Stealing Freedom (11 page)

“Stop it! Stop this, I say!” Master Charles was red in the face and waving his arms to try to block Mr. Bigelow's words.

Ann stood, enraptured.

“Your father has a good job unloading boats on the docks
in Georgetown. Your mother takes in sewing. Catharine is attending school and minds the children of a neighbor in the afternoons….” By now Mr. Bigelow was having to shout to be heard, he'd been pushed so far out the door.

“Stop this, or I will send for the sheriff at once!” Master Charles gave him a hard shove, and Mr. Bigelow nearly fell down the front steps. Master Charles came back inside, slammed the door, then scowled down at Ann for a moment before returning to his study.

Ann ran to the door and flung it open. Mr. Bigelow was climbing up into his carriage.

“What is his name?” she called.

“Whose?” Bigelow asked.

“My new brother's.”

“John Junior, after your father. His first son born into freedom.” He took the reins in his hands. “Shall I send them your love?” he called.

“Yes!” Ann laughed and waved as Mr. Bigelow tipped his hat to her and drove off.

Ann started as a firm hand gripped her shoulder. Master Charles pulled her back inside. He shut the door again and blocked it with folded arms and a stern glare.

Ann lowered her head and retreated to the kitchen. But nothing could wilt her joy. As she shoveled ashes out of the hearth and swept the kitchen, she smiled and hummed. New Jersey Avenue, number 422. She would not forget it.

And that afternoon when she stood outside the school-house waiting to retrieve Miss Sarah, she thought to herself,
Lucky, lucky Catharine.

The first group of them arrived just before Christmas. Ann's own hopes had already been dashed: Master Charles had refused to write her a pass to visit her family over the holidays. He said he didn't trust “that abolitionist Bigelow” and would not let her out of his sight.

That was when they came, with their own dashed hopes. They were connected to each other by chains around their necks. Some, with every step, left the snow tinged with blood from cracked and torn feet.

Master Charles spoke with the white man who'd led them there. Money exchanged hands. And then the group of two men, a woman, and one young girl—who looked to be a little older than Ann—was herded into the cellar through the outside flap doors.

“I don't like this, Charles,” Mistress Carol said that evening as Ann served supper.

“Once again, my dear, you know nothing of business.
Clients must be able to contact me here as well as in Baltimore.”

“I know what the ladies in this town think about your
business
, “ Mistress Carol said. She wiped her mouth, but after her napkin had passed the look of contempt was still there.

Master Charles laughed harshly. “Of course. They own slaves, and they trust their husbands to buy them, but they hate the one who sells them. What hypocrites!”

There was uncomfortable silence at the dinner table. Sarah ate quietly, her eyes on her plate, and Ann returned to the kitchen.

She'd heard Master Charles speak of his “business;” she knew he traveled to Baltimore almost every week, and often to Alexandria. But she had not suspected what was now apparent: he had become a slave trader.

After dinner Mistress Carol folded some bread into a napkin and told Ann to take it to the cellar, along with a bucket of water. Ann opened the cellar door, balancing the bread and bucket in one hand and a candle in the other. As she stepped down the dark stairway, her shadow moved on the wall like a ghostly dancer. The cellar smelled of mildew and rotting potatoes.

She heard whispers coming from the back corner, then “Shhh,” then silence. She lifted the candle above her head and saw, first, the feet. Some were bare, some wrapped in rags, but all were shackled around the ankles with chains.

Ann blinked and shook her head, not wanting to believe what she saw. The thin-nosed workmen had not been repairing broken steps or mending a crumbling foundation. They had attached chains and shackles to the walls, and in the corner they'd
installed a whipping post. She stood motionless. The group sat on the cold, damp floor without a single blanket among them.

“What've you got there? It smells good,” one of the men said finally.

Ann dropped to her knees and began to break the bread into four portions. “It's not much,” she said. “Tomorrow I'll bring you a good breakfast, whether they tell me to or not.”

“Much obliged, miss,” said the woman, her mouth full of bread. Her face was broad under a white head wrap. “This here is Richmond, and Theophilus, and this is Martha, and I'm Nancy,” she said, and then set into a frightful fit of coughing. Ann offered her a dipper full of water and it eased her cough.

“Do they feed you decent here?” asked Theophilus. His hat was pulled down low, and he looked as if he'd be tall and lanky if he stood.

“Most times,” Ann answered.

“That's good,” said Richmond. “My old master, down in North Carolina, name of Jesse Moore, didn't hardly feed us. He's as bad as they come—couldn't be any worse to be alive.” He stuffed his mouth hungrily. He reminded Ann of Joseph, with his bright eyes and quick movements. Sickeningly, she realized that all three of her brothers might have been chained in dark basements like this one on their way south.

“My master wasn't too bad,” Theophilus was saying, “but he hired me out to Master Houston. Master Houston was a hard man. If you didn't eat breakfast before daybreak, he'd drive you out in the field to work all day with no breakfast at all.”

Ann saw that the bread had nearly disappeared in two
mouthfuls. She wished she'd thought to save part of her own supper to smuggle to them.

“Master Cahell, he fed us good,” said Nancy. She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “And I grew sweet potatoes and fried them up on Sundays.”

They passed the bucket of water, and each used the ladle to drink.

Nancy leaned forward and glanced around furtively. “Anybody here ever run away?”

Richmond gave a quick laugh. “I runned once, a few years back. With a master like Jesse Moore, a man can hardly not think of running. He cured me of it good, though.” He rubbed his feet and winced.

“How long'd you stay away?” Theophilus asked.

Richmond grinned. “Four months. Best four months of my life. I lived in the swamp and ate better on squirrels and berries than I ever ate at Master Moore's place.” He leaned his head back against the wall, remembering. “And I
was free.”

“What happened?” Ann asked, not sure she wanted to know.

Richmond shrugged. “The hunters finally catched me. When Master Moore got hold of me, he whipped me a hundred lashes. My back was tore up, and the blood running, and he took his knife and slit both my feet clear to the bone, here and here.” He pointed to the underside of his arch and the back of his ankle, above the heel. In the dim light Ann could see raised scars. Her belly quivered at the thought of the pain.

Richmond continued, “Then he took that old knife and stabbed me with it, in my arms, my legs, my chest, my stomach. The blood was running everywhere, and do you know
what that man did? He sent me to the barn to shuck a pile of corn!”

“Lord have mercy!” Nancy cried. “It's a miracle you lived.”

Theophilus nodded solemnly. “A miracle,” he echoed.

“I'm glad he sold me,” said Richmond. “Can't hardly be a man worse than Master Moore.”

Ann felt queasy and shaken. “I hope you get a better master,” she said very softly.

“I do, too, miss,” said Richmond. “I do, too.”

Theophilus nodded and helped himself to more water. “I hear if we get sold in Maryland or Virginia it's easy to go north from here,” he said.

Nancy shook her head. “I've lived in Virginia all my life, and wasn't nothing easy to get away from there.”

“But I hear sometimes folks can help you,” said Theophilus. “Quakers and such.”

“Mmm-hmm,” said Nancy. She raised her eyebrows and puckered her lips. “And sometimes those folks get theirselves in
big
trouble. Did you hear about that white man, name of Seth Concklin, tried to help a family from Alabama to freedom?” No one had, so she continued: “He was carrying them on a boat up the river toward Canada. They got all the way to Indiana. That's where the slave catchers got 'em. The family, they told the authorities they'd been kidnapped and they got sent back to their master in Alabama without any trouble. But do you know what they did to the white man?”

Everyone shook their heads.

Nancy lowered her voice. “They found him floating in the river with his hands and feet in chains and his skull crushed.”

“Lord!” Ann whispered. She felt the blood drain from her face. “They didn't even give him a trial?”

Theophilus tapped the tips of his fingers together. “Sounds to me like they gave him his trial, his verdict, and his sentence all right there on the riverbank.”

“And his grave,” Nancy added sadly.

The candle flickered and hissed. Footsteps clattered on the floor over their heads, and Ann wondered if someone would be calling her soon.

Nancy sighed heavily. “Well, I am not glad to leave my old master, and I would not have run away, either. I'd have given anything to be able to stay with my mother and brother and my husband and my baby.” Her voice broke and she held one hand over her mouth for a moment. “But as soon as Master Cahell died, the mistress got it in her mind to start selling, and with me being so sickly and no good in the fields, she decided she'd rather not have me around to feed.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her shawl.

Ann felt a tightness in her chest.
I've left my whole family, too
, she wanted to say. But she was afraid if she tried to speak she would only cry.

Martha had not yet spoken. She sat listening, her eyes fearful, her thin fingers laced around her knees.

“What about you, Miss Martha?” asked Theophilus. “Did your old master treat you all right?”

“I have no ‘old master,’” said Martha quietly. “I have always been free, living in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.”

A hush came over the huddled group.

“Why are you here, then?” asked Ann.

“Three white men came to my house in the night. They lifted me from my bed and carried me out. I screamed and screamed, and my father fought them, but they threw him to the ground and took me away in a carriage. They sold me to the man who brought me here. I tried to tell him I'd been kidnapped, but he said he'd paid good money for me, and it didn't matter.”

“How horrible!” Ann exclaimed.

“That ain't right,” said Richmond.

“It's against the law,” said Nancy.

“And not a one of us can help her,” said Theophilus. “Unless a white person testifies, it doesn't matter what crime a black person, slave or free, has seen.”

The door to the cellar creaked and Sarah's timid voice came from the top of the steps. “Aunt Carol says it's time for you to put me to bed.”

Ann rose quickly and picked up the candle. Then, thoughtfully, she placed the candle back on the dirt floor. She had no blankets, no meat, no key to unlock their chains, and no hopeful words for them. The least she could do was leave them with light.

Later that night, as Ann fell asleep, through the floorboards she heard Martha weeping.

Nancy, Theophilus, Richmond, and Martha left the next morning. Master Charles loaded them into his wagon the way he used to load sheep when he still had the farm. Under the folds of their clothes they carried the extra bread Ann had smuggled to them. And she'd promised to pray for them. She could do no more than that.

She offered up prayers for her own life, too: That soon Master Charles would relent and allow her to visit her family. Maybe for the Independence Day holiday. Maybe for Christmas next year. That Jacob Bigelow would return, despite Master Charles's threats, to bring her more news of her family. And that one day Master Charles would say yes to Mr. Bigelow's offer to buy her from him.

But for now, there was
this
Christmas.

“You will spend the holidays with us, won't you, Miss Ann Maria?” Alfred shifted from one freezing bare foot to the other and blew into his hands. Around them, the other churchgoers
hurried toward the warmth of their homes. The naked limbs of St. Mary's oaks stretched out overhead.

Ann squinted up at him, into the low December sunshine. His face was earnest, and the sparkle in his eyes reminded her of Joseph. He couldn't be much older than Augustus, she thought. “I won't be going anywhere else,” she said. Her lack of a holiday traveling pass was something all the colored folks from the church had heard about.

“Aw, come on, Miss Ann Maria. It won't be so bad. You'll have fun with us—we'll be your family.”

Ann smiled at his generous offer.

Alfred flashed her a grin and ran to catch up with Edmonia, Thomas, Elizabeth, and the other slaves from Dr. Anderson's place. Here in Rockville, so many of the slaves lived in their owners’ houses, sleeping in attics and cellars and on kitchen floors, that there were very few choices of slave cabins in which to celebrate the Christmas holidays in peace and privacy. Dr. Anderson was both a doctor and a farmer; he held eight slaves, and provided slave quarters a distance away from his own home. Here was where Ann and Hannah and David were all invited to feast and enjoy themselves during their holiday week.

“I think Alfred has taken a liking to you,” said Hannah, putting her arm around Ann.

“Me? Naw,” said Ann. Still, she felt herself blush.

“What do you think, David?” Hannah poked her brother. “Has Alfred taken a shine to Ann Maria?”

David snorted. “Alfred's got no time for girls. He never has, and he never will.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Men don't know
anything
, “ she whispered to Ann.

On the last day before the school holidays, Ann stood outside the schoolhouse, waiting to walk Sarah home. She wondered what Catharine's schoolhouse looked like. Did boys sit on one side and girls on the other? Did Catharine have her own slate and chalk, and even her own primer? Ann moved closer to the door, straining to hear what was going on inside. With her ear pressed to the white-painted door, the schoolmaster's voice became clear.