A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton - Michael R. Phillips [68]
None of us suspected what was coming. If she had known, Josepha would have run us out of that kitchen and made us get on our horses that instant no matter how many whippings it cost her. But she didn’t know any more than I did, and so we all just stood there while William McSimmons’ new wife disappeared into the next room.
CAPTURED
35
I HAD NO IDEA THAT THE FATHER OF EMMA’S BABY was anywhere nearby until we heard the voices of the two McSimmons raised in argument from some other room of the house a minute or two later.
The doors must have been wide open between here and there, because their voices carried as if they were in the next room. I don’t suppose they figured an old fat black woman and a young black former slave were human enough to worry about what they thought. And as for Katie, they had no idea who she was. For all they knew, she might have been what folks later called poor white trash. And from the way the lady spoke to us, I had already seen Katie start to retreat into what I call the old Katie, the way she was before she started to change and get more confident in herself. So the lady might have thought her an idiot too, for all I know. But as the couple argued it was clear they didn’t care what any of us thought and whether we heard what they said.
All of a sudden I realized that they were talking about me!
“I’m just asking if there’s any chance it could be her,” said Mrs. McSimmons in a demanding voice.
Then I heard William’s voice, though deeper and softer, so that it sounded a little muffled.
“… don’t see how … why would she … look like?”
“Ugly … ugly as sin,” said the lady.
“Not likely, then.”
“… want you to make sure … if there’s a chance …”
Then some conversation followed that I couldn’t make out. Even now I don’t know why we didn’t scoot out of there while the two of them were arguing. Telling it like this stretches it out longer than it actually was, and it was happening fast. It’s hard to describe how much a white person could make a black person go weak in the knees way back then. It was such a different world than we know now. So we just kept standing there as the danger crept closer and closer without us knowing it.
Now the lady’s voice again came into hearing.
“… were no illusions. You and I both … purely a marriage of social and political convenience. I know what went on at some plantations, but I would never have agreed had I suspected … heard the rumors … you should have told me … too late now … so you had better take care of it.”
“… no danger of …” said William McSimmons, but I couldn’t hear the last of what he said as the lady’s voice interrupted him.
“… always danger … brat running around with white blood … different world now … times changing … I want no surprises … don’t want my children competing with some bastard coming back making claims … you take care of it … I’ll divorce you and take my money if … just take care of it!”
Their voices stopped. It was clear enough that the lady was furious.
“Josepha, what’s—” I began.
But now Josepha seemed to come to herself.
“Mayme, chil’,” she said urgently, “you gots ter git away from here!”
“But what were they—”
“Now, chil’—else sumfin bad’s gwine happen! Dere’s been talk among da black folk. At first the lady din’t know, but now she do. She muster been listen’n somewheres an’ now dere ain’t no tellin’ what da master might do … an’ she thinks it’s you dat’s caused all her trouble!”
“Thinks who’s me?”
“No one—jes’ some fool nigger girl who din’t hab sense ter keep her dress down, an’ ran away afore da young master could git rid ob what could come back ter haunt him, an