The Emancipation of Robert Sadler (14 page)

“But you promised!”

“Son, I couldn't get ye killed.”

We wept together then, and I shared the lunch Johnny's wife had prepared. There were apples, raisins, bacon sandwiches, and chocolate candy bars.

Buck and Corrie were exhausted and dirty. Their clothes were stained with mud and sweat. They had carried their belongings packed in boxes and blankets and toted six-year-old Adger over twenty miles through the swamps and woods of South Carolina to Belton, but they would not rest until they reached Greenville. They sat rigid, with their eyes darting up and down the aisle of the train, expecting any minute to see Sam Beal come bursting through the door to take them back.

We didn't notice the rolling hills and the lush forests of the up country pass by the train's window. We hardly saw the moss-draped oaks, the tall pines, or the flame azaleas and the mountain laurel in bloom. Our hearts beat in time with the clashing of the wheels of the train, and we would not rest until we reached Greenville. And even then, once in Greenville, there was no guarantee that we would be safe.

The “Big House,” to which I was brought as a slave in 1917

The Big House, 1975

Buck

Mary Webb, 1973

Detroit, 1936

My brother Johnny Sadler. I went to his home after escaping from the plantation.

Back row: sister Margie, brother Johnny, and his wife, Alberta
Front row: Aunt Julie and my father

Sister Margie with her son Alan and his wife, Betty Jane, 1945

Jackie's Aunt Cora (left) and my sister Janey

Aunt Cora and me

The Children's Radio Broadcast, Seneca, South Carolina (Jackie and I are in the back row, center.)

Baking bread in the Clemson College kitchen

Some friends gathered with us around the pump organ