Рита Браун - Tall Tail

With piles of firewood neatly stacked by the front door, walkways swept, back gardens tended, and colorful flowers by porches, on windowsills, the cabins bore testimony to the artistic impulses of the inhabitants. The slaves didn’t have much, but they made the most of what they had. In particular, the women cared about their flowers. Serena grew huge mums. No one else could match her mums. They all tried. Her sight failing, Old Paulette nurtured her white and purple morning glories, which climbed around her porch posts.

Catherine loved the display. She did her best with her mother’s garden, but she lacked the touch.

Walking down the straight row of cabins brought back memories of her mother in rapt discussion about their flowers with other ladies, who had also departed. Catherine would stand next to her mother as theories abounded and once she remembered Paulette, straight as a stick then, getting worked up with the late Abby over the merits of acorn squash versus pattypan. Paulette was a pattypan devotee.

They reached the weaving cabin, the last in the row, close to the woodline.

Catherine opened the door, the big loom in the center of the large room.

“I like to hear the click-clack .” Jeddie noticed the rug on the loom, half finished.

“Me, too. A woman needs good hands and a good eye for this work. One mistake and you’ve ruined the pattern. Let’s go upstairs.”

The wooden boards reverberated as they climbed up.

“They finished this in jack time.” Jeddie admired the loft.

“Did. I wish they could have tapped into the chimney and built a fireplace up here. Maybe next year. That would take so much reinforcement and time. It’s always warmer up top so maybe winter won’t be so bad up here. Just go to bed with a well-stoked fire.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Catherine looked out the window. The place had real glass, not an oiled skin pulled up or down. At the back of the cabin, the newly built kitchen jutted out. They realized one couldn’t really cook close to the loom and the stored hemp, cotton, linen, and wool, all of which lay on their sides on square shelves downstairs and now upstairs. The large center fireplace in the large cabin also had a mesh screen, a luxury, again to make certain no embers escaped from a downdraft, given the flammable contents of the cabin.

The stairs reverberated again as the two descended. Catherine poked her head in the kitchen. That newly built brick fireplace had on each side huge hearth openings in which to place freshly baked bread. The bread stayed warm next to the flame yet protected from it.

Fireplaces and hearths demanded a careful sense of detail. Those slaves involved in carpentry, masonry, bricklaying, flue building, knew what they were doing. A few had such renown they could be identified by their brickwork or stone work.

Standing in the center of the main room, a cot at one end with a small bureau and table, Jeddie asked, “Is Mr. Ewing gonna make a glassworks?”

“My father resisted spending the money for the glass in this building. Now he thinks he can lure glassblowers here and build a furnace for them. He says if we have our own small forge, we should have our own glassblowers. I asked where he thought he would find them. He said he didn’t know but he would find them. That’s my father.”

Jeddie smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” He changed the subject. “When are John and Charles coming home?”

“Soon, I should think. They will be full of stories.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As they walked back, the sun higher now, Catherine spoke. “Jeddie, Bumbee will move into the loom cabin. She knows everything about weaving and Bettina said she wasn’t getting along with Howard.”

Howard was Bumbee’s husband, a man with a roving eye. His body roved with it. Bumbee was in her late thirties, and possessed good sense as well as artistic talent. Her rugs, even shirt clothes, had a tight weave or a loose weave, whatever you needed. When asked how she found designs, especially for the rugs, she swore she would dream about them, wake up, and she had it.

The loft also had an outside stairway so one could come and go unnoticed. The woodline would provide cover for Ailee if she left the loft.

“Bumbee threw a pot at Howard yesterday.”

“Hit him?”

Jeddie laughed. “No.”

“Bet he ran like the devil.”

Jeddie laughed. “That man burnt the wind getting away from her.”

“I would, too.” Catherine laughed as well. “If you should see anything, you know, out of the way, down there, someone you don’t know, go up the back stairs and warn them.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And keep the little ones out of there. There’s Sweet Potato.” Catherine put her hands on her hips. “Well, Binks, she hasn’t bucked you off.”

“No, Miss Catherine, not yet.”

Catherine looked at Jeddie. “Come on. I’ll race you to the stable. Let’s see who can tack up first.”

Jeddie won, but they rode out together, joining Binks and Ralston. Supposedly the four were working horses but really, they reveled in a gorgeous October morning.

—

That night was fog enshrouded and damp. Bettina and Father Gabe led Ailee out of the cave. Her blind side got scraped with limbs and bushes, but they made it to the loom room.

Father Gabe opened the door. Bumbee wasn’t moved in yet. The place, quiet, chilled to the bone. Father Gabe built a fire while Bettina, lighting her lantern now that they were inside, led Ailee up the stairs. Ailee studied the room. It was clean with a bit of color on the floor as Bumbee put down one of her red-and-yellow rugs. A small bed with a horsehair mattress covered in canvas was tucked in the corner. Bettina had made the bed with old sheets and two blankets. A pitcher, bowl, and water stood on the nightstand.

“Ailee, the men will carry up a bureau tomorrow. We’ll fill it with clothes. You’ll be able to keep warm. All will be well.”

Ailee nodded.

“If anyone comes that you don’t know, or you see a white man walking down the row and you don’t know him, you go out that door, out the stairs, and the woods are right there. There’s a narrow path, you can go as far down as you like. No one will see you go out. One of us will come and bring you back when all is safe.” Bettina liked the loft, liked being able to look out high. “I will visit you every day and Bumbee will cook until you can. God bless.” Bettina kissed her cheek.

Once alone, Ailee walked around, touching everything. Then she lay down on the bed, pulled up a blanket. The left side of her face still hurt.

What a good place this would be to live with Moses. She cried and cried, finally falling asleep.

Monday, August 15, 2016

“Cooler down here.” Harry welcomed the temperature.

“Remind me why we’re down here,” Susan grumbled as she followed the narrow deer trail along the creek.

“I knew we should have stayed at home,” Pewter complained in chorus with Susan.

Mrs. Murphy sidestepped a tree root. “We could leave you here.”

“But then we’d have to come back.” Tucker leapt over the root.

“I never said anything about coming back.” Mrs. Murphy brushed against an increasingly irritated Pewter.

Without a peep, Owen, Tucker’s brother, steadfastly followed the two humans.

“You promised your DAR chapter that you’d walk the creek that used to divide the old Garth property down to your grandparents’ farm, which was founded shortly before the Revolution. Was the Selisse farm first.”