All Things New (6 page)

“War changes people,” Priscilla said. “None of us are the same people we were. And Harrison has changed most of all.”

“We must not give up,” Eugenia said. “We’ve all had our share of grief and sorrow, Lord knows. But we can’t give in to it. Our men need us to be strong now more than ever. I honestly believe we’ve finally touched the bottom of this deep well, and we can begin to climb out. We
must
climb out.”

“How?” Priscilla asked. “I don’t think I have the strength.”

“Then we’ll help each other. And maybe that’s what our men need, too. Daniel misses talking with the other men around the campfire at night. After all, they traveled and fought alongside each other for five years. I told him to invite everyone over to White Oak some evening. I have nothing at all to serve them, mind you, but it will do them good to be together again. Harrison should come, too.”

“He won’t go,” Emma said. “He’ll hate the idea. Harrison hates having everyone see him this way, lying in bed, helpless. He said he doesn’t feel like a man anymore.”

“That’s just the illness talking. He’ll cheer up now that he’s home.”

“I pray you’re right, Mrs. Weatherly.”

“We so enjoyed making social calls before the war, didn’t we, ladies? And now we simply must see one another more often. It will lift our spirits if we do.” And Eugenia was reminded that she must work hard at finding husbands for Mary and Josephine. So many young men had died that competition for husbands would be fierce. Josephine was a plain girl, truth be told, but charm and personality could make up for a lot of faults. She simply must make more of an effort.

They chatted for a while longer until Eugenia began to feel the strain of carrying the conversation. Daniel’s visit with Harrison was lasting much longer than a usual social call, and she was running out of small-talk. She rose to her feet, smoothing her skirt. “We mustn’t keep you, Priscilla. I’m sure you have so much to do. Emma, would you mind telling Daniel we’re ready to leave?”

Emma left the room but was back again almost immediately
with a strange look on her face. “Daniel is gone, Mrs. Weatherly. Harrison said he left a long time ago to walk home.”

How odd. And how rude. But Eugenia didn’t voice her thoughts. “Of course, Harrison needs to rest. And Daniel probably didn’t want to make us feel rushed. I promise we’ll come back another day, Priscilla dear. And it was so nice to see you again, Emma.”

Eugenia thought they might catch up with Daniel on the way home and give him a ride, but there was no one on the road at all. How long ago had he left? Where had he gone?

“You girls were certainly quiet today,” Eugenia said as they removed their hats and gloves in the foyer. “I fear you have forgotten how to engage in polite conversation.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” Josephine said.

“Me either,” Mary added. “Harrison looks like he’s dying, and everyone seemed so sad. I wouldn’t blame Emma if . . .” She didn’t finish.

“It’s wrong to desert the people you love in difficult times. Things will get better, eventually. Do you girls remember the thunderstorms we used to have during the summer months, and how the wind would blow all the leaves and branches down in our yard? Sometimes the lane would flood, too, remember? But in time, everything would get cleaned up and the water would disappear, and we could forget all about the storm.”

“Harrison Blake isn’t going to grow a new leg.”

“Josephine! What a thing to say! What has gotten into you lately?”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

Eugenia exhaled. “What am I going to do with you?” She felt as though she had lost touch with her daughter during the long years of war, the way they had lost touch with Daniel when Petersburg had been under siege. Yes, the war had been long and terrible, and sadness still lingered over the South like fog. But Eugenia made up her mind to bring in fresh air and sunlight to drive it away. She would help Daniel find a wife and see that her daughters were settled in their own homes with husbands to watch over them. And in time, White Oak Plantation would be restored to the way it once was.

6

M
AY
3, 1865

It wasn’t just the inky-dark night that frightened Lizzie. Truth was, she had never left White Oak Plantation in her life, and the thought of leaving it now terrified her. But Otis had kinfolk among White Oak’s former field hands and Lizzie knew he longed to see them. The only family Lizzie ever had was her mama, and she had died long before the war. Lizzie never had known her father.

“Why do we have to go at night?” she asked him, stalling a moment longer.

“It’s the only time we have off. I want to see my brother and find out how he and the others are all doing,” he said. “I ain’t seen Saul since I came back from Richmond.”

“Can I come with you?” Roselle asked.

“No,” Lizzie said quickly. “You stay here with Jack and Rufus.” Roselle might sweet-talk Otis into letting them come along, but Lizzie wanted them home where it was safe. She couldn’t shake the idea from the old days that Negroes who left the plantation got hunted down with dogs and punished with whippings.

“I haven’t seen my friends in a long time, either,” Roselle said, sulking.

“They’ll all be asleep by now—like you should be.”

“But it isn’t fair—”

“Come here, Roselle.” Lizzie pulled her daughter real close, speaking quietly so the boys wouldn’t overhear. “Listen to me. This is only our first time out at night since . . . well, since they’re saying we’re all free. Wait and see what happens and maybe you can come next time. Now, be a good girl and mind what I say.”

Lizzie grabbed Otis’s hand and hurried out of the cabin before Roselle could argue—and before Lizzie could be tempted to change her mind and tell Otis to go by himself. She had to get used to being free, and this was a good first step, small as it was. The crickets were making a big racket as she and Otis walked up the small rise from Slave Row and crossed the backyard by the chicken coop. Lizzie wasn’t expecting to see a dark shape hunched on the back step of the Big House, and she gasped in fear.

“Who’s there?” a voice called out. Missy Jo’s voice. It took a moment before Lizzie’s heart slid back down out of her throat so she could speak.

“It’s Lizzie. Me and Otis was just taking a little walk. You needing something, Missy Jo?” Lizzie held her breath, half wishing that Missy Jo did need her so she would have an excuse to stay home.

“No . . . I’m just admiring the pretty evening. You all have a nice walk.”

“Thank you, Missy. I-I will.”

“See?” Otis whispered. “I told you everything would be fine.”

“You don’t think she’ll tell on us, do you?”

“Ain’t nothing to tell. We can take a walk if we want to.” He gave Lizzie’s hand a gentle tug, and they started forward again, passing the stables and continuing down the lane away from the house. “I know a shortcut through the cotton fields, but it might be too hard to cross that rough ground at night.”

“Sure is dark out here,” Lizzie said, clutching his arm.

“Why’re you so nervous, Lizzie-girl?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“You know you can.”

“This . . . this here is the first time I ever been off the plantation.”

“That can’t be.” He looked down at her, frowning. “You ain’t gone on errands with Miz Eugenia sometimes?”

“No sir. She’s always saying I’m nothing but a field hand like my mama, and she always took Ida May or Cissy with her.”

“I never knew that. Next time we’ll have to go in daylight so you can see the world better.” They kept on walking, their shoes scuffling in the dirt, kicking up little clouds of dust.

“Ain’t it strange,” Lizzie asked, “that something we get punished for all our life, like walking off the plantation after dark, is fine all of a sudden? I can’t get used to it.”

“Things always seem scary the first time.”

“Well, how long will it be until I feel free? Until I know we can walk away from here whenever we want to without somebody chasing us down, making us come back?”

“Gonna take some time, Lizzie-girl. That’s for sure.”

They reached the end of the tree-lined lane and turned down the wider road that led into the village of Fairmont. A carpet of stars filled the sky, shining clear down to the horizon above the barren cotton fields. The moon was behind Lizzie’s back, and she and Otis cast long shadows on the dirt road in front of them as they walked. Before long, they reached the end of the cotton field and the beginning of the woods. Lizzie halted.

“I seen the forest from a distance when I worked in the fields, but I never walked this close to it before.” The tree branches were all tangled together, and the ground beneath them was overgrown with bushes and weeds and fallen logs. She didn’t see how they’d find their way.

“Here’s the trail.” Otis pointed to a narrow path leading into the woods. “Saul and me used to explore these woods when we were kids—when we could get away with it, that is.” He chuckled softly. How could Otis have happy memories of growing up in this place, when all of hers were filled with fear?

They walked single file, with Lizzie clinging to the back of Otis’s shirt. Before long she heard voices and saw the faint orange light of a campfire flickering in the woods. Lizzie sighed with relief when they reached the makeshift campground and saw Otis’s brother,
Saul, and a bunch of other slaves from the old days sitting around the fire. Beyond them was a cluster of shacks and lean-tos made from old boards and burlap sacks. She heard a stream trickling nearby and a baby crying in one of the huts. The clearing smelled of woodsmoke and roasting meat.

“Hey, Otis! Lizzie! Good to see you!” Saul welcomed them with hugs and slaps on the back. “I heard you came back from Richmond with Miz Eugenia.”

“That’s right, nearly two weeks ago. Massa Daniel is home from the war, too, and they have me driving the carriage for them. Nobody’s saying a word about planting cotton, though. I been wondering how you been getting on and decided to come see for myself.” Someone rolled a dead log into the circle of firelight, and Lizzie sat down on it close to Otis, listening to the sound of the creek and the crackling fire, swatting mosquitoes as they landed on her bare arms and legs.

“You here to stay with us?” Saul’s wife asked Lizzie. “Where’s your boys and Roselle?”

“They’re back at the cabin. We ain’t decided to leave White Oak just yet.” Lizzie didn’t say so, but living in the woods like wild animals didn’t seem like any kind of a life for her kids. “Why’d you move out here?” she asked Saul.

“Well, I decided that since I was a free man, I wasn’t going to live like a slave no more or listen to somebody telling me what to do all day.”

“What happens when it rains or when the weather turns cold?” Lizzie asked.

“Or when the owner of this property comes and chases you off?” Otis added.

“We’ll have our own land to live on by then.”

“Your own land?” Lizzie asked. “Where you gonna get your own land?”

“There’s a new white fellow come to Fairmont, sent by the government up in Washington. He’s helping all us Negroes. Said we’re entitled to farms of our own.”

“You sure it ain’t a trick?” Lizzie asked. She liked the idea of living out from under Miz Eugenia, and she’d like to see Otis plowing land for himself. But her fear of the unknown ran too deep.

“No, it ain’t a trick,” Saul said. “They call it the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the fella who runs it is a Yankee—the same Yankees that won the war. He’s passing out food and clothes and things over in the village, and saying we’re gonna get our own land.”

“He’s a white man?” Lizzie asked.

“Yeah, but he says it’s his job to help us get settled and get enough to eat. Talk to him, Otis. Hear what he has to say. He claims we can move out West where there’s lots of land and farm it ourselves.”

Lizzie knew by the quiet way Otis was staring into the fire that he was pondering Saul’s words. “Next time you go see this man, maybe Lizzie and me can come with you and hear what he has to say.”

“It don’t work that way. We have to go into Fairmont one at a time. The white folks around here don’t like to see a whole gang of us Negroes all together.”

“Maybe we can go right after supper some evening when the chores are done,” Otis said. “Think the man will be there after supper?”

“He lives upstairs above his office. It’s in that little brick building that used to belong to the railroad. Know which one I mean? Right behind the train station?”

“I think so.”

“You can’t miss it. And the man should be there most all of the time.”

They talked for a while longer, catching up on the news and telling stories from the old days. It was good to see Otis laughing with his brother again. The night didn’t seem quite as dark on the way home, but Lizzie still didn’t like the idea of walking all the way into Fairmont. “Can’t you go talk to this Yankee man by yourself, Otis?”

“I could, but I want you to hear what he has to say, too. Anything we decide, we need to decide together, you and me.”

“Saul says he’s a white man. You trust white men?”

“I don’t exactly trust them . . . but I do trust Jesus.”

“Dolly says that Jesus was a white man, too.”

“Dolly’s wrong. He’s the Son of God, and He ain’t no color at all. He was born a poor slave, just like us. He knows just how we feel.”

“That don’t make sense to me. Doesn’t God own the whole world, Otis? Why would He let His Son grow up poor?”

“I can’t explain it exactly. Besides, we better hush up the rest of the way home. Voices travel a long way at night, and if Massa Daniel wakes up, he might think we’re thieves and get out his shotgun.”

Two days later, Otis told Lizzie to be ready to walk to the village as soon as she finished feeding the white folks their supper. She had all day to think about it and didn’t know if she was scared or excited. Probably both. All her life, people would come and go from White Oak to Fairmont and back again, but Lizzie had never once stepped foot off the plantation or seen a town for herself.

She was still fretting about it late that afternoon when Roselle came running into the kitchen, shouting, “Mama, come quick! I want to show you something.”

“Not now,” Lizzie sighed. “I got too much to do, and I need your help with it.” Roselle was such a fanciful girl that if it poured down rain she’d want to go look for a rainbow and the pot of gold at the end of it. “Just tell me what it is, honey. I got work to do.”

“Well, Rufus and Jack and me were taking a shortcut past the stables and all of a sudden this great big bird flies up right in front of us, flapping its wings and making an awful racket. It liked to scare me half to death! I started to run, but then I realized it was a duck. A duck, Mama! I looked a little closer and saw it had a nest full of eggs. Eight of them.”

“Did you get them for me? They’ll taste real good for our breakfast tomorrow.”

“Mama, no! There might be baby ducks inside those eggs.”

“Well, there might be baby chickens inside hens’ eggs, too, and we eat those every morning. Duck eggs taste real good.”

“Mama! Now I’m glad I didn’t show you!” Roselle was outraged,
standing with her fists clenched as if ready to defend her nest. “I’m not letting anybody eat those eggs, Mama. I hid behind the bushes and watched for a while, and there’s a mama and a papa duck guarding the eggs, keeping them warm and safe until they hatch.”

Her daughter’s soft heart amused Lizzie. “Do whatever you want. But don’t be surprised if a raccoon or a fox gets them first. Now wash your hands and help me fix dinner.”

Lizzie and Otis left for the village right after supper. “How far is it?” she asked as they reached the main road at the end of the lane.

“Only a few minutes by carriage,” Otis said. “It’ll probably take us close to an hour to walk there.” Before long they passed the woods where the Negro shantytown was, then came to a white plantation house that looked a lot like White Oak—only smaller, with tall pillars and a wide front porch.

“That’s where Miz Eugenia goes visiting with her friend, Miz Blake,” Otis said. “When we start seeing houses that are real close together, you’ll know we’re in the village.” And sure enough, pretty soon there were houses on both sides of the road, and they were nearly as close to each other as the cabins on Slave Row. Otis pointed to a pretty white building with a tall, pointy tower on top. “That there is the church where the Weatherlys go on Sunday.”

Lizzie saw more and more houses, and then a long row of shops with big windows out front. White people and Negroes were walking around or riding in carriages, but she drew to a halt when she saw a group of Yankee soldiers gathered on one of the corners. “They look just like the soldiers who lived in the Big House after you and Miz Eugenia left.”

“We don’t have to be afraid of them, Lizzie. The Yankees in Richmond treated us real good. And if they hadn’t put out the fires, the whole city would have burned to the ground. They gave us food, too. I think we can trust them.”

They eventually came to a dirtier part of town with run-down shacks and warehouses and the railroad station. “I believe that little brick building is the one Saul was talking about,” Otis said. “Come on.”

The front door stood open, and a young Yankee soldier sat behind a desk inside. Lizzie and Otis knew better than to go through the front door, so they walked around the building and knocked on the back door. A moment later, the same young man opened it.