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

by Dorey Whittaker

  Tobias remembered the look in Aunt Ruby’s eyes whenever she repeated her Arthur’s story. I was a mix of pain and pride; pain at knowing her man had been hurt so deeply, and pride, being able to bring the shine of hope back into those eyes by her loving him.

  Aunt Ruby would always announce, “Brother Samuel was satisfied with Arthur’s answer, and two weeks later, Arthur and I were married and on our way to the Carolinas.

  Arthur and I were happy and excited as we made our way to the Carolina’s. He was certain there would be plenty of work for an experienced field clearer. We spent our first two years near Charleston, living in field houses on the land he worked. By the end of the second year, Arthur had made the acquaintance of two strong and able-bodied men who were willing to travel with us. Gilbert, a massive boy of twenty, had a quick temper. He had been on his own since the age of ten and had been cheated by both blacks and whites alike. Arthur suspected the boy possessed more brawn than brain, making it easy to confuse him and thereby cheat him. Once Arthur proved himself to Gilbert, a more loyal helper couldn’t have been found. Besides Gilbert, our best treasure was Theo, a man well into his forties who was not afraid of hard work.

  Arthur spent that second year teaching his men the proper way of clearing fields. He explained how most men wasted too much labor, not realizing that saved labor is money in their pockets. Once they were sure their system would work, Arthur set out to bid on clearing jobs. Arthur taught me how to drive the team, which freed all three men to work the fields. Arthur said this was money in the bank, and I felt happy because I was helping us get our own place sooner. Knowing they could do the job quicker than others, Arthur included one additional entry in his bids. His first four bids were not only lower than all of the others, Arthur’s bid included a promised date of completion. A clause stated that if the land was not cleared on time; the bid would be cut in half. After coming in on time, Arthur did not have to bid again. A new field job was always waiting for us. The four of us worked hard, lived thrifty, and loved our life. Arthur and I put most of our share of the clearing fees into a large glass jar we kept under our bed.

  For six years we had more work than we could accept. We moved often and had worked our way all the way up to the Virginia border before clearing jobs began to slow down. Knowing we needed to keep busy, Arthur began studying the different crops in the area. He, Gilbert, and Theo realized that tobacco was their best bet. If I drove the team, the three of them could clear a field quickly. At first, Arthur approached several tobacco farms about hiring his crew, but no one was interested. They had never hired outsiders and saw no need to start doing so. Arthur knew if he could get one farmer to give them a try, he was sure it would be just like the clearing jobs—but no one would budge. He had approached the seven largest growers, and none were interested.

  He came home exhausted and discouraged, when Theo suggested that Arthur might be going about this matter all wrong. The big growers were fat and sassy and didn’t need our help. We decided to go to the small farmers—the ones who needed to get their crop to market before the big farmers’ harvests drove down the prices. If we could cut, bale, and dry the tobacco faster, these small farmers could get their crops to market ahead of the larger growers. All we needed was one farmer to see how we could make our plan work for him.

  That night all four of us packed up the flatbed wagon and headed six hours south to where the smaller farms were located. Arthur not only offered to help bring in the crop; he also offered our wagon to double the amount delivered to market. We were hired on the spot. For the next three years we cleared fields, brought in tobacco, and joyfully added to our money jar. We were sure we would have enough money to buy our own place in another year or two. Arthur was a man on a mission. In many ways he reminded me of Pearl. Going after big goals thrilled his heart. Setting a plan in motion and seeing it come to pass made him happy, and making him happy made me happy.

  Arthur figured for us to thrive, we needed eighty acres of cleared land. The government would only consign off parcels of forty acres in South Carolina, so Gilbert and Theo offered to throw in with us and get a hundred acres. Arthur refused, knowing we could not clear and plant that much land in one year, for that was the government’s requirement. If you bid on government land, you had to clear it and plant it within one year or it went to auction, and you lost everything. Many a farmer lost his life savings because his farm was auctioned off after a year of grueling labor. Arthur did not plan to risk our eight years of savings.

  We moved further south and were working a small farm right outside of Spartanburg. The government had expanded its land grants, and a flood of new, young farmers started buying up the parcels. This, again, was great for us. As soon as these city boys realized they could not meet the deadline, we had plenty of work, but we also had to deal with untrained city folk who thought they were farmers.

  We were working hard on a small farmer’s land, located very near the Natahala National Forest. This part of the country was especially hard to clear because the trees were deeply rooted and so plentiful. Even Gilbert had trouble with the large intertwined roots. The common practice was to use blasting powder, and no one thought ill of those who did. Anyone who had spent a day working in the hot South Carolina sun, digging out one of these massive stumps, would be the first to submit to its benefit. Obviously, the rules for its use were strict. For instance, none could be set off before eight o’clock in the morning or after six o’clock at night. Any time a charge was to be set off; the farmer was required to blow a loud whistle as a two-minute warning. Most everyone followed these orders, but there were always a few who forgot. Usually those who forgot were young new farmers who would not, or could not, afford to hire help clearing their fields and were getting desperate. The whistles provided by the gunpowder sellers were very loud and distinctive; the sound could not be missed.

  The farm on which we were working was adjacent to one owned by a new young farmer. Many a night we would hear a gunpowder blast well after dark, which was a dangerous practice. We could tell he was desperate and had been setting off several blasts close together. He was clearing his fields alone, save for his two young boys who were of little help. Gilbert believed the man was overusing the blasting powder in order to reduce the stumps and roots to a more manageable size. We never reported the farmer because we all understood his problem. As it turns out, we should have turned him in. Those rules were in place for a reason, and we would live with the knowledge that the reason had been overlooked for the rest of our lives.

  One morning I was walking our horses through our half-cleared field while Arthur, Gilbert, and Theo loaded the blasted roots, rocks, and stumps onto the flatbed. We dared not let the wagon wheels stay in one place very long because the Carolina clay could quickly suck in the wheel and the horses would have a terrible time freeing the wagon. If I walked between them and kept them rocking back and forth five or six inches, the men could get the wagon loaded without getting stuck. This method, which we had perfected several years earlier, worked well for us.

  In the course of another full day on the job, we had worked our way to the far edge of the field and were just about ready to pull the loaded flatbed out of the field and offload it. Right then a very loud blast was set off just beyond the clump of trees separating the two farm parcels. The neighboring farmer did not blow a warning whistle, and he set his blast much too close to his property line. Our horses had grown used to steadying themselves for the loud blasts when they heard the whistle blow, but this blast was far too close, and without any warning. Custer, our more skittish horse, kicked his back legs and began to bite at me. Max, our usually gentle giant, began pulling against his bridle, kicking his back legs. I tried to hold onto their leads but they jerked away from me, and when their back legs hit the wagon, they panicked and tried to run. Max’s head came across and knocked me silly as I bounced off of Custer, lost my balance and fell under their feet. I was knocked out and have no memory of being trampled by ou
r panic-stricken horses. Thankfully, the wheels of the fully loaded flatbed missed my body, but my body had been crushed by our horses.

  I was told that Gilbert picked me up and carried me back to our field shack. All three of them thought I was going to die. With no available hospital or doctor for miles around, everyone knew you did your best, and if you lived, you lived. Arthur and Gilbert pulled the still-loaded wagon up next to the shack, unhooked the horses, and Gilbert tied up Custer while Arthur climbed up on Max and headed to the nearest town. Wealthy white folks could get their hands on opium for such injuries, but Negroes were relegated to whiskey. Neither Arthur nor I had ever gotten into drinking. Arthur always said that people with goals and dreams don’t waste their money with such things, but now Arthur was desperate to find all the whiskey he could buy.

  For months Gilbert and Theo worked the fields without Arthur’s help. I could not be left alone, and Arthur took very good care of me. Many of my bones had been broken, and none of them knew how to straighten them without causing me even more pain, so they mended the way they were. For months I could not be moved without pain, so Arthur kept me filled with whiskey. I have little memory of those first four months. On one of Arthur’s whiskey runs, he brought back a set of used crutches. I began the difficult task of making my broken body move around the shack. Once I was strong enough to move around without whiskey to dull the pain, I learned that Gilbert and Theo had finished clearing that farm and had moved on. Arthur, unable to go with them, struck a deal with the farmer. We were allowed to rent the shack for an outrageous sum until I was strong enough to move on. I set about pushing myself every day, trying to increase the range of my movements.

  Arthur refused to touch me for fear of breaking me, and I began to notice a serious change in him. Even though I no longer took whiskey to relieve my pain, we were still going through our supply at an alarming rate. Arthur would sit on the porch for hours, staring at the crops being grown in our cleared fields. At six months, Arthur believed I was strong enough to be lifted onto the flatbed. If he drove slowly and avoided deep ruts, we could get to the nearest town and rent someplace more reasonable. Every time Arthur had to pull money out of our jar, he became quiet and sullen. This went on for almost three years. Nothing was going into our money jar, and rent, food, and whiskey money was fast eating into our funds. It had taken us eight long years of hard labor to put that money in our jar, but only four short years to deplete it.

  I tried to talk to Arthur about his drinking, but he would just walk away. One morning I woke up to an unusually sober Arthur sitting at our kitchen table with all the contents of our jar stacked in front of him. I did not say a word. I took the seat across from him and waited for him to speak. “Ruby, it’s almost gone. I am too old to start all over again. My dreams are gone, and I can’t do anything about it.”

  I remained quiet. I knew Arthur was hurting, and I had nothing to offer him, except gratitude for four years of priceless care. Arthur set aside everything to care for me, and now the cold truth that we would never see our dreams come true was sitting on the table between us. Arthur began picking up the money and returning it to the jar.

  With a look of resolve, he said, “Ruby, I sold the wagon and horses three years ago because we couldn’t afford to feed them when they weren’t bringing in money. I think we should do something before it’s all gone. I think I should look around for a used buggy and horse. I want to take you back to Atlanta. You need your family now that you are hurt and injured. I love you, Ruby, but you are broken in body, and I am broken in spirit. I have nothing left to take care of you. I’m just too worn out to try again. Ruby, honestly, I simply want to die.”

  I tried my best to convince Arthur that I still loved him and wanted to stay with him. He knew I loved him, but he needed his freedom; I needed to love him enough to let him go. I tried not to cry in front of him. I knew Arthur had simply endured too much and had given up. I wanted to shake him and scream, “What about me? Don’t you love me enough to try again?” But I didn’t ask these questions because I already knew the answer. It was not about me; it was about Arthur. He had fought a valiant fight, recovering from the loss of his first wife and child. He worked hard to rebuild his dream of having a family of his own, a place of his own, and a life of which he could be proud. Then I went and got hurt and destroyed all of those dreams again. The money was gone, I was never going to be able to have children, and I was too crippled to help him start over. I knew I was too much of a burden for Arthur to handle. I could do nothing about his broken dreams—except to love him enough to make this decision as easy for him as possible. I worried about what would happen to him now that he had found that whisky could dull the pain. However, he didn’t care to discuss the issue, and he couldn’t bear to think about how I was feeling; he was too broken.

  A few days later he loaded what little we had, helped me into the buggy and off we went. Six days later we pulled the buggy up in front of Pearl’s house. As Arthur helped me out of the buggy, Estée saw us and came out to greet us. She ran up to me and tossed her arms around me before she realized how broken I was. She froze and cried, “What happened to you, Ruby?”

  Not wanting to go into the details of the accident in front of Arthur, I ignored her question and asked, “Estée, is Pearl or Joseph home from work? It’s been a long journey, and I am quite tired.”

  We had moved so often that I did not know what Pearl and Joseph had gone through. Estée did not want to be the one to tell me, so she let us go into the house to wait for Pearl. Arthur had no intention of facing Pearl. He felt bad enough leaving me; he did not want to see Pearl’s disappointment. He offloaded my belongings and helped me into the house. While I got us a much needed drink of water, I saw Arthur take out our money jar, pull out three twenty dollar bills and replace the lid on the jar. I thought to myself, “Sixty dollars for twelve years of hard labor?” but I was wrong—oh, so wrong. Arthur stood, smiled at me and said, “I know this is not fair to you, Ruby. You deserved a home of your own and a husband who could keep you safe. I have done neither.” He walked over to me, slipped the sixty dollars in his pocket and handed me the money jar, which contained almost five hundred dollars.

  “No, Arthur, I can’t take it. At least let us share it equally.’

  Arthur just smiled and said, “Let me do this, Ruby. I need to do this for my sake, as well as yours. I will take the horse and buggy though, if you don’t mind. You can’t handle a horse anymore, and I am certain that Pearl won’t.” He bent down, kissed me and walked out the door. I never heard from him again. The pain in my body didn’t compare with the pain I felt watching him leave. To this day, I still love that man.

  Rummaging through her goodie bag, Ruth brought Tobias back to the present. “I’m sorry, Ruth, I didn’t even notice you had returned to your seat. My mind was a thousand miles away.”

  “That’s all right; I suspected you would be thinking about your family today.”

  “I’m sorry I have been ignoring you. Did you have a nice talk with that woman?”

  “Honey, I still am. I just came back to get a few more cookies for the children. How are you holding up? I think we have at least two more hours before we reach Lynchburg, Virginia. We will have a one-hour dinner stop there while they change the locomotives.”

  “I’m holding up quite well. I have been sitting here remembering all of the reasons I’m thankful for my life and proud of my family. Ruth, I was nine years old the first time I heard Arthur’s story. I still remember how angry I was when I learned he quit on my beautiful, sweet Auntie Ruby. I could not wrap my mind around his decision. I had loved his story and him—up until the point where he brought my Ruby back to Atlanta and left her there. Who could do such a thing?”

  “Tobias, all I can say is he must have been incredibly broken to do that to Auntie Ruby.”

  “I know, Ruth, but it is still hard to imagine. Aunt Ruby knew I would react with loyal indignation, but she decided to tell me the whole tr
uth and then use it to teach me a valuable lesson. All these years later, I still remember what she said: ‘Toby Boy, when people disappoint you, you have to try to understand their whys and love them anyway. No one is capable of acting like a hero all of the time. Some can most of the time. Some can some of the time. Sadly, some have been so broken, they never can. Everyone will let you down sometime. You have to decide what kind of person you want to be, Toby Boy. The biggest hero is the person who can still love those who have disappointed him.’ ”

  With tears welling up in her eyes, Ruth leaned over and kissed Tobias, “What a godly woman she was! I still miss her every day.”

  “Ruth, you know I do. Whenever I struggle with anger or disappointment, and you know how often that is, I remember this lesson from my Auntie Ruby, and I try to understand their whys.”

  Digging into the tin box, he pulled out the four photos, which were taken the day all three couples got married. “Ruth, I know you have seen these photos lots of times, but right now, thinking about their lives, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that Grandpa Samuel hired a photographer the day they all got married. Aunt Pearl, always the practical one, admitted to me once that she thought spending that money was wasteful—until she lost her Joseph.”

  Taking the photos from him and studying each couple, Ruth mused, “You know, Tobias, they are all our family. CeCe, Joseph, Arthur, and Little Estée. We owe them all because they were loved by Samuel, Pearl, and Ruby.”

  Taking back the photos and placing them into the envelope to keep them safe, he choked, “I wish I could have known Joseph, Arthur, and especially Estée, that little broken bird named Estée. Because of her generosity, I was able to come live with the sisters.”