The Color of Your Skin Ain't the Color of Your Heart

by Michael Phillips

  "We'll try to get word to you. I don't know what Aleta and me and Emma will do if he makes us leave, but I'll come see you somehow, whatever happens."

  Jeremiah nodded, then turned and began the walk back toward town, not knowing that his father was only a few minutes ahead of him.

  ATIE WAS SILENT AS SHE AND HER UNCLE walked back toward the house.

  Too quiet, her uncle was probably thinking. Like me, Katie's mind was racing in lots of directions, wondering what to do, and wondering if suddenly everything was going to change because we were about to get found out. He kept talking about her mother like she was going to come walking into sight any minute, and asking questions about Katie's daddy and brothers and why Katie was out picking cotton with a ragtag little group of kids and darkies. He hadn't seen Emma disappear into the plantation house itself, where she was now trembling for dear life as she hid with William. If he'd seen her, that would have stirred up even more questions.

  Katie had hardly paused in her thoughts to notice how different her uncle looked than when she had last seen him when the war was still going on. It hadn't really been that long, only about a year and a half, but he had changed almost as much as Katie had. She told me once that he never came calling on his sister, Katie's ma, unless he wanted something, which riled Mrs. Clairborne a good bit. But Katie said that he always looked dapper as he could be, with ruffled shirts and jewelry on his wrists and wearing expensive coats and hats and boots.

  And I reckon he was dressed that way now too. Yet his nice clothes were a little dirty and frayed. His black hair wasn't too well combed, and if I wasn't mistaken, both he and his horse had the appearance of having ridden hard and a long way. Both were dusty and tired and looked like they needed rest, water, and food. He didn't look like a man altogether at ease but almost like he'd been trying to get away from something.

  They came past the barn and Katie's mind began to wake up a little. Just then she remembered the rest of us.

  "Wait just a minute," she said to her uncle, then turned and ran partway back to the field.

  "Mayme!" she called in a loud voice. "-Mayme ... please come to the house."

  "Who's that you're yelling at," asked her uncle, "-the little kid?"

  "No, the colored girl who was out there with me"

  "What do you want with her?" he said.

  "She's my ... well, I just want her, that's all.-Do you want to water and feed your horse?"

  "Yes ... that would be nice."

  The minute I heard Katie call my name, I dropped my satchel and ran toward the house. Aleta didn't know what to do and slowly followed me a minute later. I didn't run all the way. I didn't want to seem too eager. Before I came into sight I slowed to the more lazy-looking gait that white men expected and tried to catch my breath. As I got closer, there was Katie watching for me with a frantic look on her face, glancing back and forth between the barn and the fields.

  She ran toward me. "Mayme," she said in an urgent voice, "what am I going to do!"

  "I don't know," I answered. "He's your uncle. What did he say?"

  "He's just asking questions-mostly where everybody is.

  We didn't have time to discuss it further. Her uncle came back out of the barn from feeding and watering his horse. He glanced toward us standing there together, and again that peculiar feeling came over me.

  "Stay with me, Mayme," Katie whispered. "Whatever happens, I want you with me."

  She walked toward him and I followed, keeping a step or two behind. They both kept going toward the house and I kept following, feeling mighty awkward and out of place, wondering what he was thinking about me.

  They went inside. Katie's uncle took off his hat and pumped himself a big glass of water, then sat down on one of the chairs at the table almost like he owned the place, which for all we knew maybe he did now. I didn't stop to consider that he was Katie's mama's brother and wasn't kin to Katie's papa at all, which, now that I know how things work a little better, would make a big difference. All I knew was that he was kin and acted familiar and like Rosewood was his home.

  Tired and worn though he looked, the man seemed like a dandy in my eyes. His white shirt had ruffles and bright buttons down the front. Showing from beneath the end of his fancy jacket were cufflinks sparkling from the ends of his shirt sleeves. I now knew what those were. If he wasn't rich, he sure dressed like a man who was.

  I came and stood in the open door and waited. Katie just stood there too in front of her uncle, staring at the floor. He glanced around the place as he drank down the water and seemed to think it didn't look right. He looked over at me and this time held my face in his gaze a few seconds. A puzzled look seemed to flit through his eyes. But then he looked back at Katie, and gradually a serious expression came over his face.

  "Kathleen," he said, "I think it's time you stop stalling. There's something you're not telling me. I know Rosalind's not on a trip-she wouldn't leave you alone or have left the place like this. Did she go into town? If so, she should have been back by now. I want to know what's going on here."

  I was standing behind her, but I could see Katie starting to tremble.

  "Kathleen ... where's your mama?"

  "Oh, Uncle Templeton," Katie suddenly cried, "-she's dead! They're all dead!"

  She burst into the most mournful wail and began to sob, like a dam that had been held back all these months was bursting inside her. At the word dead, her uncle's face went ashen. Katie's wailing and sobbing left no doubt that she was telling the truth.

  He sat there stunned, his eyes wide, his face white. Katie now walked toward him, put her arms around him, leaned her head down on his neck where he sat, and continued to sob. I heard Aleta come up the steps of the porch behind me. I turned to meet her and motioned for her to come with me instead of going in right now. I took her away from the house and explained as much as I knew about what was going on, which wasn't much. The last sound I heard as we crept softly down the steps was Katie's sobbing like I'd never heard her before.

  We tried to busy ourselves with some clothes hanging on the line, but we weren't thinking about the wash right then. After a bit I told Aleta to go give the chickens some feed.

  A few minutes later I heard the kitchen door open. Katie and her uncle came out. He still had the same stunned look on his face, and sure wasn't laughing or joking now. Katie and me had had a lot of death to get used to, and now I guess it was his turn. I couldn't help feeling almost more sorry for him than for Katie.

  Katie had her hand in his and led him away from the house in the direction of where she and I had buried her family. Again I followed them, but from a distance.

  Katie took him to the spot, then stopped. They just stood there looking down at the graves and the four stones we'd found to set by each one, not saying a word. Slowly her uncle stretched one of his arms around Katie's shoulders and pulled her to his side. She leaned her head against him and again began to cry.

  How long they stood there like that I don't know. I figured they needed to be alone and didn't need my prying eyes staring at their backs. Katie had said she wanted me nearby, but she had her uncle to comfort her now. Whatever might happen later, at this moment that had to be a mighty important thing.

  I turned away and went to see what Aleta was doing.

  UNNY AS IT SEEMS TO SAY IT, MY MIND WAS BOTH _ relieved and full of anxieties and fears at the same time. As long and hard as we'd schemed to keep anyone from finding out we were alone ... without warning it had happened. What we'd been worried about all this time had just suddenly happened.

  Katie's kinfolk knew. Everything was bound to change now. Her uncle Templeton would no doubt take things in hand and do what grown-ups did. He'd put things in order and either stay here himself or find out who Rosewood was supposed to belong to if it wasn't him, and then maybe take Katie to live with him, though I had no notion where he lived.

  Just when we thought we'd saved the day by paying off Katie's loan, it looked like our scheme wa
s over, and our life together along with it. Without even consciously trying, my brain was working hard to brace itself for whatever changes this was going to mean, even if it meant that in a few days I'd be gone from Rosewood and might not ever see Katie again. I found myself thinking again about that job at the hotel in Oakwood.

  I fussed around outside the barn, not doing much of anything. After a while I saw Katie and her uncle walking slowly back from the graves and inside the house together. He still had his arm around her, and she was leaning against his side as she walked like it was the most natural thing in the world. And as nervous as I was about what all this might mean to us, it warmed my heart to see them together like that. Especially since I had no grown-up kin who would ever put their arm around me.

  I've never been much good at doing nothing, so I went inside the barn and cleaned up a bit, then out to the stables to add water to the troughs for the horses and cows and pigs. When I had work to do, my worries were never quite as bad.

  After a while I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see Aleta.

  "Katie sent me to find you," she said. "She asked if you'd come to the house."

  I dropped what I was doing and followed her around the barn. When I entered the kitchen, Katie and her uncle were both seated at the table quietly talking. Katie's eyes were red. She glanced up at me and tried to smile.

  "Hi, Mayme," she said. Her voice was still husky from crying.

  "Hi," I said.

  "I told him, Mayme," she said, sniffling and trying not to start crying again. "I told him everything ... I couldn't help it. I hope you're not mad at me."

  "Of course not, Katie," I said, glancing toward her uncle. "You had to ... he's your kin."

  As her uncle watched, he seemed moved by our obvious love for each other. But he was still looking funny at me. I was used to that. White folks always look different at blacks than they do their own kind. But something about the way Katie's uncle did it was peculiar. It made me feel funny in a way unlike any feeling I'd ever had.

  "This is Mayme, Uncle Templeton ... Mayme jukes," said Katie. "She's the best friend I've ever had."

  My eyes started blinking fast to hear Katie's words. It didn't seem like it'd do much good for both of us to start crying at a time like this. But it was all I could do to keep from it.

  "I am happy to know you, Mayme jukes," said Katie's uncle. "My name is Templeton Daniels, and from what Katie has told me, I suppose I owe you my thanks-for helping look after her, for helping look after the place ... and for helping bury my sister and her family."

  I nodded and forced a smile. I didn't know what to say.

  "And I told him about Aleta and Emma too," Katie continued, "and-"

  Suddenly Katie's eyes shot open.

  "Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed. "Emma! Where is Emma!"

  In all the commotion we'd completely forgotten about her. All this time I'd figured she was upstairs trying to keep William quiet.

  "Aleta," said Katie, "run upstairs and see if Emma's in her room.

  Aleta dashed off and was back in less than a minute.

  "She's nowhere up there, Katie," she said.

  Katie and I looked at each other as we realized where Emma had gone to hide.

  "Oh ... poor Emma!" cried Katie.

  She jumped up and we hurried into the parlor. The rug was thrown back and one look would have told us where she was, but neither of us had been all the way into the house since coming back from the field, and Aleta hadn't noticed.

  I grabbed the door latch and pulled it open.

  "Emma ... Emma, are you down there!" called Katie into the cellar.

  "Dat I is, Miz Katie," came a voice from below. "Me an' William's safe an' soun'."

  "You can come up now-We have got to fill one of those old lanterns down there with oil," she added to herself, "and put some matches down there too."

  A second or two later, Emma's head appeared as she started up the ladder. She handed William up to Katie and then finished the climb and stepped out into the parlor. What Katie's uncle, who had followed from the kitchen, thought when he saw his niece holding a little half-colored baby, and the once-proud plantation house of his sister's family filled with two white girls and two black girls, it would be hard to say. And whatever those thoughts might have been, they could not have prepared him to see Katie give Emma a hug as her way of saying she was sorry she had had to stay down there so long.

  Mr. Daniels just stood there for a few seconds taking in the sight, then slowly began to chuckle.

  "Well, Kathleen," he said, "you may have told me, but I must say this is quite a family you've got here! I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's just a whole family of kids! I can't believe you kept anyone from finding out all this time."

  Emma, who had been busy taking William back from Katie, hadn't seen him standing in the kitchen doorway. At the sound of his voice, terror seized her and she started to bolt again, this time for the stairs.

  "It's all right, Emma!" called Katie. "This is my uncle. I've told him all about you."

  Emma paused and slowly came back toward the rest of us.

  "This is Mr. Daniels, Emma," Katie added. "He won't do anything to hurt you."

  "Right pleased ter make yer acquaintence, Mister Daniels," said Emma, trying to put on her politest tone for Katie's sake. "Is you gwine take care ob us now?"

  Her words hung in the air for several long seconds. I saw Katie glance toward the floor. It was the unspoken question she and I had been wondering all this time. Suddenly Emma had just blurted it out. Katie's uncle seemed just as taken aback by the question as we were.

  "I don't know, uh ... Emma," he said after a moment. "Kathleen and I have a good many things to talk about."

  "Well, she's 'bout the finest mistress in da whole worl', dat's all I got ter say," Emma went on. And once Emma's tongue got loosed, it was hard to stop it. "Miz Katie's been takin' care ob me, an' she an' Miz Mayme's been so good ter me an' my little William dat I don' know how I'd eben stayed alive wiffout dem. An' Aleta too, dey been takin' real good care ob her too, ain't dey, Aleta?"

  Aleta nodded, still not sure what to make of all this.

  Mr. Daniels laughed lightly, his countenance starting to get back its color and the humor that Katie said always went along with it.

  "Well, Emma," he said, "I can see that Kathleen and, uh ... Mayme here," he added, glancing toward me, "must have been working mighty hard and doing a lot of things right to keep the four of you alive-"

  "Da five ob us, Mister Daniels. Don' forgit my William."

  "Yes, of course, the five of you ... to keep you alive and well all this time. I'm sure everything you say is true. She tells me that all the rest of you were a big help too. But as I say, Kathleen and I will have to talk it all over to see what's to be done now"

  His words finally silenced Emma, and none of the rest of us had anything to say. What he'd said seemed to carry exactly the kind of overtones Katie and I had been worrying about.

  At last Katie broke the silence by jumping straight into the middle of it.

  "Does Rosewood belong to you now, Uncle Templeton?" she asked.

  If Emma's question had hung heavy in the air, Katie's words sobered her uncle all the more. I reckon the poor man was having a lot thrown at him at once. He'd just found out that his sister was dead and that his niece had been running the plantation with an assortment of kids and blacks. And now suddenly his own potential future had changed as much as ours.

  He glanced around the room and saw eight eyes staring straight at him waiting for an answer. The prospect of Katie's question and all it entailed made him squirm a bit. Funny as it is to say it about a grown-up, I suddenly saw that he was maybe just as uncertain about what to do and what would happen as we were. When you're young you always figure that every grown-up is confident and never has doubts about things. But then when you start getting older yourself, you begin to realize that growing up doesn't take all the doubts about life aw
ay.

  Mr. Daniels looked at us all staring at him, then chuckled a little nervously.

  "I don't see how that could be, Kathleen," he said. "I'm no kin to your pa."

  "Does it belong to Uncle Burchard, then?" Katie asked. "You won't tell him, will you, Uncle Templeton?"

  "I've never met your father's brother. I only heard Rosalind mention him a time or two."

  "I don't want to go live with him."

  "We're not going to do anything until we have a chance to think this thing over a bit."

  "If anything's going to happen, please stay yourself, Uncle Templeton," said Katie. "We'd all work real hard, wouldn't we?" she added, looking at the rest of us.

  Nods and a flurry of Yes'm, Miz Katies from Emma answered her question quickly enough.

  Mr. Daniels laughed again at our obvious enthusiasm, though I could tell he was still squirming at the idea of it. Then he got serious.

  "How old are you, Kathleen?" he asked.

  "Fifteen, sir."

  "Hmm ... I see. Well, that's not going to help matters. If you were eighteen it might be different. But fifteen ..." His voice trailed off and I couldn't tell what he might be thinking.

  "But Mayme's sixteen," said Katie hopefully.

  Her uncle smiled. "I don't think that will do much good," he said, still reflecting on the matter. "No, that won't change things. It's blood relation that counts. And I'm afraid neither Mayme nor myself ..."

  Again his voice died away in a sigh. He turned and walked back into the kitchen.

  The rest of us looked at each other with expressions of question and uncertainty. Slowly Katie followed him, then I followed her. We found her uncle sitting at the table in the kitchen just sitting there staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. He didn't even glance up as we walked in.

  "Uncle Templeton," said Katie, "what should we do ... now, I mean? What do you want us to do?"

  Her words brought him out of his reverie.