by Joyce Hansen
“Easter, don’t think such thoughts. I’m sure he’s as alive as you and I.”
Easter wiped her face. How, she wondered, could Miss Grantley be so sure of that.
“If we find him and you are able to bring Jason with you, would you agree to go then?”
“Yes, I think so. But I have to find him.”
Miss Grantley took off her glasses. Her green eyes searched Easter’s face. “I sense something else keeping you here. In order to move forward, sometimes we have to sever ties. You have your own life, Easter.”
“I don’t understand, ma’am.”
“I mean … well, someday Jason will go his own way. And Obi too.”
“Oh no. Obi is going to look for me. I know it.” The conversation was taking the shape of the conversations she’d had with Rose and Rayford. Her feelings were in her heart, and words could not express what was there.
“Easter, your life belongs to you now.”
“But what is my life if I not with Jason and Obi, and in the North who is there to tell me, ‘Easter, you better not do that because it’s dangerous?’ Or, ‘Easter, you better work the fields or you won’t get land.’” She smiled as she imitated Rayford’s deep voice. “Or, ‘Easter, we like sisters.’”
“I understand—I think. But we have to let go of certain things in order to move forward,” Miss Grantley said again.
“How can you let go the only people you have?”
Miss Grantley had no answer. “I’ll write the letter to the army commander’s office and find out what we can about your young man,” she said.
By the end of the year an answer to Miss Grantley’s letter arrived. One afternoon after class Miss Grantley showed Easter the letter. “The army is very slow. There were men from the mainland and from many of the islands sent to Hilton Head Island for training in January. The army has no idea where they went or even what their names were. Many of them took new names once they joined.” She adjusted her glasses. “We’ll keep trying, Easter.”
Easter left class that day feeling helpless and wondering whether she should forget about trying to find Obi. But she couldn’t forget him; the disappointing letter from the army only seemed to make her think about him more. Julius and a few other young men left the plantation and joined the Union army. Once again, Easter promised to write Julius and reminded him to make inquiries about Obi.
The beginning of 1864 brought more changes. One day, after school had ended, Easter was in the cookinghouse preparing lunch. Miss Grantley, looking flushed and upset, rushed into the shed.
“What happen?” Easter asked, afraid of the answer.
The teacher bit her lip. “I just received this letter,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. Easter thought it was another letter from the army in answer to the additional inquiries Miss Grantley had made about Obi. “I’m being sent by the society to open a school on another island. I’ll be leaving here shortly.”
“Oh no, Miss Grantley. You’re our teacher. Nobody else can be a teacher for us.”
Miss Grantley removed her glasses and brushed her hands over her eyes. “The society is sending another teacher.”
“Why can’t the new teacher open the school and you stay here with us?”
“I … I have more experience with starting a school.”
Easter picked up one of the babies, who’d begun to whimper. “It won’t be the same with another teacher,” she said. “It won’t feel right, Miss Grantley.” Easter tried to push back the tears welling up in her eyes. “When they sending this new teacher?”
“I don’t know. There don’t seem to be enough teachers to go around.”
“This is terrible. There’ll be no school at all, and we’ll miss you.”
Miss Grantley put on her glasses and cleared her throat. “I begged the society to let me stay for at least another year, but I was told that I must leave. I’ll miss all of you, especially you, Easter.” She placed her hand on Easter’s shoulder. “I’ll write you.”
“Me too. I’ll write every day.”
“And Easter, you run the school until the new teacher comes. You can do it.”
“I can’t. I don’t know too much my ownself.”
“You can. You know how to teach those little ones their letters and numbers.”
“But what about the geography and the arithmetic and the history and …”
Miss Grantley smiled slightly. “Just teach what you know, and that’s plenty. One day you’ll come to the school in Philadelphia. Promise, Easter.” Before Easter could say anything, however, Miss Grantley said, “No. That’s not fair, to make you promise such a thing now. Think about coming to the school. Will you promise to do that?” The teacher took off her glasses and wiped her eyes again.
Easter nodded, having to force back tears herself. “I promise,” she barely whispered.
Chapter
Ten
My army cross over,
My army cross over,
O, Pharoah’s army drownded!
My army cross over
Traditional Spiritual
May 1865
Easter walked quickly past the former slave market in town, imagining a long white arm pulling her inside its dark corners. The sidewalk was choked with people: men and women, whites and blacks, destitute families, prosperous-looking men who seemed not to have been touched by war at all, and Union soldiers.
Easter enjoyed looking in the window of a dress shop that always had a lovely dark blue satin dress with burgundy ruffles down the front and a wide-brimmed burgundy hat to match. The shop had been closed since she’d been coming to Elenaville. As she walked away, she wondered whether she’d ever own such a fine dress.
Jason skipped ahead of her in wide-eyed excitement. There was a chorus of peddlars. A woman passed them carrying a large basket of eggs on her head. She sang the praises of her produce:
Fresh eggs brown and white,
Yellow and sweet inside.
A man pulling a wagonload of catfish, shrimp, and other seafood sang his song also, on the opposite side of the street:
I have shrimp and catfish,
Oyster and clam.
Buy from me,
Your fish-sellin’ man.
This was the third time since the war ended in April that she, Sarah, and some of the other people from the plantation had come to the Freedmen’s Bureau office in Elenaville to inquire about relatives. Easter came seeking information about Obi. Brother Thomas still warned them, “Don’t walk—especially through them woods—an’ get back here before dark.” James drove them. Passengers riding in the wagon paid him ten cents to carry them back and forth. Once the war was over and people from the plantation started traveling to town more often, Jason constantly begged her to take him to Elenaville. She couldn’t come without him.
Easter hurried to catch up with the others. The office of the Freedmen’s Bureau was packed with people, outside and in. There were whites sprinkled among the blacks.
“Can I stay outside?” Jason asked when Easter was able to enter the building after waiting for two hours on one of the lines outside.
“Yes, but you stay right here on this street. Don’t go runnin’ off with no little vagabonds.”
“Listen to Easter and stay close by,” Sarah added.
“I will! I will!” he shouted excitedly.
People sat and stood in every corner of the large room, which had once been used as a warehouse for storing cotton. A few bales were still stacked along a wall. A woman and two men sat behind separate desks. They took care of supplying people with emergency rations of food and money, helping people find lost family members, and even starting schools. They also made sure that the work contracts that were being used to hire the freedmen and freedwomen to work on the plantations were in order.
Easter sat on the floor with Sarah and the rest of the people and waited, hoping that this time someone would be able to tell her where Obi was. Time seemed to stop in the crowded room, and when her
turn came to talk to one of the agents, she had a pounding headache.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” she said politely as she sat down. The woman’s brown wavy hair reminded her of Miss Grantley. Easter repeated her scanty information about Obi once again. Her headache eased as she talked. The woman thumbed through a thick record book.
“Oh yes, you were here two weeks ago. I’m sorry, we have no record of anyone by that name.”
Easter sighed deeply.
“I’m very sorry,” the woman repeated. “You said he escaped here to the Sea Islands. We wrote to the Freedmen’s Bureau in Georgetown, but there’s no response from them yet. We’re attempting to make inquiries with the army, but they have so much to do, don’t you know.”
And they slow as a snail, don’t you know, Easter said to herself. Easter tried to contain the horrible thought that Obi had been killed in battle and left dead somewhere. “Ma’am, does the army know all the soldiers that die, even colored soldiers?”
“Of course. Unfortunately, sometimes soldiers are missing, but the army keeps track of everyone as best they can. You say your former master’s name is Jennings? Your friend may have taken that name. We’ll make another inquiry and find out whether they have a soldier named Obi Jennings.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Easter said dully. When she left the building, the sun was red and sinking. She immediately scanned the crowd, but she didn’t see Jason.
James’s wagon was parked in front of the Protestant Episcopal Church on the town square. She ran over to the wagon. Everyone except Jason was there. “Where Jason?” she almost shrieked.
James pointed to a group of people surrounding a tall white man who stood in front of a brightly painted carriage. Easter read the fancy orange and black lettering on its front: DR. TAYLOR’S TONIC. The man’s thick brown mustache covered his upper lip. He held up a bottle. Another white man stood next to him, dressed in a bright yellow shirt and red pantaloons, with a red scarf around his forehead. He held a fiddle. Easter had never seen anyone dressed in such an outlandish fashion. A big gold-colored hoop earring dangled from his ear, and his black mustache looked like a crow’s wings.
The man with the bottle addressed the crowd. “Doctor yourself with Dr. Taylor’s formula, and you’ll never need a doctor again. This ain’t no snake oil,” he assured them. “Now for a bit of entertainment from our little dancing Indian.”
The man in the red pantaloons squatted before a tomtom and beat out a rhythm. A lithe brown figure wearing an Indian headdress that was too big charged out of the carriage. The figure jumped up and down, whooping and hollering. Then the man picked up his fiddle, and the Indian did a familiar dance. The crowd cheered.
Easter tried to reach the carriage, but there were too many people blocking her way. When the dance ended, everyone rushed closer to the carriage to buy the tonic, and Easter was swept along with the crowd.
“Jason! You fool little jack-a-behind. Get off that carriage!” she yelled.
The man with the brown mustache jumped off the little stage jutting out of the carriage and let the man in the red pantaloons sell the medicine. “Girlie,” he said clamping his hands on Easter’s shoulders, “this little lad is bringing me luck. Are you his sister?”
Jason grinned at her guiltily. “I he sister, he mother, and he father. And he better get over here to me.” She glared at Jason.
“Girlie, I’ll pay the lad well and take good care of him. Let him join my show.”
Jason jumped off the carriage and stood next to her. “Easter, let me be in the show.”
“No!”
“Where do ye live, lad?” the man asked before Easter could pull Jason away.
“The Williams plantation,” Jason called to the man.
Easter pulled him through the crowd toward the wagon. “I thought I lose you, Jason.”
“Easter,” he said, stretching out his hand, “I made one whole dollar and didn’t have to be in no fields. Can I stay in the man’s show? Please, Easter?”
“No. You don’t know what kind of evil man he could be. And that other mad-looking man, who he suppose to be?”
“That’s Percy the Pirate. Please, let me stay.”
James laughed as Easter and Jason reached the wagon. “That man sold plenty snake oil this day.”
Jason’s brown eyes pleaded with Easter. “I’ll come back to visit you, Easter, and I write you and—”
“You can’t be in nothing like that. How you know that man really take care of you?” Easter asked as she and Jason climbed up onto the wagon seat.
“Easter’s right,” James remarked as he patted the two mules. “Men like that goes from place to place like boll weevils. Sometime they don’t make no money at all.” He climbed up beside them.
“But you see different places, and you make money an’ you have fun.” Jason’s face shone with excitement as he stared longingly at the medicine man’s carriage.
James lifted the reins, and the mules moved slowly out of the square.
It was dusk when they headed into the countryside, and when they neared the plantation it was dark. Easter gazed at the sky. The night was clear and the stars large and bright. “Jason,” she whispered, “the angels smilin’ at us.”
He ignored her and rattled on about Dr. Taylor’s medicine show. She kept staring at the sky as she listened to the sound of his voice.
Easter felt their lives changing. A new season was upon them. When the missionaries sent another teacher, she and Jason would leave the plantation. She made up her mind not to return to the Freedmen’s Bureau. She had saved most of the money she had earned over the last three years; she would use that money to travel to the other islands and look for Obi herself. She would also go to the old Confederate camp and look up Mariah and Gabriel. After she found Obi, she and Jason would go north so that she could finish her schooling. Then she would come back to South Carolina, and she and Obi and Jason would be together forever.
Chapter
Eleven
May 29, 1865, President Johnson issues a proclamation giving a general amnesty … to those who have participated in the rebellion against Federal authority … all property rights except those in slaves will be fully restored.
From The Civil War Almanac
The next evening, Easter sat with Rose and Rayford in their large and comfortable kitchen. The wooden dishes were lined neatly along the mantel, and several skillets of various sizes hung above it. An iron stove stood near the pantry, and the large rug Easter had made for their wedding present was spread under the cane-seat rocker. One of Easter’s students had made Rose’s sewing basket, which lay on the floor beside the rocking chair. A set of keys hung near the door. Since Rayford was the overseer, he had all of the keys to the outbuildings. Mr. Reynolds had made him the “head of everything,” as Rose liked to say. He was paid a salary of six dollars a week to manage the plantation. He also spent part of his day working in his own fields.
The baby toddled over to Rayford. He bent down, scooped him up, and laughed at the child’s plump, dark legs dangling in the air.
“Little Ray walkin’ all over the place now, Rosie,” Easter said. Jason made faces at the baby, who let out tiny peals of laughter as he sat on his father’s lap. While she watched Jason and Little Ray playing, Easter tried to find the best way to tell Rose and Rayford that she’d be leaving the plantation. It was strangely frightening and exciting to be able to walk off the plantation and do something she’d been planning to do for three years.
There was a tap on the door, and Melissa and Sarah entered. The two women sat down at the large pine table. They all ate together every evening, as they’d done in the old days.
“I hear Mr. Reynolds is coming tomorrow to talk to us,” Rayford said. He handed the baby to Jason.
“We’ll have our own land soon,” said Rose.
Easter hunted for a way to tell them her news. Sarah’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“I leavin’ tomorrow,” Sarah said quietly.
“Leaving? Why?” Rose asked. Easter was surprised also. Sarah had never talked about leaving the plantation before.
“Want to find my husband.”
“What were you told at the Freedmen’s Bureau?” Rayford asked her.
Sarah’s eyes had dark circles under them, making her appear drawn and tired. “They can’t help me. I go from place to place till I find him myself.” Sarah spoke Easter’s thoughts.
“Suppose you don’t find him?” Rayford asked. “And the land? You worked hard. If you leave now, you might not get anything.”
“I been tellin’ her that, Mister Ray,” Melissa said.
“I have to go. Melissa can have the acres I been workin’.”
Easter reached across the table and patted the woman’s hand. “I understand,” she said softly.
Rayford glanced at Easter. “Will you be the next one to go?”
He a mind reader, Easter thought. Now that the question was asked, she had to answer. She nodded.
“Oh no, Easter. Not you too. I thought you’d settled down and had forgot all that business about leavin’,” Rose exclaimed.
“I have to find Obi now.”
Rose stood up and started taking dishes down off the mantel. Melissa helped her. “But what about the school? You the only teacher the children have.”
Easter had been continuing to help the young children with the alphabet and reading simple words. Jason and the older children didn’t go to school any longer but worked full time in the fields. Easter didn’t have to take care of the babies anymore because Aunt Louise, one of the older field hands who couldn’t work in the fields anymore, took care of them. “When the missionary society send a new teacher, then I leavin’.”
“Miss Grantley want you to go to the school in Philadelphia. What about that?” Rose asked. “Me and Rayford was even talking about how all of us here on the plantation could raise some money for you to go north. So you could come back here and be our own teacher.”
Easter left the table and walked over to the three-legged iron skillet. She appreciated their kindness, but she knew what she wanted. Picking up a bowl from the sideboard, she began to dish out the rice. “After I find Obi, then me and Jason go north.”