by Lois Leveen
But another part of me made out a side of Bet I never much thought about until then. She seemed truly chagrined by her relation’s actions, genuinely hurt that anyone she cared about could treat me so. Without the commiserating roll of Mama’s eyes or cluck of Zinnie’s tongue, I found myself on a new footing with my former mistress.
“You’re upset just now because race prejudice has inconvenienced you. But it’s worse than an inconvenience to us negroes, every single day.” Making Bet understand me seemed important in a way it never did before. “I appreciate you saying how wrong it is for even your own family to carry on so. You see what other whites won’t, that we’re just as good as anybody, if white people will let us be.”
She looked hard at me. “Why, Mary, that is quite a little speech. Six weeks in a free state has already turned your head.” I feared I’d been too bold until she added, “If you continue at this rate, before the year is out you will be even more outspoken than I.”
It was Mama’s outspokenness, not Bet’s, that inspired me. But there was no need to tell her that.
She reached into the carriage, extracted a small package wrapped in brightly colored paper, and handed it to me. I pulled at the cord and the paper fell away, revealing a small book.
“Benjamin Franklin’s Memoirs,” she said. “Mother gave this very copy to Father for their first wedding anniversary, and Father gave it to me when I left Richmond to come here for school. Franklin was a remarkable man, a great model of what you can achieve through diligence and intelligence.”
I’d dusted the Van Lew library often enough to know the book occupied a place of prominence there. Mistress Van Lew would be sore as could be when she learned how Bet disposed of it. That alone made me treasure the gift.
“Thank you, Miss Bet.” I fingered the well-handled leather. “Please tell Mama that I miss her and Papa, but I’m pleased and grateful for all you’ve done for me.”
“You’re quite welcome. I shall let Aunt Minnie know that you are well established, and that we should all expect the very finest accomplishments from you.”
My dearest Mama & Papa
My highest mark today was in Latin which is a foreign language just like French which Miss Bet speaks. Only it is different than French because they speak French in France every day & Latin was from a long time ago in Rome which was one little city that took over lots & lots of other countries. As though Richmond took over the whole United States & Mexico & Cuba too. Those Romans did lots that was admirable building fine roads & temples which is what they called churches & writing long long histories of themselves & whatnot but I cannot admire them too much on account of they had slaves. Miss Douglass gets a sour face if anyone mentions that in class. But still I like learning Latin because it is fun to be able to say the same sentence in a whole new way & know some folks cannot understand. Sometimes Hattie & I speak Latin when we walk around town just to keep secrets. I wish we in the house had all known some other language so we could have said what we thought without the Van Lews knowing.
Hattie sends her regards as always. Her family is very kind to me. Her daddy always says that with six daughters of his own one more young lady in the house cannot amount to too much more trouble. Of course I try not to be trouble at all! They have me over every Sunday for dinner sometimes I go to Church with them first. The Church is a special kind called African Methodist Episcopal that colored folks came up with just for themselves. That name sure is a mouthful so most folks here just call it Mother Bethel. Everyone there is real nice but it is so big! Even Hattie does not know everyone there are so many. Some weeks the thought of going to that huge building filled with strangers makes me miss our little prayer meeting so much I just rather walk down to look at the Delaware by myself. I imagine how its water might maybe flow out to the Ocean & meet up with water from the James.
Just like that water flows so flows my love to you both. Does that sound poetic? We are reading some poems by Mr. Edmund Spenser & Mr. John Donne in school & it makes a person think of all sorts of extremely poetical ways to say things. But when you get right down to it all I really need to say is I love & miss you both.
I hope you are proud of
Your devoted daughter
Mary El
Post-script. I am enclosing my marks from Miss Douglass. As you see she writes in a very very proper hand. Some of the girls say she is so methodical she hates the waste of having to raise her pen to dot an i or cross a t. That sounds disrespectful maybe but really we all respect her plenty I assure you.
My dear Mary El
Your letter arrived Today making us very prowd indeed. I showed Miss Bet your Marks & she wanted to payspaste the sheet into her Scrapbook. You know how she is with her Scrapbook she aint happy till she has the World closed up in there. I pretended I hadnt showed the Marks to your Papa yet just to get them away from her. Course I showed them to him befor her & he had his hart set on tacking them up rite on the wall of our Cabin wich is what he did. Not so fancy as all the pictyerspaintings the Van Lews have on there walls but it means more to Us then every oil painting in Richmond. Your Papa will show that paper to all the World if I dont remind him we need to keep this bisness Private.
Zinnie & Josiah & the girls are abowt ready to leave us. Miss Bet convinced Mistress V to sell the BarooshBarouche & buy a Gig & Josiah is teaching Miss Bet to drive it Herself. If she dont put Mistress V into the Grave with that the woman should live to be a Hundred. Miss Bet hired Terry Farr a Free Colored woman as the new cook. If she is any good I cant say because Zinnie wont let her within Fifty feet of the Kichen. I suppose Zinnie will be halfway to Ohio before Terry even sets foot in the Yard. Miss Bet was Hell-bent on not hiring any slaves at all. Couldnt bear the thot of paying money to a Slaveowner never mind her Father was one his hole life. But finaly I convinced her to take on Mrs. Wallace’s Two nieces Joesy & Nell to help me with the House Work. They buy there Time from there Marse & hope to save enuff to buy Themselves free & clear. Joesy got Herself engaged to John Atkins but they wont Marry till she is free. Miss Bet will send all the laundrie out so I suppose three Grown women can manage the house just as well as Sam & I ever did with you Girls.
Your Papa planted me a vejtabel garden outside the Cabin. Hard to spare any Yard at all but he does like to go on abowt my poor Cooking till finaly I told him a woman needs what to cook with. Next thing I turn around & he got everything from Turnips to Mustard Greens in the grownd. Every meal we eat now I got to hear how his fine grown vejtabels make all the Flavor but that is your Papa if he isnt looking at me with those eyes & saying who knows What to teaze me I dont think I should know him at all.
Off to the Van Lews now. Young Marse John is having his bisness assoshiates to Supper tonite. Driving me distracted all Week inspecting my cleaning as tho I didnt clean his behind the Day he popped into this World.
All your Papas love & mine
Mama
I beamed with pride to think of my marks tacked up on the cabin wall—you can bet I sent home every set I got after that. But all our correspondence made me ache. It was hard to picture strangers in the house, working beside Mama. I didn’t miss the labor, but it didn’t sit quite right knowing someone else could take my place so easily. And Papa seemed more and more distant with each letter. No matter what Mama wrote he said or did, it wasn’t the same as having him say it or write it himself. Besides, I didn’t always tell Mama and Papa everything in my letters, either.
My dearest Mama & Papa
Today was the most wonderful day I have had in Philadelphia yet. No I did not eat ice cream or read a new book. I went to a parade instead. Maybe you are thinking it is the first August & not Independence Day or Militia Day so what parade is there today? It is the most wonderful parade of all. A parade held entirely by the colored people of Philadelphia in honor of the anniversary of British Emancipation. That is a fancy way to say it is the day when slaves in the West Indies got their freedom. Colored folks here do not soon forget a thing like tha
t!
Mr. Frederick Douglass a former slave who wrote his own book & newspaper says the fourth July means nothing to negroes only a show of how wrong slavery is. Even Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson who went to Harvard University & is a white minister says the first August is a great day in history because so many colored folks got freed. Every year in Philadelphia all the churches & benevolent societies & whatnot all the colored ones I mean sponsor a big parade. Negroes march through the streets singing & praying & praising. Also some white people called Quakers though they dress & talk so strangely Hattie & I call them Strangers but still they march along right with the rest though without a hint of any singing or praising like our folks do. After all the parading there are speeches & pledges to get freedom for all the slaves here, too, if Britain can do it why not America?
Hattie’s daddy marched with his lodge the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows which is a funny name isnt it? They have such uniforms they wear I cannot even describe but it made me proud to see our men dress up so & march about. Hattie & I cheered the most for her daddy’s lodge but lots for everyone. Now my throat is a little sore & my feet a lot tired but it was worth it. Afterward we went to her sister Charlotte’s house for punch & cake.
It is very late. I must get to bed but had to tell you before I could sleep.
Your loving daughter
Mary El
I was happy and tired when I wrote that letter, trying to put all the wonders of the day down for them to share. Even so, there was a fly or two in the cream I neglected to mention. What I didn’t write was, some white boys came out and threw bottles at the marchers, calling them all sorts of names. I didn’t write that while I waited for Hattie, I heard one of the fire companies, which were really nothing but gangs of thugs more intent on fighting each other than fighting any conflagrations, saying this was the best day of the year to get some niggers because you always knew where to find lots. I didn’t write that Hattie and I saw a white man whose accent sounded real South spit and say, “Better celebrate what them darkies got in the West Indies, they’ll never get the same in Alabama.”
Hattie and I just looked at each other when we heard that, neither of us said a thing. Then we turned back to the parade and squeezed each other’s hands real tight as the choir from Zoar United Methodist Church marched by, singing to glorify God and Emancipation.
Six
During my first months in Philadelphia, the eleven trees Hattie and I passed along the mile we walked to Miss Douglass’s school each day came to seem like familiar friends. But come autumn, when those trees began to lose their leaves and their bare branches jabbed into the chill air, they suddenly appeared awkward and ugly. Especially against my remembrance of the countless trees that lined Richmond’s roads and filled the yards of Church Hill. Seeing those piddling few Philadelphia trees stripped of their foliage was like looking at my own loneliness.
As the weeks seeped on toward winter, I couldn’t help but think of Christmastides past, Mama and Zinnie singing hymns across the Van Lew property like two birds calling to each other on a spring morning. And the sweet anticipation of my time with Papa, seven precious days that were always even lovelier than I’d imagined, once they finally arrived. What I wouldn’t give for even an hour with Papa now.
I caught myself quick when such thoughts entered my head. Not freedom. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, give up freedom, even for that. Still, knowing I was free didn’t feel like happiness, with my parents so far away and Papa not yet freedom bound himself.
Miss Douglass must have noted the shift in my mood, for she kept me after class one late November day. “Do you know what the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society is?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“We are a group of women who work together to end slavery. We have a gift fair every Christmas, selling goods we’ve made. During the year, we spend the money to support abolitionist speaking tours and publications.”
I remembered the articles Bet read her mother from her abolitionist newsletters, describing all sorts of nasty attacks from pro-slavery groups, buildings burned and people beaten, even killed. “Is it dangerous?”
“Not the fair, no. Nor the preparing of goods to be sold, as you shall see tonight, if you are willing to join us. Our sewing circle is meeting at the Forten home on Lombard Street.”
I’d marked the Fortens’ house already. It was one of the grandest I’d seen in Philadelphia, as fine as the homes that sat atop Church Hill. I couldn’t quite believe a colored family owned it, knowing most Philadelphia negroes were kept so poor they could barely feed and clothe their children. I thanked my teacher and fairly galloped to the Upshaws’ to collect my things. When I bolted through the apartment door, I startled Mrs. Upshaw so, she pricked her finger with her needle.
“Mary dear, what’s got you in such a state?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Upshaw. I’m just in a rush.”
“What for? You’re not the least bit late. My Dulcey ain’t even home from Prune Street yet.”
I didn’t bother answering as I made for the bedroom to retrieve my sewing kit.
When I returned to the front room and Mrs. Upshaw caught sight of the tortoise-shell box, she beamed. “You set right to your mending, while I get supper ready.”
“Oh, I’m late as it is. And I’ll be having supper out.”
“But there ain’t no need for that.” She scooped up the latest pile of piecework she’d collected from her customers, to make room on the daybed. “You can sit right here, by me. Won’t it be lovely for us to sew together?”
I was so eager to get to the Fortens’, I blurted out, “That’s not the sort of needlework I’m doing.”
Her face fell. “ ’Course it ain’t. I’m sure a schoolgirl like you don’t ever do the kind of sewing I do.”
Sewing for pay, she meant. The truth of her statement hung in the air between us. “I won’t keep you no longer,” she said. “You got important places to go.”
I felt as stuck as her broken mantelpiece clock. I knew I ought to stay and apologize, but I couldn’t bear any delay, lest Miss Douglass and the members of her sewing circle think me rude for being tardy. “I’m sorry,” I said, passing as quick as I could to the apartment door. “I may be home rather late. Good night.”
For once, Mrs. Upshaw made no answer.
I hurried down to the sidewalk, striding along Gaskill to Fourth and then crossing up to Lombard. Only four long blocks separated the Upshaws’ from the Fortens’, but they might as well have been an ocean apart, for all the buildings said about the fortunes of their respective residents. The Forten house sat squat and certain, three stories tall and even broader than it was high, with a low brick wall along one side enclosing a private garden. The marble stairs leading up to the double front door were nearly as wide as the Upshaws’ whole building. Pulling myself tall, I gathered my skirts and trotted up the steps.
Before I even rang, an elderly butler opened the doors. “The ladies are in the sitting room,” he said. He hung my cloak and bonnet among the others on the ornately carved hallstand, then led me along an elegantly carpeted hall. Though I longed to peer in as we passed the drawing room and dining room, I held myself to curious glances at the gilt-framed mirrors and marble-topped mahogany chests lining the hall. The furnishings were prim and old-fashioned, as though everything, even the servant, was preserved from the earliest era of the family’s wealth.
The butler paused before the third doorway and whispered, “Your name, miss?”
My heart thrilled. I’d never been announced in company before, and certainly not to a room full of society ladies. “Mary. Mary Van Lew.”
But when he proclaimed, “Miss Van Lew,” to the two dozen or so women gathered inside the large parlor, all I could think was, that ain’t me. It’s Bet.
I blinked in the harsh glare of the gas lamps, which glowed brightly all through the lavish room. Even the Van Lews didn’t have gas lighting inside the house. Nobody in Richmond did.
One of the ladies stood and walked toward me. She moved with the same confident manner as Phillipa Thayer, her dark skin nearly glowing against her emerald muslinet gown. “I’m Margaretta Forten. I’m so glad you could join us, Miss Van Lew.”
Seeing how all those ladies sitting in intimate clusters of twos and threes stopped their chatting and sewing to turn their inquisitive faces toward me, it put me in mind of Bet’s abolitionist friends. Quick to condemn slavery but slow to recognize the colored people they relied on every day. I didn’t want to be such a person. Didn’t even want to spend an evening with them. I just wanted to skulk back to the Upshaws’. But then I remembered I didn’t fit in any too well there either.
One of the white ladies rose and crossed the parlor. She was younger than the rest, though older than me, a grown-up lady for sure. Dressed in a plain gray frock with the broadest collar I’d ever seen, white without a stitch of lace on it, and a sheer cap over her hair. She had lovely gray eyes, sweet without pretension.
“Mary, isn’t it? My name is Cynthia Moore, but everyone calls me Zinnie.” Her eyes twinkled. “As I like to say, to take the sin right out of Cynthia.”
You could have bowled me over with a feather at the thought of this thin, tall, pale lady sharing anything with the Zinnie that I lived with my whole girlhood. Zinnie who was dark, and short, and about as broad as a woman could be, every piece on her—mouth and nose and bosom, cheeks so round you could barely find her eyes above them.
Not at all like this Miss Moore. It made me truly understand the expression rail-thin just to look at this woman, who had scarcely more to her than there was to a narrow wooden post. Lips so light and small they hardly seemed to be there at all, no bosom to give even the slightest rise to that white collar, and barely enough nose to get the business of breathing done. Then again, all that plainness gave those kind eyes all the more room to stand out.