Letters to America

by Tom Blair

  Now Grannie Catfish, she was my mama’s mama. She wasn’t like any other of my people. My grannie, she didn’t ever frown or smile. She wasn’t vinegar or syrup. That’s how she got her name. People said she was like a fish. A fish has a mouth and eyes, but it doesn’t ever show how it’s feeling, less maybe it’s frying on the skillet. So that’s how Grannie got named after a fish. ’Course, I never called her Grannie Catfish. She was just Grannie to me.

  When I was maybe eleven or twelve Miss Belle died of the wet cough. For most of a year the days at Belle Normandie felt like dark molasses, full of crying, black armbands, slow shuffles, and soft voices, like if we made a noise even more sorrow would fall on us. Slowly things got right again. That’s when a teacher started coming for Miss Louisa every week. She lived in Natchez but stayed at the Marse’s house two nights a week so she had three days of teaching. Her name was Miss McBride, made me think of a wedding. She spoke strange. Later I learned it was an accent.

  Miss McBride acted like I was just the same as Miss Louisa. Sat us both down on chairs with pens and papers for our lessons. Marse Edward said something to her once about teaching us both. She told him that Miss Louisa learned better when she saw how smart she was next to me. ’Course I’m not for certain that’s what Miss McBride thought. I’m pretty certain I was just as smart. But it didn’t matter what anybody thought ’cause I got to learn everything Miss Louisa got to learn. And some I learned better.

  By the time Miss McBride started coming to the Big House, Miss Louisa and I could read and write more than fair. So she started teaching arithmetic. I learned the figures right away. I learned the addition and subtraction. But, got to tell you, even though Miss Louisa could multiply and divide while humming, I could never make the sense of it.

  We studied our history. I felt poorly when I learned the British burned down the president’s house the year I was born. We read about Washington and Jefferson and Adams. That’s when I made up my mind how I’d name my boys if God gave me any. Nothing said about slaves and how we got here. We studied two things I never heard of before, science and geography. Science seemed to be a lot of fancy words about nothing. If a piece of ice from the icehouse melts you got water. If you put the water in a pan over a fire it boils and you got steam. The dumbest field slave knew that. But science made it a solid, a liquid, and a gas, and somehow it was more important.

  But what I learned the best—learned the best cause it let me lay in my cot and travel—was geography. Before Miss McBride I didn’t know what geography was. Didn’t know the difference between continents, countries, islands, cities, seas, lakes, and rivers. We learned. Well, I learned. Once Miss Louisa found Mississippi on a map she figured she knew all the important geography. But I kept looking at the maps and asking questions, like why isn’t England a continent if Australia is one. They’re either both continents or both islands, I figured. But mostly I looked at Africa. Looked at the rivers, the names of the countries and lands. I imagined where my grannie lived. I shouldn’t have, but I did, I snuck the geography book back to my cot with me. It was Daniel Adams’s Geography: Or, A Description of the World. Memorized everything between the covers. And that’s what brought my grief years later.

  ’Course when I spent time in the Big House with Miss McBride and Miss Louisa, I learned more than just what was in the books. I learned their ways, the white folks’ ways. Two forks, not one, a bath every day, clothes washed before any dirt showed, and words covered with sugar so you could pretend they weren’t bitter mean. If the lye and bristle brush would have worked, I could have lived real easy in the Big House.

  By the time we turned fourteen our education stopped. No more Miss McBride, no more learning. But that was the way it should have been. Miss Louisa was spending more time at her mirror, and I was spending more time helping Grannie. Maybe helping’s not the right way to say it. I was doing most of her work ’cause of her sickness. She had a bad pain in her head for a spell, then her left side didn’t move right. She dragged her foot when she walked and held one arm against her side. Said she could still work, and she could. Just took two days to do one day’s work. That’s why I became the full-time house servant for Marse Edward.

  Borrowing from Louisa’s education, that was the big part of my learning. The other part was Treefrog. He was an old gray-in-the-hair field slave who knew just about every song anybody could think of. And he had himself a cherrywood mandolin, so’s he could dress his songs in music. But that wasn’t what made him different from all the rest of us. He had lived where none of us had been. Treefrog had been free, though nobody seemed to know the whole truth of it. Word was he ran away from some place in Virginia and lived in Canada a fair time as a free man. The story was that the bounty hunters followed close behind and he got tired of hiding, but he didn’t want to give up. Treefrog was smart, real smart, knew that bounty hunters would be looking up north of Virginia for him, so he snuck around Virginia and went south. So far south he started hearing good things about Belle Normandie and old Marse Jack. So’s Treefrog got himself a kindhearted master, and Marse Jack got a slave for free.

  I told you I learned from Treefrog. It wasn’t his songs I learned, or anything like the learning from Miss McBride. Treefrog knew people. He knew how they thought. Told me I needed to think how people thought. I needed to figure out where they was standing before I tried to hold their hands, so to speak. Told me that if I made sure the people got what they wanted, I could get what I wanted. ’Cause most people just want to feel good about themselves. Treefrog told me something else. Told me always to keep my head bowed down. Never show what you know, ’cause there may be a white man with a whip who knows less, but the whip, and using the whip, lets him show you that he knows more.

  Now let me tell you about the best thing in my life. It started in the kitchen. The whole time I was growing up, our cook, the cook for the Claibornes, was Aunt Nina. No one knew for sure how she got her name. When I was little I thought maybe she had eight older brothers and sisters. By the time the top half of my dress was pushing out Aunt Nina was getting wobbly in the feet and in the head. One night she served Marse Edward and his guests a roasted turkey that was still wearing a few feathers and had all its insides. Another time she baked Miss Louisa’s party cake with salt stead of sugar. That was Nina’s last not making it right time. Marse Edward went off to Jackson. A week later he was back with Sunshine. ’Course I didn’t know he was back with my husband.

  At first we all thought it strange-like that Marse Edward would buy a man cook. We giggled that maybe he was one of those butterfly men who didn’t do the things men do. I heard of them, but I didn’t know what to look for so I could tell. But all the strangeness went away with Sunshine’s cooking. He put more sauces, more sweet and sours, more hots and colds, and more spices and herbs on a plate than Aunt Nina could even name. He baked, fried, roasted, boiled, barbequed, and poached up more flavors than a body could imagine. Didn’t almost need to wash the plates when Marse Edward and Miss Louisa were done ’cause they were close to licked clean.

  Learned why that cook-man’s name was Sunshine. Cause he was like a big round ball of sunshine on a beautiful Sunday. He made you feel warm, a happy warm. Biggest smile you ever saw. Big white teeth and opened mouth, even bigger lips turned up like a saucer. But the smile was just a window. His insides were always smiling and his happiness spilled out on others around him, just like brown sugar maple sauce ladled on slices of baked ham.

  It was the first summer after Sunshine came to the Claibornes that the cakes showed up on my pillow. At first I thought Grannie took them from the kitchen for me. ’Course that didn’t make sense. She never really gave me anything that was more than was right. And Grannie thought right came in a real small package. But I never could imagine that a body other than Grannie would be near my cot. Then one night, after I turned down Miss Louisa’s comforter and sheets, I came back to see a slice of lemon cake on my pillow. A slice sprinkled with sugar, like dewdrops on a lea
f. I knew Grannie was still limping in the Big House. Then I knew.

  Sunshine and I were married in the fall, partway through September. Marse Edward and Miss Louisa gave us all of Sunday off, but that wasn’t the best present they gave us. Marse Edward let Sunshine use some of his lumber so’s he could build a room on the back of the kitchen house, a room just for Sunshine and me. Of course it wasn’t just for us a year later. Our boy was born the next summer. I had a hard time. Almost bit clean through the new mama hickory branch. Thought for a spell that maybe I was going to join my mama and little sister.

  You might think it somehow not right that I named my son after our president. But let me explain. You know, a slave didn’t own a thing. We worked in the Marse’s fields, cleaned the Marse’s house, ate his food, and wore clothes made from the cloth he gave us. We didn’t even own our time. Not except Sunday mornings. The rest of our time was filled tight with the Marse’s chores, not ours. Other than teaching him to read and write, a name was the only thing I could give my boy. That’s why I gave him the best I could think of, I gave him the president’s name. Told him that when God gave him children, he should give them the best names he could. And the best education he could.

  Marse Edward thought it funny I gave my son a president’s name. Said it didn’t matter what I named my baby, that just ’cause I named him Andrew he wouldn’t be going to Washington to run the country. I lowered my head a little as I always did when speaking to Marse Edward, said for certain he was right. But as he walked toward the library I thought to myself, thought that we weren’t ever going to have no president, whether they be white or black, with a name like Sunshine or Treefrog.

  The year after Sunshine and I were married there were two more weddings at Belle Normandie. Now these weren’t no jumping-the-broom weddings in the dry barn. These were weddings where fifty of the finest carriages in Mississippi, filled with gentlemen and beautiful ladies, arrived in a line that like to never end. First married was Miss Louisa. Just about every week for almost two years a young gentleman called. Not the same gentleman, different gentlemen, some from over a hundred miles away. But it was Mister Scott from Pascagoula who stole her away. His father owned a bank in Jackson, and his mother’s father owned land from Mobile to Mississippi. At least that’s what folks said. For certain was that his uncle was governor of Mississippi.

  Two months after Miss Louisa’s wedding, Marse Edward married Miss Pauline in a wedding even grander. Miss Pauline was a young widow lady who had moved to Natchez. She had the most beautiful curly hair one could imagine. And her face was creamy white, with cheeks that always seemed to be a little red. And Marse Edward did the most wonderful thing for me. The day before his wedding he told me he was gifting me to Miss Pauline as her maid. He was buying a new house servant, and I would only care for Miss Pauline. That afternoon Miss Pauline came to me giddy happy. She hugged me, fussed over me, and said I was her best wedding gift.

  After Marse Edward and Miss Pauline were married, life for me and Sunshine and our boy just seemed to go from one good day to another. Never thought anyone could be kinder than Marse Edward’s first wife, but Miss Pauline was no less sweet and gentle. I think maybe Miss Pauline was so nice to me ’cause Marse Edward was so happy. ’Course gentlemen aren’t happy, wouldn’t really be seemly, but he kept talking about the land he was buying in Mobile and how the cotton gin was a gift from the Almighty.

  Miss Pauline loved the reading. Just about every month a new book would arrive from Atlanta or Richmond. Once one came all the way from Boston. I remembered what Treefrog told me. I didn’t let on, but one day Miss Pauline told me to bring her Miss Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and I plucked it out of a stack of ten or so books. She asked could I read, and I told her how I used to read Miss Louisa’s books while laying on my cot. Bless her sweet soul, Miss Pauline told me I could borrow any book that I wanted. Her words were sugar on my ears. Not so much for me, but for Andrew. He was at the learning age. And the best was that way over to one side on the top shelf in Marse Edward’s library were all the books from when Miss Louisa and I were taught by Miss McBride. Andrew could learn from the same books as me.

  Now to tell you about the black cloud in my life. ’Course, every poor soul on God’s earth has a black cloud in their life. Treefrog told me it’s not the problems in life that can break us, it’s how we hold the problem that makes it a loud problem or a whisper problem. My black cloud was Marse Allan, Marse Edward’s younger brother. It was hard to believe both drinks were poured from the same pitcher. Marse Edward was like his father, never wanted to hurt no one. Even if you were a slave, he would sometimes say thank you. All Marse Allan knew is what he wanted, and he wanted everything the fastest way he could get it. And he seemed to be happier if whatever he got cost somebody else something. His place, right next to Belle Normandie, was called Les Moines. It was a French word that came from French monks who traveled up the river in the old days. If you said it right, it sounded like coins.

  Marse Allan’s plantation was even bigger than Belle Normandie, and seemed always to be getting bigger. Les Moines was a cold-looking big house to my way of thinking. Dark brick and four high stone columns rising up from a porch that needed painting. No green lawns, just rows and rows of cotton. But it wasn’t the house that was the talk of all of us, it was the way his slaves were treated. His overseer, Stark was his name, had a whip for an arm. And the whip was only part of his meanness. Word was he would sell off any slave that had a woman he fancied.

  Whenever Marse Allan visited Belle Normandie we kept our eyes low and straight. He’d walk around looking like he smelled a two-day-old dead skunk and was nasty loud in telling Marse Edward what he was doing wrong. One of the wrongs was Marse Edward didn’t keep the cinches tight on his slaves. Said he didn’t make money with his slaves. Told Marse Edward that he should buy them cheap, breed them, and rent them to the railroads to lay track. Marse Edward always sorta nodded like he agreed, but he never changed what he did, never changed how he treated his slaves.

  The worst thing about Marse Allan’s visits wasn’t what he told Marse Edward, it was what he saw and tasted. It wasn’t long before I heard tell that Marse Allan said for certain that someday Sunshine would be cooking at Les Moines. Marse Allan had to have the best of everything. Even better if he took it from his brother.

  Something else about Marse Allan, he didn’t have a wife. Word was that he had woman friends that came and went with all sorts of foolishness, but no wife. Sunshine told me that he heard that Marse Allan proposed to Miss Pauline when she was new to Mississippi, but she said no. I thought maybe this was true. Marse Allan wasn’t at Miss Pauline’s and Marse Edward’s wedding. Maybe if he’d had a wife, a wife who made him a father, maybe then he wouldn’t have wanted everything other folks had.

  But with me and Miss Pauline, life just seemed one nice thing to the next. One day, and I know the year was 1837 on account of what happened next, we even rode on a steam locomotive from Natchez up to Jackson. Back then they had three tracks all started, one going out to Jackson, one up to Port Gibson, then one coming up from New Orleans. It was a short ride, but it was like nothing else I’d ever done. Miss Pauline, she rode a rail train before, when she visited England with her daddy. It was the first time for me, and for sure I could hardly believe Junie was riding in a train. Not as fast as Miss Pauline’s coach and four grays, maybe, but fast enough. There we sat, the window open and air rushing through with the smell of burning wood and a whistle screaming that made everyone for miles know we was coming. The best part was sitting so high up and looking out at the people watching us speed by and knowing they wanted to be riding the train. It was the only day in my life when white folks wished they were where I was.

  It was right after we rode the train that the world went wrong side up. It was like they took the glass out the windows and we had a cold wind blowing right through the Big House. Marse Edward and Miss Pauline started to talk low so no one could hear. But I could
hear. I heard talk about panic, panic this, panic that. I didn’t know what the panic was about, ’cause I only saw worry. After a time they gave the panic a name, they called it the Panic of ’37. That’s ’cause the year was 1837 when things turned bad. Should have called it the Panic of ’37, ’38, and ’39.

  I never really understood the problem, why things were so bad. Treefrog said it was ’cause people bought land with money that wasn’t theirs, and ’cause it wasn’t their money they paid more than they should’ve. They was using bank’s money, not their money. When the big banks up North stopped giving out money there wasn’t no grease on the wagon wheels. Things just stopped. Stopped real bad.

  What didn’t stop was that Marse Edward owed money to the banks. More days than leaves on a honeysuckle bush Marse Edward was all shut up in his library with this man or that, from this or that place. One of those gentlemen was Mister Robinson, I remember ’cause his accent was the same as Miss McBride’s. He was s’posed to build a textile mill in Natchez for Marse Edward, but they had such loud words that it didn’t matter the library doors were closed tight. Miss Pauline was all smiles as if nothing at all was the matter. But I knew the matter was really bad or she wouldn’t be pretending so hard.