Calico Girl

by Jerdine Nolen

  “Go ahead,” Lieutenant Jessup told Callie. “You can walk over there right now if you want. No one will stop you.” He took her bundle and carried it. Callie looked at Mama and Papa and they both smiled and nodded.

  “The teacher is there already. Go meet her,” the lieutenant said, smiling.

  “A teacher?” Callie almost shouted.

  “Hampton,” Mama began.

  “You go on ahead, Callie,” Papa said. We need to find the doctor right away so he can take a look at Charlie. The army hospital is right here.” He pointed to one of the buildings.

  “Shouldn’t I go with you?” Callie asked.

  “I think you’ll like the look of that schoolroom,” Lieutenant Jessup said with a smile.

  • • •

  Callie walked quickly to the long building that would be used for the schoolhouse. There was more commotion going on. Soldiers were unloading boxes off a wagon and bringing them into the room.

  A woman was there, and Callie was speechless. She had never seen a freedwoman before; she did not have the worried look in her face as she had seen slaves to have, not being able to be their own selves. The teacher stood tall, and her smile was kind. She smelled clean, like good soap. And she was even wearing a dress with a calico bodice. She was beautiful.

  There was a bowl of oranges in the room on the front table. Callie immediately felt hungry. But she felt her spirit lift when she saw her face. She was talking to what looked like another free person, a man.

  “Truly, Mary, I don’t know how long this will last,” the freedman was saying to the teacher. “Every day more and more of our people arrive. We cannot stay on this fort forever.”

  “It is a start, though,” she replied. “That is why they sent for me to come and set up a school,” she said, looking toward the door. “And the new people are already here!” she said, gesturing to Callie, who was standing there.

  “Well, I will leave you to your organizing,” the man said, smiling at her. “I’ll see you at the meeting tonight.” He tipped his hat to them both and he was out the door.

  “Come in,” the woman beckoned. “Come in! Are you one of my scholars?” she asked, smiling.

  “Scholars?” Callie asked. She was not sure of the word the teacher had called her. She had never heard such a word before. She was not so sure if she had even heard her correctly.

  “When we open for the weekday schools, will you be one of my scholars? Students,” she said. “I do hope you will be one of the students.”

  “Oh yes, ma’am. I do so plan to be one of your scholars, and my little brother, Charlie, too. He is a little sick right now, but I know he’ll be ready for schooling very soon. But we both are your new scholars,” she said, beaming. “Mama and Papa and I would like that very much.”

  Her smile grew very wide. Callie thought the freedwoman had the kind of face she always wanted to see.

  “Good. My name is Mary S. Peake,” she said, extending her hand for Callie to shake it. “What is your name?”

  “Callista is my name. But my family calls me Callie,” she said, smiling and looking at the teacher’s beautiful dress. For some reason Callie didn’t feel afraid to talk at all.

  “What a beautiful name,” the teacher said. At that moment Callie could not help the sound of her stomach growling.

  “I was just about to have something to eat. Would you like to have an orange?”

  “Oh.” Callie hesitated and her mouth watered. She would love to have an orange to eat. As if reading Callie’s mind, Mrs. Peake took two oranges from the bowl. She offered one to Callie; the other was for herself.

  “Let’s sit for a while,” she said, smiling.

  Mrs. Peake peeled both oranges, setting the peels aside, and placed the orange slices on a small plate. Then she broke each orange into sections.

  “Help yourself,” Mrs. Peake said. “Do you know what Callista means?” The sweet juice from the orange filled Callie’s mouth. She could not remember ever eating an orange as good as this one.

  “Callista means something?” Callie said, shaking her head. “Papa never told me that.”

  “All words, and that includes names, have a meaning,” she explained. “And Callista means ‘most beautiful.’ ”

  “It does?” Callie asked, looking down at herself.

  When she did, she saw Joseph’s work shoes. Her face grew hot. She wondered about Joseph and where he was. For a moment, Callie’s mind drifted. Callie wanted to find her mama and papa. This was all happening too fast.

  The freedwoman sat silently. She put her hand on Callie’s shoulders.

  “Are you free?” she asked.

  Callie shifted her feet. “Ma’am?” She let out a quiet sigh. Mrs. Peake lifted Callie’s chin so she could meet her gaze. Suse used to do that, but much more harshly.

  “Are you free to help right now?” she asked. “There is a good deal of work to do if I am to be ready when the school week starts, Callista.”

  “Oh yes, ma’am. I am free,” she replied, saying the word for the very first time. Callie let it keep ringing in her ears. I am free!

  “Good,” she said. “We can start by unpacking the books and placing them on the shelves.” She opened each box.

  Callie had never seen so many of the same kind of books together before. Suse had a shelf of books in her room, but there were never this many.

  “Callista, can you read?” Mrs. Peake asked.

  “A little,” Callie said.

  “. . . a little?” she repeated.

  “Yes,” she said, more surely. “I can read.”

  “Good. That is a good place to start!”

  Mrs. Peake showed her where to place the books. Each time she opened a box, she read the book title out loud. There was a Primary Speller, a Primary Arithmetic, a Picture History of the United States, a The Eclectic First Reader, and a Webster’s Speller.

  “Do you know what else I like about your name, Callista?” Mary S. Peake asked.

  Callie looked up at her from the books in her hands. Mrs. Peake had a very nice smile.

  “There is a very old story, called a myth, that tells of a very brave huntress named Callista who was transformed into a bear.”

  “A bear?” Callie asked.

  “Yes, and there is more. She was set into the night sky among the stars that make up the constellation of the Big Dipper.”

  Callie’s face lit up. “I know those stars! That is why Papa keeps telling me to look up at my stars. Papa has told me about them many times. He also told me about my name, but he never explained why my name is in the stars. Now when I get home I will tell him. He’ll be glad to know what I learned in school today. And my little brother, Charlie, likes to hear stories too. Is there a star called Charlie?”

  “Not that I am aware of,” the teacher said, and smiled. “But the name Charles means ‘army warrior.’ ”

  “Army warrior,” Callie repeated.

  “Papa said our mistress made sure I got the name my mama wanted me to have. My mother died before she could name me. But I have a true mother in Mama Ruth.”

  “Well, it is a beautiful name.”

  “I like your dress,” Callie admitted. “I love calico fabric best. It is so soft.”

  “Of course you would like calico,” she said. Your name is Callie!” They both laughed at her joke. Callie felt so at ease talking with Mrs. Peake. Already she seemed like a very good friend.

  “Yes,” she said. “Mama sometimes calls me Calico Girl. I have some of the cloth now. Mama is a seamstress, and she says once we are settled here, she will sew me a dress.”

  “Since you like this fabric so much, perhaps you will become a teacher. We need good teachers. It is not a written rule,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “but most of us teachers wear calico.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Little Charlie

  May 30, 1861

  Three days later, when Lieutenant Jessup came to fetch Callie from the school, she knew th
ere was trouble. He brought her to her parents, who were at the army hospital. Little Charlie had gotten sick all over again. This time it was worse than before. And there was a new army doctor caring for him.

  Mama Ruth said she liked the first doctor who tended to Little Charlie. The new doctor, Doctor Steward, said Little Charlie never really got completely well.

  He said Little Charlie needed to stay in the fort’s army hospital, where he could watch him closely. Mama would stay the night with him. Doctor Steward said the family could do nothing else but wait and watch.

  “There is no sense in saying ‘if you had brought him to me sooner,’ ” the doctor said. “We’ll just see what we can do for him and see how he gets through the night.” Callie knew Doctor Steward thought it was comforting, but it was not. It made Mama cry even harder.

  Little Charlie made it through the night but Doctor Steward said he did not know how many more nights.

  The next day was Friday. It rained all day. Little Charlie just could not make it through another night.

  Callie was glad for the rain. Many of the people who traveled here in search of freedom had died since arriving at the fortress. When the chaplain came to see Little Charlie, he said nice words and prayers over his body. Papa held on to Mama and Callie. She was on one side, Mama was on his other side.

  Because of what he died from, he would have to be buried very quickly. “Disease in this heat can spread very rapidly,” Doctor Steward said.

  Callie looked at Little Charlie on the hospital bed. It seemed he was too little for the bed. He lay so still. She felt sad and sorry for him. It wasn’t the kind of sadness she felt for Joseph. This was different. Little Charlie’s body wasn’t strong enough to get well. And he was with his family and his family did everything they could.

  She cried for Little Charlie because he never had the chance to get big. He never had the chance to go to school to learn. Callie wanted to hug him one last time, but Doctor Steward said not to. He did not want her to catch what Charlie had.

  “At least he died free,” Callie told Papa. “And he did not have to grow up and be made to feel flat like you say you feel sometimes. The way I sometimes feel. He never has to worry about being sold away from us, like Joseph. I know his little soul is going to heaven and not to the other place.”

  Papa listened quietly.

  Callie was glad that Little Charlie was spared of the bad things this life can bring, but that did not make her happy. She never got the chance to tell him that his name meant “army warrior.”

  She felt she had to do something. She didn’t know what it was but she had to think of something more than just cry. That was all she wanted to do.

  While Mama was getting Little Charlie ready, Callie went back to get something out of her bundle. Papa was digging a little hole in the back of the fort. This didn’t seem right to Callie either.

  Mama had him all wrapped in his old blanket when Papa came to get him. Callie was heartbroken to see her little brother this way. He always was just a jolly little fellow before that awful sickness came upon him.

  “Wait, Mama,” Callie whispered through her tears. She removed the blue calico cloth from the brown paper package she held behind her back and handed it to Mama.

  “Wrap Little Charlie up in this,” Callie said, sniffling. It is better than his rough-feeling blanket. And he liked the color blue as much as I did.”

  Callie hesitated. She was holding something else behind her back.

  “Put my little corn husk doll with him too, Mama—so he won’t feel alone without us.”

  Mama took the doll and the fabric, and they both cried. Mama wrapped Little Charlie in the beautiful little blue flowered cloth and she put the corn husk doll near his heart. It was the only way Callie knew to say good-bye to her little brother.

  Later that night, after the rain had stopped, Callie went out to stand at Little Charlie’s grave. The sky was clear and the big wide moon shone down. Her stars twinkled overhead. She pretended Little Charlie was right there with her. Callie thought she could almost feel his little hand inside of hers. She looked down at the mound of earth that held him and talked to him.

  She pointed up to the sky. “See my stars up there inside the Big Dipper?” she told Little Charlie. “That is the brave huntress who was turned into a bear. She is free to roam the heavens. Callista is her name.”

  She spoke to Charlie with what was inside her heart, even though what she wanted to say was so hard.

  “Do you see those stars, right next to mine?” she asked, still pointing. “I am naming those stars for you. They will be called Charles, because a brave huntress might need help from an army warrior sometime.” And then she told Little Charlie what Papa told her.

  “You’ll never be lost from me. You’ll never be lost from Papa or Mama or Joseph. You’ll never be lost from us in the world,” she said. Then it felt as if Little Charlie wasn’t holding her hand anymore, as if he let her hand go. But she stayed standing there for a little while longer, just looking up at their stars.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mrs. Peake Makes a Visit

  June 3, 1861

  That next day, and the day after that, Callie did not get out of bed. Something heavy was pressing down on her, and it seemed to all but push the air out of her lungs. She could hardly move. She wondered if she would ever feel any differently. She wondered how Mama and Papa were able to move around and do the necessary things they did.

  She could not understand why so many bad things kept coming into their lives, even though now they were something else other than slaves. Callie thought it all had to be her fault for all the bad things she had said about her life as a slave.

  “I never took the time to take back those words even after we were no longer at Belle Hill Farm,” she told herself.

  Her family was closer to freedom than ever. Their lives were not perfect, but Callie felt things were better. She could go to school. She was the teacher’s assistant.

  She wondered if she was also the reason they lost Joseph. She never, ever said sorry to God, not once. Callie thought it did not seem right that Little Charlie had to pay for her bad behavior too. He never had a chance at life or to read. She thought it all had to be her fault.

  “This has to be my punishment,” she said to herself. “First Joseph and now losing Little Charlie.”

  Each night she would cry herself to sleep wondering how Mama could lose so much and keep going. She wondered why Mama was not in the bed next to her crying her eyes out too. Mama had lost both of her natural-born children. Now she only had Callie because she married her papa.

  Callie didn’t think she wanted to go to school ever again. She didn’t think she should even stay at the fort. She wondered if maybe it would be best for her to leave Papa and Mama and go back to Suse and Belle Hill Farm. She knew Suse was sure to be angry with her, but at least she would not bring any worse luck to her papa and especially not Mama, she thought.

  That third morning when Callie woke up, all the noises around seemed dull and muffled. She lay on her back and cried looking at the ceiling. She did not hear Papa or Mama tiptoeing and whispering around her as they sometimes did. Outside she heard voices of people going on with their day. She heard soldiers marching. She heard people laughing as they went by and she wondered why anything could be funny at a time like this.

  Then she heard someone’s footsteps walking up to the door. There was a knock on the door. Callie was too tired to answer it and she hoped they would just go away. The crisp, sharp sound of someone knocking came again and again. Callie thought Mama or Papa would say something to the visitor. The door opened and shut and there were footsteps.

  “Hello?” called a woman’s voice. “Hello, Callie?” It was not Mama’s voice.

  Who’s there? Callie thought. Her throat felt dry and parched.

  “Callie? It’s Mrs. Peake.”

  Mrs. Peake? Callie thought to herself, and her tears started up again. She turned h
er face to the wall away from her. She did not want Mrs. Peake to see her like this.

  “Callie!” Mrs. Peake said, and smiled. She pulled a stool next to Callie’s sleeping cot and sat down.

  “I’ve missed you at the school,” Mrs. Peake began. Callie could smell the fresh scent of soap on her.

  “The children miss you too. They wonder when you will return to the schoolroom,” she said, and paused.

  Callie wanted to speak to her friend but she did not know what to say. She didn’t know how to say anything. Then Mrs. Peake started rubbing Callie’s back and patting her, which made her cry even harder, but Mrs. Peake kept on talking.

  “I brought you an orange,” Mrs. Peake began again, and started to peel it and break it into sections.

  “I have at present a total of thirty-nine scholars for the morning classes. Our lessons are exciting. And our learners are all so eager. They range from five to thirteen years of age. If you were there, you would be number forty. Isn’t that a good number for a classroom of scholars?”

  The burst of orange fragrance made Callie’s mouth water.

  “I-I,” Callie stammered in a whisper. It was all she could say and she started to cry all over again. All she thought she could do was cry.

  Mrs. Peake stood up, put the orange on the stool, and sat next to Callie on her cot.

  She patted Callie some more, and Callie cried harder. Then she lifted Callie from the sleeping cot into a sitting position and wrapped the girl in her arms.

  “There, there, there, now,” she said over and over. “I’m sorry for your family’s loss. I am so very sorry,” she said, patting her and letting her cry.

  “It’s hard. These are some hard and terrible times. These are some hard and terrible times for our people. And these are some hard and terrible times in the world. But I do not know of a time in the world when things were any different.

  “You must, we all must do the best we can with these times, Callie, for yourself. For others. For the ones we love and the ones who love us.”