Part 2 (1/2)
Daddy stood. ”I know you're nervous on your first day, Sugar. It's only natural. But I want you to be a brave girl for me, all right? Make me proud of you.”
I remembered Tessie's words and mumbled, ”I-I'll try.”
I followed him into the front hallway where Gilbert waited with Daddy's hat. Outside, our carriage stood at the curb.
”Can Eli drive me to school?” I begged. I had always been a little afraid of Gilbert with his slightly pompous ways, but I loved gentle Eli. I spent more time with him than with any other person except Tessie.
”Well . . . all right.”
This was the first good news I'd heard all morning. With Eli beside me I wouldn't feel so alone. ”Can he walk all the way inside the school with me, too? Please, Daddy?”
He hesitated a moment, then nodded. ”All right, but tell him he has to wear livery, not his dirty old stable clothes.” He said this loudly enough for Tessie to hear as she waited in the hallway behind us.
”Yes, sir,” she replied. ”I tell him.”
I was sick to my stomach before leaving, losing the small amount of food I'd eaten for breakfast. Tessie hugged me goodbye and hustled me into the carriage, heedless of my tears and pallid face. Eli snapped the reins, and we quickly drove off. But as soon as we'd rounded the corner, out of sight of the house, we stopped again. Eli hopped down from the driver's seat and, to my utter amazement, climbed into the back of the carriage and sat down beside me. I quickly scrambled into the safety of his arms, burying my face in his broad chest.
”I'm scared, Eli! I don't want to go.” It felt different to hug him in his scratchy uniform, and he didn't smell like the same old Eli I loved. At least his deep, gentle voice was the same.
”I know, Missy. I know you scared.”
”Please, take me back home . . . or . . . or let's just drive around all day.”
”Now, you know I can't do that. Ma.s.sa Fletcher have my hide if I don't do exactly what he say. But why all this fussing? You forget all them stories I tell you and Grady? You forget how Ma.s.sa Jesus always with you, taking good care you?”
”Tell me again,” I begged.
I loved listening to Eli talk about Ma.s.sa Jesus. It seemed like ages since I'd sat with Eli in the carriage house, Grady on one of his knees and me on the other, listening as he told us what the Good Book said. I was pretty sure that Eli's Jesus was the same person who the minister preached about every Sunday in church, but the stories sounded better when Eli told them. They sounded as though they might have really happened.
”It ain't doing no good to tell you again,” he warned, ”if you not hiding them words in you heart.”
He tapped his chest with his forefinger, and I remembered how Grady, solemn-eyed, would tap his own chest in imitation and say, ”They in there, Eli. They all hiding right down in there.” ”They in there, Eli. They all hiding right down in there.”
I pointed to my heart. ”I'll remember. I promise.”
”All right, then.” Eli settled back against the carriage seat and I leaned against him, gripping his burly arm. ”In olden times,” he began, ”there a great big giant man name Goliath. Everybody scared of him. Grown men run and hide when he come out, waving his s.h.i.+ny sword all around in the air. 'Who gonna fight me?' Goliath ask every day. And I shamed to tell you that all them soldiers in G.o.d's army so scared they turn tail and run.
”Then one day little David come along. He bringing some ham and sweet potatoes to his brothers in the army. Now, David hardly believing the way them grown men running scared. So little David say, 'I fight him! I fight Goliath 'cause I ain't afraid! I got G.o.d on my side.'
”Then David tell the king how one time he and G.o.d kill theirselves a lion, and how they kill a bear another time. And David, he just as sure as can be that he and G.o.d can lick old Goliath, too. So the king say, 'All right, son. You go ahead, now. You go kill that giant.'
”Goliath like to laugh hisself silly when he see little David stepping out to fight him. Goliath say, 'What you think I am? A dog? Why you send a boy out here to fight a giant man?'
”But David say, 'No sir! You fight with a big old sword and a fancy spear, but I fight in the name of the Lord G.o.d Almighty! And He gonna help me lick you!'
”Goliath got all riled up when David say that. But David still not scared. He drop a stone in his slingshot, and he twirl it round and round, and when he let go, the Lord sent that stone a-flying straight into Goliath's head. Knock him right to the ground, dead as a doork.n.o.b.”
I felt the same thrill I'd always felt at the end of Eli's stories. He spoke so confidently about G.o.d, convinced of His strength and power.
”Now then,” Eli said, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze, ”what you gonna hide away in you heart?”
”That . . . um . . . that if G.o.d is with me . . . I don't have to be afraid of giants?”
He grinned. ”Not giants or anything else what stands in you way. And you know why that is?”
”Because G.o.d will help me fight them?”
”That's not a question, Little Missy, that's the truth! The Lord always by you side if you ask Him to be. He fight all you battles. He gonna walk beside you into that old school today and you don't have to be scared of nothing.”
I gulped, trying to feel brave. ”Will . . . will you come inside with me?”
”What you need me for, Missy? Ma.s.sa Jesus is with you!”
”I-I know, but . . . will you come inside anyway?”
He shook his head as if he was disappointed in me, but I saw a glint of laughter in his dark eyes. He broke into a gentle grin. ”Sure thing, Missy Caroline. I go with you just as far as they let me go.”
The carriage rocked as he jumped down from his place beside me, then swayed again as he climbed into the driver's seat. The motion made my stomach roll. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the Lord sitting on one side of me and the boy David on the other side, slingshot in hand. In my mind, David looked a lot like Grady.
Eli whistled and snapped the reins. The carriage lurched forward. We turned onto Franklin Street, and a few minutes later we were hurtling down Church Hill. I could see the city and the capitol building up ahead, perched on the next hill we would have to climb. Traffic slowed when we reached the bottom, then came to a halt near Fourteenth Street to allow a gang of Negroes to cross in front of us. Some wore chains on their legs. I watched them enter a fortress-like building where black faces peered from behind barred windows.
I scrambled over to the opposite seat to kneel behind Eli, hanging on to his broad shoulders to keep from falling. ”Is this where they brought Grady?” I asked in a hushed voice.
”I reckon so. This where they hold the slave auction.”
”Wait!” I cried as the carriage began slowly moving forward again. ”Can't we go look for him? Maybe we can find him and bring him back home.” I began scanning the dark, somber faces, but when I glanced at Eli he was staring at the reins in his hands, shaking his head.
”Ain't no use, Missy. Nice boy like our Grady be long gone by now.”
”But where? Where did he go?”
”Only the Good Lord know that.”
I knew from the globe in my daddy's library that the world was a very huge place. The thought of my friend Grady all alone out there gave me a lost, helpless feeling. I glanced over my shoulder at all the harsh white faces in the crowd, then at the dark, bent heads, and I knew that wherever Grady was, he must be terrified. I suddenly felt guilty for being frightened just to go to school. I settled back on the carriage seat again and drew a deep breath, determined to be brave.
We arrived at the Richmond Female Inst.i.tute, a three-story brick row house with white pillars by the front steps and neat black shutters on the windows. Eli gave my hand a rea.s.suring squeeze as he helped me down from the carriage.
”You all right, Miss Caroline?” he asked. I nodded, knowing somehow that I would be. But I couldn't help wondering, as I walked through the open front door for the first time, why G.o.d hadn't helped Grady defeat his enemies the same way He'd helped David.
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I was still sick every morning for several weeks, even with Eli and Ma.s.sa Jesus by my side. Sometimes I had nosebleeds, which the doctor said were caused by fright. I once overheard my teachers whispering about my mother's ”condition,” but they seemed to take pity on me, declaring me a ”sensitive” child. They never made me read or recite aloud.
While I can't say I enjoyed school, I did learn to tolerate it. The best part was the long carriage ride with Eli twice a day. He drove a different route to school after that first day-one that wouldn't take us past the slave market again. And at the end of each day I'd find him waiting for me outside the school, smiling as though he hadn't seen me in a hundred years. He sat high on the driver's seat as we rode up and down the hills, looking stiff in his fancy topcoat and hat, and mumbling under his breath all the way to the school each morning and all the way home again in the afternoon.
”Who are you talking to, Eli?” I finally asked him one morning.
”Sometime I talking to Ma.s.sa Jesus, but today I talking to these here horses.”
”To the horses? Can they understand what you say?”