When I told her I was thirteen years, the old woman made a face and barked, “And you don’t know what a dabbler is? Where you been, girl?”
That night I learned that a dabbler is like an old horse trader—only he buys, sells, trades, and breeds slaves to make money. Some of the men who had come from the auction house in town said they heard the other owners giving old Master Stewart a hard time. They felt cheated because Master Stewart would hear about an owner’s having money trouble and get to him before he came to the auction. Master Stewart would choose the man’s best slaves and buy them low, but the owner saved himself the auction fee. Master Stewart kept them for a while and then sold them high to make a lot of money.
That was why Master Stewart was so afraid of one of his slaves starting a rebellion. The slaves never grew up on his plantation, so he couldn’t trust them. He would get rid of someone at a whim; but the truth be told, he didn’t trust any of us—born here or not. We all had to be so careful not to talk in the house. I always feared I might be traded away if Ms. Victoria heard me complaining.
It is never safe when you is a slave, and I hated living out in the field cabins. You can’t go trusting nobody. Every night, all they did in the evenings was tell stories about what it was like on other plantations. They would tell about beatings, hangings, and masters who would violate the women—both young and old. I wanted to hate old Master Stewart for throwing me out of the house and into that hellhole, but then, when I heard how so many other slaves were treated, I was confused. Here I was in this terrible place—but still feeling thankful it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I thought I was locked out of the main house forever.
I was thirteen when I forgot myself for a moment and was tossed into that hellhole. “One more year,” the old woman would snarl at me as she pointed her gnarly finger in my face. “One more year and old Master Stewart is going to tag you; just you wait. You will wear a badge on your skirt that tells all the breeding slaves that you are free for the taking and don’t you dare refuse them. Old Master Stewart will haul you off to the auction house that very day. Then you’ll know what it’s like out here, you soft little kitchen girl; just you wait and see.”
That mean old slave woman enjoyed telling me all about dabblers. She wanted me to be scared as she told me what old Master Stewart did for a living. Her toothless grin reminded me of the same look the old hunting dog gave when the cook tossed a soup bone out in the yard. No one got near that dog when he was enjoying that bone—and that old woman was enjoying puttn me in my place. “Old Master Stewart is a dabbler. He runs his business with only two goals: keep him and his family safe, and build his stock—that be us slaves.”
Old Master Stewart had very few rules: 1) Don’t couple with non-childbearing women, 2) Don’t couple with a pregnant woman, 3) Don’t damage my inventory, 4) Girls are to be tagged at age fourteen, and 5) Order the girls not to refuse.
I already knew all of these rules. I had seen plenty of girls “taken” as they called it. Of course, no love was talked about. These men were not gentle. They didn’t care about the girls. These men knew they would be bred and traded off well before any baby would take its first breath, so who cares? I knew that was how I had come to be, and I hated the idea—just like my momma hated it. She wanted and deserved to experience love and caring. But without any choices, that was never going to be. I knew that my tagging was coming soon.
I spent that whole year working in the fields and watching the tagged girls being taken. Just before turning fourteen, I was called back up to the main house. As I walked up to the back door, I was sure it my tagging time and I felt powerless to do anything about it, but instead, I was given a job in the kitchen.
Always fearful of catching some illness from the dirty slave quarters, old Master Stewart kept the house slaves in cleaner quarters closer to the house, and they were also off limits to the men. It took some days before it sank in that I was now safe! If’n I kept my tongue, I was never going to be tagged.
I had thought I had been banished from the house forever, but Old Master Stewart gave me a second chance. I didn’t know why I got a second chance, but I was never going to do anything that would send me back into that hellhole—not if I could help it. Then one day while washing the breakfast dishes, Ms. Victoria slipped into the kitchen and told me she had pleaded with old Master Stewart to give me another chance. After months out in the fields as punishment, he had relented and had allowed me back into the house, but not as a helper to Victoria. I was to begin my training in the kitchen. I knew I owed this change of station to Ms. Victoria, and I loved her for it. I was going to spend the rest of my life showing my loyalty to Ms. Victoria. I knew that Ms. Victoria had saved me. Ms. Victoria’s happiness was all that stood between me and that hellhole in the field house.
For the next two years, from ages fourteen to sixteen, I set about learning how to run the kitchen. When Ms. Victoria turned sixteen, she married the young Master Stewart. For the next year, life was crazy around the house. Old Master Stewart took ill and spent months in his bed. His wife had passed away just weeks after the wedding, and the old Master simply stopped caring about anything. Under these circumstances, the young Master began taking over.
Everything was about to change in the house, even for me. I remember the day I got my hands on the tin box. It was three weeks after Ms. Victoria’s wedding, and old Mrs. Stewart had just passed on. She had been sick unto death for many months, and we all knew she had simply held on so she could see her boy married. The doctor had tried every powder, potion, ointment, cream, and sedative known at the time, but nothing worked.
In desperation, young Master Stewart had seen an ad advertising Europe’s most advanced medicinal cures in one of his fancy magazines, and he had promptly sent away for it. I remember the day it arrived, and Master Stewart’s unwrapping the package. They were all excited to see what was inside the box, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the pretty tin box, which was covered in red enamel with fake silver decorations and a beautiful latch. Although the tin box was fancy, nothing inside the box had proven helpful. Even Europe’s most advanced medical cures brought his mother no relief.
That morning Ms. Victoria came into the kitchen as I was finishing up with the dishes and asked me to follow her upstairs. I had not been up those stairs since I was thirteen years old and had never been in the Master’s bedroom. She explained that old Master Stewart had not slept in the room for almost a year. Once his wife had taken sick, he had moved into another bedroom. Ms. Victoria had joked, “He said it was to allow her more room and comfort, but we all know how afraid he is of catching some disease—even from his wife. Now that she is gone, he refuses to return to his bedroom.”
I wondered why Ms. Victoria was telling me all of this, but then I realized she was simply prattling on as she always had as a child. She was not really talking to me; rather, she was expressing her nervous excitement at getting to move into the biggest bedroom in the house. She needed me to help clear out every reminder of the old mistress before young Master Stewart returned home from a business trip.
First, we emptied out the chifferobe of all his mother’s dresses and shoes. Then we quickly emptied out the large burl wood dresser that had always been his mother’s most prized possession. She and old Master Stewart had bought it in Europe while on their wedding trip. Ms. Victoria smiled as she rubbed witch hazel oil over it and said, “Just think, Hannah, this was out of some castle in Europe, and now it belongs to me.”
I was not impressed—just good and tired of all the trips up and down the stairs carrying piles of clothes to the pantry. Most of them, which were too worn out for her taste, were considered too fancy for any of us slaves. Ms. Victoria decided to sell them to the rag man the next time he stopped by.
As we were finishing the task, young Master Stewart returned home. He climbed the stairs, heard his wife talking and came in to see her progress. As he walked around the room for a moment, he said, “Good work, Victoria.
Even her smell is gone. I guess it would be okay for us to move in here.”
Ms. Victoria squealed with delight, until her husband froze in his steps. Turning toward the fancy European tin box that was still sitting on his mother’s side table, he pointed at it and said to me, “Hannah, get rid of that box! I never want to see it again. If that company had spent half as much time making sure the cures were as nice as that box, maybe my mother might have survived.”
That was the day I took ownership of the fancy tin box. Well, not actually ownership. Master Stewart wanted it gone to where he would never see it again. I could have sold it to the tinker who came by to buy and sell things, or I could have tossed it in the rubbish pile. Young Master Stewart would not have cared; but no slave of his dared to claim ownership of anything he owned—even things he wanted gone.
I took it down into the root cellar and tightly wrapped it in a burlap sack so it would not get scratched. A casual glance at the bundle would not give away the fact that I had not gotten rid of it. For years, that tin box was my happy little secret. I was a slave, but I owned something fancy and beautiful! Even though I never dared unwrap it and look at it, just knowing I owned it always brought a smile on my face.
As soon as the Old Master passed, Young Master got busy making changes. The first thing he did was to hire a crew to build on a wing to the main house and a new canning shed. Young Master Stewart had little interest in his father’s business. While serving his breakfast, I heard him tell Ms. Victoria, “Being a dabbler turns my stomach. Instead of running this place the way my daddy did, I am looking into expanding the orchards and the vegetable gardens. Not needing as many slaves as my daddy tended to keep around, I will weed through the group, find those who had experience in gardening and begin selling off the rest. Since I will not be breeding any longer, more than half of the females will be taken to auction. I can’t see any sense in feeding unproductive help.”
I remember standing at the pantry window watching them load the field women on the wagons to take them to auction. Again, I owed Ms. Victoria for me not being on one of those wagons.
The old master died before his first and only grandson, Charles, came into this world. Two years later, Ms. Victoria had a girl, and they named her Elizabeth, and life was happy.
CHAPTER 11
How I Married Charlie
AS TOBIAS REMEMBERED Hannah’s story about Charlie, an old warning from Auntie Ruby rose up in his soul, “Toby Boy, don’t you get overtaken in bitterness when you think of my daddy. Bitterness is a fruit that kills all other taste. When my daddy was sold off, I almost lost all of my memories of the precious days I had with him because all I could remember was how I felt the day he was hauled away.”
Smiling out the train window, Tobias chuckled to himself, “Oh, Auntie Ruby, you knew me really well. You knew I would struggle with the injustice of it all, and I would miss the sweetness if I wasn’t careful.”
With this warning securely planted in his heart, Tobias allowed himself to return to Great-Grandma Hannah’s story about marrying Daddy Charlie.
While Ms. Victoria was going over the menu for the week, she up and said, “Hannah, don’t you want children? It is such a wonderful feeling to hold your own child.”
I was now twenty, but wasn’t ready to start messing with no men. Because the male slaves who survived the auction house were no longer traded in and out, I had started to notice one or two of the younger ones, but I kept my distance. Old Master Stewart was long dead, but he still scared me. All I dared say to Ms. Victoria was, “I wouldn’t mind having a baby.”
The next thing I knew, Ms. Victoria had up and picked out a husband for me. I guess Ms. Victoria figured any old healthy buck would do, ’cuz theys all thinks black slaves don’t care about love like white folk does.
The next day Ms. Victoria brings Charlie Bascom up to the kitchen, shows him to me, and that was that. We was given the old cook’s quarters that was at the far edge of the garden. Young Master Stewart moved it there to make room for the new wing, and ten months later Tobias was born. The year was 1845.
Charlie was a nice enough man. He was kind and never hurt me; I just didn’t love him. But I did like him right enough.
Three years later, while I was carrying the girls, young Master Stewart made a deal with one of the large plantation owners. He traded five of his less productive slaves for two slaves who were well-trained in gardening. When they were delivered and young Master Stewart was recording them into his ledger book that he kept in his desk, he called me into his office. “Hannah, I have just made a trade for two very good gardeners. The trouble is, one of them is named Tobias. He is a fully grown man, and I can’t change his name now, so I need you to change your Tobias’ name. It is too confusing to have two with the same name.”
I dared not argue with Master Stewart, but we had called my boy, Tobias, for three whole years, and Master Stewart wanted me to think up a name right then and there so he could change it in his slave’s ledger—just like that. That day I added a middle name—something most slaves never had. I decided upon the name “Samuel,” and young Master Stewart looked up where he had added Tobias to the ledger the day he was born and noted, “From today on, Tobias Bascom will henceforth be known as Samuel.” Five months later, my Pearl and Ruby came along and always knew him as their brother Samuel.
For six years me and Charlie was allowed to live in the cook’s cabin as a family. Daddy Charlie, as I called him, worked out in the orchard and garden all day long. Once Samuel turned four, he would go along and help wherever he could. Everyone knew things were changing around the country; even the field slaves had their own way of finding out things. I was very careful not to talk out of turn for fear of being overheard, but in the safety of our cabin, Charlie and me knew some bad times was coming.
Samuel was only five, but he overheard me and his daddy arguing about the threat of war. Daddy Charlie was all for it, believing that anything that would bring us freedom could not be bad. I did not agree with him. I was set on remaining true and loyal to Ms. Victoria. Every day I could see that Ms. Victoria was worried that she might lose everything. Ms. Victoria’s being in such a state was upsetting to me.
Ms. Victoria would tell me how much she feared some of the things the government was doing. The Compromise of 1850 was worrying all of the slave owners. They knew things were moving quickly and talk of seceding from the Union could only mean that war was inevitable.
Ms. Victoria did not even think how I might be frightened by this news. I was just “Hannah” to her. I think Ms. Victoria was so afraid she was going to lose everything, she did what she always did, turn to me, her trusted helper since she came to the plantation at the age of eight. I don’t think she was even capable of looking at me like another woman; I was simply Hannah.
Ms. Victoria told me that Master Stewart and other slave owners were beginning to have meetings to warn of new laws coming along and what they should do to protect themselves. The owners knew that the time was quickly coming when no one would be able to sell—even their best and strongest slaves.
One night Master Stewart came home from one of these meetings, having decided that his most valuable stock—every male under the age of thirty-five—must go to auction. I had seen his buggy coming up the drive and had prepared a light snack for him. I tray’d it up and started heading for his library, but hearing Ms. Victoria’s voice arguing with the Master, I froze just outside the library door. Because of her fondness for me and the twins, Ms. Victoria questioned Master Stewart about my Charlie.
“He must go, Victoria,” he said with an uncommonly harsh voice. He never raised his voice to her, until that night. “Victoria, he is too valuable to keep. I have already sold many of my daddy’s slaves, but now that we are being pressed by all of these new laws, I need to sell off the most valuable ones while I still can. Victoria, we might be able to force a compromise with the North, but I doubt it. You and I cannot sustain our lifestyle if war breaks out,
and we don’t know when that will happen. I need to prepare for it. Right now, because I restructured this plantation, we are sitting pretty. We raise fruits and vegetables—not cotton. Embargos are killing the other plantation owners, but everyone needs fruits and vegetables. I don’t need young, strong slaves for this type of work.”
“But what about Hannah and the girls?” “Victoria, we can bring Hannah and the twins into the house. We can move the dry storage room out to the old canning shed, and I will build a smoked meat house next to it. That will free up the two rooms beyond the new kitchen. Hannah and the girls can have those two rooms. Will that make you happy? But her boy Samuel cannot come in. He has to live with the men. Samuel is nine years old and can do a hard day’s labor all by himself. I couldn’t get much for him anyway. This way, everybody wins.”
I quietly returned to the kitchen, put down the tray, and headed out to our cabin. Charlie had all three of our children tucked into bed and was waiting up for me. At first I tried not to tell him what I had overheard, but he could see I was holding back something. After some poke’n and prodd’n, I finally told him what Master Stewart was planning. “Right, everybody wins? What are we supposed to tell Samuel and the girls? Charlie, I never wanted a family because I didn’t want this kind of pain. But now, after living as a family for eight years, I realize that I love you and you are a good daddy, and now my children are going to feel the pain of losing their daddy.”
Trying to keep me calm, Charlie asked, “Did he say how soon this is going to happen?”
“Right away, I think. Master Stewart wants to beat the other owners to auction so he can get top money. As I was backing away from the library door, I heard him tell Ms. Victoria, ‘I stopped by the photographer before coming home. He agreed to be here tomorrow to take pictures of every slave I intend to sell. He promised me he would have the slave bulletins ready by the week’s end.’ ”
Treasure in a Tin Box (Wall of Silence Book 1) Page 9