The Soldier's Lady (23 page)

“Me too,” said Katie, walking slowly about the room.

“You got any of those oatmeal cookies left?” asked Uncle Ward.

“I may at dat, Mister Ward,” replied Josepha, disappearing into the kitchen.

Now Katie sat down at the piano and started playing absently. Then she got out some of her music, and pretty soon she was playing a lively jig.

Uncle Ward jumped up and started dancing in time to the music. We all laughed and started clapping to the rhythm. That made him dance all the harder until his feet sounded like drums on the floor.

“Come on, Emma!” said Uncle Ward, going over to where Emma was sitting.

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. A minute later Uncle Ward's and Emma's feet were bouncing and jumping and echoing on the floor in perfect time as if they'd been dancing together for years. The rest of us kept clapping and laughing to Katie's music.

Suddenly I looked up, and there was Micah standing in front of me with his hand outstretched.

“Come on, Mayme,” he said. “Let's join them!”

I took his hand and stood up. We didn't put on quite the show Emma and Uncle Ward did, but it was so much fun! I hadn't danced like that, with a black man, since I was a little girl dancing with my grandfather to the music of a fiddle. I could tell Micah had danced the jig before. He was real good on his feet.

“Whew!” said Uncle Ward a minute or two later. “That's enough to tucker an old man out!—Jeremiah,
get up here and take over for me.”

Jeremiah's feet had already been itching and he didn't need to be asked twice. He was out of his chair in an instant and the next had Emma's hand, and they danced all around the room.

Josepha came in with the tea a few minutes later and, after serving the men, sat down beside Henry to watch. Finally Katie's fingers began to slow, and she gradually brought the lively dance to an end. Jeremiah and Emma and Micah and I all stopped and let go of each other's hands and just stood laughing, panting, and grinning. We were tired but hadn't had such a time in ages!

“That was downright fun!” said Papa. “Almost makes me wish I was a kid again. Remember when Mama taught us to dance, Ward?”

Uncle Ward chuckled.

“Did she really, Uncle Templeton?” asked Katie from where she still sat at the piano.

“That she did, Kathleen,” he replied. “Your grandmother was quite the lady for making sure her sons and daughters—me and Ward and your mama and your aunt Nelda—all had culture and refinement, at least as much as she could give us herself. I think she would have liked to send us to expensive schools if she could have, but they didn't have that kind of money. So she made us read books and study—yes, and dance too. Why, Ward and I even took our turns there at the keyboard with her trying to teach us the piano.”

“Uncle Templeton!” exclaimed Katie. “Come . . . show us!”

Papa laughed. “She tried to teach us, I said. I'm afraid she wasn't too successful in my case. What about you, Ward?”

“Not me!” laughed Uncle Ward. “I was always a stubborn cuss when it came to practicing like she wanted me to. Listening to Kathleen play, I regret that now. That's mighty fine playing, Kathleen. It sure takes me back. Your mama could play just like that. She was the musical one of the family.”

“She taught me,” said Katie. “I used to have a violin too. But it was ruined when the marauders came.”

“Well, she taught you real well.” Uncle Ward paused a moment. “You know who else was musical,” he added, “—that was Lemuela. Everything Rosalind did, she did too. She could play the piano, the violin . . . and sing! Remember how Lemuela could sing, Templeton?”

I looked at Papa. A faraway look had come into his eyes. The faint hint of a smile crossed his lips.

Slowly he nodded.

“I remember . . .” he said softly. “How well I remember.”

The sound of Papa's voice as he remembered my mother quieted us all. Especially me. I was reminded again how much he loved her, and of the sadness he always felt at her memory, knowing that he had never seen her again.

Softly Katie again began to play. But the quiet
melancholy of memories had gotten into her soul too. All of us, everyone in the room—except little William, I suppose—would always have sadness in our hearts from the loss of people we had loved. But we had each other, and we were sure grateful for that. Yet even then, sometimes the melancholy swept through our hearts for a while when we remembered the others who were gone.

It was a while before I recognized what Katie was softly playing. Then I remembered. It was the minuet, like she'd taught me on her fifteenth birthday just after I'd first come to Rosewood. That had been a special day that had done a lot toward making two heartbroken girls into friends.

Katie played and we all sat absorbed in our thoughts. The music of the minuet, though happy, couldn't help but put us in a nostalgic mood. I suppose we were all thinking about the ones we loved who weren't there.

Josepha was sitting next to Papa. I noticed her swaying a bit and her feet moving ever so slightly to the music. Papa must have noticed too.

“Josepha, how about you dancing with me?” he said. “Looks to me like your feet know the minuet.”

Josepha looked over at him with a look of sadness and longing. “I don't think so, Mister Templeton,” she said. “Dat's jes' too long ago.”

“What's too long ago?” he asked.

Then her expression changed and the familiar Josepha was back.

“You jes' neber mind,” she said. “Dat's my business,
and you jes' mind yer own.”

A minute later, as I sat there, a shadow slowly appeared in front of me. I glanced up.

There stood Papa.

He reached out his hand. I took it. He pulled me to my feet. I wouldn't have thought I could remember it so well, but suddenly I found myself dancing in perfect rhythm to the music as Papa led me through the graceful steps. Katie's and my grandmother had taught him well! His feet were so light on the floor he hardly made a sound. I could almost imagine him dressed all fancy in a palace court at a ball in honor of a king! He held my hand so lightly, turning and slowly spinning me around in all the right places. Somehow I knew just what to do from his touch.

Everyone else watched as we danced, in awe that we both simply stood up and started dancing a perfect minuet. I even saw tears in Josepha's eyes.

Katie played and we danced, and it was almost like the whole world had stopped for those few minutes. Suddenly I was inside my own fairy tale, dancing like a princess in a story. But I wasn't dancing with a prince. I was dancing with my very own father, which was even better.

Gradually the minuet came to an end.

Our steps slowed and finally stopped. We stood facing each other a moment more. I gazed up into Papa's face. His eyes were wet.

“If I didn't know better, Mary Ann,” he said softly, “I would think that you were your mama. You
are the most beautiful young lady in the world.”

I went to him, stretched my arms around his waist, and leaned my head against his chest as he wrapped my shoulders in his embrace.

B
APTISM

21

H
ow exactly word began to spread was never clear. I think Henry picked up word of it from people coming into town. But wherever it came from, there was a report that a black preacher was heading our way, baptizing and preaching and holding revival services as he went.

Then one day came when his wagon rumbled into town with the words painted in bright red against yellow sides that looked like a traveling medicine show: Dr. Giles Smithers Colored Camp Meeting Revival Service. And underneath, it said, Jesus is the way to salvation, turn from sin.

The man talked to Henry at the livery and asked about a good place on the river to hold a baptism. Before we knew it, the man had set up his revival tent beside the river on the border of Rosewood—with Papa's and Uncle Ward's permission, of course—and flyers were being circulated everywhere.

Reverend Smithers was an old-fashioned hellfire
revival preacher, and when he got wound up, you could hear his voice for half a mile. Katie, Papa, and Uncle Ward were the only whites at the first meeting, along with about twenty or so blacks. But the second night there was double that number, and on the last day, a Sunday afternoon when Reverend Smithers announced that there would be a river baptism, there must have been a hundred colored folks from fifty miles around. They were all people we hadn't seen before. We never knew how they all heard about it, but they did.

There was singing like I hadn't heard since I was a girl on the McSimmons plantation when the twenty-five or thirty slaves would get together in the evenings and break out in old spirituals.

I'd never seen Josepha so keyed up and excited as on that Sunday afternoon at the river, clapping and swaying her big body and singing louder than anyone. Henry entered into the spirit of it too. It was as if being around all the other former slaves had opened a part of them that had been quiet a long time. Jeremiah and Emma and I sat on the ground together. William was with Katie at the house because Katie said she had felt funny being the only white person the day before. Papa and Uncle Ward hadn't been back since the first day either.

Jeremiah and I were singing and clapping along, but Emma was strangely quiet. I didn't understand why because I knew she loved to sing, and she had such a beautiful voice. After the preacher started preaching, she got quieter and more somber yet.
From the look on her face I almost thought she was about to start crying.

“My brothers and sisters,” Reverend Smithers was saying in a loud voice, “for years our people prayed ter know that life er freedom in dat ol' Promised Land. So now we's free, all right, but have we really entered dat Promised Land in our hearts? Have we crossed dat River Jordan in baptism for sin? Have we risen out of dose waters, jes' like this water behind me here, into dat new life of salvation? Have you felt da fire, my brothers and sisters? Which fire is calling with your name—da fire of hell or da fire of da spirit of the living God!”

His voice had risen to such a pitch that all through the listening crowd, murmurs and shouts and comments rose to join him.

“Amen!” now shouted several voices, followed by a chorus of more Amens.

“Don't wait, brother . . . delay not, sisters,” the preacher went on, nearly shouting every word. “Now is dat day of salvation! Another day may be too late. Da fires of hell burn bright and are eternal and unquenched. But da fire of da spirit blows where it will. Salvation is offered on that appointed day, and he who turns away will find da spirit fires waxing cold. Come to Jesus, brothers and sisters, and confess your sin in your hearts dat His salvation may burn bright.”

“Yes, brother,” cried half a dozen voices. “Yes.Amen!Amen!” came more shouts.

“Now come, brothers and sisters, and come up
beside me and confess your sin, and let da fire of da spirit fall on you. Then step into da waters of da Jordan to wash away da evil stain of sin.”

All around there were shouts and movement and more shouts—“Praise Jesus! Amen!”

People made their way to the river's edge, while others went up and fell on their knees and raised their hands in the air, shouting and praising God and some praying in shouts—“Forgive us, Lawd . . . yes, Lawd, forgive our sin. Redeem us, Lawd . . . save us from dose fires er hell!”