Treasure in a Tin Box (Wall of Silence Book 1)

by Dorey Whittaker

  Tobias looked around to see where Ruth had been all this time. She was still deep in conversation. They had now been on the train for six hours, and Tobias needed to stretch his legs. He secured all of their belongings and made his way back to where Ruth was sitting. “Pardon the interruption, but Ruth, would you like to stretch your legs before the train takes off again?”

  Ruth quickly answered, “Yes that would be so nice.” Turning back to the woman, she asked, “You are traveling up to Culpeper, Virginia, correct? I’ll be right back. I would like to hear the rest of your story.”

  The Five Points Station at Charlotte, North Carolina, was lovely. They kept their eye on the time, but the two of them wanted to walk the platform to drive the knots out of their legs. Neither was used to sitting so long and knew they had another five hours before reaching Lynchburg, Virginia, where they were scheduled to have a one-hour dinner stop.

  At the far end of the platform was a fruit stand. Ruth picked out three oranges, three apples, and two bananas. After paying for them, Tobias asked, “Why so much fruit, Ruth?”

  “Did you see the two little children sitting behind that woman I was talking to? Those are her grandchildren, and apart from those two molasses cookies I gave them, I don’t think they have eaten anything else since we boarded the train in Atlanta.”

  It was so like Ruth to pay attention to such matters. Tobias asked, “Ruth, do you think that woman would be offended if we went inside the station and bought two bottles of cold milk for the children? They have orange and grape Nehi soda at the snack counter, but cold milk might be better for them.”

  “She might be offended at first, but those children look hungry. I still have three more cookies in my bag. You wouldn’t mind going without your evening snack, would you?”

  Putting his arm around her waist, he teased, “Do you even need to ask?”

  They were the last ones to re-board the train. Ruth stopped at their seats, collected the cookies and returned to visit with the woman. Tobias knew Ruth would be able to share that food without offending the woman—because that was what Ruth did best.

  SECTION SEVEN

  THE SISTERS:

  Learning To Live Free

  1865-1904

  17. Ruby Remembers Life Above the Livery

  18. Pearl Remembers Freedom Has A Price Tag

  19. Ruby Remembers How Love Changed Things

  20. Joseph Tells His Story

  21. Pearl Remembers My Life With Joseph

  22. Ruby Remembers Arthur and I Had A Dream

  23. Pearl Remembers A Home for Us

  CHAPTER 17

  Ruby Remembers Life Above the Livery

  AS THE TRAIN pulled out of Five Points Station, Tobias knew he had five more hours of sitting to endure before their dinner stop. He thought about what his grandpa had done to keep his great-aunties safe in those caverns and how hearing that story had helped his young, frightened heart get through the worst of the Atlanta riots when he was only nine years old. Ms. Ruby told that story on the Tuesday of the riots. As it turned out, that was the last full day of rioting, but we did not yet know this. The large masses of rioters had finally been disbursed, but it still was not safe to move about. The riots had forced them into hiding; but in order to keep my mind occupied, the Sisters continued with the history of their family.

  That Wednesday morning, Mr. Ward slipped in our back door for a quick bite to eat and give us an update on the situation. Miss Buttons was to be buried that afternoon, but it was not a good idea to attend. Everyone was still fearful of attacks, and a large group of blacks at a funeral was simply asking for trouble. To comfort my broken heart, Ms. Pearl offered, “Toby, once it is safe, we will go place flowers on Miss Button’s grave.”

  I remember asking Mr. Ward, “Why are those people doing these terrible things?”

  I remember what he said that morning, but it took me years to fully understand his answer, which made no sense to me then or now. “Toby, lots of white people don’t mind us doing well—as long as we stay to ourselves, keep out of their way, and stay out of trouble. Most don’t even mind that we are building businesses and improving our lot in life. After the war, Atlanta had to rebuild, and us blacks got a chance to build along with it. With the help of some wealthy whites from up North, the Baptist Seminary has been educating our children and teaching our adults how to be self-sufficient.”

  “But Mr. Ward, that’s good. Why are all the white people angry?”

  “Not all white people are angry, Toby—just those white folks who are not doing as well. They are struggling to get by after the war, and they hate to see any blacks doing better than themselves. They still think we all should be back on the plantation, under some white man’s thumb. They think we are too ignorant to be trusted with self-will and self-determination, and they want to believe we are not capable of self-control. Toby, they are scared to death that we will show they are wrong about us. They have always felt superior to us—even the least of them to the best of us. I sure hope someday, boys like you, Toby, will get the chance to be all you can be without worrying about someone coming after you for being uppity.”

  Mr. Ward scowled and then added, “Toby, I have come to hate that word ‘uppity.’ We have every right to carve out a good life for ourselves and our family without somebody trying to put limits on us—just because they think we have no right to dream big dreams.”

  After breakfast, Mr. Ward slipped out the back door, and Ms. Pearl decided we no longer needed to sit on Ruby’s bedroom floor. We cleared the breakfast dishes and returned to the table where Ms. Ruby returned to the story about how they ended up living in the livery.

  At first Samuel did not want to take us back to the house, but Pearl and I begged him. I think we both believed that if we both yelled loud enough, Momma would come out of hiding. Of course, she didn’t. Walking through that big empty house all busted up and smelling awful, made us want to cry. The Army men had not only broken all of the windows, they had torn the doors off their hinges and had also kicked or knocked big holes in most of the walls. In utter disrespect, they even used it as a water closet.

  Pearl and I wanted to clean it up and stay there, hoping Momma would return, but Samuel said, “No, there is nothing here for us, Sisters.”

  We were just about to leave, when suddenly, Pearl took off running. Brother and I followed her, shouting, “Where are you going, Pearl?”

  We caught up with her as she was trying to move momma’s bed. “Brother, take the foot and help me move the bed.”

  “Pearl, I already checked the secret cellar. All the food is gone. I put the bed back after I checked it out because I knew Momma would have wanted me to.”

  “Brother, please!” The sound of Pearl pleading brought tears to my eyes, and I grabbed the bed and said, “Brother, just do it.”

  The hatch was barely out of the way before Pearl was climbing down into the cellar, making her way to the far back corner. “It is still here, Sister,” came Pearl’s call of relief. When she reached the ladder, she lifted Samuel’s tin box up into the opening. “Brother, Momma hid this back in the far corner of the cellar. I found it several years ago but did not tell Momma.”

  Brother sat down on Momma’s bed and unwrapped the tin box, then opened it and took out his daddy’s button. With big tears welling up in his eyes, Brother said, “I thought this was gone for good.” Wiping his eyes, Brother regained his composure and announced, “We need to make our way into Atlanta and start looking for our Momma.” He then explained, “It was dark the other night when I came here, but just now, I walked all around the yard and cannot find a fresh grave. Those men would not have taken our momma. They might have taken Ms. Carolyn and Ms. Victoria, but what would they have wanted with Momma? If they shot her, I think they would have left her where she fell. If they buried her, they would not have dragged her very far. So I don’t think Momma is dead. Maybe Ms.Carolyn and Ms. Victoria left here after we ran away, and they took Momma with them. M
aybe they are all in a house in town, waiting for this war to end.”

  Pearl, always the practical one, said, “But Brother, we cannot carry this tin box around looking for Momma. Someone will accuse us of stealing it. Maybe we should hide it back in the cellar until we find Momma.”

  We all agreed it was best to hide the tin box so Pearl climbed back down into the cellar and replaced the box in its safe hiding place, and then we made our way into town, hoping we might find Ms. Victoria because that was where our momma would be. We spent the next five months walking the streets, asking people if they had seen the Stewart family, but no one had. Brother picked up lots of day-labor jobs since all the able-bodied men were fighting the war. Samuel did lots of work for a man who owned a business, and he allowed us to sleep above his livery instead of paying Samuel for his labor.

  Pearl and I would knock on back doors asking if anyone needed any work done. We usually came back to the livery empty-handed, but every few days someone would give us a little food in exchange for a whole day of labor. Brother worked from sunup to sundown and kept food in our belly and a roof over our heads—even if our beds were made of hay.

  In April of 1865 when the news finally came that the war was over, Samuel said, “We need to go back home and wait for the Stewart family to return.”

  Pearl and I didn’t want to leave the livery. It had become home to us, and we remembered what the Stewart place had looked like and, even more, how it had smelled. It had not been burned to the ground like most of Atlanta, but it had been left in ruins. We finally talked Brother into taking a note to the house and nailing it on the wall in the entryway. We would tell the Stewarts where we were and ask if our momma was with them. We also agreed it was now safe to bring the tin box back to the livery. Three weeks after the war ended, Samuel made the long trek out to the Stewart place, retrieved his tin box, and hung my note in plain sight.

  Four months passed before we heard from Ms. Elizabeth. She was in town, waiting for her crippled husband to return home from the war. He had lost a leg in the battle of Allatoona Pass in October of 1864 and was finally coming home. Because of his wounds and age, her father, Master Stewart, who had been seriously wounded defending Savannah, had apparently been allowed to make his way home as soon as peace was declared. She said it was only a few days earlier that he felt strong enough to go see his house. He saw our note and sent her to come get us. She said they had been living at her home for the past several months.

  Ms. Elizabeth had two reasons to stop by the livery that day—one was to tell us our momma had died about a month after we ran off. Apparently, Ms. Victoria threw a tantrum after we left, and our Momma had tried to calm her down by showing her the root cellar. Ms. Victoria refused to climb down into it. Ms. Elizabeth, seeing her mother in such a state, ordered the remaining slaves to bring up all of the remaining jars and load them in the wagons. She then took her children, her mother, and our momma, back to her home. They were not even in the house when Sherman’s Army ransacked it. Ms. Elizabeth told us that her mother got very sick and would not be comforted. When the army troop arrived at Ms. Elizabeth’s house, Ms. Victoria stood on the front porch and screamed at the men so defiantly they did not know what to do. She was so out of her mind, screaming nonsense, they simply remounted their horses and rode off.

  Ms. Elizabeth said our momma tried everything, but Ms. Victoria would not yield. She walked the house all night long, calling for Master Stewart to come get her. Finally, one night while in a rage, Ms. Victoria fell down the stairs and passed. Ms. Elizabeth then added, “Your momma and I went out into my garden and dug Mother’s grave. We rolled Mother’s body onto a blanket, and the two of us dragged her body outside and buried her.” With more compassion than I had ever seen out of Ms. Elizabeth, she added, “I think that was just too much for your momma. Her spirit was broken, and she just sat in the kitchen all day, looking out into the garden. I truly believe Hannah loved my mother. About that time my daddy returned home to his plantation, saw the devastation the army had done to his place, and came here, hoping to find my mother. Instead, he learned she was dead. A few days later, your momma died. Daddy buried her out in the garden a few feet away from Mother. Daddy said to tell you that it would be all right if you three wanted to come out and lay flowers on her grave.”

  So our momma was dead. At least we knew where she was, and that knowledge felt good. It didn’t hit us right away that we were never going to see her ever again, but at least we had each other. Brother, Sister, and I knew we would be fine once Ms. Elizabeth would take her leave so the three of us could cry for Momma.

  The second and most urgent reason for Ms. Elizabeth’s coming out of her way to visit us was to invite us out to her place to set a marker on our momma’s grave and to have a conversation with her daddy, Master Stewart. Almost a month had passed before the three of us were able to make our way out to Ms. Elizabeth’s place. For weeks Brother Samuel bent and welded the most beautiful grave marker for our momma’s grave, making sure it was sturdy enough to hold up for years to come. It took us five hours to make the emotional trek, but we all wanted to say a proper goodbye to Momma.

  Master Stewart sat on the front porch while we stood beside Momma’s grave. Sister and I cried quietly as Samuel pounded the beautiful iron marker in place. Knowing we had another five-hour walk back to town, we walked up to the well to fill our water jug and say our goodbyes to the family. As we reached the front step, Master Stewart stood up, steadied himself with a cane and approached us. “Hello, Samuel, good to see you and the sisters are still together. As you can see, I am not able to get around much anymore, and my son-in-law is faring little better. I would like for you and the sisters to come here and live and help us out.”

  Brother just stood there for a moment staring up at Master Stewart, a broken man who had lost the war. Not only had he been grievously wounded, he had come home to find he had lost his wife and his wealth, and his home was in ruins. Yet he spoke to Brother as if he still owned the world! Master Stewart could see that Samuel was resisting the idea, and he said, “Didn’t I treat you fair, Samuel? You never got beaten—at least not by my hand, did you?”

  Finally Brother straightened his back and said, “No, sir, Master Stewart, you are right there, but you gave our Ruby away like she was an extra pair of shoes you had laying around the house. If the three of us is ever to truly be free, we have to earn our own way and never call another man Master ever again.”

  Master Stewart pleaded, “I would pay you a wage, Samuel. You and your sisters would have a clean place to live, food to eat, and be treated fairly, I promise you that.”

  “No, sir, Master…Mr. Stewart, because in my head, you would always be Master Stewart, and I believe in your head, I would always just be your slave. Our momma loved Ms. Victoria her whole life, but the sisters and me don’t owe you nothin’, Mr. Stewart. We only came to put a marker on our momma’s grave, and we will be going.”

  Sister and I knew Brother was right. Oh, we didn’t believe it at first. All the way back to town, we argued with Brother. We reminded him that we would not have to live in a livery, sleep on hay, or beg for work. We did not understand why Samuel would not think about working for Mr. Stewart.

  When we got back to town, Samuel sat us down in the hay loft. “Listen, Sisters, we have lived our whole life as slaves. We don’t know how to live as free people—yet. We need to stand on our own, work hard, earn our own way, and finally learn to make choices for ourselves. We will never truly be free until we learn this. Mr. Stewart just wants an easy way out of his problems. He wants us to go back to how it was because it is easier for him. While living here above the livery, I have worked for lots of different men. I am willing to do lots of things I don’t like to do. I work for small wages, but it is my choice. I will be a man doing it—not a slave who was born under his roof. Yes, it will be hard, but it will be worth the struggle, Sisters.”

  Pulling out of the story, Tobias thought about how the Sist
ers got so serious each time they shared this story with him. As a boy, he didn’t really understand it. Giving up a warm bed and the promise of hot food seemed like a fair trade, but then he remembered the Sister’s warning to him.

  “This is why it’s important that you know about your family, Tobias. You need to know where you come from and what it cost those who went before you so you could have the life you now have. Most folks look at us blacks and think we’re not good for nothing except backbreaking labor. Nothing is wrong with doing backbreaking labor. Your grandpa kept a roof over our heads and food on the table doing anything offered to him. He never let his pride get in the way of making sure Pearl and I were taken care of. But Toby, your grandpa was always trying to learn new skills. He was determined to improve himself so no man would ever own him again. With this warning fresh in his mind, Tobias escaped back in time to a part of Ruby’s story that always filled his heart with pride.

  After a hard day of work, Brother would come back to the livery just about sundown, eat a bite, and then sit with Pearl while she taught him how to read and write. In order to learn new skills, Brother knew he needed to be able to read. I remember so many nights as Pearl and I fell dead-tired onto our beds, hearing Samuel repeating the new words Pearl was going to test him on. The soft sound of Brother’s voice confidently spelling out his words in the dark brought great comfort to me.

  We lived above the livery for almost four years. Housing was scarce in Atlanta, and even if we could have found a place, we couldn’t have afforded to pay rent. The livery owner traded use of the loft for keeping the stalls clean, the horses watered and walked, and Brother learned how to shoe horses just so the livery owner would keep us on. There was a ‘johnny’ out back, and we hauled fresh water from the pump by the livery office so we were doing better than some. Of course, with all of the hay in the livery, we were not allowed to cook, but twice a week Pearl and I cleaned the owner’s whole house and did his laundry. In exchange, we were allowed to use his stove. Once a month, Brother would pay the livery owner two-bits for new hay; that way our beds were always clean and fresh.