Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [29]
I could tell Josiah wasn’t listening. He shook his head as if dazed. “You never told me you could read.”
“Well, now you know. I can.”
Josiah’s voice rose in volume. “Then why didn’t you teach me how to read?”
“Son, I waiting all your life till you learn to control your temper. But you never did learn. If I teach you to read, I be killing you myself. I may as well be stabbing a knife in you. Devil get ahold of you and use your reading for his purpose, not God’s.”
As they stared at each other, I saw all the anger leave Eli’s face. It was replaced by sorrow. “Josiah, I be going soon. I can’t leave here with bitterness between us. Lord knows when I ever see you again.”
Eli went to his son, embraced him. At first Josiah’s arms hung limp at his sides. The two men were the same height, had the same wide shoulders and strong arms. One head of hair was black, the other gray. Slowly, Josiah lifted his arms and returned his father’s embrace.
“Guard your heart, son,” Eli said in a hushed voice. “That’s what God looks at—your heart. Most folks look at the outside things, like the color of your skin. But God looks at your heart.”
I settled comfortably into the rhythm of country life, enjoying the freedom of long, leisurely days, the excitement of new places to explore, and the contentment of my cousin’s friendship. The carefree life I led wasn’t typical of a woman’s life on the plantation, though. Grandmother and Aunt Anne worked hard all day, everyday, overseeing the work that needed to be done. There was laundry to scrub, candles and soap to make, homespun cloth to be woven and dyed, then sewn into clothing for both the slaves and the family. The garden needed to be tended, the house cleaned, the food preserved, the cows milked, the butter churned, meat salted and smoked, and three hearty meals cooked and served each day. I wanted nothing to do with learning how to take charge of all that work.
I’d always been a bit of a tomboy when I’d played with Grady—before my teachers at the Richmond Female Institute tried to drum into me that proper young ladies didn’t climb trees or wander through the woods or lie on riverbanks fishing. But for those few wonderful weeks at Hilltop, I didn’t care about being a proper young lady. The Institute had taught my mother to be a lady, and I shuddered at the thought of living a life like hers. I loved the outdoors, and I didn’t care one bit if my complexion turned as sunbrowned as Jonathan’s. We explored the woods together, read books to each other beneath the trees, and simply gazed up at the stars and talked. I noticed that he was careful to keep me away from the harsher side of plantation life, such as the slaves laboring in the fields beneath the blazing sun, or life down on Slave Row, but one lazy, rainy day, as we sat in the parlor playing a game of dominoes, I asked him about the man I’d seen with the lash scars on his back.
“Our overseer isn’t a cruel man,” Jonathan replied. “He might yell and crack the whip a few times over everybody’s head, but he would never give forty lashes like that unless it was absolutely necessary. My father would never allow his slaves to be abused.”
“Then why did he whip that man?”
Jonathan hesitated, choosing his words as carefully as his next domino. “We caught him stealing bacon from our smokehouse. He had to be whipped in order to set an example. Otherwise, all the other slaves might start stealing from us, too. It’s your turn,” he added impatiently.
I studied my remaining dominoes, then played one. “I once saw slaves in Richmond wearing leg-irons and chains,” I said. “Daddy told me it was because they’d tried to run away.”
“Our people hardly ever try to run away. They know they have it good here. We take good care of them.”
“But their cabins are so small, and they only have dirt floors, and—”
“The slaves don’t care. They’re used to