Her mother’s words helped to heal the hurt a bit, but her inner fear spoke out. “I don’t want to leave Travis.”
Lona smoothed down her apron. “I thought there was something holding you back. Travis been gone now for four years. He would want you to move on and live your life. That’s what he died for.”
Mags snatched up two bowls of shortcake. “There’s no need to talk about this now. We can discuss it later.”
Her mother’s eyes regarded her, but Lona’s response to her was typical and a forgiving one. “Of course, honey. Let’s get this food out for folk who want dessert.”
They went out with two bowls apiece, and her mother sought to serve her husband, so she put a bowl in front of Mr. Thomas, slamming it a little harder than she intended, and some of the cream slopped out onto the red-checked tablecloth creating a grease spot she would have to clean later. Wonderful. “Coffee?”
“If you don’t mind, Mags,” Mr. Thomas said very graciously. Too graciously.
“It’s all a part of the meal.”
She retrieved the cup of coffee. Her father’s voice drifted to her in the kitchen, inviting the stranger to stay for the Saturday night reading of the Bible and newspaper articles. The steam from the coffee rose up in her nose and beads of sweat pearled on her forehead. When was he going to leave? She already had to work with him all day, practically. Would she have to be saddled with this stranger so much more than this?
John said aloud to him, “We talk about God’s word in our world today. But, so much is happening in our world, we also like to talk more about the events in the world and how God plays a role. The Great War, those terrible flu outbreaks and now, all of these Negroes being killed left and right.”
She let out a breath and wiped the sweat away. Her father was such a good man. Like Travis had been. A good and simple man.
“It’s amazing you speak with your daughters about these heavy issues.”
Her blood boiled like the coffee. Did he think they were stupid country folk?
But her father’s voice came through loud and strong. “So many people think me having so many daughters is a problem. I don’t. I want them to be good women and to raise good and strong families in the race. If they don’t know about the world, how are they gonna do that?”
“I couldn’t agree more, sir,” Mr. Thomas said as she came back out with the coffee in cup and saucer. He fingered his thick mustache again, and she had a fleeting thought about what Katie had said. She handed the cup in his direction.
He jumped back a bit and a qualm of guilt rose up in her. Some men who had fought in the war were jumpy and she was sorry she had caused him to think he wasn’t safe. As much as she resented his sudden appearance into her life, she wouldn’t burn him with hot liquids.
“Thank you, Miss Bledsoe.”
“Mr. Thomas.” She nodded and began to retreat as she always did to the blissful safety of the kitchen. The kitchen was her safe place, where she could be her most caretaking self. However, Asa Thomas called out her name and she stopped.
“What do you think about these lynchings, Miss Bledsoe?”
She stopped in her tracks. So did the rest of her family. He couldn’t know about Travis. Maybe Ruby had told him about her intended. Or maybe he knew and Ruby had said something to him about treating her with kid gloves because of it. Or, maybe, just maybe, he was asking her for her opinion. No one ever did that. Unless it was to ask a pie-making question or how to do something quickly. “What do you mean, Mr. Thomas?”
“I’m asking, as your father says you all talk about world and local events, how these local murders of Negroes have impacted work at the mill.”
She straightened. “I think the people in our mill are happy. Ever since Ruby was here and made Winslow see a few things. With the labor shortage in the war, people are happier. There’s no need for lynchings, as you call it, to come here.” Not anymore.
“Yet, when I told you about the hours mills are beginning to work, you seemed surprised.” His gaze stayed on her, genuine in wanting to know what she thought. What did he want from her?
“I was. People won’t like their hours being cut. They may protest.” Ha. Let’s see how he deals with the idea of protest.
“But if people become more efficient in a shorter amount of time, and when more efficiency means Winslow won’t need children to work in his mill, then they can build a high school. More education means better workers. He’ll benefit.”
She watched as he put his mustached lip on the cup and drank the coffee in a smooth, slow motion. Her torso itched. Time to straighten her corset out, or was it bunching up? Or maybe it was time to take it off. Maybe that would be better. Her sisters were always making fun of her for wearing it anyway.
Mercy. She was contemplating taking off some of her clothes in front of a strange man who spoke radical ideas. “Excuse me.” She went into the kitchen and opened the back door. Not a great idea. The May evening did not provide the relief she sought. Breathe. She yanked at her corset. Stay out of his way. Who was this man coming along and changing the world she knew, shaking things up? She must get away from him so she could remain as whole as she had ever been.
Driving back to his mill house, Asa marveled. He had just witnessed one of the most remarkable acts of transformation he had ever seen. Where had the fiery, snappish, Mags gone to when she was in the midst of her family? The feisty woman who he had met only today had set his soul on fire in a more fevered way than he had known for a long time. Her responses to him earlier made him forget all about the comfort of his room, the killing fields of France and even the pleading brown eyes of Aline, dying in his arms of the terrible Spanish flu.
Yet, when she had the first chance, she had retreated into the kitchen, and didn’t come out when he was talking with her father and mother about world events. All of a sudden, she was a wounded bird, and he wanted to know why. What had hurt her?
He loved talking with her family and looked forward to Sunday, a day when he would have three meals with her and she would not be able to avoid him.
He slept well and woke up in plenty of time on Sunday morning to dress and present himself at the Bledsoe house at eight o’clock for a good breakfast of eggs and more ham and biscuits before Sunday school.
Despite his mother’s similar charge of the Sunday school back at his home church in Pittsburgh, it had been years since he had been, but the Bledsoes all went, since Lona was the superintendent. Breakfast was not what he expected because Mags paid him very little attention, filling his coffee cup up before he could even position himself to ask her for some. He tried to get her to look him in the eyes. She wouldn’t do it.
The First Water Christian Church was a small backwater church, the kind of church he imagined Freedom in Pittsburgh did mission work for. Regardless, the pastor and his wife were kind and welcomed him.
He sat in on John’s session of the men’s Sunday school, and he took his text from Job. Now, he understood where Ruby had gotten her perspective from. John’s lesson allowed him to feel very peaceful about the notion of suffering or maybe to begin to make peace with it anyway. John’s long face and sober countenance showed that he understood a few things as well.
When it was time for the services, he went and tried to sit next to Mags, but was inhibited by her sisters who surrounded her, Nettie on one side and Em on the other. So, he sat right behind them and the youngest, Delie, sat next to him.
Fine. The view allowed him to focus on the swan-like grace of Mags’ fine brown neck as it rose gracefully out of the starched white collar of her dress. The boater she wore covered her crinkly black hair, which formed a large heavy knot on the back of her head. She wore dainty small pearls in her ears, and the luminescent sheen of them shone against the smooth, Madeira color of her skin.
That was it. The deep, rich red-brown of the Madeira Aline had pressed upon him t
o drink to celebrate the end of the war. He didn’t drink it, but he was struck by the deep, rich color of the wine in the cup. How had Mags impressed him to think about what had happened nearly a year ago? Now, again, his world turned upside down by coming to this small southern town.
“Brother Asa,” the preacher called to him from the pulpit.
Was he being called out in church?
He put up his cane and pulled himself to stand. “Yes, sir?”
“Please, give us some testimony today about all of your trials and how God has set your feet in the path to be here with us today.”
Could he deny it? How did someone go from the gore, blood and despair of the killing fields of France to this small town in a year? It had to be God.
But despite such a feeling of despair on his part, he began as he knew how to do. He spoke from his seat. “I bring you all greetings from Freedom Christian Chapel, my home church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”
There were murmurs among the parishioners, only about fifty in number, who did not realize he was from the mystical “up north.” “I also bring you greetings from Brother and Sister Morson, although they were not the source of any trials I’ve had.”
Widespread laughter. Many of these folk were very familiar with Ruby. “Mrs. Morson is looking quite fine, awaiting the arrival of her blessed event in just a few months. We must lift her health up and her child up to God in the hopes all will be well with them.”
“Amen.” Mrs. Bledsoe’s voice echoed across the small church from the front.
“I just want to say some things about what we, as Negroes who fought in the war are experiencing.”
He took a breath. “I’m new from the terrors of war, just a few months ago. I lost a great deal over there in Europe. However, when I was there, I was a man. I didn’t have to worry about where I was going and who I could eat with. There are places in the world where we can be treated with respect. I’m down here to learn more about how I, as a man who has seen those things, can make that happen in a place like this.”
Silence. He barely knew what to say, but it came to him. God again?
“You shouldn’t have to live in gratitude every moment of your lives that you haven’t been lynched today. You should take it for granted you and yours can live free. Your children should be educated in good schools, even a high school if you want it.” A sharp intake of breath nearby. Mags.
“There’s been enough suffering. I did not go to Europe to ensure our people were kept down and under someone’s thumb. It’s time for change. Amen.”
He eased down on the cane. He did not mean to sound political, but religious instead. Still, nowadays, it was all the same thing. God could not mean for His people to have to keep living like this. There had to be better, and some other way. These feelings, so strong in him, were the reason why he felt compelled to keep writing his pieces to stir hearts and minds.
The preacher tried to mitigate the silence with a rousing hymn, but Asa’s words had cast a pall in the service and he was sorry. However, as he settled into the pew, Mags turned her head around to face him and tilted her head up to him. She fixed him with an intense gaze, fringed by her long lashes. Then, she gave him the smallest, quickest nod of approval.
A thrill went up his arms and he tingled with anticipation. Mags had agreed with him. She approved of him. Maybe, just maybe, she even liked him a bit. There was a new mission in his life now, something new to make him feel alive again.
To make her feel the same way.
Chapter Four
Now everyone in the church was impressed with him. The whole veteran aspect, as well as the way in which he had traveled the world and his insistence that they had rights, all made a difference. Multiple families invited him to their houses for supper and dinner that night, but Lona waved them all away. “You all can have him next week. He got his meal voucher with us, so he coming back with us today.”
“You trying to get him for one of those girls, Lona and you know it,” Mrs. Marshall said with a frown. She was Katie’s mother.
“Do you blame me if I do?” Lona fanned herself in the June heat.
“It look like to me as if he already got a thing for Mags, Mama,” Katie informed her mother as the four women stood around watching Asa talk to the pastor.
Mags bowed her head and blushed. “Katie, he’s our boss. We got to work with him.”
“I know. But that’s only for a short time. What about after that, when he go back up north?”
Mags saw how Katie’s eyes took on a faraway dreamy glance when she spoke about “up north”, as so many Negroes down here did. She didn’t have that same kind of feeling about it, because Ruby insisted in her letters to them that it was cold. And it would mean leaving Travis.
“I don’t know,” Mags said purposefully, not telling Katie about Ruby’s plans, but Lona couldn’t help herself.
“Ruby sent him down here to bring Mags up. Mags is going to help her sister in her time of need.”
Mrs. Marshall fixed Mags with a look and folded her arms over her big stomach. “Well, well now. Ain’t you the little traveler? Hmm. Come on Katie, we’ll get him for next week.”
The two women left Lona and Mags behind, with Katie smiling as she left them. Lona huffed, “I’ma show Nan Marshall a thing or two.”
“Mama, can you let the man make his own choice?”
Lona fixed her a look. “Honey, he already has.” Lona glanced at Asa’s way, where his eyes were still trained in Mags’s direction.
“I’m the only one he knows from work.”
“That ain’t true. He met lots of folk yesterday.”
“Well, I was the first one, then.”
Lona took a hand and put it under Mags’s chin, a difficult endeavor because Mags was about five inches taller than her mother. “That there is a good man. You ain’t acting funny because he was injured in the war, are you? There’s plenty who was, and plenty who ain’t coming back because of all of that foolishness.”
Mags shook her head, as much as she could with her mother’s grip on her chin. Lona could see her difficulty and dropped her hand. “What is it?”
“I just want to stay with my family. I’m fine with my life here. Nettie can go up to Pittsburgh with him. She’s nineteen. Let her go.”
“Ruby asked for you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? We ain’t seen her in years.” Lona choked and whipped out her handkerchief.
“Good heavens, Mama, I know that.” She turned away. “I just don’t want to.”
“Travis been dead for four years,” Lona said levelly. “Time for you to move on. It’s selfish staying tied to a dead man in that way.”
“Who are you to say it’s selfish, Mama? You have the man you have always loved. How can you possibly know how I feel?” Mags said, on the verge of tears herself.
John came up to them. “You all is drawing attention. Come on now. Let’s go home.”
“I’ll walk, thank you, Daddy.” Mags turned and started off into the woods, leaving them all behind. She had to be alone with her thoughts, just for a minute, to remember, what Travis had looked like. If she could. It was getting harder and harder to remember. If she went “up north” then she would forget him completely and that would not be fair. After all, it was because of her that he was dead.
She stopped by the stream where Ruby used to catch fish. They often liked to say that Ruby was the boy in the family, Delie was the one who took over those chores now of coming here to fish. It was still a good place to come and think. If she left, she wouldn’t have a chance to put her plan into place, to get her revenge on Paul Winslow.
She had insisted to Travis that he ask for, not petition for, his rights to be paid more as a mill worker. He had put himself out in front, just on her and Ruby’s say so. They came for him in the night, beat him bloody and left him for dead in the road. Adam
had just arrived, and he did his best to heal him, but Paul Winslow’s henchmen had done their job too well. He died in a slow, excruciating way, in her arms, weighting down her heart permanently with guilt. When the light had gone out of Travis’s eyes, she did not blame Ruby or Adam. All Travis had asked to do was to be a man. Paul Winslow would not let him. So it was for Mags to let him know how she felt about the way that he had wrecked her life.
He had taken away Travis. On orders from him, he had his son steal her sister’s virtue in order to silence her protests about the way the men were treated in the mill. He was a terrible man and he had to be stopped. She would use her skills to bring him up high, and then she would bring him down low. Someone had to stop him in this town. She was just a young Negro woman, but she was more than up to the task. Getting involved with Mr. Thomas would not help her with what she had to do. Then, as if she conjured him in her mind, Asa Thomas stood before her, leaning on his cane.
“I—I came here to be alone.”
“I don’t mean to interfere with that, but everyone at the church went on home. They told me that you knew how to come on home by yourself, but I still wanted to offer you a ride in the car if you wanted one. I don’t think it is a good idea for a young lady to be out here by herself.”
Despite her best intentions, and her hardened heart, she was touched by his thoughtfulness. No one thought of Mags in that way. “Been doing for herself the day she come out of my womb,” was the way Lona characterized her second daughter, and it was true. “Thank you,” she said, “I’m sure that you are hungry.”
“You aren’t making the supper?”
Mags sighed. She was. And she was out here making everyone’s supper late. So inconsiderate of her. Which was not a word that was applied to her, ever. “I wonder what would happen if I stayed here?” she mused aloud.
A Most Precious Pearl Page 4