Out From This Place

by Joyce Hansen

  “I don’t want to stay here, suh.”

  She realized that they did not understand her. The man waved his hand at them. “Take these two.”

  Worry lines appeared on Easter’s forehead, and her full lips trembled. “No. Don’t take us nowhere, Mistress. Thought we was free now.”

  Mr. Reynolds ran his fingers through his hair. “You’ll go wherever we send you. We can’t have children running wild. You have to go with this lady from the missionary society.”

  “I not a child,” Easter protested. She felt the presence of someone behind her. She turned around and stared up at Rayford’s face.

  “Sir, this is my niece and nephew. I’ll take care of them,” Rayford said.

  The woman addressed him. “You seem intelligent. Don’t you think it’s a wonderful chance for them to learn how to read and write?”

  “They don’t want to go north. I’ll take care of them and teach them how to read and write.”

  The woman looked shocked. “You’re literate?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  She stared at Easter. “Do you want to stay here with your uncle?”

  “Yes, Mistress. We love him very much,” Easter added for good measure. Jason started to say something, but she clamped her hand over his mouth. She knew that she should thank Rayford, but she couldn’t look at him as they walked toward the huts.

  “Now you heard the man, Easter. He gave me responsibility for you and Jason, and I say that you and he are going to the field like the rest of us.” He stared at Jason. “I have to get you some work clothes.”

  “I could tote water in these clothes,” Jason said, pulling at the ruffles that were hanging off his shirt.

  “You’re too old for toting water. You’re helping Easter and Rose hoe the field.”

  Jason’s bottom lip slid out in a pout. “Missy say I special an’ shouldn’t work in no field.”

  “Missy? I don’t see any Missy around here,” Rayford teased. Easter stared at the field, eyes blurred with tears. “No use crying, Easter. This is the way things are,” he said with finality.

  “You tell the lady you teachin’ me how to read and write. You mean that?” she asked, wiping her eyes.

  “I’ll teach you—after you finish your task in the field.”

  “I learn how to write, then I write myself a pass to leave here.”

  Rayford threw his head back and laughed. “That’s slavery time. You’re free now. Who’re you going to show a pass to? The soldiers? They’re going to stop firing at each other and let you pass with your pass? Mr. Reynolds ain’t paying passes no mind. He’ll send you with some other group of motherless children. Put leaving here out of your mind. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

  Chapter

  Five

  The dream of my life is not yet realized. I do not sit with my children in a home of my own.

  Harriet Jacobs

  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

  “Easter, let’s go back to Missy,” Jason whined as they neared Rayford’s cabin.

  She snatched what was left of his ruffles, turned him around and spanked him. “Jason, I your Missy now. Don’t—want—to—hear—nothin’ else about Missy.” She punctuated each word with a whack.

  “You should’ve done that a long time ago,” Rayford muttered.

  When she released him, Jason dashed toward the woods. Easter started to follow, but Rayford grabbed her arm. “He’ll be back.”

  “Suppose he try and get to his Missy?”

  Rayford smiled. “He’ll have to swim. He’s not going to walk in those woods by himself. The only other way out is past the missionary lady. He’s probably hiding behind one of those trees and watching us talking.”

  Rayford entered his hut and returned with a pair of old trousers and a piece of rope. “He can wear these.” He handed Easter the pants and rope. He also gave her a long handled hoe. “Julius will show you how to use this. He’s in the field with Rose now.”

  Easter dug her bare feet into the dusty lane and tried to thank Rayford for helping her, but she couldn’t get the words out. How could she be thankful about staying on the plantation and having to work in the fields? She walked back to her hut and left the trousers on Jason’s pallet.

  On her way to the fields she spotted a flock of robins flying toward the pines, away from the plantation. She wished she was as free as they were.

  When she reached the field, Julius was showing Rose how to loosen the ground and chop away the marsh grass growing around the cotton plants. He bowed to Easter as she neared them. “Good morning, Miss Easter.” He smiled, tipping his battered straw hat. Easter saw nothing to smile about. Her face was as long as the rows of cotton plants as she followed his instructions. The sun beat relentlessly on her head, and she wished that she had her straw hat.

  They worked steadily, but Easter couldn’t stop looking toward the woods to see whether Jason would appear. “Well, ladies,” Julius said, “I think you know what to do. Just don’t uproot the plant.” He grinned broadly, especially at Easter, showing almost perfectly straight white teeth. Then he left to work in his own field.

  Easter felt Rose’s eyes on her. “Why you didn’t leave?” Rose asked.

  Easter carefully loosened the dirt. Looking at the plant and not at Rose’s probing eyes, she told her what had happened.

  At first, Rose was silent. Then a low giggle escaped her mouth. “So Uncle Ray save you from the missionary lady. I hear it cold up in the North. Oh, Lord, Easter, wish I could’ve been there to see it.” Rose bent down and pulled out the grasses growing around the plant. “Where the brat? Did he go north with Missy Missionary?” She imitated Jason’s whine.

  “I give him one good spanking, and he run and hide in the woods.”

  Rose laughed so hard and loud that the other hands looked at her and chuckled too.

  Rose’s laughter was contagious. Easter was surprised at herself for smiling in a cotton field. The sun burned hotter as the morning dragged on. She tried to throw thoughts out of her mind like a farmer dumping hay out of a wagon.

  Stopping for a moment, Easter scanned the edge of the woods for Jason. She noticed that very young children were playing near the fields while the older children carried water and some helped with the hoeing. Easter watched Isabel walk toward a tiny bundle lying on the ground and realized that the bundle was Miriam. Another woman carried her child, about three months old, tied to her back as she worked.

  Easter shaded her eyes and gazed toward the cabins. A small, brown figure walked slowly toward the fields. As it drew closer, she recognized Jason. He’d snuck back into the cabin and put on the old trousers, tying the rope around his waist to hold them up. He still wore his ruffled shirt.

  “I sorry I hit you,” she told him when he walked over to her. He didn’t respond.

  “Why you keep that shirt on?” she tried again.

  “Missy say gentlemen always wear shirt.” He looked down at his feet.

  Easter snatched him by his arm. “I don’t want to hear bout no Missy!”

  He jerked away from her, listening in silence as she showed him how to hoe the ground.

  They dragged wearily back to their huts when the sun set. Easter thought that her back was broken. Suddenly Jason stopped walking, pulled off his broken-down shoes, and flung them into a bush.

  When they reached their cabin, Melissa said, “Better fix something to eat. I starvin’.” She rummaged through a sack hanging near the fireplace. “Let’s see, the Yankee give us two pound of rice and some salt pork. Guess we could—”

  Sarah pulled her arm. “Look at them,” she said, pointing to Easter, Jason, and Rose. They’d collapsed, drunk from exhaustion, on the bench. Jason lay his head on Easter’s lap. “I too tired to eat, Melissa,” Easter moaned.

  “Field work is terrible when you not use to it. But you’ll get use to it. You’ll always be tired, but not too tired to eat.”

  I never get use to this, East
er told herself as she rubbed her back. And I figurin’ a way to leave.

  At the end of the week all of them reported to Mr. Reynolds’s assistant for their pay. Easter, unable to count, stared at the two coins in her hands.

  “That’s two dollars,” Julius said, peeping over her shoulder as they left the large shed where the farm tools were kept.

  She frowned. “Is it much?”

  “If you keep savin’ these dollars, it can be a lot.” Julius placed his two silver dollars in a small leather pouch.

  “What do I get?” Jason asked, running up to Easter.

  “If you work hard, I give you one of these.” She held up a silver dollar.

  They walked past the stables. Julius rubbed Jason’s head. “Well, little fella, what you goin’ to buy with one whole dollar?”

  “A new shirt, new shoes, and new britches.”

  “Well, Miss Easter, I think you have to give this boy more money.”

  “He have to work harder than he work this week.”

  “What’re you goin’ to do with your money?” Julius asked Easter.

  She shrugged her shoulders, wishing he’d stop asking her so many questions. She had no idea what she would do with the money, except save it. She figured she’d need money when she left the plantation.

  Before going to sleep that night, Easter tore the ruffles completely off Jason’s shirt, and taking two pieces of the material, she wrapped a coin in each. “Half for me and half for you,” she told Jason. His tired eyes managed to brighten a bit.

  “If I work in the field, I get one dollar each week?” he asked.

  “Yes, but you have to really work, Jason. Not play.”

  She tore the sleeves off his shirt and held it up. “I’ll wash this shirt good, and it look like new. Now it’s right for working in the field.” But Jason was fast asleep and didn’t see his altered shirt.

  The next day was Sunday. Rose, wearing her red and white gingham dress, stood over Easter, who was just waking up. “The people have a Sunday church service, and they invite all of us. Why don’t you come?” Rose said.

  Easter sat up, rubbing her eyes. “I want to sleep.”

  “I tired and sore too, but I goin’.”

  Easter lay back down. “I too tired, Rose.”

  Rose left. Easter had begun to drift off to sleep again when she heard sounds. At first she thought that someone was crying. She listened harder and realized that it was singing—voices rising and falling and rolling toward her in waves. Jason stirred. “We goin’ in the field today?” he asked.

  Easter stretched. “No. It Sunday.”

  “See, if I was with Missy, she give me a special Sunday morning breakfast and then we sing and then—”

  “What I tell you about that Missy talk? You know what happen the last time you tell me about Missy.”

  “Who’s singin’?” Jason asked, getting up from the pallet.

  “People here havin’ church, I guess.”

  “What they singin’?” He walked to the door and peeped out. Easter got up and put on her dress over her long slip. “Let’s go an’ hear the singin’, Easter,” Jason said.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Can I go?”

  “Yes.” She doused her face with water from the bucket hanging by the fireplace.

  “Come with me.”

  “I told you, I don’t want to.”

  “Then I stay here with you and talk about how I want to see Missy.” He took his britches and shirt off the peg. “What happen to my shirt?”

  “I fix it for you. And why you puttin’ on them dirty britches?”

  “Missy say you have to dress for church.”

  “Them people down in the woods. That’s no real church.”

  He peeped at Easter with a mischievious gleam in his eyes. “If I was with Missy, we go to a real church and—”

  She reached for him, but he scooted out of the cabin. As he raced toward the singing, Easter followed him, going behind the stables toward a cluster of pine trees. It seemed as if all of the blacks on the plantation were there. Jason sat down on the ground, squeezing himself between David and Isaiah. Some of the people sat on logs and fallen tree trunks, and others sat on the pine-carpeted ground. Easter sat behind everyone else. This was the first time Easter had seen all of the other workers on the plantation. Altogether there were about fifty men, women, and children.

  A heavyset dark man stood up before the group and said a prayer. Easter sent up her own prayer—that she and Jason be reunited with Obi. They sang again:

  Come by here, my Lord, come by here

  Come by here, my Lord, come by here

  Come by here, my Lord, come by here

  Oh, Lord, come by here

  Someone’s praying, Lord, come by here

  Someone’s praying, Lord, come by here

  Someone’s praying, Lord, come by here

  Oh, Lord, come by here.

  The same man addressed the group after singing. “We welcome the new people among us. If we work together, we’ll move ahead. You know five lions hunting together catch more possum than one lion hunting he own supper.”

  “Brother Thomas, don’t start preachin’ all over again,” a woman called out.

  Thomas, ignoring her, continued. “I think since this here Superintendent Reynolds is runnin’ this plantation that when we have problems we pick three or four men to be the ones to tell him the complaints. People been grumblin’ about this and that. So now if you have problems, you come to one of these men and they speak to Mr. Reynolds.”

  Melissa stood up. “Tell me, mister, who will pick these men to talk for us?”

  Brother Thomas wiped his sweating forehead with a handkerchief. “You pick them. You new people choose two men from your group, and we who’ve been living here choose two men.” His broad face spread into a wide smile. “The people who’ve always lived here, now, who do you want to pick?”

  “Thomas, you put your big self up there, may as well stay,” one of the men told him.

  Everyone laughed.

  “Since you all insist that I be the one, then I the one,” he said.

  A pretty young woman holding a baby stood up. “I pick Elijah.”

  “That’s your husband,” another woman responded.

  “That’s why I pick him.”

  “Elijah, you the second one.” Brother Thomas motioned for the man to join him.

  Julius slipped next to Easter. “Who you pickin’ from our group?”

  He startled her, and she moved a little away from him. “What difference it make? What all this mean anyway?”

  “Something we never had before. I had to go beg to Master Phillips for anything I got.”

  Easter looked bored. “Now you beg to Yankee master.”

  “So, who you pickin’?”

  “No one.”

  Rose called out Rayford’s name, and everyone who came from the Phillips plantation clapped.

  “Miss Easter, who else you pickin’?” Julius nudged her arm with his elbow.

  He worrisome as Jason, she thought to herself. “I pick you so you can stand up there with them other men and leave me be.”

  Paul’s name was called, and she watched him join the other three men. Julius seemed hurt by her remark. “I didn’t mean to worry you.” His sharp, high cheekbones and dark skin reminded her of Mariah. She felt a twinge of guilt about being rude, but she didn’t feel like talking. She wanted to listen to the others.

  “Now we one people. No more ‘new people’ and ‘people who already been here.’” Brother Thomas spread his arms. “We the people of the Williams plantation.”

  The young woman who’d voted for her husband stood up. “We women who have babies can’t tend to the children and go in the field too. We need an old nurse to care for the children like we use to have.”

  Another woman joined her. “Cookin’ in the morning make me get in them field too late, then I don’t finish my task and earn my full money. We need
a plantation cook.”

  A man interrupted the women. “We need to build a church and a school for these children. I hear the Yankee sendin’ teachers to learn the children on the plantations.”

  “I want to learn how to read and write too,” someone else shouted.

  Brother Thomas held his hands up. “Not all at once, and not now. We have a meeting every Saturday afternoon and—”

  A woman burst in on his comments. “We have chores then. After church is the best time to have a meeting.” The other women also demanded that meetings be held on Sundays when church ended. The men agreed.

  Easter stood up as people continued to discuss, argue, laugh, and chat. The children began to wander away from the adults and play nearby. Isaiah and Nathan giggled as Jason performed his hat-shot-off-the-head imitation. Easter walked away from the grove toward the cabins but changed her mind about going inside. She had to plan what she would do next. The idea of running away and searching the island alone frightened her, even though she talked brave in front of Rose, but what else could she do? If she ran this time, at least she’d have Jason with her. Yet where would they look for Obi? How would they eat? Where would they sleep? And if Obi wasn’t on this island, how would they get to the other islands?

  Her questions left her feeling helpless as she wandered toward the garden near the big house. She knew that she couldn’t leave tomorrow or the next day, but she would leave. She’d learn her way around the island first and maybe even begin to build a basket boat to carry her and Jason to the other islands. She wondered whether there were missionary ladies on all of the islands. She and Jason would have to be careful of them. They’d also have to avoid Yankee soldiers. As far as Easter could tell, they were making people work in the fields. She wondered what the soldier at the shore would have said to Rayford if Rayford had said that he didn’t do field work. Probably send us back across the river.

  Easter found herself in the middle of the flower garden and started to return to the huts. The garden was for the pleasure of the family who owned the plantation. She almost laughed at herself as she remembered that there was no master or mistress, and on closer inspection she saw that there were more weeds than flowers.