A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton - Michael R. Phillips [33]
“I reckon we’ll have to take care of her awhile,” I said. “At least till we can find out more about her.”
Then I started chuckling. “I guess I should say, you’ll have to take care of her,” I added. “She doesn’t like me much.”
Katie smiled a sad, knowing smile and reached out and put a hand on my arm. I knew she felt bad for me.
“How much should we tell her, Mayme?” she said.
I thought about that a minute. I hadn’t considered it before.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Has she asked why nobody else is here? Why there aren’t any grown-ups, only one white girl and two black girls and a baby?”
Katie shook her head. “I don’t know if she’s noticing much of anything. She’s younger than us, Mayme, and she just lost her mother. I’m not even sure it’s hit her yet. Remember how I was when you found me?”
“Do you suppose her father might come for her?”
“How would he know she’s here?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe he knew where they were going, or maybe he followed them and will come here asking about them.”
“What would we do if he did?”
“She’d have to go with him, I reckon. She ain’t an orphan like us. So we don’t want to tell her too much, or she’d tell him, and we’d get found out.”
“You’re right,” said Katie. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell her anything. But I’m too tired to think about it anymore. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.”
Slowly she got off the bed.
“I think I should sleep with Aleta tonight,” she said, walking toward the door. “She might have a nightmare or wake up and not know where she is.—Good night, Mayme.”
“Good night, Miss Katie.”
Just as she left the room, I suddenly remembered. “Miss Katie, Miss Katie!” I said after her. “I almost forgot.”
Katie hurried back into the room, wondering what I was talking about. I jumped off the bed and stood up. I was still wearing my work dress and hadn’t gotten into my nightclothes yet. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the three gold coins.
“Look what Emma found in the cellar when you were gone!”
Katie looked at them lying in my hand, so exhausted from the day and bewildered at what I’d said that the bigness of it didn’t sink in at first. Then slowly her eyes got real big.
“Mayme,” she said, “but … but that’s—”
“Yes, Miss Katie—it’s gold. And it’s yours! She found it in the cellar.”
“But how … why was it there? Where did she find it?”
“I don’t know. But maybe it’s from that uncle of yours.”
“Do you think … Mayme, what if there’s more!”
We were both out of the room like a flash, trying to tiptoe so as not to wake Aleta or disturb Emma. One thing we didn’t need right then was Emma yammering away and following us and asking questions!
We hurried downstairs and a minute later, hearts pounding with anticipation, we were climbing down the steep ladder. I went first holding a lantern, Katie followed with a candle. We went down the rickety steps. It was colder than upstairs, and as the lantern lit up the place it was spooky. Katie looked around with a shudder.
“Except for getting Emma settled this morning,” she said, “I haven’t been here since … you know, since the night before you came. I’ve been afraid to even look down here again. I didn’t want to look around this morning, but I guess I can’t really help it now.”
I set down the lantern and waited a bit while Katie collected herself.
The floor was hard-packed dirt, but it was dry and had a few things on it. I don’t know why it should have been spookier now, in the middle of the night. The cellar looked the same in the middle of the day as in the middle of the night. But something about it was different and gave me the creeps. I know Katie felt it too. The silence was deeper, the shadows longer. I kept expecting something to jump out at us from one of the darkened corners. Just knowing that the sun was gone above us made the darkness more fearsome down here too.
There wasn’t much in the place except for a few small pieces of furniture that must have been put down here to store them out of the way. How Katie’s father had got them