Читать книгу Golden's Rule - C. E. Edmonson - Страница 8

Recollections

MY NAME IS Golden Lea Jackson Pitts and this here is the recollections of my life. The first thing I gotta ask is that whoever comes to read this story in the future, please forgive my writin. Mosly, I had to learn readin and writin on my own. I got pretty good at readin cause I had me a chance to practice, but I never did git much chance to practice my writin when I was a growin up on Masta Harris Jackson’s plantation. I will tell how this come to pass in due time.

Fact, when my daughter, Ophelia, asked me to set down my membrances bout growin up, I was right opposed to the idea. But Ophelia ain’t nothin, if she ain’t persistent. I gotta do this, she says near bout every day, so her daughter will know bout slavery times, and her daughter’s daughter, too. It was a duty I had to perform for the family.

I tole her them was some mighty hard times and nobody should have to think too hard on em. But Ophelia’s bout as stubborn as the day is long and she jus finally wore me out.

I was born sometime durin the late 1830s. I can’t say when exactly cause nobody kep no records of when slaves was born, nor when they died. But I believe it was near 1838 cause Pa tole me that my mama was sold off the plantation when I was three years old. That’s when I was given to be the personal slave of missy Ann, who was two. Now I knowed for a fact that missy Ann was born in 1839, so I reckon I gotta be born bout 1838.

I don’t rememba nothin bout my mama. Don’t rememba her bein sold off, neither. My pa, Elijah, was a stable groom, and he tole me that I was near to broke in pieces. He said I didn’t speak for six months, nor barely moved, and Masta was bout to send me to live in the cabins with the other slave chirrens. Masta said I was a ungrateful child. But then I started talkin again, so I stayed in the big house.

But if I didn’t rememba nothin bout mama bein sold off, later on I did imagine how it happened. That come bout after I seen a slave trader drive his slaves up to the plantation.

The Jackson Plantation was called Belle Maison and it was located in the state of Kentucky, where it gits mighty wet and cold in the winter. So the slave traders only come in the summertime when the roads is dried up. I musta been bout four years old the first time a slave trader come to the house. I rememba I was on the porch with missy Ann when I seen a cloud of dust bout a mile down the road. The cloud was comin closer, but very slow. Not like the Masta’s carriage, or mens on horses. More like the cloud was driftin.

Masta Harris come out on the porch bout then. Jus stood there with his hands on his hips, like he figurin hard in his head. Missy Ann was nappin in the little crib she used on the porch and I was rockin her slowly, like I was sposed to. But Masta didn’t pay no attention to neither one of us. Only took his hat off and wiped his head with a big ol handkerchief. Then Winnie come out carryin a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses on it, so I knowed somethin was gonna happen. Winnie was Mistriss Sarah’s personal slave.

Finally, the cloud of dust gits close enough to where I can see three mens. The mens was mounted up and they was carryin pistols tucked into their waists and they had whips draped over their saddles. Their hat brims was very wide and hung down over their faces and they drooped in the saddle, like they come a far piece. A long line of what looks to me like ghosts stretched out behind em.

At first, I was right scared and I wanted to run off. But I knew if I left missy Ann alone, I’d git my legs switched, so I jus tried to make myself small. That’s when I realized them ghosts was really peoples—slaves covered with dust so thick they was near mos white. Lands, there musta been a hundred of em. Mens, womens, and chirrens. Babies, too. And ceptin for the babies, each one of em had a iron collar runnin right round their necks. A long chain run through rings on the collars and I could hear that ol chain clankin on the stones in the road as they come up the drive. The slaves was holdin the chain up so it wouldn’t be draggin on their necks, but the chain was long enough to hit the ground anyway. Goin clank, clank, clank with every step they takes.

Now I ain’t gonna make no big story outta this, cause that ain’t what I’m after tellin. Sides, peoples mosly talk too much anyway, always makin the simplest thing go on forever. The trader’s name was marston and he was the one rode up to the porch, an older man with mustaches that dripped down past his chin. The other two mens was his overseers and they kep a respectful distance till Masta invited them forward.

Slaves was marston’s business. If you was in need of slaves, he’d sell em to ya. If you was after sellin slaves, he’d buy em. That particular day, Masta didn’t need no slaves and didn’t wanna sell none, neither. But he was right cordial. He offered marston and his overseers lemonade and they stood there for a few minutes, chattin bout the price of tobacco, which was Masta’s cash crop. Then Masta asked marston does he want water fetched for his slaves. But marston, he said, “no, they can jus drink outta the streams with the horses.” Then marston and his overseers started off, walkin the horses back the way they come. And the slaves started up after em. Didn’t have to be tole or nothin. Jus picks up their feet and chains and follers down the road.

Not right away, but after a time thinkin it over, what I done was imagine my mama gettin sold. I imagined the slave trader and Masta Harris makin a deal, like I seen him do in later times, and my mama bein led out to the back of the line. In my mind, I see a collar fixed round her neck and a chain run through the collar and mama standin out from the rest cause she’s the only one who ain’t covered with white dust. And I see her lookin back to the house as the long line begins to move. I hear her cryin out to me, her onliest child, as the dust rises to shroud her in haze.

“Good-bye, my daughter. Good-bye, my love. For I will never see you no more. Farewell, farewell.”

We made or growed mos everythin we used or ate at Belle Maison. We had carpenters and a blacksmith and a little mill on the stream where we ground corn and wheat. In the fields, we growed greens, taters, snap beans, peas, corn, squashes, and bout every kinda melon there is. We had sheep for wool, which the women field hands spun in the winter. We had cattle and hogs and chickens for meat, and cows for milk and butter. We growed apples and pears in the orchard. Yessuh, we sure growed a lot of food. Only it weren’t for the field hands. No, the slaves was fed thisaway. The house slaves got scraps from the table. The hands who done special work, the blacksmith and the carpenter and the stable hands, got reglar meat rations. The chirrens who was too little to work in the fields was fed cornmeal and milk. The cook mushed it up in the kitchen and carried it to the yard in buckets. Then she dumped them buckets into a trough, like you uses to feed the livestock, and them chirrens gotta run and git it right fast fore it’s all gone.

The field slaves got a ration of cornmeal, molasses, peas, and greens every Sunday and had to make it last through the whole week. Only there weren’t never enough, not for no man or woman who was out in the fields fore sunup and didn’t come in till it was too dark to see a hand in front of their own face. Sometimes, the field slaves was able to sneak out in the middle of the night to fish in the creek, but mosly they stole food from Masta’s gardens to git by. Masta didn’t spend much time at Belle Maison. He was some kinda mucky-muck in Kentucky politics and he was always in Louisville or Frankfort. The plantation was run by Masta’s overseer. His name was Henry Sewell and he was quick to whip any slave he caught stealin. Myself, I don’t know what that man figured, cause you can beat a starvin man halfway to death and he still gonna steal food iffen he be hungry enough. But that’s the way they done it. Henry Sewell was always fast to the whip if a field slave was stealin or slackin off.

Mista Henry Sewell didn’t have nothin to do with the house slaves, for which I guess was our fortune. And he didn’t mess much with the stable hands, long as they kep his horse fit. That was cause we raised thorobred horses on that Kentucky plantation. Them horses was Masta’s pride and it was my pa who mosly took care em when they was in the barn. And they wasn’t no easy horses to git along with. Fact, some of them thorobreds Masta Harris owned, they’d kick to death any man that tried to enter their stall. Ceptin for Pa. He jus had that way and the horses trusted him. He was the one groomed em and tended to their ailments.

Masta, he did have himself a vetranarian name of Doctor manville. He was a nervous little fella, kep all his medicines in a buckboard he rode out to the farms. I rememba one time he tried to examine a horse name of Greenback. Now Greenback was ornery as all git out and he bit Doctor manville hard in the shoulder one day. Tore out a big ol chunk of flesh. After that, Doctor manville grew mighty careful. He reglar stood outside the stall, tellin my pa, do this and do that.

I was allowed to stay with my pa on Saturday nights. The way Pa tole it, Mistriss Sarah started lettin me go to him back when I was grievin for my mama. I don’t rememba nothin bout that, but bein with Pa on Saturday was bout the onliest thing I looked forward to. That’s cause missy Ann growed into a treacherous child. She was mean in her spirit and I wasn’t allowed to do nothin to oppose her, which only made her meaner. I swear that gal was born without no conscience a’tall.

Sometimes, when she was in a temper, she’d slap me. The first time, I was only three and didn’t know better, so I slapped her back. Missy Ann, she run out cryin to Mistriss Sarah and Mistriss Sarah switched me good. Didn’t ask me what happened, or say nothin. Jus come into the room, grabbed me up by the hair and whacked my legs with a hickory switch. Then she walked out the room like I wasn’t no more than a dog she found chewin on the rug.

Course, I didn’t hit missy Ann no more. I wasn’t a fool altogether. But Mistriss Sarah had herself a bigger story to tell and I was slow to git the message. Fact, I wasn’t allowed to frustrate that child in any way. Fact, I was some kinda way responsible for her happiness, all day and all night, too. I slep on a pallet at the foot of her bed and Lord have mercy if she cried in the night.

How I was sposed to care for missy Ann every hour of the day or night was a mystery I didn’t git. Like I could never figure why Mista Sewell and Masta Harris blamed a hungry slave for pickin a few melons. But I understands much better now. I was trainin to be a slave, like Pa trained them two-year-old horses to the saddle. I would live my whole life at the foot of missy Ann’s bed. I would care for her chirrens. I would serve her till one of us died.

Over time, specially when she was young, missy Ann and me would play together. She didn’t have no choice, since there weren’t no other chirrens to play with. But her kinda play was to use me like she was usin her dolls when she held her tea parties at the little table in her room. I’d line up between her dolls like I was a doll myself. Then she’d tell me what to say and how to act. Sometimes I was the bad doll and I had to be punished. Course, I didn’t like takin punishment from a girl who couldn’t lace up her own shoes. But it was a heap better than gettin switched.

Ceptin for visitin Pa on Saturday nights, the other thing I looked forward to was church on Sunday mornins. Mosly, Masta Harris didn’t want his slaves gatherin together, even if they was gatherin to worship the Lord. Masta Harris figured they was gonna make some kinda uprisin. I don’t know what he thought they was gonna rise up with, sticks and stones? But him and all the slaveholders was scared to death bout slave rebellions that took place further east. That’s why they organized the patrollers.

The patrollers—mos slaves called em patterollers—rode every night, lookin for slaves who was off their plantations without a pass signed by their Masta. When the patrollers caught one, they would give em a good whippin and bring em back to the farm they come from. Then, the Masta mos likely whipped em again. Still, some slaves, they had wives or chirrens livin on other farms and they would sneak off to be with em, whippin or no.

The house slaves was the ception to this rule. Masta and Mistriss and missy Ann couldn’t no way be without their personal slaves. Masta had ol Isaiah, who tended Masta wherever he went. And Mistriss Sarah, she pretty near couldn’t dress herself without Winnie. And missy Ann? Why she’d pitch a fit if I was left behind. So, when the family went to church, we all went with em. Course, we had to sit up in the gallery and not downstairs with the white folks, but we didn’t mind that none. Fact, we mosly didn’t wanna be round white folks no way.

Reverend Crutchfield preached long and hard on Sunday mornins, holdin up his Bible, dancin round like ants was bitin him all over his body. Us in the gallery, we didn’t git too rambunctious, didn’t sing too loud or nothin. Partly that was cause Reverend Crutchfield would preach to the slaves at the end of the service. He’d tell us that Jesus wanted us to always mind our Mastas and never steal nothin and never run away. He’d say if we do jus like Masta tells us, we gonna go up to some kinda slave heaven.

Natrally, we all wasn’t no way prayin to git into slave heaven. No, sir. We was prayin for a moses to lead us outta slavery. Far as we was concerned, Masta and all his like was little Pharaohs, holdin God’s peoples in bondage. Even to this day, I sometimes think the Good Lord has got Himself a mighty fine sense of humor. That’s cause our moses turned out to be a white man name of Abraham Lincoln.

But that there is another story than the one I’m after tellin, so I believes I’ll jus save it for another day. Meanwhiles, I got beans need snappin and a chicken I gotta pluck and a fire to make if my family’s gonna have dinner this evenin. Ophelia be comin back from work pretty soon, and she is one gal who appreciates havin her dinner on time.