by Joyce Hansen
Obi wrote quickly and legibly as the man watched in amazement.
Position wanted: Master Carpenter can do any kind of building and repair work. Contact, Mr. O. Booker, General Store, New Canaan.
“Are you Mr. Booker?” the man asked.
“Naw sir, that’s my massa. He the one show me how to write this.”
The man looked perplexed, as if he didn’t know whether or not to believe him.
Obi reached in his pocket and removed his billfolder. “Keep it in for five weeks,” he said impatiently, throwing five dollars on the desk and rushing out of the office before he was asked another stupid question.
He walked toward the end of the street, where the church and parsonage stood and the homes began. He was surprised to see on close inspection that the first house he approached wasn’t as sturdy and well kept as it appeared from a distance. He tried not to feel like a beggar as he walked around to the back of the small one-story home, where he noticed that some of the shutters were missing and that the roof badly needed repair.
He breathed deeply, fighting his shyness, and knocked on the door. The young woman who answered appeared to be as ramshackle as her home. Maybe she too was once elegant. “I need a lot of work around here. I can give you food and a place to stay.” She pointed to a shed off to the side of her house. “We can’t afford to pay you wages.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Obi said and quickly walked away. He already had food and a shed to sleep in. At the next house he opened the rickety gate and walked around to the back. An old man with thick white hair accused him of being a beggar and a vagrant and threatened to call the sheriff. Obi started to give up. But he reminded himself why he was going from door to door. Can’t let a fool stop me.
Another man offered him a sharecropping arrangement. “Don’t have to pay rent for the cabin, and you get half the crop.”
He refused, knowing that most sharecroppers were left at the end of the season with only a pile of debt after purchasing overpriced supplies from the planters who hired them. Obi went to each home in the town, and every time either he was turned away or no one was around. Every home he saw needed some kind of repair. None were as strong and sturdy as they appeared from a distance.
He took another deep breath and walked briskly to the last home in the cluster of houses near the center of town. This one was in the best shape of all of them. Two long porches ran the entire width of the stately two-story house. The house had an unobstructed view of the water, and he imagined how the golden-red sunsets must look from the second-story porch. Obi stepped into the yard and continued to admire the home.
A dog barked, and a tall, heavy-set middle-aged man opened the door. “Yes?”
Obi remained standing at the bottom of the steps. “I’m a carpenter, sir, and I’m looking to see if you need any work done.”
“No. I don’t need a carpenter. I need men to work on my plantation, Fair Oaks.”
“I don’t do field work, sir. I’m a carpenter.”
“I’m paying six dollars a month. If you live in one of my cabins, then it be five dollars a month.”
“Thank you, sir,” Obi said and calmly started to walk away.
“Wait,” the man called him back. “You’re wasting your time. The cotton is opening, and planters need field hands. Anyway, you need a special license to be a carpenter. You have that?”
“That law’s been struck down,” Obi said. “New state constitution says no more special licenses.” Didn’t need a license when I was a slave.
The man glared at him. “You a Republican, huh? You people better wake up. Them Yankees don’t mean you no good.”
“I’m a master carpenter.” Obi’s temples began to throb as he tried to remain calm.
The man laughed. “Master carpenter, huh? I need a good field hand, and you look like a big, strong boy to me.”
Before Obi thought about what he was doing, he bounded up the steps, snatched the man by the collar, and nearly lifted him off the ground. “I’m not a boy. I’m a man. A master carpenter.”
The man turned a deep shade of pink, and Obi put him down. He rushed out of the yard as the man ran back into the house. Obi wouldn’t run like a criminal, but he walked quickly back into the center of town, where he saw Samuel, sitting on a crate and talking to one of the farmers. “Hey, Sam. We better go,” Obi said, looking nervously toward the cluster of houses.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Tell you later. It’s best we go now.” Obi’s tone was sharp and edgy. He turned to the farmer. “If a white man come here asking about me, tell him you ain’t see me.”
Samuel looked puzzled. “Obi, what—?”
Obi practically lifted Samuel into the mule cart. “Come on! I tell you on the way. Hurry, man.”
The mule cart rattled as they rode into the forest, and Obi continued glancing backward as Samuel shouted nervously, “Obi, would you please tell me what I running from, so I can be as upset as you is?”
Obi, still glancing backward, told Samuel what had happened.
Samuel slowed the mule cart. “You did what?”
“Why you slowing down?”
“Ain’t nobody chasing us, and nobody will be chasing us,” Samuel said, throwing his head back and laughing loudly. He made almost as much noise as the flock of cawing crows overhead. “It not that funny. That’s how trouble start, over one small incident.” Obi’s eyes appeared heavy and weary as he told Samuel about what had happened to Grace and her family in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. “Could be there was some little argument between a white and a black and the black man sass the white man and the whole black settlement was attacked and people killed, man. Same thing happen in Memphis and New Orleans. A little incident turn into a riot, and a lot of blacks killed by white mobs.”
“That never happen here. Too many of us on this island. The only whites is the few you see in Elenaville. They ’fraid to come into our village. Yankees be the only whites who come deep into where we live.” Samuel slowed the mules to a leisurely pace, his round face smiling easily.
“Now, this is not to say that the man wouldn’t put some buckshot in your hind parts if he’d had a chance to get hold of his shotgun.”
Obi relaxed his body. “Just didn’t want to bring no trouble to New Canaan. You know I placed the ad in the paper.”
“Just hope he’s not the one who answers your ad,” Samuel chuckled. “Every time I think on it, Obi, I get tickled. Wish I could’ve seen you snatch that man up in his collar.”
“Now wouldn’t that be something, if he answers the ad,” Obi said.
“Well, he say he didn’t want a carpenter, so he wouldn’t be answering ads. Anyway, Obi, the only work most people get ’round here is sharecropping, except for those of us who own our land.”
Obi listened to the call of the seabirds—a comforting sound, reminding him of his first letter from Easter. “Samuel,” he said, “I will never sharecrop or sign a work contract. No man will ever have a piece of paper on me saying they own my labor. I’m helping Rose bring in her crop, but that’s different. Rose is a friend.”
“Well, Obi, you’ll need to buy land, grow your own cotton, and make your money that way. This carpenter business you talking about, I don’t know. Seem like we can’t get that kind of work no more. The only work we get is field hand or sharecropping. I thank God every day for making it so that I have my own land.”
“People tell me I wouldn’t be able to find Easter, but I was determined and I find her. Now, I’m determined to have my own carpentry business.” He gazed at Rose’s property in the distance. The setting sun spread a bronze glow over the chicken coop, the well, and the animal pen.
“Sam, if I fall into the farming and sharecropping, I’ll lose what I’m really after. I mean to be truly free.”
“Sometime, Obi, you have no choice. You have to eat. Take care of your family.”
“That be true, but I have the choice not to sign a work contract. I will farm only to
grow food for my own table.”
“Sometime we have to do things we don’t want to do,” Samuel said.
“But it don’t have to be sharecropping. And I don’t have to sign a contract. No man will ever rule over me again.”
“Tomorrow be another day, Obi. Someone might answer your ad.”
Chapter 9
The third morning it was the same work over again. There were
forty children present, many of them large boys and girls.
I had already a list of over forty names.
—ELIZABETH HYDE BOTUME, TEACHER, FREEDMEN’S SCHOOL
August 1868
“Rosie, how did you and Simon manage to plant six acres of cotton by yourselves?” Obi asked as he inspected the leaves of an unopened cotton plant.
She stopped working for a moment and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Virginia and George help me. Now they share-cropping for Julius.” She shielded her eyes from the sun. “This sun sap all your strength,” she sighed. They resumed walking down the rows of cotton plants. “It was a godsend when you show up. I didn’t know how me and Simon was going to do all of this work alone.” Rose moved on, deftly pulling the cotton bolls out of their pods and dropping them into her sack.
Obi continued also. He had begun to fall into the rhythm and life of the village, except he didn’t go to the praise house on Thursdays or to church on Sundays. It wasn’t his habit. He’d lived a solitary life on the Jennings farm, close only to Easter, Jason, and the old African, Buka. When Easter and Jason went to religious services with the Phillips’s slaves, Obi and Buka spent Sundays fishing. This Sunday he planned to begin digging the foundation for his and Easter’s new home.
He carefully checked the leaves of the unopened cotton plants, making sure that they were not too dark and that none of the unopened pods had dropped to the ground, a sign of the dreaded blight. But the leaves looked green and healthy.
He stopped for a moment, wiping the sweat out of his eyes, and he spotted a female figure in the distance at the edge of the field. As she drew nearer he realized that it was Miss Fortune, the teacher.
“Mr. Booker, excuse me for troubling you.”
“No bother, miss.”
“I know that the children of farm families must work until the winter, but some youngsters begin school in September. Others in January. Were you planning to send your children, I mean the children you’re caring for, to school?”
She sound exactly like a northern Yankee.“I don’t know how long they’ll be with us.”
“Miss Rose has told me how you came to have them. They are probably better off with you and Miss Rose caring for them.” Her voice was soft and light, and Obi had to strain to understand her. “The work farms or camps can be hard on children who have no relatives to protect them. I’m making inquiries through the missionary society as to whether a family would take them in. But in the meantime they can come to our school.”
“Yes, they ought to go to school,” he said in an unsure voice. “The boy can go while he’s here. The girl has trouble seeing, she says. I don’t think there’s much she can learn.”
“There’s an excellent school for the blind in Boston. I’ll make inquiries about all of that. We charge a small fee, only to those families who can afford it. Would a dollar fifty a month be too much?”
“No. I guess that be fine.”
“I see the little boy helps Miss Mary in her store.”
Obi smiled. “Yes, she took a liking to him. He makes ten cents a week and is proud of it.”
“He’s a charming bright-eyed little fellow.” She held out her hand, and Obi, embarrassed, wiped his hand on his overalls before taking hers.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Booker. School will open the end of September.”
When Obi, Rose, and Simon left the fields just before dusk, they saw Scipio racing toward them, waving an envelope. He delivered the mail to nearby neighbors for Miss Mary. “It’s for you, Mr. Obi.”
“It probably from Easter.” Rose’s eyes sparkled.
Obi tried to speak calmly, but his heart was racing. “Come on, we read Easter’s letter when we get home.”
When they reached the cabin, Rose sat expectantly, almost child-like, across from him at the table. “Hurry up and read it, Obi,” she urged.
August 5, 1868
Dear Obi,
I couldn’t wait to give you and Rose this good news. I have been offered wages to work as an assistant teacher. Can you imagine that? Me? Easter? Who not long ago didn’t even have a last name. I will work at the orphanage, with the principal teacher. The orphanage is so overcrowded that they need extra workers. Not only will I teach, I will also assist the Director in making sure that the older children who are bound out to families are being treated properly.
This means that I will not be able to come home by September as I had thought, but will be back home in May. This opportunity will help me to be an even better teacher when I return to New Canaan. I could open my own school one day, and I will be earning my own keep for the first time in my life. I will earn twenty dollars a month, and will no longer be a charity girl, but will be able to pay the Fortunes for my room and board. I will have money for what we need for our new home and new life, as well.
Obi, I long to see you. You, Rose, and Jason are my whole life. But staying a while longer gives you time to build a home for us as well as time for you to settle into New Canaan. I wanted to try and come home for a visit at Christmas, but that is the busiest time. I was told that many parents leave their children in the orphanage just so that the youngsters will have some warmth and food for the holidays.
Miss Fortune wrote me and told me that she met you. She also told me about some children you and Rose are helping. So we are both in the business of helping children. What are their names?
I have thought long and hard about this, but Obi, if you do not want me to stay longer, I will come home as planned in September and train under Miss Fortune; however, as I told you, teachers who work for the Society cannot be married. So, we’d still have to wait.
Obi, thank you for the beautiful purse. It is my most treasured possession, besides you. (laugh) Give everyone my love. Especially, Rose.
Love, Easter
Obi felt as though a hand with long, icy fingers had squeezed out the little bit of joy that had begun to enter his heart. He was speechless. Confused.
“After all of this time waiting, she’s not coming back?”
“She didn’t say she wasn’t coming back. She have a chance to teach and continue to learn, is what she say.”
“She can teach and learn right here.” Obi’s eyes looked fiery one moment and pained the next. “I’m telling her to come back here and work with Miss Fortune. At least I can be near her.”
“If you tell her to return, she will. Obi, see how ignorant most of us is? Can’t read. Can’t write. Don’t know nothing except what white folk tell us.
“Look at you, Obi. Suppose you never run away. Suppose you just wait for someone to tell you that you free instead of taking your own freedom. You’d be just as ignorant of things of the world as you was when you was a slave.”
“I’ve waited so long.”
“Least you know where she is. Easter always been smart. Always want more’n what people say she should have. Easter could work with Miss Fortune, but even someone as ignorant as me know that she learn more working in Philadelphia. Look at what Easter could show us. I mean people like me and the children who she’ll teach. When she come back here she bring a big world with her.”
Suddenly he felt empty and tired. Maybe Thomas was right. Maybe he should have just gone out West with him and Peter.
“She’ll come back,” Rose continued. “We all she have.” Her dark eyes pleaded with him to understand. “She have no people up North. And Easter wouldn’t leave the people she love.” She paused to listen to her own words—to make sure that they rang true in her own ears.
He answere
d Easter’s letter later that evening in the privacy of the shed. By the light of a candle, with Rose’s words ringing in his ears, he wrote:
August 20, 1868
Dear Easter,
I hope that you are feeling fine. I am sorry that you will not be back here when you said. I try to understand why you want to stay, but I do not understand how we can be separated for eight years and you are not coming home when you plan to. Next spring seem a long time, and I want us to begin our life together now. Easter, you always have your own mind, so I will not try to tell you what to do. Complete your studies, but I will come to Philadelphia to visit you for Christmas. That way I can finish helping Rose bring in her cotton crop. We can marry in Philadelphia and not wait forever to start our new life together. I want us to be husband and wife.
Easter, you do not have to worry about working. I will take care of you.
Love, Obi
P.S. The names of the children Rose and I care for are Grace,
Scipio and Araba. By the way, have you heard from Jason?
He lay across his pallet and closed his eyes. He hoped that Rose was right. That Easter would return.
Chapter 10
From a very dark cloud in the sky the most vivid flashes of
lightning were continually breaking. There seemed not
a second’s pause between the flashes.
—CHARLOTTE FORTEN, THE JOURNALS OF
CHARLOTTE FORTEN GRIMKE
September 1868
Every Friday evening Obi faithfully attended the meeting of the New Canaan Republican Club, going straight from the fields where he was helping Rose to the meeting in the church. He wanted to know when land became available, and he was interested in what was happening in politics and the government. He especially wanted to know about his rights and privileges as a freedman and a veteran.
As he neared the church, he saw men and a few women milling around outside. He stopped by Miss Mary’s store first to see whether he had any mail. He expected to get a letter from Easter soon, and hoped there’d be one from the bureau or Miss Jeffries. Or maybe there’d be a letter in response to his carpenter’s ad.