by Lisa Grace
The 15th Star
By
Lisa Grace
A Lisa Grace History - Mystery
© Copyright June 2012 All rights reserved by Lisa Grace, author
*
***
*****
***
*
Chapter 1 - Somewhere in Northern Georgia in late November of 1809
The day had started out hot and humid with the last of the late fall crop ready for picking. The slaves were working every minute of daylight. Every night after the Missus dismissed Grace from her sewing, she had to walk past the fields to get back to her quarters. She shared them with a slave named Seventy-Seven-Seven, who was superstitious and picked a number for a name for the luck it would bring her. Her other roommate was Miss Sally, a large middle-aged woman who took the young ones and watched them while their mothers were in the field. Miss Sally’s legs were always swollen twice as huge as her arms. It made it hard for her to walk and she could not stand in the fields all day. They had the smallest cabin and blocked the door every night to keep them safe from the men. Most of the men were afraid of Miss Sally. She was known to be violent to men and rumor was she suffocated a man once by lying on him with all her weight. When the men came around drunk they would move on and pick an easier target.
Lately, as she’d been walking home nights she’d noticed that Mr. Copper one of the white bosses had been eyeing her, licking his lips. She knew what that meant. He was going to try an catch her alone. She’d known this day was going to come. She just thought she would run before then. They called him Mr. Copper because if you gave him a copper penny he’d let you head in a little earlier or give you an easier job for the day. All those coppers added up. There was also an unspoken rule on the plantation. Young women were supposed to be having babies. Babies that would grow up and be worth something. More workers for the field or to sell. Grace had become a young woman last year when she’d gotten the curse. She tried to hide it, but word gets out. She was small for her age so she managed to hide it longer than most. On their plantation the white bosses preferred to do the business of getting the girls with child. She’d heard whispers they would gamble for which woman they wanted. Some of the girls did it with no complaints. They wanted half-white babies. It might lead to easier jobs in the big house or if they were very lucky, their babies might even be able to pass for white.
Grace started doing everything she could to avoid Mr. Copper. She would run home at night. Or even run the opposite way from the house. Once she hid in a wagon of hay for the night. But this night there was no avoiding him because the Mister of the house actually invited him into the kitchen off the back porch where she worked.
The Mister came in with Mr. Copper following right behind with his hat in his hand, “Grace, please get Mr. Copper a glass of lemonade.”
“Hello Grace,” Mr. Copper was looking at the ground. He couldn’t even look her in the eye.
“Mr. Copper is going to be escorting you home in the evenings from now on Grace. It’s not safe for a young lady like you to be walking home alone. Do you understand? Grace?”
She stood there in shock holding the glass of lemonade she had poured for Mr. Copper.
The Mister was approving of what was going on. He knew what was going to happen on that walk home. He was handing her over like a sacrificial lamb. And now he wanted her to agree to it. She had pride. She would not go into the night with Mr. Copper.
“No, Mister. I don’t need Mr. Copper or any man walkin me home. I been walkin every night alone since I was six and no one cared for all them years. I be just fine.” Grace stood there looking up at Mister right in the eye.
For a minute Mister just stood there then he smiled at her, not a nice smile, “Just the same he’ll be walking you home from now on. Give Mr. Copper his lemonade. He’s thirsty. Goodnight Mr. Copper,” Mister said as he walked off into the peace and safety of his lovely home.
Mr. Copper sat down at the table as Grace contemplated running out the door and down the hill. She walked over to the door and saw a couple of the other white bosses mingling about. They looked at her standing in the door. One even waved and made an obscene gesture.
Grace’s face got hot. She was so ashamed. Everyone knew what was going to happen and no one was going to help. She had one last hope. She would run into the house and find Missus. She would be shocked and know what to do. She would shame them.
Grace turned an ran back into the house as Mr. Copper stayed in the kitchen. He called out, “Grace!” He dare not follow her into the house. She ran into the parlor and there the Missus was, sitting with her youngest reading him a book.
“Grace, what’s wrong?”
Missus turned to her child and said, “Go upstairs we will finish reading in bed. Go now, get into your nightshirt. Go now, it is all right,” The little boy looked at his Mam and then ran up the stairs.
“Grace, what is wrong?”
“Missus, they want me to be with a man. Bible says not to and they want me to,” She looks down at her feet and whispers, “even Mister wants me to.”
Missus is silent. Grace risks a glance at her.
She doesn’t see a look of shock on the Missus’ face the way she expected, just a look of sadness.
“Grace, how long have you had the curse now?” she asked.
“Most a year,” Grace whispered.
“The only way we keep our home working and providing good food for you to eat, and a nice home for all who live here, is to have workers. We all have a job to do. I have children too, and they all come into the world the same way. Your duty, for the home we’ve given you, is to have children. There’s no sense in you marrying. Any young buck we set you up with might eventually have to be sold off. It would only be misery for you. It’s better this way. If your children have some white in them, that’s for the best. Mr. Copper is a good man willing to do the job. Grace, your children will be able to get easier work. You don’t want them picking in the fields now do you? You be a good girl and go with him. It won’t be so bad. This is something every woman goes through. Me with the Mister, now you with Mr. Copper. You’ll see, when you have your babies it will all be worth it. Children are a blessing and you’re going to love those babies more than you can ever know right now. You will see Grace.”
The Missus got up, grabbed Grace by the hand, and walked her to the hallway leading to the kitchen. The Missus gave her a little push, then gestured for Grace to walk down the hall and back to where she’d come from. Grace walked into the kitchen where Mr. Copper was still sitting at the table finishing his lemonade.
“Let’s get you home girl,” he said.
Grace prayed all that walk home. When she got to the door and opened it, Mr. Copper pushed her in and slid the bolt in place. Miss Sally and Seventy-Seven-Seven weren’t there. She fought him, but it was no use. He was tall and big. He did his business twice that night.
In the middle of the night to the sound of the frogs, cicadas, and crickets, she cleaned up as best she could. She put her shift on and took Mr. Copper’s hat and coat. She couldn’t stand the smell of him on it, but knew she would need them. She put the coat on as quietly as she could and placed the hat on her head. She found her sewing kit and shoved it in her pocket. She put on her only pair of shoes. Grace slid the bolt carefully. Mr. Copper didn’t care if she left now. He was looking forward to sleeping after what he’d done.
She passed one of the fires and picked up a water bucket. Grace dumped out the water from the wooden pail. She knelt down and used a stick to push the burning coals into the bucket, not caring if she got burned. She made sure to get the hottest coals, the
ones that looked like they have gray chalk growing on them like the gray-green moss on a big old rock in the swampier parts of the forest. Steam hissed as the coals hit the remaining puddle of water in the bottom of the bucket. The sound pleased her anger.
Grace didn’t care if anyone saw her. She went to the field and walked through it until she was as close to the house as she could get. It had been a dry end of summer and fall. The air feeling humid and heavy, but never dropping any rain. The fields would burn quick. She laid the coals down, pouring them out of the bucket as if they were flaming water. She wondered if she would be able to keep ahead of the flames, then realized she didn’t care. It was in God’s hands now. Grace left the wood bucket with some coals in it, knowing it would be eaten up by the fire. She felt the heat rising and saw the flames grow taller than the cotton bushes. The seeds in the cotton exploded with little popping sounds. They sounded just like the boss men’s shotgun pops but without the booming echo that follows. They were getting what they deserved. Feeling the heat, Grace started to run for the woods. She crossed the road and entered the forest on the other side as calls of “fire!” rang out in the night. If she was lucky, all hands would go to fight the fire and think she was just off pouting. It turned out for once she was lucky.
***
When she had first run, she told herself that she set the fire to the cotton field to distract the men and the hounds. It worked. While fighting the fire, they didn’t have time to worry about one little slave girl. She’d set the fire as close to the main house as she could. They wouldn’t want that to burn. She hoped it caught and smoked and smoldered with flames shooting so high she could see them above the treetops as she left that hateful place. Her heart was burning with the knowledge that they’d never seen her as more than one of the donkeys they used to pull a cart. She thought her skill with a needle showed them she was more than an animal to be bred like a cow. The Missus had talked to her everyday. How could she not know? She wanted to hurt the Mister and Missus as bad as they’d hurt her.
She walked for almost two days straight, not stopping for anything, always heading north.
By the third day Grace’s feet were sore and bleeding. When a slow moving trotter passed her, she hopped in the back of the wagon he was pulling. It held bags of cotton. For all she knew they had come from the plantation she had worked. Her feet, all bloody and swollen from walking, needed a rest.
The trotting horse and wagon was driven by an older slave man. She didn’t think he had notice her hopping on.
Then about an hour into the ride he asked her, “You runnin?”
Grace said nothing.
“God smiling on you today, I’m takin this load north all the way to Balty-more. They got some slaves there, buts they got free ones too. You be careful and you’ll get lucky. Say your freeman die a jack tar on a ship with all your papers goin’ down at the bottom of the sea.”
She rode in silence, thinking about what he’d said. He kept talking and Grace just listened. “Bal-ty-more is right by the sea. You ever seen the water? You never seen so much water in yer life. Plenty a freeman jack tars work them big ships. Yep. They’s can’t proven you not a freeman’s wife.”
He was silent for awhile.
“I got a daughter and a wife back down south. They’s on another farm. I only gets to see them on a Sunday ifs I can handle the walkin.”
Even though he was friendly enough, Grace would not talk. She was too afraid he could figure where she ran from and then turn her in for a ransom. It was best to keep quiet. Even if what he said was true, it didn’t change her life none. Best to keep quiet.
“Freedom. Yep, you be careful and you will get lucky.” And that was exactly what happened and did not happen.
***
When she first reached Maryland, Grace found the leftover needles, floss, and thread she’d taken with her, along with one of the Missus’ handkerchief’s she’d been fixing up pretty. Grace decided she would lie. The driver of the wagon had told her what to say. She was free and needing work. She knew how to talk proper from working in the house and she had a skill so her story would sound true. She would say her man had died on one of the big sailing ships and her free papers had gone with him when they buried him at sea.
She found a busy street near some nice homes. The homes here were all squished together. Big, but not as big back where she was from. Grace held up the handkerchief and approached two servant girls giggling and rushing home with the day’s produce and meats carried in baskets slung over their arms.
“Pardon me, Misses? Do you know of a lady who might need some sewing done?”
The girls stopped smiling and looked at her. They took in her dirty coat hanging almost to the ground, the funny hat, a workman’s style stained with sweat, and her thread bare shoes.
Grace kept talking. If they could hear that she knew how to talk proper maybe they would take pity on the way she looked and not just walk away, “My man died aboard a ship and I must now fend for myself. Please, if you know of anyone who can use a widow like me for sewing…” She threw in a quick curtsey to show she knew her place. She held out the sewing for the girls to see.
“You sewed this?” The younger looking girl said as she shifted the weight of the basket to her other arm. Grace nodded, “Yes Ma’am.”
The older girl piped up, “Looking like that no lady is going to hire you! You should clean up a bit and put on a proper servant’s dress.”
The younger one who was about Grace’s age looked at her, “I can’t imagine not having a proper dress. I have heard my lady complaining that Mary Pickersgill is so busy sewing colors for the ships that she cannot promise her new Christmas linens in time for the season. She must need help. I would try Missus Pickersgill first. Since she works with ship captains, she may not be so picky as to how you look.”
The older girl elbowed the younger one and whispered in her ear.
The younger one pulled back and said, “Oh posh! She needs some Christian charity and you can’t tell me what to do!”
The older girl glared at Grace but turned her face away as soon as she started to talk, “We cannot chat any longer, good day.” She took off heading on her way.
The little one said, “Mrs. Pickersgill, Mary Pickersgill, I think. I know she must need the help and your work is very fine,” she smiled and hurried after the other girl.
Now all Grace had to do was work up the courage to ask a stranger the way to Missus Pickersgill’s house.
Grace asked other passing servants, “Pardon me Miss, do you know the way to Missus Pickersgill’s house?” The first two ignored her and pretended not to hear. The next servant girl who was big and smiley, and was close to Grace’s own coloring, stopped as Grace repeated her question.
“Calling me a Miss? You done made my day! Girl, you go down three streets,” she pointed to her left. “Go this way,” she pointed to her right, “Keep walkin til yous see a flag or two hanging over a red brick house with a door by the corner. That’s her house. You best know to go ‘round the back. Talkin the way you do, you might have some wrong ideas that get you beat! Callin me a Miss, ain’t that a ho-ho!” She laughed hard with her big belly shaking and seeming to move her whole body down the street.
Grace did as she was told. When she came to the house, she walked around to the back door and stood there. Someone in the kitchen had been cooking. She could smell the last of a hot breakfast blowing away on the breeze. Bacon and eggs. Grace’s stomach growled. As she got the courage up to knock on the back door, it opened. A heavy white lady with a bucket full of dirty dishes came out to the water pump and eyeballed Grace. “What you want, girl?” she asked.
Grace followed behind her as she walked the few steps to the pump.
“Pardon Missus, I am here to seek employment. I am a fine seamstress and can show a sample of my work. My husband died aboard a ship and I must work now. I was told Missus Pickersgill could use some extra help. Can you please ask her to see me?”
&
nbsp; “To seek employment…some mighty fine words—what happened to your clothes?” she asked as she pumped the water out, not stopping to look at Grace.
Grace thought fast and answered, “They were stolen?” Then with conviction, “They were stolen. All I had left was my husband’s old coat and hat, and the shift and shoes I only wore on cleaning day. I am in a desperate situation.”
“Desperate situation? Seek employment? A young widow? You don’t look old enough to even have your monthlies yet.”
Grace felt herself blushing again.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry for my dress. I am hurting enough. I do know how to sew. I need work to eat. Here is a piece of my work.” Grace held out the handkerchief for the servant to see.
The servant stopped pumping, stood stretching her back, and looked at Grace’s handiwork. She noted the fine stitches that took skill to render. She looked at Grace with a sad smile the hardness of her words before—gone. “I’m sorry girl. I’m a widow myself. Let me go see if Mrs. Pickersgill is in mind to talk to you. Wait on the back stoop where she can look out to see you.”
She reached out for the handkerchief, “I think it’s best if I show her your work first.”
Grace held onto it not sure what to do. It was the only proof she had of her skill.
“I’m not going to steal it, girl. I have bolts of cloth and silks stored from the cellar to the rafters. It’s hard to find places to store it all.” She chuckled and shook her head. With that she reached out and plucked it from Grace’s hands and took it in the back door.
Grace waited on the stoop. After a minute she could hear voices talking and floorboards creaking, but she couldn’t make out the words. The smell of fried eggs and fatback drifted out again, and her mouth began to water. Her insides were so hungry it was hard to stand up straight. The cramps and growls from her innards reminded her she hadn’t eaten in two days. The old man who gave her a ride had shared a little of what he had, but his food ration for himself was so sparse, Grace felt guilty for the bite or two she’d taken.
***