Part 4 (1/2)

”They don't all live here,” Jonathan said. ”Most of them live down on Slave Row.”

”Where's that?”

”You can't see it from the house. I'll show you when we go down by the barn.”

”Which of these servants are Tessie's parents?” I asked.

Jonathan gave me an odd look, as if I'd asked a very strange question. ”I don't know. Who cares which Negroes are related to each other?”

I wanted to say that I I did-that Tessie and Eli and Esther were like family to me-but I didn't. I could tell that Jonathan already thought I was very strange. And I wanted very much for him to like me. did-that Tessie and Eli and Esther were like family to me-but I didn't. I could tell that Jonathan already thought I was very strange. And I wanted very much for him to like me.

Beyond the shady yard, pear and apple trees hung heavy with ripening fruit. Three young Negro girls about the same age as me were listlessly hoeing weeds in the fenced vegetable garden we pa.s.sed.

”Hey there!” Jonathan called gruffly from the gate. ”Those weeds are growing faster than y'all are chopping them.” The girls worked a little faster as we watched for a moment. ”If we don't keep an eye on these people constantly,” Jonathan said, ”they don't do a lick of work.”

He led the way up the road to the weathered wooden barn and blacksmith's forge. The tall, windowless building alongside it was the tobacco shed; the crudely c.h.i.n.ked log building, the corncrib. Cattle, sheep, and draft horses grazed in pastures behind more rail fences. Jonathan pointed to the cultivated fields in the distance, then to the dense green woods beyond. ”We farm about six hundred acres in all,” he said proudly. ”And all of that forest land is ours, too.”

I loved it-all of it. In spite of the busyness of farm life, there was a deep stillness here on the plantation that I'd never experienced in the city. The brush of wind in the treetops replaced the hectic rush of city traffic. Instead of smoking factories and warehouses crowded one upon the other, there were open s.p.a.ces, green vistas, cloudless skies. I wished I could stay here forever.

Then Jonathan showed me Slave Row. Two rows of tumbledown shacks no st.u.r.dier than the corncrib faced each other across a littered dirt path. Jonathan said they were home to more than fifty of Hilltop's field slaves. I never would have believed that such ramshackle cabins were inhabited if I hadn't seen a handful of small children toddling in the dirt out in front and some ragged patches of vegetables growing in gardens in the rear.

”Oh, what a terrible place,” I whispered.

Jonathan draped his arm around my shoulder and steered me away. ”Come on. It must be nearly dinnertime. And I'll bet this carriage coming up the road is your father's.”

They ate the big meal of the day at noon on the plantation and usually followed it with a short afternoon rest. But before Tessie and I went to our room to lie down that first day, my father took me into the downstairs bedroom to meet my grandparents.

”Grandmother is deaf as a fence post,” Jonathan whispered in my ear as he followed us inside. ”She has been for years, but she won't admit it.”

Grandfather lay in bed with his eyes closed, gray-faced, unmoving. I'd never seen a corpse before, but he looked just like I'd imagined one would look. I wanted to run out of the room in fright. Jonathan took my hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Grandmother sat in a rocking chair near the bed, sewing. She was gray-haired and crabby-looking. She laid aside the needle and cloth when she saw us and stood. My daddy went to her.

”h.e.l.lo, Mother.” He rested his hands lightly on her shoulders and bent to kiss her cheek.

”George. You came.” Her voice rasped harshly, her unsmiling expression never changed. At first my grandmother's greeting seemed cold, but then she reached up to touch Daddy's face, brus.h.i.+ng a stray lock of his hair, and I recognized the love and tenderness in her gesture. Tessie fussed over me the same way.

”Mother, I brought my daughter with me from Richmond. I'd like you to meet her.” He urged me forward. Up close, I saw that my grandmother had a mustache. She looked for all the world like Jonathan or my father dressed up in women's clothing and a gray wig.

”Who is this?” she asked, frowning.

”My daughter,” he repeated, louder. ”Her name is Caroline.”

”What? She's from Carolina, Carolina, you say?” you say?”

”No, Mother. That's her name . . . Caroline Ruth Ruth. She's named after you.”

”Afternoon? I know it's afternoon! I just finished my dinner.” I heard a sputtering sound and glanced over my shoulder. Jonathan was struggling to hold back his laughter-and barely succeeding. If he kept it up, I knew I would catch the giggles, too.

Daddy tried shouting. ”No, Ruth Ruth . . . she's named Caroline . . . she's named Caroline Ruth Ruth-your name.” name.”

”Well, I should think I know my own name!” Grandmother said indignantly.

Daddy pushed me forward into her stiff embrace. I was taller than she was. Her arms and legs were so bony, it was like hugging a pile of kindling wood.

”Did you come by train from Carolina?” she asked me.

”N-no, ma'am,” I stammered. ”I came by carriage . . . from Richmond.”

She frowned. ”Rich men! They'll find it very difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven, I can tell you that. Don't put your faith in riches, young lady.”

”Yes, ma'am . . . I mean, no, ma'am. I won't.”

As soon as Daddy excused us, Jonathan and I fled the room. We fell into each other's arms in the hallway, laughing until tears came.

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The afternoon was hot and still, as if nature were holding her breath. I was tired from the long trip, so Tessie and I went upstairs to my room for a nap. Aunt Anne sent a little Negro girl named Nellie upstairs to fan me while I rested, but I felt so sorry for the poor child, forced to wave her tired arms in the stifling heat, that I urged her to lie down on the floor beside Tessie. Nellie was sound asleep before we were.

”Have you seen your family yet?” I asked Tessie before drifting off.

”No, Missy,” she whispered. ”They all field hands. I have to wait till sunset, when they come in from the fields.”

”May I go with you?”

”Down Slave Row? That's no place for Little Missy. Why you want to go down there?”

I couldn't explain why to myself, much less to Tessie. I suppose I remembered all the happy times I'd spent in our kitchen with Tessie and Grady, or out in the carriage house, talking to Eli, and I wanted to replace the image of Slave Row that I'd seen earlier with a happier one. I was certain that Eli would be down there, too, laughing and talking with Josiah.

”Jonathan already showed me Slave Row,” I told Tessie. She didn't answer. I wondered if she had fallen asleep.

But later that night, while Daddy and the others were visiting in the parlor after supper, Tessie came to me and pulled me aside. ”I take you down there now . . . if you still want to go,” she said.

Tessie's family was truly happy to see her, but Slave Row wasn't a place of warmth and laughter like our kitchen back home. An atmosphere of weariness and wariness hung over all the cabins, so that even the small children seemed subdued. I caught a glimpse inside her family's unlit cabin, enough to see that it had a dirt floor and was nearly bare of furniture.

”You back here to stay, girl?” Tessie's mama asked as her family stood around their front stoop, visiting.

”No, my ma.s.sa just come for few days.” She wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close, as if sensing my uneasiness. ”And my little Missy come long, too.”

”Must mean Old Ma.s.sa's dying if young Ma.s.sa George come back here,” Tessie's father said.

She nodded. ”All the folk up the house think so. He in a real bad way, so I hear.”

”Wonder what become of us when he die? You hearing anything, Tessie?”

”Don't know about that,” she said. ”But my ma.s.sa, he got plenty money, so his family must have plenty, too. Probably no one have to be sold.”