A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton - Michael R. Phillips [1]
It wasn’t my house. I’ll explain that later. But what I was about to say was that she wasn’t smiling then, so I doubted she was smiling today. Fact is, I don’t know if Elfrida Hammond ever smiled.
Who can say what she was thinking, or whether she saw the wagon pull up in front of her store, or what went through her mind when the door opened and the little bell above it tinkled to announce that she had a customer. But I do know that when she turned to greet the young lady who had just walked in, her eyes narrowed yet a little more.
“Kathleen …” she said in a slow, worrisome tone that trailed off and then went up at the end like a question.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hammond,” said the girl. She was only fifteen, and had only turned that about a month before. But she had a special reason for trying to sound more grown up than her age.
“I see your mama’s not with you.”
“No, ma’am. She couldn’t come to town today. So I came instead. I want to get some supplies, Mrs. Hammond. Here’s the list of what we need.”
She handed a piece of paper over the counter. The lady took it and looked it over like a schoolmarm grading a test.
“There are a lot of things here, Kathleen,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you tell your mother what I told you about her account?”
“We talked about it, ma’am. She said to tell you she promised she’d get it taken care of real soon, and asked if you could just help her out a little longer.”
“I declare,” said the lady, “I don’t know what she expects me to do.”
Mrs. Hammond looked at the list again, then at Katie, then glanced outside her shop where the wagon sat. Her eyes narrowed a little more.
“Who’s that darkie you got with you?” she asked.
“She’s my—er, one of our house slaves.”
“I’ve never seen her before. Is she Beulah’s pickaninny?”
“No, ma’am.”
“She’s ugly as sin.”
“Not when you get to know her, ma’am. And she’s real smart.”
“Well, she doesn’t look any smarter than she does comely,” huffed Mrs. Hammond, who didn’t like anyone telling her anything, especially a young girl. She took any statement by someone else, especially if it expressed an opinion on just about any topic under the sun, as grounds for contradiction. “No, she doesn’t look like she has a single brain in that little black head of hers,” she added after a minute. “I’m not sure I like the sound of it one bit.”
“We’ll be back when we’ve done our other errands,” said Katie, “when you’ve got our order ready.” Then she turned and walked back outside.
The black girl they were talking about, sitting in the wagon outside, was me. ’Course I couldn’t hear everything from where I was sitting, but Katie told me all about it later. This is our story. Hers and mine together.
I’m Mary Ann Jukes. But folks call me Mayme, which I figure you might as well too. The girl inside the general store and post office was named Kathleen Clairborne. Folks called her Katie, at least her friends did. That’s what I called her, or Miss Katie.
Katie and me were in a pretty bad fix ’cause the war had left us all alone in the world. That’s what we were doing together.
I reckon I ought to tell you a little about it.
You see, Katie and me had found ourselves together about a month and a half before, when some real bad men called Bilsby’s Marauders had come through Shenandoah County after deserting from the army.
When the marauders came through, they killed people at both my master’s plantation and at Katie’s. I’d been fetching water and was away, and that’s why I didn’t get shot. And Katie’s mama had hidden her in the cellar of their house, so they didn’t find her either. But they killed both of our families.
I left as soon as I’d finished the burying. After wandering a spell, I found myself at Katie’s plantation. When we first saw each other, neither