week later she was dead. Her baby was given to another nursing mother in the quarter to care for.

  “Our Daisy done gone to be with Jesus,” Harriet told me, wiping her face of sweat and tears. It was then I figured out that Jesus didn’t live in heaven, since heaven was only for Whites. Jesus was colored like us! I didn’t ask any questions. I had figured everything out on my own.

 
I overheard the overseers in their dining room talking about her the day after Daisy died. “She woulda been a good nuff breeder,” I heard a rough voice say. “It’s a damn shame.”

  Daisy had been born on the Beal Plantation and didn’t know any other life. She would have served the Beals another fifty years without complaining because she didn’t know any better. She was illiterate, obedient, brainwashed, and handsome. That’s why she could be given the tribute of being a “good breeder.” She thought that was part of life, too.

  The many hours I spent each day in the kitchen were in dreaded fear of Mary Webb. She always had a bottle of whiskey nearby. The Beals liked her cooking and liked the way she ran her kitchen. Mary was mean to the bone, but never, ever sassy to the Beals. Oh, she was sweet to them, all dumb and grinning. She’d like to kiss the wormy white toes of Missus, but when Missus come in and give her orders, I’ve seen Mary suck in and come up with a wad of spit big as a turnip and blow it at her soon as she turned her back. Mary Webb, she was mean. And she didn’t like me one bit. I still carried the scars on my head from the biscuit pan she had heaved at me. Daisy had gotten along with Mary Webb. She knew how to stay out of her way and do as she was told.

  One night while taking swipes at the kitchen floor with the long, clumsy straw broom, I muttered, “Massuh an his chillren don’t hardly care nohow that Daisy be daid now. How come they ain’t cryin on accounta Daisy was they friend? She love them chillrens, ekspecially that baby Anna.”

  Big Mac heard me and whirled me around by the arm. With a hard look in his eye and in a cold, stern voice, he said, “Boy, you stop that kinda talk. It’s a fool nigger who talks like that. You take care a yoself, and that’s that. If a white man care about a black man, it’s a peculiar thing! I ain’t havin no nigger chile livin with me who’s lookin to make a friend out of the white man!”

  He had never raised his voice to me before. I was so surprised, I stood with my mouth open staring at him. “Yoll learn to care for yoself, chile! They ain’t no place in this here worl’ for a weepy nigger!” His face was tense with emotion. “Yoll learn yoself to care yoself! If’n you love somebody, chile, shor nuff they take em from you, jes like they done tuk yor sister Pearl and sister Margie. Yoll jes be a lil ole child, but you gots to think like a man.”

  A hush fell over the kitchen. Even Mary Webb was silent. Harriet, who felt real bad about Daisy, suddenly picked up her head and began to sing. I stood still, staring at Big Mac, who remained glaring at me, waiting for me to acknowledge what he’d said.

  “. . . Yessuh,” I said faintly.

  Harriet’s voice was deep and rich as she sang,

  They’s a comin wi de chariot,

  Ah know, ah know,

  They’s a comin wi de chariot

  To carry mah poor bones home. . . .

  She was singing her last respects to a girl she loved. Mac’s words had touched her, and she knew all too well “they ain’t no place in this here worl’ for a weepy nigger.”

  Ah done work and ah done sweat;

  These ole bones is goin a rest,

  Ole chariot

  Carry me home to Jesus.

  They’s a comin wi de chariot,

  Ah know, ah know,

  They’s a comin wi de chariot

  To carry mah poor bones home. . . .

  When she had finished the song, it was finished in her heart as well. She would never speak of Daisy again. At least not to me.

  ———

  One afternoon when I was playing school with Thomas and Juanita, Master Beal appeared in the doorway. His eyes flashed.

  “What’s goin on here?” he demanded.

  Thomas answered innocently, “We are playing school, Daddy. I’m the teacher.”

  “You learnin this nigger to read and write?”

  “Yessuh,” answered Thomas proudly.

  Master Beal grabbed a chair and threw it at Thomas. It just missed him.

  “Git!” he shouted at me. I scrambled to my feet and fled from the room. Huddled in a corner of the porch, I could hear him shouting at the children.

  “If I evah catch any of you learnin a nigger to read and write agin, I’ll whup you so’s you won’t set down for a month!” I heard the smack of his hand against their butts just hard enough to let them know he was serious, and it was good-bye to school learning for me.

  13

  The winter months dragged slowly along now that there was no more play school for me. The children avoided me, but I knew they missed our special times every day, too. I still tried to read their books, and I practiced writing my name, but I couldn’t do any more than that. It made me sad, and I moped around the house. Harriet saw me pouting one afternoon. “Why’s you sad in the mouth, chile? You feelin poorly?”

  “No, Ma’am. I cain’t read and write and I don’t reckon I ever will.”

  She sighed, folding her large arms across her chest. “Ain’t for you to know readin an writin. Thas white folks bi’ness. Yoll got some foolish thinkin up in yo haid.”

  “George Murphy knows readin and writin,” I told her.

  “George Murphy was no slave. He be a free man when he come here.”

  I thought for a moment. “Is they really a law that say a man ain’t spose to own another man?”

  Harriet’s face was thoughtful. “If they’s a law Massuh Beal ain’t knowin it.”

  “George Murphy say a man spose to git paid regular wages fuh his work.”

  “Humph. That George Murphy, he be big on the talkin side.”

  “Harriet, what’s a law?”

  “Wal, I dunno zackly for shure, but I do believe it is where they put a big sign up, and everybody what see the sign got to do like it say.”

  “Is that all a law be?”

  “I do believe that be all it be.”

  “Wal, maybe Massuh Beal ain’t see’d the law!”

  “Now you’s talkin uppity!”

  It was very confusing to me, but I didn’t want to ask any more questions. “Uppity” is what they called George Murphy.

  When the children came home from school, I would be waiting to unhitch the pony. Thomas began to toss off orders at me and talk crudely like he hadn’t done before. He grew less friendly and more mean and nasty.

  John, who had always been mean, grew worse. One day he and Thomas lay waiting for me, and as I rounded a corner, carrying wood to the kitchen, they leaped at me to wrestle me, but I was taught not to fight back. This leaping out of nowhere at me became a habit. Since I was not allowed to fight back, I tried to cover my face with my hands and hunched my body to protect myself. Sometimes I would try to run, but they always caught me and wrestled me to the ground. They must have thought it was fun punching at me like a lifeless sack of flour, me being all limp and floppy and not fighting back.

  One warm Sunday morning in early spring, more visitors arrived at the plantation. We had been preparing for their arrival for days. I watched them coming and then hurried alongside Big Mac to unhitch their buggy. They were a handsome family. The father was dressed fine, and he had dark hair combed straight back and slicked good, and the missus was stout with a round face and big hands. The three children were fat and looked very uncomfortable in shiny shoes with stockings up to their knees. I guessed they were around my age. Big Mac and I carried their bags and parcels up to their rooms in the Big House.

  After their evening meal, the two families went strolling on the grounds outside. I heard Master call for me. “Robert! Come here!” I came running.

  “Yessuh, Massuh Beal, suh!”

  Then he turned eagerly to his sons. “Okay, boys, let’s have us a wrestlin match.”

  He meant me and his boys, one at a time. Did he expect me to wrestle them? I didn’t know what to do, but one thing I had learned well was to do nothing. Thomas came at me first and I went down immediately. Massuh was yelling, “Harder, harder! Come on, Robert, show us what yer made of!” Before I knew it, I was yanked to my feet and there was a lot of cheering a
nd yelling. Then John lunged at me, grabbing me around the neck. We rolled down in the dirt as he punched at me. Again, I was a sack of flour just waiting for it to be over. I could hear the others hollering, “Fight! Fight!”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the faces of the visiting boys. The oldest one had spit running out of his mouth, and he was grinning a horrible grin. John kept hitting me and even though he was nowhere near as strong as me, I let him go on hitting

  “Oh, gimme a lick at im!” shouted one of the boys. “Gimme a lick at im!”

  There followed then a series of dirty punches and pinches. One of them pulled down my trousers. Another sat on me. I couldn’t help myself. I started crying.

  When they were finished with their fun, they went skipping off, laughing and out of breath, to the stable to get horses for riding.

  I could smell honeysuckle through the dust and blood in my nostrils and I could hear insects chirping happily in the grass. The sun was beginning to set and the sky was bright red. From the branches of a willow elm a few feet away I could hear the high, squeaky singing of a cowbird.

  ———

  It was many days before I could walk without limping, and each day I dragged my body through my chores, trying not to cry or faint. It was July before I could move normally, although my body was learning how to never be normal again.

  Harriet got two new girls to help her with the house, and I was given the added chores of tending the flower beds and keeping the lawn and yard clean. All other hands were in the fields.

  One afternoon right out of the blue Master Beal announced, “Robert, you free to git to the quarter when yoll finish with yor chores in the evenings and on Sundays. Don’t do no good seein you lazin around here. But you better do your chores good! And you git back here by a proper time, hear?”

  I was overjoyed. Oh, to play with children who were like me! I did my chores that day happily and eagerly. I finished early and ran with a jerky limp to tell Big Mac where I was going. He nodded and stuck some tobacco in his cheek. “Git then,” he said softly.