A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton - Michael R. Phillips [37]
“No, Emma, just out of the way. But nobody will come and you’ll be safe. We’ll be home before you know we’re gone.”
“What about dat young’un—dat ornery white girl dat don’t like me an’ Miz Mayme none? You ain’t gwine make me take care er her, is you, Miz Katie?”
“No, Emma—we’ll take her with us.”
And so it was that the following morning, Katie and Aleta and I climbed up onto the seat of the small buckboard, Katie in the middle and me and Aleta on each side of her, and headed into Greens Crossing behind a single horse, with Emma safely out of sight in Rosewood’s colored town.
All the way into town Katie and I talked just like we always did, though I could tell Katie was making a special effort to show Aleta that there was nothing so unusual in a black girl and white girl being friends. Every once in a while she’d turn to Aleta and talk to her for a while, but Aleta remained mostly quiet and reserved.
“Now, you remember what I asked you before,” said Katie as we began to get close to town, “whether you knew anybody in Greens Crossing, or whether they would know your papa?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Aleta.
“Somebody there might know your papa. Do you want us to ask the lady at the store? If you’ll tell me your daddy’s name, I will ask if she—”
“I don’t want to go back to my papa,” said Aleta firmly. “I’m afraid of him. I’m not going to tell you his name.”
We jostled along a little while longer.
“All right, Aleta,” said Katie, “if that’s how you feel, I won’t ask about him. But then you’ll have to hide out of sight under those blankets we brought back there. Can you do that?”
“Why do I have to hide?” asked Aleta.
“Because,” Katie began. She hesitated and glanced at me. “Because we don’t want people asking us questions about you,” she said after a second. “If you don’t want to go back to your papa, it’s best no one sees you. When people see girls like us all alone without any grown-ups with them, they get curious and wonder why. So we don’t want them wondering about you. So can you hide in the back of the wagon and not make a peep?”
Aleta nodded.
Katie pulled the buckboard to a stop. “All right, then,” she said. “We’re almost to town. So you get back there and lie down, and I’ll cover you up.”
Aleta and Katie stepped down and Katie arranged her in the back of the wagon out of sight.
“You just stay there until I tell you to come out,” said Katie. “We have to go into a store in town, so you might not hear anything for a while. After that we’ll make one more stop. You just lie still and don’t make a sound.”
Ten minutes later we pulled up in front of the general store. I tried to put on my slave face as I got down from the wagon. Then we went inside.
“Hello, Mrs. Hammond,” said Katie as we walked in, trying to sound confident and grown up. “My mama sent me into town to pay off our bill … I mean, to pay her bill.”
Mrs. Hammond glanced up from behind the counter, looked toward me with an unpleasant expression, then at Katie.
“What is she doing in here with you?” she said.
“How much is the bill please, ma’am?” asked Katie, ignoring the question.
“It’s something over three dollars, Kathleen.”
“Good, then this will be enough,” said Katie. “Here, Mrs. Hammond,” she added, handing her one of the fivedollar coins.
“Gracious, child,” she said, “in front of the colored girl! What does your mother teach you!”
“I thought you’d be pleased to have your bill paid, ma’am.”
“Well, yes … of course … yes, I am. But … where on earth did your mama get this!” she said as it began to dawn on her that Katie had just handed her five dollars of pure gold.
“I don’t know, ma’am. We want to buy a few more things, if you don’t mind.”
“Why … yes, I will just check your mother’s account.”
“Here is a list of what we would like,” said Katie, handing her a small piece of paper.
Still flustered, Mrs. Hammond took it while we walked around the store trying to keep from looking at each other.
“Kathleen,” said Mrs. Hammond after a few minutes, “I’ve put the things on your list on the counter.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“I notice this is