by Lisa Belmont
The book was The Little Engine That Could and Big Jim started off real slow like, but once he got going, he sounded out them words real good.
Chug. Chug. Chug. Puff. Puff. Puff.
The little train ran along the tracks.
She was a happy little train.
Her cars were full of good things for boys and girls.
There were all kinds of toy animals.
Giraffes with long necks.
Teddy bears with no necks,
And even a baby elephant.
We must’ve sat there ‘til five in the morning. Big Jim wanted to try and read all kinds of books. I’d brought The Poky Little Puppy, The Shy Little Kitten, and a collection of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes.
I told him that once he got through all those little kid books, he’d be ready to move onto bigger books, like The Velveteen Rabbit and Peter Pan.
“Those are the kinds of books that get you to thinking more,” I said. “They’re not so babyish.”
Big Jim sat back against the tree fort, and I got to thinking about what I needed to say. What Dolly Mason had written in her diary. I’d never told a soul before and got to feeling real nervous all of a sudden.
“Big Jim,” I said. “Have you ever seen a family tree?”
“A family tree? Is that what this tree is?” he said, gesturing to the swamp oak.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but it kind of was.
“Sort of,” I said, taking out a pencil and a piece of paper. I scooted the lantern close and drew a tree with branches and leaves so Big Jim could see it real good. At the top of the tree, I wrote three names. Dolly Mason. Briscoe Mason. And Ruth.
Branching off from Dolly and Briscoe, I wrote Ashton, then Tucker Ray, and then my name, Chloe. Branching off from Briscoe and Ruth I wrote Martha, Hattie Mae, and then Big Jim.
Big Jim and I were located at the same height on the tree. Like we were a couple of peaches ready to fall off them branches.
I showed the tree to Big Jim and said, “I have something to tell you I’ve never told anyone. Not even Momma.”
Big Jim’s eyes got real big like he was wondering what kind of mystery I knew.
“My great-granddaddy’s name was Col. Briscoe Mason, and he lived on a plantation called Rosehill. He and his wife Dolly bought a house slave named Ruth from Whitehall in 1858. I have Dolly’s diary, and it tells all about Ruth coming to Rosehill and how she was a real good slave.”
Big Jim didn’t know where I was going with all of this and got a glazed-over look in his eyes. Could a been cuz he’s dog-tired though.
“Big Jim,” I said. “In Dolly’s diary it talks about how my great-grandmama saw Briscoe Mason and Ruth. They were alone together and they…”
“Yessum?”
“Well, they ended up having a baby together.”
“Lord, your great-granddaddy and the house slave done made a baby?”
“Yes. They had a baby and her name was Martha.”
“Martha’s my grandmama’s name.”
“Big Jim,” I said. “Do you see what this family tree shows? The Martha on this family tree is your grandmama. She was Briscoe Mason’s daughter.”
He looked at that family tree real good and said, “You on this tree, too.”
“I know,” I said. “Briscoe Mason is your great-granddaddy same as he’s mine.”
“Well, don’t that beat all?”
“It sure does,” I said.
“You mean you’re as white as flour, and yet, you’re related to me?”
“Yes, you’re my kin. Same as Caleb.”
It felt strange to admit it, to let the truth move over us like the mist on the water. To let it float up to the trees and nest amongst the branches. That’s the way of the truth, though. You can’t keep it down.
“Maybe that’s why you saved me at the swamp, Big Jim,” I said, watching the first light of the morning splinter through the trees. “Maybe it was so the truth could come out.”
I looked at Big Jim and thought of all he’d been through. There had been the bear trap and the whipping. Both about the worst things I could imagine, yet he never got mad at Pa or Joss. Never spoke a word against either of them.
It made me admire him. Think that no matter how many times he’d been down in that cattail mud, it ain’t never really got on him.
“I wish I was like you, Big Jim.”
“Like me?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You ain’t bitter.”
I stuffed the books in the satchel, feeling as worn out as an old coat.
“Pa’s at the house, sleeping away safe and sound, and here we are. Cold and hungry, tired from squinting at them little words.”
“Miss Chloe,” he said. “Your pa ain’t sleeping good.”
“He ain’t?”
“No, ma’am. Nobody sleeps good when they’re acting mean.”
I slung the satchel over my shoulder and thought about what he said.
“Maybe he ain’t, Big Jim. Maybe you’re right. But he should know better than to go around whipping folk. Especially his own kin.”
“I’m okay, Miss Chloe. I’m healing up real good.”
“No, you ain’t. You’ve got all kinds of scars. Real bad ones.”
“The ones on the outside are healing. Ones on the inside, I’ve given to the Lord.”
My breath came out in a cold puff of air, like all that’d been worked up inside me had escaped. I sensed that his words were true. That Big Jim had forgiven my father. Forgiven him in a way I could not. Caleb liked to say that I was stubborn. That once I’d made up my mind, there was no going back.
Big Jim sat against the wall of the tree fort with a halo of peace around him. The kind of peace I’d never seen before.
“I reckon you have,” I said.
He got a real wistful look in his eyes and said, “Miss Chloe, you remember what you told me when you gave me that peach off a Widow Jones’ tree?”
“You mean when you told me to go on home to Pa?”
“Yessum.”
“I sure do. I meant it, too. I love you, Big Jim.”
“Yessum. Well, I ‘spect I love you, too, Miss Chloe.”
It was one of those moments that capture a feeling and don’t let go. Here we were, kin to each other, loving each other, and yet downright afraid.
“It’s gonna be okay, Miss Chloe. You’ll see.”
He leaned back and looked up at the stars. They liked to twinkle something fierce, and I started feeling very small. Pa said God had put the stars up in the sky before he even made man. I figured that was right and just kinda looked up at them with Big Jim.
I don’t know what came over him, but he started singing, real low and sweet, like Nat King Cole.
Oh, Holy Night. The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
I couldn’t account for what I was feeling, maybe it was hope or faith, but I got to believing them words. I started singing along, just like we’d do in church.
Truly He taught us to love one another. His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother. And in His name all oppression shall cease.
I let the song drift out from the tree fort, like an angelic melody I’d been privileged to hear.
“You believe that, don’t you?” I said. “We’re supposed to love one another. That’s why you don’t hate nobody.”
“Yessum,” he said.
I wrestled with that, wanting to say me too, but didn’t.
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It rained hard for three straight days, but on the fourth day it was crystal clear. The moon was out, and the swamp was quieter than the old cemetery on Bethany. I met Big Jim at the tree fort and handed him three buttermilk biscuits.
“Momma’s
special recipe.”
Big Jim took a big bite and said, “They’re real good.”
I sat back and watched him eat as an owl perched on a branch of the swamp chestnut. It hooted like it was trying to warn us of something, but I didn’t pay it no mind.
Big Jim finished eating and pulled his arms around himself, looking real big and strong. I could hear Joss calling him a big gorilla who didn’t have half a mind to know better than to wash himself outside.
“He goes down to that crick at night and splashes through the water buck naked.”
Joss was always making up stuff about him that wasn’t nothing but pure filth.
“You’re a good person, Big Jim,” I said flat out. “Why, you could be like Booker T. Washington someday.”
He looked at me real strange before he broke into a wide smile. The gap between his front teeth always made his smile seem bigger.
“Don’t know no Booker T. Washington.”
“He wrote a book called Up From Slavery. I haven’t read it yet, but Miss Lilly told me all about it. Booker T. Washington was born a slave.”
“A slave?”
“Yes, and his momma, Jane, was the cook for the plantation owner.”
Big Jim looked at me kind of funny, like he’s wondering where this conversation was going.
“But see now, he got himself an education and later became the head of the Tuskegee National Institute where colored folk could go to school for higher learning. He was even invited to the White House and met with President Roosevelt and President Taft.”
“Ain’t that something? He ran a school?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking how I hid the book under my bed so that Pa wouldn’t see it. “And he looked downright regal, too. Inside the book there was a picture of him sitting in a chair with a suit and tie.”
“Can you bring me the book, Miss Chloe? I reckon I’d like to read about him.”
“I don’t see why not. I’ll bring it next week so you can see for yourself.”
The moonlight edged out of the trees, leaving us to a damp wind that wreathed between us. The leaves were shaking a little, and I realized I was feeling that way myself.
“Big Jim,” I said, looking him square in the eye. “You ever wish you were white?”
He looked at me, his eyes real soft. “Why you ask?”
“You never think about your momma? How she works so hard? I’ve seen her polish them plates until you could see your reflection.”
“Yessum. Momma works real hard.”
“Big Jim,” I said, flicking a pebble. “Momma works hard too, but Widow Jones has Hattie Mae do things Momma never does.”
“Yessum.”
“I’ve seen Hattie Mae go outside and catch a chicken in the yard. Grab it and wring its neck real good.”
“Yessum,” Big Jim said. “Ol’ chicken don’t stand a chance when Momma lays its head across that stump.”
“Not a chance.”
“She brings it back to the house and plucks it real good.”
“Real good,” I said, watching his expression. He was proud of Hattie Mae. You could tell by the way his eyes lit up and his gap-toothed smile got to shining.
“Yessum, Momma can make a fine meal out of a rooster.”
“She sure can.”
Sometimes at Whitehall, you’d see Hattie Mae with blood on her apron and pig slop on her shoes. She and Puddingtate would use the outhouse and carry the chairs so Momma and Widow Jones could sit under the mimosa tree. They’d be out there for two, sometimes three, hours drinking lemonade and sipping tea. They’d laugh like they were schoolgirls and Hattie Mae would serve them, her back aching so bad she could hardly stand. But she never said nothing. There were some things nobody could change.
“I think if Hattie Mae was white, she wouldn’t have it so bad. Heck, she’s even got that bad cough and still gotta keep working.”
“Maybe you right, Miss Chloe. But I know something, too.”
“What?” I said, waiting to hear his great observation.
“You white, ain’t ya?”
I made a face. I was about as white as they came. Caleb used to tell me I’d scare the ghost of Foxhole Swamp.
“Miss Chloe, I think you’ve got it harder than ‘bout anyone I know.”
“How’d ya reckon that?” I said, looking down at his ankle. There was still a crusty ring from the teeth marks of the trap.
“Way I see it, you can’t hardly do nothing without worrying about your pa. How he’d be ashamed of you for helping me read. I ‘spect that’s a lot worse than this cut I got here.”
I got to thinking about it and realized Big Jim was right. When it came right down to it, I was more entrapped than he was.
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
George Washington Carver
Chapter Forty
I went home in the early morning light, letting it dawn on me that I didn’t want to be trapped. I didn’t want to crawl into no cocoon like them caterpillars and stay there the rest of my life. I wanted to come out flapping my wings like a butterfly.
Caleb said them butterflies sometimes got picked up by storm fronts and got carried hundreds of miles. Imagine that, I thought. Letting the storm carry you.
Maybe I could do the same. Maybe I could let whatever was trying to keep me from moving forward actually take me where I needed to go. It wasn’t like I didn’t have a storm brewing in me. It was there all right. All kinds of feelings I didn’t want to admit to were getting stirred up. Every time I’d think of Big Jim’s back, I’d feel a silent anger. The kind that don’t get quenched, no matter what you do. Or his ankle, that’d just make me plain frustrated knowing folks didn’t care about him. If it’d been Miss Lilly or Uncle Hickory with their leg cut up, you know folks would’ve been up in arms over it.
But maybe the single most frustrating thing I was experiencing was knowing that Big Jim could have a better life. That he could go up to Vermont with his Uncle Burr and Aunt Jamella. That’s what I wanted for him, I realized. A real good life.
Only thing was, I didn’t realize he was thinking about it, too. Last time we’d talked about him going to Vermont he’d stormed off, so I was mighty surprised when he handed me the metal box. I opened it up, and there was the $23 inside.
“You want to go up North?” I said, feeling like I could cry.
“I ‘spect I do,” he said, looking down at his ankle. “Might make Momma real proud.”
“I know you will, Big Jim,” I said. “But we’ve gotta keep this money safe. We’ve got to hide it good.”
“Where we gonna put it?”
“Where no robber’s gonna go.”
We took the metal box to the hollow tree and put it in the knothole. I told them squirrels I was sorry if I was taking up some of their room, but it was for a good cause.
Big Jim and I stayed up the whole night, talking like two old friends. I told him I bet there were lots of jobs up North. Good paying ones. He got tickled at that and looked real serene. I’d never seen anything like it.
The sun rose up through the trees, real pink and soft, and them little birds got to chirping. I knew I shouldn’t be out so late, but at least I didn’t have Pa to worry about. Widow Jones’ attorney had sent him another letter and he’d gotten real upset.
Last night he’d sat by the fire, drinking his moonshine until he passed out. I knew he’d be out for a while, so I sat with Big Jim in the fort, just watching the dawn startle into new life.
I got to listening to the sounds of the swamp, wondering what it’d be like to be a bird or squirrel, or even a possum. How free it must be to know you could fly away at any moment, or scurry into a knothole when something bothered you. Or just play dead. When a possum got real scared it’d kind of go into shock and just lie there, real stiff. I’d seen Caleb turn them over and even carry them away, all while they were still alive. They looked dead though, with their teeth showing and drool coming from their mouths. It was just their way, pla
ying dead to avoid getting hurt. The bad thing about it, though, was that sometimes them hunters would kick those possums across the road or shoot them for a laugh, all cuz they were pretending to be something they weren’t.
As soon as there is life, there is danger.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chapter Forty-One
“Why you so tired lately?” Pa said.
We were sitting at the supper table, and I couldn’t keep from nodding off. I’d been to the tree fort at least three times since Halloween and I was way behind on sleep.
Momma felt my forehead. “Chloe’s a growing girl. They get tired sometimes.”
She smiled at me and said, “Menfolk don’t understand these things.”
“Oh, yeah?” Pa said. “I understand plenty. I understand there’s a tree fort that Caleb and I found down by the swamp.”
I shot Caleb a look and he shook his head.
“Know anything about that, Chloe?”
“No,” I said, not looking at Pa.
“Don’t know nothing ‘bout no fort?”
“No,” I said, forking my string beans like they were trying to run off my plate.
“Well, good then,” he said. “You won’t mind if it comes down.”
I sat straight up and looked at Pa. He eyed me real close, and I asked Momma if she could pass the biscuits.
Pa didn’t say when or how he was planning on taking down the fort, but I knew I couldn’t take any chances.
After school I went straight to the Negro section, looking for Big Jim. He wasn’t around, so I left him a little note and tucked it under the door. I prayed Hattie Mae wouldn’t find it and wonder what was going on.
Don’t come to the fort. Ain’t safe.
It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
Noel Coward
Chapter Forty-Two
For the next few days, Pa sat by the fire and drank his moonshine. There was a downright eerie tension in the house and Momma said it was cuz Pa felt stripped of his manhood.
“He’s had a tough time of it lately. First the sawmill closing and now Widow Jones telling him he can’t go on her property. He feels real low.”