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By Root 1653 0

it, though it was Baltimore that he had had his heart set on. Fern’s horse died six months after Jebediah hit Washington. He never bothered to go the forty miles to Baltimore to see if it was all he had dreamed. He named his first child, his only daughter, Maribelle, the name of the horse he had to shoot outside of Fern’s place with Fern’s rifle. He named his second child Jim, after the horse that had brought him to Washington. He caught his son one day writing “James” on his lessons and he told the boy without raising his voice that if he had wanted to name him James, that was what he would have done.

Caldonia and Moses had developed a routine with his coming to the house most of the working days and telling her what had gone on. There was rarely any real news but he related what he did say in some detail—how many shingles to repair the barn, the yields Caldonia might expect for each crop, what was fed to the slaves for dinner and supper, the number of pails of milk from each cow, how long it took to put up a new corncrib to replace the one a sleepwalking mule destroyed. Ultimately, the important thing was that the crops were rising well and that could have taken less than five minutes, but near the end of the recitation he added small bits about the lives of the slaves. One evening in early September, about the time Augustus Townsend was kidnapped and sold, Moses stood in the parlor, his hat in both hands. He had sweated much of the day and had waited in the back until he knew he was nice and dry. She told him to sit, and, as always, he hesitated since he was wearing what he wore in the fields. But he sat and at the end of the story of the workday he mentioned to Caldonia that Celeste’s pregnancy was coming along fine and that Gloria had a lye burn and the left side of Radford’s face was three times its normal size, toothache maybe, as Radford was known to chew on anything short of an anvil.

He was ready to go into another fanciful tale about Henry when Loretta came into the room and asked Caldonia if there was anything she could bring her and Caldonia said a tea biscuit and half a cup of coffee, more water than coffee, she added. Caldonia told her to bring Moses a biscuit.

There was a problem with someone stealing food from one or two cabins, Moses continued, but he had an idea who it was. “I gotta it in mind,” he said, “that it might be some child. Twas mostly molasses that was taken.” Caldonia had her head back and her eyes closed, which had been her way since the second evening. He had begun to feel that he could say anything and it would not matter.

“Do you know exactly who it might be?”

“I got my eye on Selma and Prince’s little fella, Patrick. He could be in with Grant, Elias and Celeste’s boy. Or Grant and Boyd. Every since that dream conniption, they been thick as fleas, sees one you see the other.”

“The dream?” Loretta handed him two biscuits but he did not eat.

He told her about the boys sharing dreams and how they had grown close as a result. Celeste said the dreams were expected to end with the coming of fall, but Moses did not believe that was true. “They’s badder than regular for little boys. They got the devil in em and he ain’t gonna come out cause the season done changed.”

“Do you think they are hungry?” Caldonia asked. “Could that be why they are stealing?” She was at the end of the settee again, dressed in black.

“Hungry?” For the most part, Henry had always allotted what he thought were enough provisions on Saturdays to each slave, including a pint of blackstrap molasses. Those provisions would decrease or increase according to his profit for a particular year; the pint of molasses had never changed and he believed it was enough for each slave, except for slaves with children. “Nome, I wouldn’t say they be hungry. Marse Henry wouldn’t let no slave be hungry if he could help it.”

“I know he wouldn’t,” Caldonia said. She drank from her cup and then settled it with great care in her lap. His hand with the biscuits began to sweat and he put them in the other hand. He was not looking directly