A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton - Michael R. Phillips [9]
My ears perked up as I listened. What had she meant—that all of the others at the colored town were dead! Had it happened to more plantations than just where I lived?
“—an’ on da way,” Emma continued, talking fast and excited, like she was scared all over again just from remembering, “his frien’s wuz gwine nab me an’ take me somewhere far away. But I knew dat dey wuz gwine dump me in da river in a sack full er rocks, in a deep place where nobody’d eber fin’ me. But dat night, I got up an’ snuck outta der house, an’ I hid in a wagon full er some cotton from las’ year’s crop dat wuz headin’ fer town da nex’ day. An’ jes’ when da wagon pulled outta da yard in da mornin’, I heard someone callin’ my name. I wuz skeered dey’d stop the wagon and search it, but dey din’t. An’ when we got close ter town, I jumped out an’ ran fer da woods. An’ I kep’ runnin’ an’ runnin’ fer my life. I knew dey’d be after me come midday wen dey hadn’t nobody seen me. An’ so I ran an’ ran an’ kep’ hidin’ in da trees, an’ I got wrathy hungry so I cud hardly keep goin’, an’ skeered too—I wuz so skeered. An’ two or three days went by, an’ I hid in da woods an’ drank water when I foun’ it. An’ I thought I’s a goner when dat dog er yers came a’chasin’ me dat mornin’ wen you two wuz walkin’ across da field an’ I was hidin’ in da trees an’ here come dis ole dog barkin’ up a racket.”
Katie couldn’t help laughing to hear her tell it.
“I remember that day,” she said. “I thought Rusty was after some critter in the woods.”
“Dat critter wuz me, Miz Katie!” said Emma. “An’ den I stole yer bread, ’cause I wuz like ter starve, an’ snuck inter yer barn. I’m sorry ’bout dat bread, Miz Katie.”
“Don’t think anything of it, Emma,” said Katie. “I’m just glad we found you, that’s all.”
“An’ den you came ter da barn totin’ dat big gun, an’ my heart wuz poundin’ so hard I thought you wuz gwine ter kill me yerself.”
Now I couldn’t help laughing. Katie’d told me about it, but I still had a hard time picturing her with that gun!
After she and Katie talked awhile more about when William was born, I tried to ask Emma more about where she’d come from. I was mighty curious as to how far she’d wandered and how likely those men she was talking about were to wind up at Rosewood looking for her. But she said she didn’t know where it was or how far she’d come. And trying to squeeze information out of Emma was like trying to squeeze meat drippings out of a turnip, and so I finally gave up trying.
MAKING ROSEWOOD LOOK
RIGHT
6
LATER THAT DAY, AFTER HEARING HER STORY, I got to feeling real guilty for being so hard on Emma when she’d first come. She was in the same fix as I had been. I was glad Katie’d taken her in and was ashamed of how I’d behaved. But all that was behind us now.
“How’s you gwine make dis place look right, Mayme?” asked Emma that evening when we got back around to talking about what to do next.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “First thing, we gotta clean everything up so it looks more tidy—the junk that’s around, the weeds in the garden.”
“Elvia used to weed the garden,” said Katie.
“All right, that’s good,” I said. “And you gotta try to think back to other things your mama and the others did. We gotta do things to make the house look lived in too, like making sure a fire’s always burning. On warm days we don’t even build a fire. But maybe we should have one burning every day so there’s smoke coming from the chimney. And the slave cabins all looked deserted too.”
“But no one’s there. How can we make it look any different?”
“I don’t know, maybe building a fire there too, so it’ll look like somebody’s cooking.”
“Just build a fire for no reason—we can’t do that every day.”
“Why not?”
“It seems like a waste of time.”
“Not if Mrs. Hammond comes again, and it keeps her from getting too nosy.”
“Who’s Miz Hammond?” asked Emma.
“A busybody white lady from town,” I answered. “She’s a suspicious type who we don’t want asking too many questions.