A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton

by Michael Phillips

  We stopped and tied up our horses in front of the house. A few people looked at us, but no one said anything. I could tell Katie was nervous. I whispered to her that she didn’t need to be, since no one knew her. But I guess I was nervous too. Having a secret, I suppose, always makes you nervous.

  I led her around to the back of the house to the kitchen door, where I figured to find Josepha. I didn’t see any sign of the man we’d been following.

  The door was a little way open. I peeked in. Josepha stood with her back to me on the other side of the room. I walked in and Katie followed.

  “Hello, Josepha!” I said, walking up to her.

  Startled, she turned around. But when she saw me, the look on her face was completely different than the last time when she had been so happy to see me. I could see anxiety in her eyes.

  “Mayme, chil’,” she exclaimed, “wha’chu doin’ here?”

  “I came … for a visit, Josepha,” I answered. “I wanted you to meet the mistress of the place where I’m staying now … I mean it’s her mother and father’s plantation.—This is Miss Katie Clairborne.”

  “I’m pleased ter mee’chu, Miz Clairborne,” said Josepha, “—but chil’,” she added, turning to me again, “you shouldna come.”

  “Why not?”

  “Things is a heap different now wiff der old master gone.”

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “He be dead, chil’. Da poor old master, he died. An’ now der young master William, he be married an’ da new mistress, she don’ like coloreds none, an’ she an’ he’s different dan his daddy. An’ effen she fin’ me jabberin’ wiff you, I’s git a whuppin’ fo’ sho’.”

  “But you said you’re not a slave anymore. How can they whip you?”

  “Dey whips who’s dey likes,” she answered, shaking her head. “I may not be no slave, but dey act like dey neber heard ob no Lincoln or no ’mancipation proklimation or nuthin’. So you two’s better skedaddle afore she sees you here.”

  “We wanted to know if a man’s come around here asking about colored babies,” I said.

  Josepha’s eyes narrowed. “What’s all dis talk ’bout colored babies?”

  “He says there’s some disease only colored babies have.”

  “Who’s dis man yo’s talkin ’bout?”

  “He came to Miss Katie’s asking if we’d seen any black babies around.”

  “An’ what did you tell him?” she said, her eyes squinting all the more.

  “Uh, nothing,” I answered. “But it just struck me as a mite curious that he’d be asking, that’s all.”

  “Well, dere’s black babies an’ den dere’s black babies,” said Josepha cryptically, “an’ some ob ’em ain’t as black as dey seem, dat’s all I be sayin’. An’ dere ain’ nuthin’ I can tell you ’bout it, ’cause I ain’t seen no sech man askin’ no sech questions,” she added.

  “Do you mean—” I began, but she interrupted me with a wave of her big fleshy hand.

  “I don’ mean nuthin’ mo dan da speculations ob some ole black folks what used ter be slaves dat oughta learn ter keep dere moufs shut. Ain’t no black baby roun’ here gwine come ter no good no how.”

  Suddenly a voice startled us all into silence. “Josepha!”

  We turned to see a tall white lady walking into the room. How much of Josepha’s previous speech she had heard, I don’t know, but her eyes were on fire. She had a long thin face and wasn’t pretty to my eyes. But Josepha was obviously cowed by the sight of her. Seeing Katie, she turned temporarily from the tongue-lashing she had apparently been about to deliver.

  “Who are you?” she said abruptly.

  “Uh, Kathleen, ma’am,” mumbled Katie.

  “What do you want … what are you doing in my home?”

  “I, uh … we just came for a visit, ma’am,” said Katie hesitantly.

  “A visit—who are you visiting? I have never seen you before.”

  “No, ma’am. We were visiting Josepha.”

  “Josepha? What could you possibly want with her? She works for me, and it’s precious little work I get out of her too, especially as long as she is standing here wagging her fat tongue to the likes of you. Well, speak up, girl—I asked you a question. What do you want with Josepha?”

  “I don’t … I mean, Mayme used to live here, ma’am … and she wanted to visit.”

  For the first time the woman now seemed to notice me. She turned and glared at me, sending her eyes up and down my front as if I was an object of scorn.

  “You … used to live here?” she said, her voice suddenly very much changed.

  “Yes’m,” I said. “My family was all killed in the colored town yonder.”

  “Yes, the massacre—I’m aware of that. Why weren’t you killed?”

  “I escaped, ma’am.”

  “How?”

  “I hid.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “I ran away.”

  She seemed to be thinking for a second, and after the way she’d been eyeing me as she drilled me with questions, I probably should have contemplated a little more directly what she might have been thinking about.

  “Wait here!” she said, speaking like she was used to ordering people around, which from what Josepha had said, I guess she was.

  If I’d have had my wits about me, I’d have run right then. But I didn’t think about it, and I was afraid to do anything to get Josepha in trouble. As different as my outlook on life was by then, it didn’t take much to intimidate me and make me start thinking like a slave again. And this lady was downright intimidating! So Katie and I just stood there like a couple of statues while the lady turned and walked out of the room. I could tell from the look Josepha gave me that she was worried for us. Maybe she and I weren’t slaves anymore, but we were still afraid of what white folks could do to us.

  None of us suspected what was coming. If she had known, Josepha would have run us out of that kitchen and made us get on our horses that instant no matter how many whippings it cost her. But she didn’t know any more than I did, and so we all just stood there while William McSimmons’ new wife disappeared into the next room.

  CAPTURED

  35

  I HAD NO IDEA THAT THE FATHER OF EMMA’S BABY was anywhere nearby until we heard the voices of the two McSimmons raised in argument from some other room of the house a minute or two later.

  The doors must have been wide open between here and there, because their voices carried as if they were in the next room. I don’t suppose they figured an old fat black woman and a young black former slave were human enough to worry about what they thought. And as for Katie, they had no idea who she was. For all they knew, she might have been what folks later called poor white trash. And from the way the lady spoke to us, I had already seen Katie start to retreat into what I call the old Katie, the way she was before she started to change and get more confident in herself. So the lady might have thought her an idiot too, for all I know. But as the couple argued it was clear they didn’t care what any of us thought and whether we heard what they said.

  All of a sudden I realized that they were talking about me!

  “I’m just asking if there’s any chance it could be her,” said Mrs. McSimmons in a demanding voice.

  Then I heard William’s voice, though deeper and softer, so that it sounded a little muffled.

  “… don’t see how … why would she … look like?”

  “Ugly … ugly as sin,” said the lady.

  “Not likely, then.”

  “… want you to make sure … if there’s a chance …”

  Then some conversation followed that I couldn’t make out. Even now I don’t know why we didn’t scoot out of there while the two of them were arguing. Telling it like this stretches it out longer than it actually was, and it was happening fast. It’s hard to describe how much a white person could make a black person go weak in the knees way back then. It was such a different world than we know now. So we just
kept standing there as the danger crept closer and closer without us knowing it.

  Now the lady’s voice again came into hearing.

  “… were no illusions. You and I both … purely a marriage of social and political convenience. I know what went on at some plantations, but I would never have agreed had I suspected … heard the rumors … you should have told me … too late now … so you had better take care of it.”

  “… no danger of …” said William McSimmons, but I couldn’t hear the last of what he said as the lady’s voice interrupted him.

  “… always danger … brat running around with white blood … different world now … times changing … I want no surprises … don’t want my children competing with some bastard coming back making claims … you take care of it … I’ll divorce you and take my money if … just take care of it!”

  Their voices stopped. It was clear enough that the lady was furious.

  “Josepha, what’s—” I began.

  But now Josepha seemed to come to herself.

  “Mayme, chil’,” she said urgently, “you gots ter git away from here!”

  “But what were they—”

  “Now, chil’—else sumfin bad’s gwine happen! Dere’s been talk among da black folk. At first the lady din’t know, but now she do. She muster been listen’n somewheres an’ now dere ain’t no tellin’ what da master might do … an’ she thinks it’s you dat’s caused all her trouble!”

  “Thinks who’s me?”

  “No one—jes’ some fool nigger girl who din’t hab sense ter keep her dress down, an’ ran away afore da young master could git rid ob what could come back ter haunt him, an’ when the mistress foun’ out, by den dey was dun married an’ she dun threaten fer ter leab him, dat’s what dey’s sayin roun’ ’bout … so go, chil’.—Miss Kathleen,” she said, now turning to Katie, “effen Mayme won’ listen, you gotter go, you’s gotter git outta here. I don’ know where you’s from, but git back dere and take Mayme wiff you. Go, chil’!”

  But already heavy boots were descending the stairs. Finally the look in Josepha’s eyes told Katie and me how serious she was, and we made for the door.

  William McSimmons ran into the kitchen just as we ran through the opposite door across the room and made for our horses.

  Behind us we heard the whack of his hand across Josepha’s face and a cry of pain.

  “You meddlesome old fool!” yelled McSimmons. “Who told you to interfere in my affairs?”

  “Run, chil’!” Josepha’s voice called out after us.

  We sprinted to our horses as fast as we could go, untied them, and quickly mounted. By now we were really frightened. But just the fact that we were running away, I suppose, made us look guilty. And just like a dog will chase you the minute you’re trying to run away from him, when William McSimmons ran out of the kitchen and saw us galloping away, it threw him into an even wilder rage than before.

  “Stop them!” he cried to some of his men. “Go after them and get the nigger girl. Don’t let her get away!”

  We were hardly out of sight from the house when I looked back and saw three of his men digging their heels into their horses and galloping after us. We tried to outrun them, but it was no use. They caught up with us in less than a minute.

  One of them rode alongside me, shouting terrible things at me, then reached over and grabbed my reins to stop me.

  “Ride, Katie!” I screamed as I felt my horse slow. “Go home … I’ll meet you there!”

  She glanced back with a look of terror on her face to see the men yanking me off my horse.

  “Mayme!” she screamed.

  “Ride, Katie … ride!” I cried before a vicious slap across my face silenced me.

  Tears flooded Katie’s eyes. But there was nothing she could do to help me now.

  Once they had me, the men ignored her. In a few more seconds, sobbing and terrified, she galloped out of sight.

  Katie rode hard all the way back to Rosewood. She kept looking back, half hoping to see me riding after her, but fearing she would see McSimmons’ men chasing her instead.

  By the time she got back to Rosewood, her tears had dried up for a while, but she was worried sick about me. She went inside and started calling out to Aleta and Emma that she was back. She found them in the cellar, where they had gone the minute they heard the sound of her horse riding toward the house.

  “Where’s Mayme?” asked Aleta as she climbed up and back into the parlor.

  “She’s not here,” said Katie in a trembling voice. She helped Emma and William up from the cellar, then told them what had happened.

  “But where was it, Miz Katie?” said Emma. “Why’d dey take her? What was you doin’ someplace where dey’d do dat?”

  “It was at the McSimmons plantation, Emma,” Katie replied. “That’s where we went after that man came.”

  “Why’d you go dere!”

  “We wanted to find out if you and William were safe.”

  “Dey don’ know where I am.”

  “But we had to find out. That man said …” Katie hesitated, realizing what she had been about to say. “Mayme was afraid that man might have been looking for you.”

  “You mean … Mayme did dat for me?”

  “Yes, Emma. She cares about you and doesn’t want anything to happen to you. She was worried that William McSimmons might have sent that man to try to find you.”

  Emma’s eyes opened wide in fear.

  “But don’t worry,” said Katie. “They don’t know you’re with us. And they don’t know where we live anyway. You and William are safe.”

  “But then why did they take Mayme?” asked Aleta.

  “I don’t know,” answered Katie. “I think there are some bad men there, Aleta, who are looking for Emma. They might think Mayme knows where Emma is since they both ran away from the same plantation.”

  “But she won’t tell, will she, Katie?” asked Aleta.

  “No, of course not. Mayme would never tell.”

  By then it was late in the day, and after sitting for a little while in silence, the three of them seemed to remember all at once that it was my birthday. That made them all the sadder, and finally Aleta started to cry.

  Katie took her hand, and pretty soon the three of them were sitting together on the floor of the parlor, holding hands and crying and thinking how alone they all felt without me there with them.

  Gradually Katie began to realize that she had to try to be strong for the sake of the other two.

  “God,” she said, “please take care of Mayme.”

  Then she wiped her tears and stood up.

  “Let’s have something to eat,” she said. “It will make us feel better, and if Mayme was here that’s what she would want us to do. Let’s have some more of Mayme’s birthday cake.”

  They tried to keep their spirits up, but every five minutes one of them would look out the window to see if I was coming yet and then sigh. But I didn’t come, and evening came and the shadows lengthened and pretty soon night was falling. By then Katie was getting really scared, but she tried not to show it to the other two.

  She helped them get ready for bed and then they prayed together.

  “What do you think Mayme is doing right now, Katie?” asked Aleta as Katie settled her into her bed.

  The question stung Katie to the heart because she was so worried about me.

  “I don’t know, Aleta,” she said, trying to smile. “But two things I’m sure of, that she is safe and that she is thinking about us.”

  INTERROGATION

  36

  KATIE WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING—I WAS thinking about them and missing them and wishing I was with them. Whether or not I was safe … I wasn’t so sure about. I didn’t feel too safe.

  Once they’d gotten me off my horse, as I heard the hooves of Katie’s horse fading into the distance, one of the men dragged me back to where William McSimmons stood. He was probably more angry at his wife for her threats than he was at me, ’
cause he hardly knew me, but as they pulled me up toward him I saw that his face was red and his fists were clenched. The man shoved me toward him, then backed away while he looked me over.

  “I want to know what you’re doing trespassing on my property,” he said in an angry voice.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I used to be one of your slaves. I came back to visit Josepha. I didn’t mean to trespass.”

  “All right,” he said to his men, who had gathered around hoping to see a beating, “you can go. I want to talk to her alone.”

  The horse I’d been riding wandered away out of sight, which worried me some ’cause I was still hoping to get out of here and follow Katie home. The men dispersed and gradually wandered off toward the barn, the corral, and the bunkhouses, where some of the new men were staying who had been brought on to replace the slaves who had left. The dozen or so blacks who had decided to remain as hired hands were all out working in the fields. I still had only seen two colored men about the place, and no women except for Josepha. One of the men who had joined the group was the same one Katie and I had followed here, the one who’d been asking about black babies. He hadn’t come around until Katie was gone, and as I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, I don’t think he recognized me. If he was one of William McSimmons’ hired men, we must have been right—there was no disease, he had just been trying to get on the trail of any black newborns in the area so that they could find out where Emma had disappeared to. I couldn’t tell, but I don’t think McSimmons recognized me either from that day he’d come into Mrs. Hammond’s store. And why would he? Right now the only colored girl he was thinking of was Emma … how to find her and get rid of her.

  By now Mistress McSimmons had come out the door to see what the ruckus was about. Slowly she approached, and the closest thing I can think to call the look in her eye was hatred. Ever since the slaves had been set free, it seemed like some white people’s feelings toward blacks had turned to hatred. They may have looked down on us when we were slaves, but in another sense there was a part of them that respected us for what we did for them. They looked down on us, but they didn’t hate us. But now that we were free, they did.