“I would appreciate some of that to wash with,” he said. “I feel all grimy from the fire.”
“It’s no problem.”
“Travis.”
“Was just someone who came courting once upon a long time ago,” she explained without missing a stride in her task. He so loved watching her work.
“He must have been very special to you,” he said quietly. Delie came into the kitchen with the notebook and he took it from her with his thanks.
Mags used a paring knife to peel off soap into a pot. “He was a special young man to everyone. I can get this clean, but not stiff with starch in here. I’ll do it properly later on.”
“That’s okay. What made him special?”
Mags stirred the soap and water mix with the end of a stick. “He was just love itself. Everyone loved him and he wanted everyone to have a good life. He was willing to sacrifice himself for that.”
“Because he wanted better for you.”
She kept moving the soap.
“Because he loved you.”
“I told you, he loved everyone.”
“But you in particular, Mags,” he informed her gently.
“That’s what he thought.”
“Did you feel the same way?”
“I was too young to understand what he was about. I was about sixteen and he was twenty—the age I am now.” She stopped, and seemed to be thoughtful. “It wasn’t until he was almost gone that I could even begin to respond. Someone like that deserved better, someone to really love before his life ended so tragically.”
“I think that he would have been very happy to take whatever you were willing to give to him.”
Mags took the shirts and put them down into the pot. Unshed tears gleamed in her eyes. “I was just somewhere else where he wasn’t.” She looked up at him. “I vowed not to make that mistake twice in my life.”
“You did?” His throat was really dry now.
“When you came here on the porch tonight, I thought something had happened to you. I thought the same thing had happened. What you’re doing is too important for them to get to you. You cannot be lynched. We can think about tomorrow, but you, Asa, and me too, we have to get out of here to tell the story without anything happening.”
“I would agree.” He laughed a little, but he could see that Mags was serious.
She poured a basin of hot water and handed it to him. “You can wash up in that back room and set the pan outside of the door. You need to write.”
Her hands slid against his as she handed him the basin. Did she, could she care for him? What was he going to do about it? His hands got slick all of a sudden and he gripped the basin tighter to avoid making a bigger mess than the one he already created.
Chapter Nine
When Asa emerged from the little back room off the kitchen dressed in laid-back dress the next morning, his intentions were clear.
He was going. Not too fancy, just as James told them.
She had taken out an older white shirtwaist to go with her tan work skirt. But, as a special touch, instead of boots, she would wear her high button shoes. She wanted the people in Calhoun to see that she cared about their predicament, and that she was the necessary part of the team. She turned over the bacon. “Morning.”
“Good morning, Mags. Got coffee going?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll need it. I got a lot of writing done last night. Or this morning.”
“Wonderful. Help yourself. There’s plenty.” Mags put the bacon on a plate and sliced some new to fry. “Too bad that I don’t know how to drive, I could help.”
“Maybe we can fix that.” Asa smiled and as Lona bustled in saying good morning to both of them, she expressed her disapproval.
“Women don’t belong knowing how to drive. I couldn’t get at Ruby to correct her, but I’m surprised at you Mags. Your manners are better.”
She gestured at Asa over her mother’s shoulder. “Maybe not, Mama. Asa says that Ruby is a part of sewing circles and everything up north.”
“I would have to see that for myself.” Lona pulled down bowls and quickly pulled together a biscuit dough, shaping large cathead biscuits like magic from the tips of her fingers.
“That’s why I’m going up to see her.”
“And why you are going to be here with me this morning. I need your help getting some things ready for the canning and for the Fourth of July in a few weeks. Then, we got to get ready for the revival in a few more weeks. Remember, they didn’t have it last year because of the influenza.”
She remembered. It would be nice again to see Brother and Sister Carver, who, despite their advance age, still made time to come to Winslow because they loved the Bledsoe family. They had special relationships with Ruby, and might have news from her. “I know, Mama. But Asa needs my help today.”
Lona looked at her with her eyes blazing. “Why are you trying to be alone with him all of a sudden, when this is the man who took your job from you? Is he asking something of you?”
“No ma’am.” She jerked back a little, startled at this angry sudden turn from her mother.
“Then you can do as your family wants and stay here. It might be one thing if he could protect you, but he can’t.”
“Mama!” She breathed out, in astonishment. She wanted to open a hole in the red earth and crawl in, not for her mother, but for Asa, who had heard what she said.
“Excuse me.” Asa slipped out onto the back porch.
“Mama, you hurt his feelings.” Tears started in her eyes at the wounded look on his face.
“Things are different. Better his feelings hurt than my child,” Lona said blandly.
“Lona, in all of our years together, I have never seen you be so disrespectful to a guest in our house.” Her father had appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, frowning.
Mags lifted the burned bacon from the pan. Her parents never confronted one another in such an open way. They got along so well. Their daughters would laugh and say that their parents never, ever argued, but she could see how angry her father was.
Lona put her apron to her face, her usual posture when she was going to cry and sure enough, her mother didn’t disappoint. “What could I do? Mags is bound and determined to go off with this man. I never seen her like this, my most obedient child, the one I lean on the most, Mags is my backbone. What would I do in this world without her?”
“Woman, you got three other daughters.”
“Why does people say that when someone have five daughters? They’re each precious. Didn’t we name them all after jewels?”
Mags felt like a fifth wheel on a wagon standing there frozen while her normally unexpressive mother talked in such an open way about how she felt about her. She went and put her arm around her mother’s shoulders while she sobbed. “Mama, please calm down. It isn’t good for you to take on like this.”
“I’ma ’pologize to Mr. Thomas, ’cause I want him to be comfortable here, but I can’t apologize for wanting to keep my child out of harm’s way. Everything around here getting ramped up so, it would be better if everyone just stayed at home.”
“Mama, these people getting brave. They are going around to folks’ homes doing their dirt. They burned down the church over there in Calhoun. What about what God would have to say about protecting his house? We can’t have them coming around here and burning up First Water.”
“No, we couldn’t.” Lona wiped at her eyes.
“Mama. We’re going on a picnic. That’s all. A drive and a picnic. Then we’ll be home.”
Asa’s presence hovered off of the back porch and her father stepped forward to invite him back into the house. “Once you all eat, you can be on your way.”
He started to open his mouth to exclude her, but she nodded her head at him. “Mama’s all right now.”
“I am. I’m sorry for the things I said, Mr. Thomas. Please. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable at my table.”
“That’s all right, ma’am.”
Mags gestured to him that he should go out and sit at the table and with a half-smile, and he did.
Passing her father the platter of half-burned half-cooked bacon, she patted him on his arm in silent thanks for allowing her to go.
Asa didn’t want Mags to think that he was still angry, so he forced himself to make pleasant talk with her.
But he was.
Still, how could he be angry at Mrs. Bledsoe, when her thought so clearly and openly expressed his own fears? What right did he have to speak against her when that was the way he felt himself? He wasn’t a whole man, so how could he present himself to Mags as someone who could take care of her and any children that they may have, regardless of what her father had said?
He saw his mistake. He had allowed himself to have hope, especially after his conversation with John, but Lona’s strong disapproval of him put that all to rest. He forced himself to keep his eyes on the road. He was doing enough by coming south and making life better here in Winslow for Mags, for her future, for her family—the one here now and the one sure to come. That was his purpose. It wouldn’t be fair to her to ask for more.
Driving up a back road and turning the corner, he saw that part of the church had been hauled away. He smiled. People might assume that the Negroes of Calhoun were simple and not bright, but he would beg to differ. This was a natural reason for them to get together. Who would begrudge them the right to rebuild their own church? It was the perfect reason for folks to gather. And talk. He parked next to the parsonage and helped Mags out of the car.
James saw them and waved them over. “Howdy folks. Glad to see you.”
“Glad we could make it.” Asa shook James’s hand. “You got the perfect reason to gather. Perfect day for it.”
“Might as well. They don’t like it if too many Negroes are in one place. But they can’t take away our right to Praise God.” James gestured to his cabin across the road where women bustled busily and laid out long tables decorated with gay red gingham cloths that matched his farmer shirt. “Annie be looking for you, Mags. She over in there.”
She touched him lightly on the arm. He couldn’t help it, he still felt warm when she did that, despite the late June day. “Will you need me here?”
“I’ll be fine. Go ahead. You get a different perspective,” he said, and as he did, he wished that he had given her a notebook. Part of what he admired about her was her precision, and no doubt, she would be great at taking her own notes.
Making a mental note of it, he made sure she would get one if they had to continue these investigations. He watched the way that she moved across the roadway with her light skirt swaying, waving a hand at Annie and some of the other women. She would be a wonderful help to any man lucky enough to have her.
“A really nice young woman. She come from a good family, that’s for sure,” James commented.
“That’s true. Having met all of them, I can say that they are quite wonderful. As is she.”
“Yes, I can see you thinks that.”
He waved a hand. “She’s just my assistant on these investigations and we work at the mill together. That’s all.”
“Maybe that’s what you think, but I sees how you looking at her. And she you. She like you.”
“She’s young. Never been around too many like me, and so she likes me.”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“Mags deserves someone who can do wonderful things for her. She might even meet a young man here today who would be willing to pay court to her.” Even as he spoke the crazy sentence, a pang echoed in his heart as he walked with James to the former ruins of the church. There were a number of men collected near the church, healthy-looking men hauling away burned items, sawing wood, hammering nails and such. Plenty of strong whole men, all available to escort Mags somewhere. Watching their furious activity made him want to sweat in the early morning sun.
“They’s no doubt of that. She a fine figure of a woman. I was talking about you.” James fixed him with a look.
“She doesn’t want a beat-up old man like me.” Asa tried to laugh but it hurt too much.
“That’s not how she’s looking,” James argued.
“Regardless.”
“I don’t know what that means, but you gots lot to offer a woman. The war is over. We got us a new war here we fighting and you’re a plenty strong warrior with your words. I set up a bench up here where the men can talk to you and take a break at the same time.”
Sitting and talking wouldn’t get the men to open up to him. “I appreciate that, but I have a better idea. I can hammer nails with the best of them if you’ll have me?”
James brightened. “We needs all the help we can get. I thank you kindly, sir.”
Asa rolled up his shirtsleeves, taking himself away from what he was used to, and put the notebook down on the bench, ready to work.
As he knew, the men were much more willing to talk about their disgruntlement when they were working. He learned a great deal. He was glad though, when Mags came over for a water break. She came to him first.
“How’re you doing?” She handed him the tin cup of water. He drank it down, loving the spring water they had here in Calhoun.
“Learning a lot and being useful.” He decided to take a break to take some notes. He went over and picked up his cane and notebook off of the bench and followed her to the long tables set up in James’s yard.
“Looks like I’ll have more washing to do.” Mags grinned at him.
“If it comes to the kind of story I want to write, I could hire someone.”
Mags shook her head. “No, I can do it. As the best laundress in Winslow, my mother doesn’t come as cheaply as I do.”
He wished he could take her by the hand as they walked across the roadway in a companionable silence.
Why did I say that? Her humiliation was like dry cake in her mouth.
From a distance, she watched as he took in ham, beans and cornbread. There was no need to try to be friendlier with him. He clearly kept pushing her away as if he were sorry for the day when he had her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. Her mother this morning probably made it worse.
Standing at another table, Mags took a knife to a peach pie, ready to cut it evenly into eight pieces. Annie came and stood beside her, watching the men eat as the women did. They would clean up after the men and they would eat as the men returned to work. “There was some time this morning where my Mama didn’t want me to come,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t stay away. They have to see God’s people cannot be kept down. To burn a church, well, that’s sin itself.”
Annie nodded her thanks at a passing woman whose name Mags had forgotten. “I don’t blame your mama. These are bad times. Too many want to do us harm. But you came anyway?”
“Asa needed my help.”
Annie smiled in a too familiar way. “I see.”
She shook her head. “No, ma’am. It isn’t like that.”
“It isn’t?”
“He doesn’t like me like that.”
“And how do you know that, missy?”
“He says I’m his assistant, and I help him at the mill.”
“Ain’t no better way to come together, in my opinion.”
“Maybe, but that’s not what he says.” She put the cutting knife down. “I only knew Travis. He was always saying how he felt about me and how he loved me.”
“Travis?” Annie frowned. “That name sound familiar.”
“Yes, ma’am. He was murdered about four years ago in Winslow. He was with my sister, asking for better pay. He had the idea that he was going to fix up a home for us and he wanted more money. Paul Winslow’s bad men didn’t see it that way and they be
at him up because of it.”
“And then he died?”
She lowered her head and Annie patted her on the hand. She handed Mags a stack of smaller tin plates of various shapes to put the peach pie slices on. After she dished up all the pie and they handed it out to the men, Annie came back over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You know, your Asa, he been through a lot with the war and all. He might be quiet about the things he thinking. You need to give him more time.”
“He’s not mine.” She laughed. “And he has important work to do. I shouldn’t be getting in the way of it.” She sobered. “The whole country needs to know of the wrong that is going on here.”
“You’re mighty right about that.” Annie put a hand on her hip. “We got to find a way to live our lives where they ain’t stepping on our necks all of the time. You, you and him, you young. Give it time. He’ll come around.”
“He’s got to finish at the mill for a few more weeks and we can go up to Pittsburgh. I’m going to help my sister with her baby when she comes.”
“That’s good getting to know each other time.”
Mags waved a hand. “When we go back, he’ll find someone else up there in the north.”
“He ever say he had someone up there?”
“No.” She puzzled. “He didn’t.” She put her head down at the memory, embarrassed. “He did say he was a man, and he had a man’s needs and not to play around.”
“Hmmm,” Annie said with a smile on her lips. “Sound like potential to me.”
She pushed her lips together, shaking her head. “I’ll start clearing plates.” She went to the table and made herself useful, as she knew how to do. She noticed, though that Asa’s eyes followed her as she worked and she gave some thought to Annie’s pronouncements. Could it be possible that Asa liked her beyond being a worker in the mill or a helper in his investigations? Taking the dishes back to the sink, she got about the work in getting them clean in the dishpan.
“Hmm, hmmm.” Annie carried in another load of dishes. “He just ask me if you are okay.”
A Most Precious Pearl Page 10