Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [19]
“Welcome, Caroline. It’s so nice to finally meet you.” My aunt Anne’s greeting was as warm as the summer day, but beneath the smile she looked very tired and careworn. She wore an apron and a plain, blue-checked work dress without hoops. Her graying, flyaway hair was gathered into an untidy bun on the back of her head. “You’ve caught me at a very busy time,” she began, but Jonathan interrupted her apology.
“Don’t you worry, Mama. You just go on back to whatever you were doing. I’ll be glad to show Caroline around and keep her occupied till dinnertime. Her mammy can see to all of Caroline’s things.”
Inside, the plantation house was smaller and plainer than our enormous brick house in town. Jonathan explained that the original house, built by our great-grandfather, had only two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. Our grandfather had enlarged the house with a two-story addition on the west side. My Richmond house had five spacious bedrooms—my mother’s two-room suite, my father’s adjoining bedroom, my room, and the empty nursery. Hilltop had only three modest-sized bedrooms upstairs, one for my aunt and uncle, one for the boys, and one that had belonged to the girls before they died. This latter room was where I was to sleep. After I’d freshened up a bit from the trip, I left Tessie to unpack my things while I went exploring with my cousin.
Downstairs, the double front and rear doors were left open all day to allow the breezes to blow through. The house had no library or drawing room like ours did, only the parlor to the left of the stair hall and the dining room to the right, where three slaves were busy setting the table for dinner. The parlor furniture was sheathed in cotton summer covers, like our furniture back home, but beneath the slipcovers I could see that their furniture was older and shabbier than ours. The door to my grandparents’ room was closed, so Jonathan said I would have to wait until later to meet them.
Instead, he took me on a tour of the outbuildings, such as the kitchen, the dairy, and the smokehouse, all bustling with activity. More dark faces appraised me when we ducked inside a small work shed that housed a spinning wheel, a loom, and Hilltop’s two seamstresses. The kitchen, a short distance from the house, was similar to ours, with a loft upstairs where the house servants lived. It looked much too small to accommodate the dozen or so servants I’d already seen working in the house and yard.
“They don’t all live here,” Jonathan said. “Most of them live down on Slave Row.”
“Where’s that?”
“You can’t see it from the house. I’ll show you when we go down by the barn.”
“Which of these servants are Tessie’s parents?” I asked.
Jonathan gave me an odd look, as if I’d asked a very strange question. “I don’t know. Who cares which Negroes are related to each other?”
I wanted to say that I did—that Tessie and Eli and Esther were like family to me—but I didn’t. I could tell that Jonathan already thought I was very strange. And I wanted very much for him to like me.
Beyond the shady yard, pear and apple trees hung heavy with ripening fruit. Three young Negro girls about the same age as me were listlessly hoeing weeds in the fenced vegetable garden we passed.
“Hey there!” Jonathan called gruffly from the gate. “Those weeds are growing faster than y’all are chopping them.” The girls worked a little faster as we watched for a moment. “If we don’t keep an eye on these people constantly,” Jonathan said, “they don’t do a lick of work.”
He led the way up the road to the weathered wooden barn and blacksmith’s forge. The tall, windowless building alongside it was the tobacco shed; the crudely chinked log building, the corncrib. Cattle, sheep, and draft horses grazed in pastures behind more rail fences. Jonathan pointed to the cultivated fields in the distance, then to the dense green woods beyond. “We farm about six hundred acres in all,” he said proudly. “And all of that forest land is ours, too.”
I loved it—all of it. In spite of the busyness of farm life, there was a deep stillness