Stealing Freedom (5 page)

Joseph's stare refused to waver. “I think he's trying to poison us.” He turned to Addison. “Don't you think that's what he's doing?”

“What?” Richard's cheeks turned pink and he sat up straighter.

“I believe you're right, Joseph.” said Addison. “I think he's decided to kill us once and for all.”

Ann gave her brothers a puzzled look, but Addison nudged her and she began to catch on.

Richard was shaking his head vigorously. “I ate it right along with you! There's no poison in there.”

“Oh, you
looked
like you were eating it, but there wasn't any more gone when you passed the sack to me than when Addison handed it to you,” said Joseph.

“I wouldn't poison you!” Richard shouted, his voice cracking.

“He'll have to prove it, then,” said Ann decisively.

Her brothers agreed.

“How? I'll prove it. Just tell me how,” Richard begged.

“If you bring us some of the spices—the nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves—and if they smell and taste just like the ones in the pudding, then we'll know you didn't add any poison,” Ann told him.

Richard's eyes shifted. “My mother will whip my backside so I won't sit for a month if she catches me taking her spices.”

The three Weemses were unimpressed.

“Oh, all right.” Richard leaned over and rinsed his marble bag in the river. “I guess if I pinched the pudding I can pinch some spices.”

Ann, Joseph, and Addison lay back on the rocks, sunning themselves, while Richard ran the mile back to his house. As soon as he was out of earshot, Ann let out the giggle she'd been suppressing.

“And have you figured out what we'll tell Mamma?” she asked Joseph.

Joseph stretched and smiled, his head resting comfortably on his folded arms. “Another present from Richard. And that's the truth.”

When Richard returned, they sniffed and inspected the dark, aromatic powders he brought folded in brown paper. Ann even dipped her finger in one of the packages for a taste, but found the spice bitter without molasses to accompany it. With serious faces, they finally agreed that Richard had not, in fact, been trying to poison them. Richard was relieved, and the brown paper packages disappeared discreetly into the cuff of Addison's britches before the four of them moved on to their
next activity, which was heaving large stones into the river to see who could make the biggest splash.

Their mother clucked her tongue when they gave her the gift. “That poor child has a weight of guilt on his shoulders,” she said.

“He
should
have a weight of guilt,” said Augustus. He gave the chair he was working on a whack with his hammer. “And he's not a poor child. He's a wealthy white boy who will inherit all the land he'll ever need without having to work for it.”

Arabella carefully placed the brown packages into the wooden box where her husband's hard-earned coins were deposited each Sunday evening. “We'll save it for Thanks Giving,” she said quietly.

“We'll have land someday, too,” said Joseph.

“Hmph.” Augustus grunted his disbelief.

“Papa says once he buys our freedom he'll start saving to buy land so we can do our own farming and we won't have to work for anybody,” Joseph persisted.

The look on Augustus's face was a mixture of anger and pity. “Joseph, you might as well know this right now. Master Charles is never going to let Papa buy our freedom. Haven't you seen how every year when Papa has more money saved, Master Charles says, ‘The price of slaves went up again, John. Maybe by next year you'll have enough.’ That's because the first person Papa will buy is Mamma, and then she won't give him any more slave children.”

“Hush, Augustus,” said Arabella. “I don't want to hear you children arguing.”

Ann wanted to tell Augustus how he was wrong, how Papa
would keep his promise of buying freedom for each one of them. But in her heart she felt the truth of her brother's words.

The stony silence was interrupted by her father bursting in the door.

“They made it!” His smile was wide and his eyes glistened. He hugged his wife. “They made it, Arabella.”

“Thank the Lord!” Ann's mother exclaimed.

“Children,” her father announced, “you no longer have an uncle Abram.”

Ann's stomach lurched at her father's words, but the joy on his face kept her from panicking.

John lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “For safety, your uncle has changed his name. He's no longer Abram Young. He's now William Bradley. He and your Aunt Mimi— Mrs. Bradley now—are living free in New York.”

It happened several weeks before Thanks Giving. A cold rain had been falling for three days straight, and the dirt floor of their cabin was muddy as a riverbed. When the wind blew hard, even the table and dinner benches received a sprinkling of rain through the gaps between the logs, and had to be dried off before each meal.

Ann, her mother, Catharine, and Ellie had been busy for weeks in the Prices’ kitchen canning everything from pole beans to applesauce. Her father and brothers had been spending their days harvesting the Indian corn, picking apples in the orchard, tending to the fall plowing, and keeping the fires burning in the tobacco houses so the huge leaves could dry despite the rain. During the dark evenings, Ann and her father and brothers had redug the hole behind their cabin. In it, between fat layers of straw, they'd placed cabbages, potatoes, and winter squash from their garden to keep for the next few months. They'd covered the hole snugly
with planks of wood to stop hungry raccoons and opossums from having a feast.

It happened just as the canning was almost done, the corn-cribs were full of dry corn, and the last of the black walnuts had been scavenged off the forest floor ahead of the squirrels. Ann awoke in the dark to the sound of her mother starting breakfast downstairs. She shivered and pulled her thin, rough blanket over her head. Even her ears were cold. She dreaded the thought of going out back to wash.

Two things Ann could not understand about winter: why she had to wash, and why she had to wrap her feet in rags. If it were left up to her, she would stay dirty and barefoot. Washing only made her colder, and the foot wrapping, meant to warm her, took away the freedom to feel the soft parts and the hard parts of the earth on the soles of her feet and toes. But her mother insisted on washing and rags, and there was no arguing.

Behind the cabin, Ann used a stick to break the fragile layer of ice that had formed on the wash bucket overnight. She washed her face and neck quickly, the cold water taking her breath away. She was thankful she would be working indoors instead of guiding a plow in the freezing drizzle all day. Her brothers had already had chilblains on their fingers.

Inside the cabin, the fire and the bubbling pot of cornmeal mush had warmed the room and steamed up the window. The family ate together, with yawns and eye-rubbing taking the place of conversation.

Ann shook the dried mud out of her foot rags and tied them snugly around her feet. Then she wrapped her shoulders
in her woolen shawl and, with Catharine and her mother, started up the hill to the stone house. That was when it happened.

Actually, it had happened sometime earlier that morning, but that's when they found out. As they crested the hill, they heard a familiar cry.

“Poor Benjamin,” said Catharine. “His mother is so busy these days she hardly has time to hold him.”

But Ann noticed something strange about Benjamin's crying. It was more tired, more forlorn than usual—as if it had been going on for longer.

When they reached the summer kitchen and opened the door, there stood Benjamin, sobbing and shuddering in a pool of urine. There was no fire, no warmth, no candlelight to brighten the gray morning. And there was no Ellie. They called her name, and Ann climbed the ladder to the loft to see if she was ill and still in bed. She wasn't.

Arabella folded the weeping Benjamin into her arms, and he quieted. Catharine started the fire, and Ann mopped up the floor.

“Where's your mamma?” Arabella asked when Benjamin was calm and sucking on three fingers. He shook his head and buried his face in her bosom, as if to block out the question.

Ann's heart pounded in her ears. She threw open the door and raced to the barn. The horses were gone. So was Master Charles's carriage.

She ran back to the kitchen, wanting to shout in anger.

Arabella held up one hand to silence Ann, and shook her head. She rocked back and forth, singing softly. There was
nothing more to say. Nothing more to do, except welcome Benjamin into their own family and hold him when he cried.

That evening Ann offered to help her father and Augustus carry the chairs they'd built to Mr. McGowan's store to be sold. She needed the movement, and needed to be away from Benjamin's whimpering. Augustus walked on ahead, and Ann kept pace with her father, a chair balanced across her shoulders.

The chilly breeze made her cheeks tingle, and her thoughts felt muddled. Her father had told her the Prices would never break up a family, and yet they had. And there was nothing any of them could do about it.

“Benjamin still has the love he needs—you know that don't you, baby girl?” her father said. “He'll be all right.” His words were encouraging, but even in the dark Ann could see the pain in his face. He was simply ferreting out the good parts and striving to be thankful for them—something he always did, and which was normally a comfort to Ann. This time it only infuriated her more.

She grasped the rungs of the chair so tightly it hurt, as if she could strangle some justice out of the unfeeling wood. “It's not fair,” she said, her jaw stiff.

“Ann Maria, what is fair is up to the Good Lord, not to us,” her father said softly.

“But they do bad things—awful things—and they never get punished!” Ann cried.

“Baby girl, they have built their lives with the wrong things they do. Master Charles has got debts and drunkenness, a barren
wife who's angry as a rabid dog, and fields going sour from too much tobacco growing. They have their punishment every day.”

Ann scowled, thinking. Her father's breath and her own made billowy puffs of steam in the cold night air. It was true. The Prices had soft beds, a warm house, and all the food they wanted, but there was no joy in their home.

Her father continued. “I can tell you that Miss Ellie got herself free from that lecherous Master Charles today, and young Benjamin will be spoiled rotten by your mamma and big sister. And come Christmas, if she's not been sold too far south, Ellie will be back to see her boy.”

They walked the rest of the way to McGowan's store in silence.

When they arrived back home, a wonderful aroma came drifting from the tiny cabin. Inside, Joseph was giving Benjamin a ride on his shoulders, and Benjamin was squealing with delight. On the table sat a steaming pumpkin pudding, filling the room with the unmistakable scent of nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.

Ann knew that the purpose of the pudding was to entertain Benjamin, to help ease the great hole of grief in his heart. How strange, she thought, to celebrate this day by using the spices meant for Thanks Giving. It was upside down, to honor the day a child lost his mother and a mother lost her child.

But as Ann sat with her head bowed and listened to her father's prayer of thanks for the mighty blessings of the food, their home, and their family, she realized that no amount of fancy food or clothes or land could make her happier than the love of her family made her at that moment. So maybe it wasn't upside down, after all. It was just an early Thanks Giving.

Benjamin cried a little less and laughed a little more each day. When he asked about his mother, their answer was always the same: “She'll come see you at Christmas if she can.” And so, Benjamin's daily question soon became “Is it Christmas today?”

Ann was always impatient for Christmas to arrive, and this year Benjamin's impatience added to her own. Christmas was, without a doubt, the very best time of the year. In fact, it was the only time of the year, other than Independence Day and Good Friday, when they didn't have to work six days a week. And Christmas wasn't just a one-day holiday. It was a whole week off from work, stretching all the way until New Year's Day. Some slaves got permission to travel to visit family during that week, and so the Weemses were expecting quite a bit of company.

Soon after Thanks Giving they began to get ready. They saved apples gathered from the orchard floor and hoarded black walnuts. Arabella kept throwaway scraps from a red dress she'd made for Mistress Carol, and used them to make hair ribbons
for Ann and Catharine. Benjamin wanted one, too, but Arabella told him that boys don't wear hair ribbons, and she made him a red bow tie instead.

Up in the loft, which they now shared with Benjamin, they spent their last few sleepy moments at night discussing the delicacies—biscuits, real bread, and maybe even cakes—their mother would make with the peck of wheat flour and quart of molasses Master Charles would give them Christmas morning. They also wagered bets on which item of livestock they would receive for their Christmas dinner.

“He's stingy as an old crow. I say he gives us one scrawny chicken like he did last year,” said Augustus.

“I want a hog. A big fat hog to roast in the fire pit,” said Joseph dreamily.

“I'd rather have a turkey,” said Catharine. “We eat fatback all year—why do you want to eat more pig on Christmas?” She jabbed Joseph in the ribs with her toes.

“At Elton farm they roasted a whole ox last year,” Addison chimed in.

“That's because it broke its neck,” said Ann. “They won't have an ox this year, for sure.”

They were quiet for a moment, pondering the possibilities.

“What do you want for Christmas dinner, Benjamin?” Ann asked. His choice sleeping place was between her and Catharine, and he had been gently kicking her thigh during the entire discussion.

“Stars,” he said simply.

“Stars?” Ann propped herself up on her elbows, but it was too dark in the windowless loft for her to detect Benjamin's
expression. The older boys snickered. “You want to
eat
stars?” she asked.