American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

“Please, Mrs. Baker, have no concern. If he is unable to make up his work for you, my husband and I will gladly ensure that his obligations are met.”

  “As I said, Mrs. Davidson, he is already a month behind.”

  “I see… well, then—Nancy, will you please take the basket?” she added, turning momentarily to Nancy. Nancy took the basket of food and Carolyn opened her handbag. “How much is his rent per month?”

  “Well, as I say… he takes it out in work… but, it comes to the equivalent of six dollars, Mrs. Davidson.”

  A few inaudible words escaped Mary’s mouth which it was just as well Mrs. Baker, who could not decipher more than fifteen or twenty percent of what any Negro said, did not understand.

  “Well then,” said Carolyn, pulling out two bills and two coins, “here is twelve dollars. I hope this will cover last month he has been unable to work, as well as one more.”

  Surprised but clearly pleased, Mrs. Baker took the money from Carolyn’s hand. “Uh, yes… thank you, that will be just fine.”

  “If there are similar difficulties in the future, Mrs. Baker, will you please come see me rather than worrying Mr. Jones about it.”

  Mrs. Baker nodded, attempted a smile, then returned to her shop.

  “Effen dat woman thinks dat shack where dat poor man lives be worf six dollars a munf,” huffed Mary, “she’s nufin’ but a thief! Why hit ain’t a sight as good as ours, no how! An’ you an’ Mister Dab’ son only hab us pay two dollars a munf.”

  “But she also gives him work to do, Mary,” smiled Carolyn. “And Mrs. Baker is a widow. She has herself to think of too.”

  A few more mumbled comments and humphs accompanied them the rest of the way to Rev. Jones’ door. Several knocks went unanswered. They heard nothing from within. Carolyn tried the latch. The door swung open and they entered.

  From the moment Carolyn walked inside, she perceived that a change had taken place since her last visit. Rev. Jones lay on his bed at the far side of the room beneath a single blanket. They hurried toward him. His eyes were barely open. He smiled feebly at the sight of his visitors. Though his eyelids hung heavy, what portion of his eyes were visible below them brightened noticeably.

  “Ah… ladies, you’s good to come see me,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Rev. Jones,” said Carolyn, disturbed by the sight. She knelt at the bedside and placed a hand on his shoulder. She trembled inside as her hand touched him. His body was on fire. “What is it?” she said. “Have you been taken more ill since I saw you last?”

  “Da cough’s got worse an’ worse,” he said, his voice weak and rough. “Den I got so weak I jes’ couldn’t git up. But I’m happy an’ da Lord is good to me an’ I’ve got dear friends to love an’ dat’s good ter me. What more does a body need dan dat?”

  Carolyn felt a tug at her arm. She turned. Nancy motioned her away from the bed.

  “Dis was lying on da floor at da foot ob da bed, Miz Dab’son,” she said, showing Carolyn a towel covered with stains that could be nothing else than blood.

  “Oh, Lord!” Carolyn breathed, closing her eyes briefly. She took a deep breath, then opened her eyes and looked at Nancy again. “He’s been coughing up blood. How long has he had this cough, do you remember?”

  “He got sick fo dat spell last winter, den he’s been coughin’ eber since, close as I kin recall.”

  “Oh, Lord… Lord, bless the dear man!” she whispered. “How could he have failed so quickly! We were just here five or six days ago. Listen, Nancy,” she said, “I am going to run for the doctor. You and Mary do everything you can to get him to drink some water. And see if you can manage to get a little of the soup we brought inside him.”

  Carolyn turned and hurried out through the door. By the time she reached the street and passed the entrance to Mrs. Baker’s Mercantile a few seconds later, she had lifted the edges of her dress and was running as fast as she could along the boardwalk.

  Carolyn found Dr. Meade in his office. She knocked but did not wait for a reply, and rushed straight through the door.

  “Doctor… please!” she said out of breath, “you’ve got to come. It’s Mr. Jones. I’m more than certain he has pneumonia—I fear it is advanced.”

  Dr. Meade sat behind his desk, gazing over the top of his spectacles at this sudden intrusion into the quiet of an uneventful afternoon. He rose heavily, and glanced about for his coat and bag.

  “What are the symptoms?” he asked.

  “He’s had a prolonged cough,” answered Carolyn, catching her breath but obviously still frantic, “and now has a fever. And recently he’s been coughing blood.”

  “I see,” nodded the doctor gravely. “That sounds bad all right,” he added, putting on his jacket. He picked up his black bag and led the way to the door. “Where is he?”

  “At his house… behind Baker’s Mercantile.”

  Dr. Meade stopped in his tracks halfway through the open door. He turned to face Carolyn. “You don’t mean that old man, the darkie that does odd jobs… not that Jones?”

  “Yes, Doctor… old Mr. Jones. Please—we’ve got to hurry!”

  The doctor shook his head, turned and took a few steps back inside his office, and set his bag on his desk.

  “I can’t treat him, Mrs. Davidson,” he said. “You ought to know that.”

  “He may be dying, Dr. Meade!”

  “Be that as it may, he’s colored. After the hanging and everything else, I just can’t risk it. I’m sorry.”

  “Dr. Meade—he is a human being! And a dear one! I thought the physician’s oath was color-blind.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Davidson. I can’t help you.”

  He sat down in his chair. It was clear he did not intend to budge.

  “Dr. Meade—this is the most disgraceful thing I have ever heard!” said Carolyn, her anxiety for Rev. Jones boiling over. “I might expect something like this from… from… Denton Beaumont… but from you, Dr. Meade! I cannot believe my ears! A doctor’s vow is to preserve life. Do you intend to just let a poor man die… and do nothing to stop it!”

  The room went deathly silent. Dr. Meade sat and returned her stare but said nothing. He was angry, too, at being accused of playing false to his oath by a ranting abolitionist like this Davidson woman. The fact, also, that Denton Beaumont was one of his closest friends did not prejudice him in Carolyn’s favor. But he was one of those who kept his anger to himself, and chose other and more subtle means to express it than unleashing a verbal torrent of attack. She would pay for her outburst, but at a time and by a method of his choosing.

  Only a second more Carolyn stared back at his expressionless face, then turned and ran from the office. Before she had passed the threshold, her anger gave way to an uncontrollable flood of tears. Even if Dr. Meade had come, she knew the symptoms well enough to realize he may not have been able to stem the tide of the infection. But that he refused to come at all dashed what little hope she had carried to his office into heartbreaking despair.

  Without a doctor’s assistance, there was nothing any of them could do to help. Their friend Rev. Jones was in God’s hands now.

  For the rest of the afternoon and throughout the night, one of the women remained beside the sickbed. They could only make him comfortable, try to get him to eat and drink, and apply cool compresses to ward off the fever.

  But the disease had progressed much too far before they had realized its severity. Neither did Rev. Jones himself recognize the full state of his body’s collapse. Now in its final stages, there was no hope of reversal.

  Four days later, the dear man slipped away to be with his Father in a home prepared for him of considerable more luxury than Mrs. Baker’s shack where he had lived happily and died in great peace surrounded by three or four of his dearest earthly friends.

  The Davidsons held a service in the colored portion of Dove’s Landing’s cemetery. All the black workers from Greenwood, and a number of slaves from Oakbriar and the McClellan plantatio
n attended. The Davidsons were the only whites among them.

  The following Sunday came. No black services were held. There had been none for several weeks as their humble leader’s health had deteriorated. With Rev. Jones now gone, some of the blacks from the various plantations for the first time began to think of the future.

  Who would take his place? Even though they had to meet in secret, and even if their so-called church was the abandoned home of a Cherokee farmer, they had to have a pastor. And black ministers in and around Dove’s Landing were in short supply.

  For years Virginia law had prohibited blacks from meeting, assembling, or conducting their own church services at all. It also threatened imprisonment for whites who undertook to teach blacks or slaves to read, to better themselves, or about spiritual principles. The secret church meetings Rev. Jones had conducted for several years remained undetected by virtue of an ingenious plan among the religious blacks of rotating between the clandestine black services and the authorized services held every Sunday morning at the Dove’s Landing church, where several pews at the rear were sectioned off for the sole use of coloreds.

  Though most of the blacks of the area thought highly of the Davidsons for what they had done and envied their blacks their freedom, there were nonetheless a few who resented them their good fortune. But the loyalties even of these to fellow blacks was the strongest bond of all. None would have thought of betraying either Rev. Jones, the Greenwood blacks, or Richmond and Carolyn Davidson as the obvious unspoken “sponsors” of the black worship services, in spite of their personal feelings in the matter.

  Thus, on most Sundays, a few token blacks from every plantation including Greenwood—the individuals comprising this small black congregation shifting membership from week to week—walked silently into Dove’s Landing to attend the white services, sitting in the black section in unexpressive silence, while other of their fellows, by means secretive, circuitous, and constantly changing, made their way over hill and valley and through woodland and pasture, to the services held on the Brown tract by Rev. Jones.

  Thus the assortment of blacks at each service was always different, though always representing a mix from all the surrounding plantations. Over the course of time, every black was seen at some time or another in the Dove’s Landing church. And as all blacks looked similar to most whites, this constantly shifting diversity of worshipers never aroused the slightest suspicion in the community that there was another invisible congregation existing simultaneously but unseen.

  Carolyn’s teaching of Greenwood’s own women, however, was never discussed.5

  Spearheaded by Nancy and some of the women, who then spoke with their men, a plan gradually began to be discussed among the Davidson workers. They contrived to visit two or three of the other plantations, ostensibly on other business, and speak in secret with the leading slaves in a matter that did not divulge the women’s meetings. While the full reasons for their suggestion of a pastoral replacement, therefore, were not made clear to the slaves of other plantations, they were persuaded to go along. The reactions to their proposal were mixed, but in the end, in that no better solution presented itself, a general consensus among the community of blacks in the region was reached.

  Accordingly, a deputation of four women and three men of Greenwood’s blacks, scrubbed clean with faces shining and wearing their best Sunday clothes, appeared one Sunday afternoon at the front door of the Davidson home. Answering their knock, Moses opened the door. His jaw dropped in astonishment. He found Richmond and Carolyn in the parlor a minute later.

  “Mister… Miz Dab’son,” he said in a more formal expression than usual, “da two ob you’s got a group ob visitors.”

  Having no idea what his emphasis of the word could signify, but assuming possibly that a new troop of runaways had arrived, Richmond rose and followed Moses to the veranda. The sight that met his eyes brought a smile, then a chuckle of good humor to his lips.

  “We’s wantin’ ter talk ter Missus Dab’son,” said Josiah Black, whom the others had designated spokesman.

  “I see,” nodded Richmond, still smiling though now more bewildered than ever. “Then come in—she is in the parlor.”

  They followed him stoically inside.

  “Carolyn, my dear,” he said as they entered the parlor, “you have guests.”

  “Me?” said Carolyn, glancing up in surprise.

  “It seems they are here to see you,” replied Richmond.

  “Dat don’t mean you can’t stay, Mister Dab’son,” said Nancy. “It’s jes’ dat our biz’ness is wiff da mistress.”

  “If you don’t mind,” said Carolyn, “I would like him to stay so that we can both hear why you have come. But sit down, please… make yourselves comfortable.”

  They did so. An awkward silence followed. Richmond and Carolyn glanced at each other with expressions of humorous curiosity. Neither had so much as a clue what it was all about. The eyes of their black visitors all rested on Josiah. Finally, with obvious nervousness and a bit of stammering, he managed to begin.

  “We’s been talkin’,” he said, “us an’ others down yonder, ’bout what ter do ’bout the Sunday services wiff Rev. Jones now passed away like he dun, God rest his sowl. We needs us a pastor, ’cause dat church’s ’bout da only time we see da blacks at da other places roun’ ’bout, an’ Rev. Jones he taught us good outta da good Book an’ helped us ter know ’bout God an’ Jesus, an’ dat white preacher in town, he’s nuthin’ but a white man’s preacher dat tells coloreds dat dey ain’t as good as whites an’ ter obey der masters an’ such like. An’ dere ain’t no other colored preachers dat we know ob. An’ our ladies, dey been tellin’ us ’bout dere meetin’s wiff you, Miz Dab’son, an’ ’bout all you dun taught dem. An’ we figger you likely knows as much ’bout God an’ da good Book as Rev. Jones. So we’s here axin’ effen you’d be paster ter us coloreds out yonder at da Brown house.”

  Richmond and Carolyn sat in surprised silence. Whatever they had expected, it was surely not this!

  “But why me… I’m a woman,” said Carolyn at length. “I’m no preacher. What about Richmond?”

  “I’m no preacher either!” laughed her husband.

  “But you boff know a heap mo’ ’bout God den we do,” now said Nancy. “An’ I’s sure you knows jes’ as much as yor missus, Mister Dab’son… but you’s been teaching us ladies ’bout God all dis time, Miz Dab’son. You’s already been like a pastor to us.”

  “But what about the slaves from Oakbriar and the other plantations,” asked Carolyn. “What would they think of such a suggestion?”

  “We already dun ax’d dem, Miz Dab’son,” replied Josiah. “We din’t tell dem nuthin’ ’bout da meetin’s wiff our ladies. We only said dat you wuz a fine lady dat knows ’bout God an’ da Book an’ how ter live like Christians is supposed ter do. Dey’s willin’ ter go along.”

  “Well,” said Carolyn, glancing with question at Richmond again, “you’ve quite taken me by surprise. I suppose all I can say is that I will pray earnestly about it and that Richmond and I will talk the matter over further. I will take your request seriously, and then see what God would have us do.”

  When Carolyn and Richmond were alone a few minutes later, they continued to discuss the unexpected request.

  “They’re not looking for a preacher,” Richmond commented after some time, “so much as a minister, a teacher. And you are both, Carolyn. You are a natural teacher—you’ve been teaching our ladies for years. And your compassionate nature has a heart for ministry. They trust you, and that is probably the most important qualification of all.”

  “The slaves from the other plantations don’t really know me.”

  “True, you will have to earn their trust. But that will come in time.”

  “It sounds like you think I should do it.”

  “I do.”

  “But… I’m a woman!” laughed Carolyn again. “You know what the Bible says about women teaching and preaching.”
/>   “Of course. But you have to read the Bible for its larger themes. When Paul says, ‘I suffer not a woman to teach,’ I presume he had some specific reason for doing so. But that certainly cannot be taken as a large general truth of Scripture. Goodness, I would be lost without your wisdom and counsel and balancing influence in my life.”

  “Do you think Paul was wrong to say it?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it wrong. But it may be that he over-stepped himself in that case. He is not above error, and his attitude toward women, especially in that as far as we know, he was not married himself, may have been one of his blind spots.”

  “So do you think women should occupy leadership roles?” asked Carolyn.

  “Perhaps under certain circumstances, yes. We always have to look to the larger truths. Look at how Christians are so divided on slavery, each side pointing to specifics from the Bible to justify its view, but not seeking the overarching themes of compassion, justice, freedom, equality, and the liberty of life in God. In the same way, many of Paul’s instructions to the early church cannot be turned into ironclad rules that can be applied in all situations. Error always results from trying to turn a single scriptural instruction into a larger general truth.”

  Carolyn nodded, taking in her husband’s words thoughtfully and seriously.

  “These are new times, Carolyn,” Richmond went on. “We have to ask what is best for our people, and perhaps for all the blacks of the community. I feel strongly that God’s call is on you to do this. You have unique gifts. You have a special way of communicating with the women especially. They love you with all their hearts. How wonderful it would be if that could be extended to the slaves of the other plantations.”

  “I suppose you are right, but wouldn’t that increase the danger of detection?”

  “Sure, there would be risk involved. Not all the community’s blacks are as loyal to you as our own. But risk also means the opportunity for growth. I see that great good could be done.”

  Carolyn sighed and shook her head. “I must say, I am a little surprised at all you say.”