Again Seth began to laugh. “Actually, Demon, sometimes I think that Veronica is trying to tame me!”
Suddenly something splashed from above into the bucket of water at his feet. Startled, Seth jumped, and then saw that a brush had fallen into the water. At the same moment he heard giggling. He spun around and looked above him through the hole into the loft.
“Thomas, you rascal!” he cried. “How long have you been up there?”
“Long enough to hear everything you said about Veronica!” laughed his brother.
“What! Why you—”
Seth dropped the brush in his hand and dashed for the stairs. A squeal of terrified laughter sounded above him as Thomas ran frantically to hide. Seth took the narrow stairs three at a time, and hit the loft running.
The expansive space was only about a third full of straw and hay bales at this time of year. Cobwebs hung from every beam above and but a few shafts of light pierced diagonally through from one or two small windows.
All Seth could see was Thomas’s back racing for the far side of the huge room.
“Thomas!” he yelled, sprinting forward. But by the time he reached him, Thomas had scampered up a precariously balanced stack of bales.
Suddenly Seth saw a bale flying toward him from above. It was too late to escape it. It struck him on the shoulder and he tumbled to the soft floor. Almost the same instant, a cry sounded from up near the rafters. Thomas had failed to account for Newton’s third law of motion, and the equal and opposite reaction force to his footwork now became all too obvious.
“Oh!” he cried as the whole stack gave way. The bales tumbled and rolled and crashed down, Thomas in their midst, in an avalanche of straw and hay, burying Seth somewhere beneath it.
“Hey, what’s this all about!” Seth called in a muffled voice from beneath the rubble. “What are you trying to do, get us both killed!”
Then came a great earthquake from below as Seth struggled to stand, knocking bales about every which way. Laughing again, Thomas picked himself up and fled. But his lead this time was not enough. Seconds later, Seth tackled him from behind. The two went sprawling onto the straw and hay in an ecstasy of boyish pleasure.
“Hey, what’s going on up there!” called a voice from below. But the two boys, enjoying the increasing rarity of playing together as if they were eight and ten instead of sixteen and eighteen, scarcely heard it.
A few seconds later, their father’s face appeared at the top of the narrow stairway, smiling broadly. It did not take much to bring the boy out of Richmond Davidson at any time, for a playful spirit of fun always lurked just beneath the surface. And his own boyishness was all the more likely to erupt when his sons were involved.
Laughing with the relish of anticipation, he ran forward to join the fray.
“I can still take you both with one hand behind my back!” he called. He found Thomas half buried where Seth had tackled him, pulled him to his feet, then picked him up and tossed him into the middle of a tall pile of loose straw.
“Eeee…!” cried Thomas.
Seth was not quite so easy to outmaneuver. He stood to face his father, grinning from ear to ear, made a quick swipe at his legs, which failed, then suddenly found himself rammed in the stomach by his father’s head. The two fell headlong over each other atop several of the bales that Thomas had just avalanched.
“Come on, Thomas!” Seth called to his brother. “We’ve got him now—grab his legs!”
But Richmond was too strong for Seth to keep down. He leapt back to his feet, more wary now that he had to face counteroffensives on two fronts. Thomas made two or three quick dashes at him, both times ending up on his face in the straw, while Seth tried to detect some weak spot in his father’s defenses.
Thomas flew forward again. As Richmond warded off the attack, Seth dove headfirst for his father’s legs and yanked them out from under him.
A great Oof! sounded. Seconds later all three were rolling on the floor in a melee of laughter, flying straw, tickles and scrambles and attempts by the two young men to secure their father’s hands and feet. But the quarry was too big and strong to be easily subdued, and the battle proved a standoff. Before long exhaustion caused the efforts of all three to flag, until finally they lay in a panting and dusty heap all over each other.
“Whew! You guys are tougher than you used to be!” laughed Richmond, slowly climbing to his feet.
“And you are just as tough as you always were!” rejoined Seth.
“Well, not for long. Age is on your side—you two are getting too strong for me!”
He walked toward the stairs as Thomas and Seth picked themselves out of the straw and followed. They walked squinting out of the barn and into the sunlight a minute later. Thomas drew close to his brother.
“Are you really going to marry Veronica?” he asked in a soft voice.
“I don’t know, Thomas!” laughed Seth. “I was just thinking aloud. But one thing I do know,” he added, grabbing him and tickling him once more in the ribs, “you had better not say anything about what you overheard!”
Twenty-six
A tall wagon rumbled toward a large, white, well-to-do plantation house in May of the year 1858, clattering and banging with pans and pots and brooms and mops and paraphernalia of every diverse kind. On its sides were painted in bold letters the words, Professor Weldon Southcote, A Woman’s Best Friend: Housewares, Utensils, Tools, and Supplies. The man seated gaily atop the bench seat guiding his team of two aging but serviceable horses toward the South Carolina home was nearly as colorful as the lettering on the sides of his traveling emporium. Pudgy, with girth to stature running in approximately equal proportions, he was slightly balding—though at present that fact was hidden by a rumpled and dirt-splotched top hat that appeared as a castoff from some fancy dress ball that he had retrieved from the refuse heap and taken a fancy to. His suit likewise could have been appropriated from the same pile, and was comprised of a faded purple jacket of some silkish substance and bright red trousers. He wore the perpetual smile of a natural-born salesman. The gift of gab accompanied his odd but colorful appearance. Any woman (or man, too, for that matter—money was money and he wasn’t particular from whom his sales came) to whom he could make himself heard was subject to his familiar, “Ho, young lady… might Professor Southcote have a word with you concerning your welfare and quality of life?”
All he needed was a glance in his direction. From there, his winning smile, persistent manner, and a variety of sales pitches to suit every occasion and personality—guaranteed to make every one of the one-thousand-and-one useful items in his wagon sound absolutely essential—was sufficient to turn 90 percent of such glances into cash sales. He had been conducting business along the back roads between New York and Georgia for so many years, and recognized the meaning of every expression so well, that he knew just what items to feature and what tack to use before the unwitting lady had taken two or three reluctant steps toward him. He knew from the expressions on their faces what each was going to say before she even knew herself. He was therefore at the ready to meet every reservation with confidence and the optimism of a man who knew how to close. He knew how to address every possible objection the reluctant might advance as adroitly as any street evangelist who stood ready with his scriptural proof texts to ward off the “common objections of unbelievers.”
As Southcote clinked and clanked to a stop in front of the large white-columned house on this particular day, his visage might have been seen to peer out from under the thin brim of his top hat with a slight gathering of his bushy eyebrows, as if he was looking for something, or someone, but was not anxious to be noted doing so. His travels had not brought him to this place before and he must watch himself. He had an errand to attend to that did not concern his merchandise. He must shrewdly assess the best means of carrying it out without inviting suspicion.
Mistress Crawford was the first on the premises to hear the jingling of his wagon pulling to a stop in front of
her home. She walked outside and immediately found herself the recipient of tipped top hat, toothy smile, and Southcote’s patented, “Ho, good lady… a minute of your time?” She had encountered his kind before, however, and was already doing her best to get rid of him when her housekeeper appeared on the porch behind her. In her increasing annoyance, an imperceptible glance in the direction of the large black woman from under the floppy rim of the peddler’s hat went unnoticed by the white mistress to whom he was addressing his verbal spiel.
“And you, ma’am!” he said after a moment, turning his attentions toward the approaching black woman. “I am certain that you will find yourself interested—”
“She’s no ma’am,” interrupted Mistress Crawford pointedly. “She’s just a slave.”
“Unless I miss my guess, good lady, she carries out a great deal of the work of the place.”
Amaritta continued toward the wagon and began looking at the pans, dish towels, and other kitchen items.
“Suit yourself,” said Mrs. Crawford, “she’s got no money anyway.”
Glad to have an easy way to excuse herself, she turned and made her way back to the house. “But be quick about it,” she added over her shoulder. “It’s precious little work I get out of her and I don’t want her frittering away the day on useless gawking at things we don’t need!”
The moment they were alone, Southcote’s salesman’s demeanor vanished and his expression immediately became serious. He drew close to the black woman.
“You the one they call the ticket mistress in these parts?” he asked under his breath.
“Dat’s me, mister,” said Amaritta, “but keep yo’ fool voice down.”
“I’m the telegraph man,” he whispered. “And I’ve got a special on soap just now.”
“We makes our own soap ’roun’ here, mister.”
“Then how about these bright copper cooking utensils?” he said loudly. “They are the latest in cookware, straight from New York.”
He took down a pan from where it hung on the display wall of his wagon and proceeded to show it to her, again drawing close. “Mine is a very special kind of soap, good ticket mistress,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’m certain you will find it most enlightening.”
“You heard my mistress—I ain’t got a cent to my name.”
“Then, good lady, I will make you a gift of a cake of my special hand soap—it comes all the way from Pennsylvania,” he added, glancing into her eye with a significant look, “and the manufacturer of this soap is hopeful that the generosity of my gift will be returned one day to its rightful place.
“—And,” he went on, again speaking loudly in case anyone was listening, “if cookware isn’t your interest, I have every kind of cleaning brush known to man.”
They continued to walk about the wagon slowly. At length Southcote paused at the soap. He picked up a bar wrapped in brown paper and handed it to her.
“This is the soap I was telling you about,” he said, now making no effort to keep his voice down. “I’m sure you will find its cleaning properties beneficial. Take it please, good lady, with my compliments. But—” and again he lowered his voice until it was barely audible—“study it carefully before using it. Remember… it comes all the way from Pennsylvania, and the train is waiting for return passengers.”
He climbed back up onto his seat, tipped his hat without expression, and with a flick of his reins bounded into motion and was soon clattering away in the direction he had come.
Amaritta reentered the house a few moments later.
“It took you long enough,” snapped her mistress. “What have you got there in your hand?”
“A cake er soap, missus,” replied the housekeeper. “He gib it ter me.”
“What for?”
“Don’ know, missus. He say we might like ter hab it.”
“Give it to me.”
Amaritta handed the bar to her mistress, who looked it over quickly, sniffed it, then handed it back.
“Well I’ve got no use for it—it’s not even scented,” she said. “He just gave it to you?”
“Yes’m.”
“The man’s a bigger fool than he looks if he thinks he can give away his merchandise to penniless coloreds.”
“Yes’m.”
Amaritta dropped the mysterious gift into one of several pockets hidden beneath the apron in the folds of her large dress, then proceeded to continue with the chores with which she had been occupied before the appearance of the strange Professor Southcote.
It was not until she was alone in her own room later that evening that she had the chance to look at the day’s gift more closely. She removed it from her pocket, then carefully unwrapped the paper around it. The cake was plain white, of the most common type of hand soap. She turned it over in her hands and there saw the reason it had been delivered along the telegraph to her. Etched in the surface was a message, cryptic and employing as many symbols as actual words so as to avoid decoding should unfriendly eyes chance upon it, the meaning of which after three or four minutes gradually became clear—as clear to the ticket mistress as an electromagnetic telegraph message to any above-ground railroad station master in the land.
Slowly a smile spread over her lips as the full meaning presented itself.
Why, Caleb, you ol’ cagey nigger! she said to herself. You dun it—an’ now we got’s ter git da res’ ob yo’ family aboard dat train too!
She went outside to the pump and washed her hands vigorously with the professor’s gift until all hint of its purpose had vanished in the bubbles and suds soaking into the dirt at her feet. The instructions were in her head now—the repository where all messages that came to this ticket office disappeared in the end.
Twenty-seven
Cherity Waters sat in her room at the Cambridge Boarding School for Young Ladies.
She sat quietly in her chair gazing at a tiny tintype of her mother which rested on top of one of her mother’s most prized possessions. Why she had brought the book to school with her she could not exactly have said. She had not taken it out of her chest until this day.
Her third year here would be over in a few weeks. She would return to Boston and not come back. She and her father had decided that she would remain at home next term and that she would continue her education by means of private tutors. She was seventeen and beyond the age when most girls were studying to great extent anyway. But she was interested in history and literature and did not want to stop learning just because most girls did so at her age. She and her father were both alone and there was no reason for them to spend any more time apart than they already had. Even more importantly, her father’s health was not as robust as it had once been. She wanted to be home for him. Why should they have a housekeeper to clean and cook for them when she was capable of doing both? The fact was, she had missed her father sorely during these years at the boarding school and would be glad to get back to Boston for good.
Not that the years here hadn’t been good in their own way. She had learned a great deal. She had made friends she would cherish for years. She had even managed to win over stern old Miss Baird, she thought with a smile, something she never thought would happen. The dear old spinster would probably cry when Cherity said good-bye for the last time. She might cry herself, she thought. She would miss this place. But it was time to return to her father.
She had changed in these three years. She had finally begun to grow and had added several inches in height. She had become more resigned to the dress that was required of her here, though she kept her boots and hat in her trunk for special occasions. Occasionally she even passed muster in Miss Baird’s eyes as a “presentable young lady.”
But she had never given up on her dream of returning to the West, nor relinquished her love affair with horses. With regard to the former, the terrible bloodshed in Kansas during the past two years over the slavery issue prevented her from harboring any thoughts about an actual trip West again until things cooled dow
n. With regard to the latter, however, she and her father had picked out a horse during her most recent visit home. They planned to purchase it the moment she returned and board it at one of the stables not far from Constitution Hill. The prospect of having her own horse was almost too exciting for words… not to mention being able to wear trousers and boots every day if she wanted!
But Cherity’s reflections on this day were not only about horses and the future.
The girl who shared her room had left a few minutes earlier.
“Who’s that?” she had asked, glancing at the small photograph in Cherity’s hand.
“It’s my mother,” replied Cherity.
“Really… you actually have a picture of her!”
“My father had it taken at one of Boston’s first photographic studios.”
“I… uh, thought your mother was dead,” said the girl.
“She is,” replied Cherity. “She died when I was born.”
“Oh… uh, well I’m going to lunch—want to come?”
“Go on ahead,” said Cherity. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
She stared down again at the faint brown image of the woman, so familiar to her eyes and yet so filled with vague mystery in her girl’s heart. Eventually she set it aside and reverently opened the black leather-bound book beneath it. Why had this Bible been so special to her mother? she wondered as she absently turned through its pages. What had her mother found in it that was so full of meaning?
From the very feel of the pages beneath her fingers, from the occasional smudges and creased corners and many underlinings and handwritten notes, it was obvious that her mother had read every page of it. What were the mysteries Kathleen Waters had discovered here?
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