Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [31]
“He’s here, Granny. I have him.”
She watched me approach, shaking her head. “That one always getting away from me. And I got my hands full today with all them sick babies.”
She scooped up the two squirming toddlers and disappeared into the cabin. I followed her, carrying Caleb. “Go on, set him down here with these ones,” she said, putting her two charges down on the dirt floor. “Time they eat something.”
She chased a swarm of flies away from a wooden bowl, took a wedge of corn bread out of it, and broke off a chunk for each child. Caleb devoured his, then carefully picked up all the crumbs that had fallen in the dirt and ate those, too. Meanwhile, Granny turned her attention to the squalling babies. There were four of them—all naked, all crying at once—lying crossways on a mattress stuffed with corn shucks. She picked up the first baby, jiggling him in her arms, and ladled a spoonful of water into his open mouth.
“Got my hands full today,” she repeated. “All four of ’em sick with fever.”
I picked up one of the other babies, a little girl, and spooned water into her mouth like Granny was doing. The child’s sweaty body was as warm as a baked potato and covered with a nastylooking rash.
“You should bathe them in cool water,” I told Granny. “It helps bring the fever down.” That was what Tessie always did whenever I had a fever. Granny looked at me helplessly.
“How I gonna do all that and keep these others from running off, same time?”
“I-I’ll help you. If you could fetch some cool water in a basin . . . and some clean cloths . . .”
Caleb clung to my skirt as I worked, wailing for more food. All I could find was the other half of the corn bread, so I divided it among the three children. Too late, I realized it was probably Granny’s lunch.
She and I worked hard, bathing and rocking the babies—while trying to keep the three bigger ones from toddling away. I didn’t realize how much time had passed until I heard the dinner bell ringing up at the plantation house.
“I have to go,” I told Granny. “But I’ll come back to help you this afternoon.”
I hurried up to the house for lunch and found the dining room table spread with food—smoked pork, potatoes roasted in butter, green beans and tomatoes picked fresh from the garden that morning, soft white biscuits spread with melting butter, and sweet potato pie for dessert, still warm from the oven. My cousins Will and Thomas shoveled down their food as if it were their last meal. I couldn’t eat a bite.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Aunt Anne asked. “You’re not getting sick on me, are you?”
“No, ma’am. I’m fine.”
“Then you’d better start eating, or these boys of mine won’t leave you a thing.”
I ate. But I wrapped most of my lunch in my napkin, hidden on my lap, to bring down to Granny and the children. I was ashamed of myself for ever taking all this food for granted. I kept thinking of the slave who had been whipped for stealing bacon, and of the Bible verse my uncle had quoted: “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal . . .” Dry corn bread hardly seemed equal.
“Aunt Anne, some of the little slave babies are sick,” I told her when the meal ended. “May I please take some ice down there to help cool their fevers?”
“Our ice?”
“Yes, please. They don’t have any ice of their own.”
She frowned as if she was very annoyed, but I knew she didn’t mean anything by it. Aunt Anne had a very kind heart. “You don’t need to concern yourself with our slaves, Caroline. I’ll go down after we have a little rest and see what I can do for them.”
“Please, ma’am . . . I don’t want to rest. I want to help the babies. They know me now. And I want to bring them my talcum powder. I think the rash must itch them.”
She studied me for a long moment with the same expression Jonathan often gave me—as if what I’d said was very odd. “All right,” she finally said. “I’ll have one of the darkies carry down some ice for you. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
I bathed the babies, then soothed their itchy skin with talcum powder while Granny and the