The Wedding Gift

by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

  “Where’s your pass?” Eddie showed it to him. “Y’all don’t forget curfew time here is six o’clock. The warning bell goes off at five thirty.”

  “Yes, sir,” Eddie said.

  “That goes for y’all too.”

  “Yes, sir,” my mother and I said at once.

  I saw advertisements for slaves from the Carolinas and Virginia posted on buildings, but there was no auction at the slave market that day. We passed a three-story brick building that looked like a jail where people were looking through windows secured with iron bars. Eddie took us past the business district and to the home of a woman, Miss Adeline. My mother said Miss Adeline was born at Allen Estates and lived there until she was sold to a family in Mobile at the age of sixteen. The woman’s new master had freed her and her children some years later.

  “Emmeline, it’s good to see you, and this is your baby girl, and Eddie, how you been? And where’s Belle?”

  My mother, sobbing, fell into Miss Adeline’s embrace. She tried to comfort Mama but could not get my mother to speak.

  “Master Allen sold Belle, and Miss Emmeline’s trying to find out where he sent her, if he sold her down here,” Eddie said.

  “I don’t get out much these days. I just be here during the day looking after my grandchildren. When my sons reach home tonight from working, I’ll talk to them and see what I can find out. I’ll let you all know tomorrow.”

  She stood close to my mother to whisper to her, but I still heard what she had to say. “Emmeline, listen. You got to find a way to get him to at least free Sarah. I told you last time you was here that you need to get him to free both the girls.”

  “I tried, but he won’t.”

  “Do he know all this time you still looking for where he sent Belle’s father?”

  “Yes. He told me that…he said that one reason he sold Belle was because I was looking for her father. So I ain’t looking for him no more. Now I just got to find my child.”

  “So why don’t he buy her back?”

  “He said he may do that, if I act right.”

  “What do that mean?”

  “Meaning if I do everything he tell me to do and if I stop thinking about Belle’s father. But I can’t wait. I been begging him to bring her back to me, but all he say is he don’t want to hear it and if I keep talking about Belle he ain’t never buying her back. But I can’t stop worrying about my baby. I got to at least find out where she is and get word to her that I’m going to do everything I can to get her back.”

  That night at the hotel, Eddie told my mother at supper that Mr. Allen was going to the theater and that she should go to his rooms at two in the morning. The next day we returned to Miss Adeline’s home, but she said that her sons were still making inquiries of people who were hired out to work on the largest plantations outside of Mobile. She told us to get a pass from Mr. Allen to attend Sunday services at her family’s place of worship, the First Baptist Church-Crichton, where my mother could ask the pastor and parishioners if they had heard about any slaves sold to local plantations from Allen Estates. Then she asked my mother to speak with her in the next room, just the two of them.

  When we returned to our room that evening, I asked my mother what Miss Adeline said to her.

  “It’s best you don’t know what she said, baby.”

  “Mama, if it had to do with Belle, I want to know. Please, Mama.”

  “This don’t really have to do with Belle directly. It’s just about some people that maybe can help us.” My mother was quiet then, but before I could ask her again, she said, “All right, I’ll tell you, but promise me you won’t say nothing to nobody. This is serious, Sarah. It’s one of them things that can get people killed.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I promise I won’t tell.”

  “The pastor and some of the members of the church we’re going to, Miss Adeline’s church, work at the port like Miss Adeline’s sons, and they know the captains from the ships. A few of the captains is God-fearing people from England who don’t believe in slavery, and they try to get slaves to the free states. They know people here who belong to churches in the North and in the South, and they know things about what’s going on in different plantations. So they might of heard about Belle and the girls.”

  “What’s a free state?”

  “Places where they don’t have slaves.”

  “Like where?”

  “Up north.”

  “You said that when you went north with Mr. Allen, to New York, they didn’t have plantations, like here.”

  “Yes, but they still have slavery. Like if you was a slave from another state, you could go there with your master and still be a slave there. If you was a slave who ran from another state, slave catchers could go there and take you back to slavery. I was afraid when we was there. We wasn’t allowed to leave the hotel by ourselves because catchers could just grab you off the street and sell you out the state, even if you was free.”

  “Mama, when the good people help slaves to escape, how do the slaves know that they’ll really end up free?”

  “You can ask that about anybody who gets help to run. We don’t know, Sarah, we don’t know where people really end up. But some people think that it’s worth it to take the chance.”

  “Did Miss Adeline say how many people they helped to escape?”

  “No, and Sarah, not a word of this to her or anyone else when we get to the church, all right?”

  That Saturday, Eddie told us during the morning meal that Mr. Allen wanted us to accompany him to the slave market. As we neared Royal Street, we saw shackled men, women, and children bound to each other as armed men took them to the auction block. We stood in the first row next to Mr. Allen and his agent. The auctioneer brought forward two tall young men wearing pants but no shirts. They looked straight ahead, at a distant point beyond the people in front of them. The auctioneer pointed to their chests and told them to turn. They had no lash marks or scars.

  “As you can see, these seventeen-year-old bucks are obedient. They are healthy, strong, and in their prime. They make excellent field hands. How much do I hear for the pair?”

  Men called out amounts of money until the auctioneer was satisfied that the sum was the highest it would go. More slaves were brought out in lots, sometimes as many as six at a time. When a group of four young women, also partially naked, walked to the front of the block, the auctioneer pointed at their breasts with a stick. He also told them to turn and show their backs, which bore no scars.

  “Anybody want to come up and knead their stomachs? Each one can give you ten to twelve future field hands.”

  I was thankful that no one touched them. Mr. Allen asked my mother what she thought of the four slaves as house servants, but her answer was barely audible. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Speak louder, Emmeline. I cannot hear you.”

  “Yes, sir, they would be good servants in the house.”

  The auction continued, and Mr. Allen or the agent asked my mother her opinion of the suitability of women slaves for different work. The auction ended when all the slaves were sold, about six hundred in total. Mr. Allen had bought twenty field hands and the girls. We returned to the hotel.

  My mother did not go to Mr. Allen that night, and we stayed up late. To keep herself from crying, my mother told me my favorite stories, many of which she had heard from her mother. One was about a woman named Lela whose husband had died, leaving her alone with a young daughter. The woman picked fruit and flowers and bartered them with her neighbors for meat and milk. One summer day, Lela was looking for berries by the river, finding not a single one, when she heard hissing. She saw an enormous blue and green snake wrapped around the trunk of a tree. The greedy reptile was moving its head from side to side.

  “Mr. Snake, you are eating all the berries. How am I ever to have any to barter with my neighbors so that my daughter and I can eat?”

  Snake ignored Lela as he slid down. She wanted to run away, but she had no food left at h
ome. Snake lifted his head and spoke to Lela.

  “What would you give me in exchange for some berries? Would you give me your daughter?”

  “Yes, I’ll give you my daughter for a basket full of fruit.”

  Snake nodded and Lela filled her basket until it was overflowing. As she walked home, she began to feel guilty and decided to take a roundabout way so that Snake would not know where she lived. She kept looking back but did not see him. She did not notice, however, that she had torn her skirt and that a piece of fabric remained on the thorn of a bush. She waded through a part of the river that was deep, hoping that there were no crocodiles in the water. She did not know that one of her berries had fallen and was floating behind her. She left the river and continued walking along the bank. She tripped on a stone and did not realize that some beads had come loose from her ankle bracelet. At last, seeing no sign of Snake, Lela arrived home. She went in and embraced her daughter. Lela knew that she had to tell her the truth.

  “My darling daughter, I am so sorry. I have made the worst mistake of my life. I am so ashamed.”

  “Mother, what is it? What did you do?”

  Lela cried. She shook her head. Finally she told her daughter what she had done. “I…I…I have done a terrible thing. I promised you to Snake. But I’m not going to give you to him.”

  Meanwhile, Snake had been following Lela, first finding the piece of fabric that was on the thorn, then the berry that had fallen from her basket into the river, and finally, the beads that had dropped on the ground from her ankle bracelet. When Snake arrived at Lela’s door, he hissed and slipped in. Lela jumped from the stool where she was repairing the tear in her skirt and stood in front of her daughter.

  “I did not mean what I said to you, Mr. Snake. I made a mistake. You can have your fruit back. Look, we barely touched it. No, I will not give her to you. I will not.”

  Lela’s daughter was a brave girl. “Mother, you taught me since I was little to keep my promises. Snake gave you a full basket of berries. I am Snake’s now.”

  Lela’s daughter stepped away from her mother, who tried to hold her back, and went to Snake. She touched his scaly skin. She got him a gourd of warm milk and made a bed for him in a reed basket. That night, Lela awoke when she heard gentle voices. There, sitting next to her daughter was a handsome young man in colorful robes. Her daughter was making him a bead necklace. Lela jumped from her bed and looked into the basket where Snake had curled up to sleep. There was only a long blue-green skin. Lela took the skin and threw it in the fire. Then the young chief spoke.

  “At last, as it was foretold many generations ago, the spell has been broken by a wise young girl who pitied me and a foolish old woman who burned my skin.”

  The young chief married Lela’s daughter at a wedding celebration attended by all the villagers who lived along the river’s banks.

  We went to Miss Adeline’s church that Sunday. The majority of the members were freedmen. Miss Adeline was sitting near the front in a pew with her family, and they had saved seats for us. Service had not begun but the choir was singing. I do not remember the sermon that day, probably because I spent my time looking at the parishioners, who were better dressed than any of us at Allen Estates, including four young men who were dressed in merchant sailors’ uniforms similar to ones I had seen at the wharf.

  When the services concluded, Miss Adeline presented us to the pastor and some of the church elders in the pastor’s office. “Brothers and sisters, this is Miss Emmeline, her daughter Sarah, and Mr. Eddie. They’re from the Allen plantation up in Benton County. Miss Emmeline needs to ask you all something.”

  The parishioners welcomed us to their church.

  My mother said, “Thank you all for having us here. We come down here because my girl…well, my master sold my girl and two others, and I’m just asking if anybody heard of any girls getting sold around here from up Benton County way. Since Mr. Allen got a brother down here that own a plantation, I was thinking maybe he sold her to his brother.”

  “No, Miss Emmeline, I ain’t heard nothing,” one of the men said.

  “Me neither,” the pastor said. “But why don’t we do this. Brother Samuel is working right now at Mr. Charles Allen’s place, and he’ll be there for another two weeks or so. When he comes back, we can ask him if he knows anything.”

  “Oh…but we’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Miss Emmeline, we really wish we could help you. Maybe what we can do is, if anybody we know goes up to Benton County, we can send word if we hear something about your daughter. I really wish there was something more we could do for you, but we will continue to pray that the Lord delivers us from this wickedness soon.”

  “Yes, pastor. Thank you.”

  We returned to the hotel as dejected as we were when we arrived in Mobile. The next day, the male slaves Mr. Allen bought at the auction were on the steamboat that we boarded to go back to the plantation. They placed them in an area with slaves who had been purchased by other planters. The girls Mr. Allen bought were not among this lot. I asked my mother where they were, and she said that he had given them to his brother. Eddie saw me staring at the young men.

  “They come a long way, from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Maryland. It’s all right, Sarah. Don’t cry. Like the pastor said, one day the Lord’s going to deliver us from this evil.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SARAH CAMPBELL

  MRS. ALLEN AND CLARISSA WERE STILL IN GEORGIA when we returned to Allen Estates. We had just as much work to do because Mr. Allen continued to entertain planters and their wives. Since Clarissa was not at home, my mother told me to help the others serve food. The week that we returned from Mobile, Mr. Allen had special guests, a gentleman and his wife from England, whom my mother said he had met in London. They were touring the states and had already been to New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. The work and the exotic guests were a welcome diversion from always thinking about Belle.

  When someone used a term with which he was not familiar, the English gentleman asked what it meant and wrote it in his journal, which he had at all times, even at meals. He expressed surprise that the servants were clean and well dressed, and his wife visited the kitchen and complimented my mother on her cooking. Mr. Allen took them to the fields, and at supper one evening they commented about the efficiency of the plantation, noting that the slaves appeared healthy and well fed. They said that their visit was not at all what they had expected based upon reports by Northerners.

  About two weeks after we returned from Mobile, my mother told me when she returned to the cabin in the morning that Belle was coming home.

  “Mama, do you really think it’s true?”

  “Yes. Mr. Allen said so.”

  I could not believe that Belle was coming home, but just the possibility made me delirious. I jumped out of bed. My mama and I were both smiling for the first time since Mr. Allen sold Belle.

  “When, Mama? When do you think she’ll be home?”

  “I don’t know exactly when, but she’ll be coming home soon. The good Lord answered our prayers, and we need to give him thanks.”

  We knelt. “Lord, we thank you. Lord, you listened to the prayers of a poor, ignorant wretch and you softened Mr. Allen’s heart and you’re bringing her back. Lord, I know I did wrong before by not praying to you more before they took my child. But I know better now, Lord. Amen.”

  About two weeks later, we were preparing dinner when we heard people outside the kitchen. We went outside, and there was Belle with a swollen belly and wearing a filthy tattered dress. Belle did not look like my sister. The Belle who had returned had a scar on her upper lip, dry gray skin, and her hair had been cut short like a man’s. This Belle kept her head down. My mother and I led her to our cabin. She sat at the table and we offered her something to eat and drink, but she took little.

  “Just sleep, Mama. I just need some sleep,” she said.

  My mother told me to go back to the kitchen to help finish cooking the mea
l, even though I wanted to stay.

  “You’re going to spend time with her come nighttime.”

  When we finished cooking and the Allens were eating, my mother came to the kitchen and told us that Belle was asleep. At our suppertime, we returned to our cabin, and I saw that she had cleaned Belle up some and put her in a nightdress. Belle was silent throughout our meal. I could not stop staring at her rough elbows and hands. Afterward, my mother rubbed her shoulders and back, and I put my ear to Belle’s stomach, hoping to hear the baby. That was when Belle cried. My mother embraced her.

  “Shush, my sugar. Shush, my baby. Shush.”

  I wanted to know what had happened to Belle, but I realized that whatever it was, she was not prepared to tell the tale. After supper, at my mother’s direction, I pumped two pails from the well and took them back to our cabin, where I heated the water and put it in the tub. As we washed her, we could see scars, welts, and scabs on her back, arms, legs, and some even on her belly. We oiled her hair and my mother braided it into neat plaits. When she fell asleep that night, I asked my mother what had happened to Belle.

  “She’s all right. She’s back with us now. That’s all that matters.”

  My mother, with Miss Mary’s help, prepared special herbs for Belle during the final months of her pregnancy. Her appearance improved and her hair grew longer than before she was sold. Mrs. Allen gave my mother permission to decrease the amount of Belle’s work after Miss Mary said that Belle was having twins.

  Belle gave birth in our cabin, with Miss Mary helping my mother deliver the babies. My task was to make sure that there was sufficient hot water. When Emmie was born, my mother wiped her face and put her on Belle’s chest, but Belle looked away.