Black Angels (24 page)

The soldier's booming voice rang out again. “Do you know about the Freedman's School, ma'am?”

“I don't have much money, sir,” she said.

Daylily noticed he had on a pair of glasses. Not many folks she had seen wore glasses. “It's free,” he said, looking up at Iona from his chair.

She was standing up now, ready to go. “Your children can go to school there, and you too if you want. See Mr. Fielding in room number two. This little girl can go to school now that the war's over. That's what we fought for, you know.” He wasn't mean, he was just loud.

“Yes, sir, thank you, I'll see to it directly.” They walked out the front door and then Iona stopped on the front steps. The street was busy with men hauling bricks and wood in the bright sunshine. Iona was thinking. She wrinkled up her forehead.

Daylily was silent. She was trying not to show how disappointed she was that they had not gone to room number two to see that Mr. Fielding. She wanted to go to school more than anything. She had dreamed of it, and she was afraid to even think it could come true.

Iona saw Daylily looking “down in the mouth,” as her husband, Zach, used to say.

“Honey,” she said, “do you want schoolin?”

Daylily couldn't even answer. She just nodded. Her mind was racing all over the place. Mama Iona needed her at home. Of course she did. It would never happen. It wouldn't be fair to Gracey, who was four years older than her and was Mama Iona's blood child. Of course she would be the one to go first. Maybe they wouldn't take but one child from each family anyway, and maybe . . .

Betty had said she was like a mama bear, always teaching her cubs something. Maybe if she got some schooling, someday she could teach somebody else besides Caswell, Zach Jr., Gracey and the others. “Words be God's voice,” Granny had said. “Teach folks to read the words.” But then her heart sank. Who would help Gracey watch the young'uns while she was at school? Iona had to work or they would all starve.

“I can't,” she finally blurted out. “Who gonna watch the young'uns all day? Gracey can't do everything by herself.”

Iona's mouth was set. “Let's go back in and ask. Must be some way. Caswell's ten now and the baby is three. She can drink out of a cup. Caswell can watch them.”

“He can't go to school?” Daylily asked.

Iona shook her head. “You know the reason,” she said.

 

She could come to class twice a week. Most everybody who signed up had to work; folks had their crops and houses to rebuild, and they needed their children to help. There were lots of folks who wanted to learn, old and young, and the Bureau tried to make it possible. They said she could come on Monday and Wednesday, and stay all morning. Iona signed up Gracey for Tuesday and Thursday.

Daylily woke that Monday feeling good and bad. She thought that Caswell should be in school too, but there was nothing she could do. The night before, she and Caswell had been outside pumping water for Iona to wash up after supper. He was holding a bucket, but he didn't look too happy about it, or about anything.

It took the water a while to come up. “Hurry up, gal,” he said. “I'm tired standin here.” His forehead was set in a frown.

“What you all riled up about?” she said.

“Nothin, just go on, work the pump.”

“I know,” she said, looking him in the eye. “You mad. You riled cause I'm going to school and you can't go.”

“No, that is not true.”

“Yeah, it is! You know why you can't go!”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, I promise. I'll teach you everything. Everything I learn, I'll teach you, and then it'll be just like you was there, OK?”

Caswell turned and went into the house without a word.

 

Daylily kept her promise, faithfully tutoring Caswell the best she could. She tried to make him feel better about not being able to go to school, but he wouldn't talk about it much except to say he thought it was a “real stupid thing.”

That little room at the Methodist church was Heaven for Daylily. Iona would walk with her halfway, and then turn off to go to her job while Daylily continued on the road to the church where classes were held. Her teacher's name was Miss Elizabeth Rowell. She was White and young and Northern. They sat in straight rows and recited the alphabet, all of them together, old and young. The oldest person there was an eighty-year-old man.

The first day Miss Rowell made them say why they wanted to be there. She said the younger ones needed to know how important it was to be able to read. Everything was so exciting to her that Daylily forgot to miss Luke so much, but she was still sad about Caswell. She prayed for Luke and Caswell every night like Granny had taught her.

Then something happened that scared all of them at home. Miss Rowell came to their house. One day, about two months after she had started attending school, Daylily was in the back-yard helping with the washing. They were boiling water for washing dirty clothes in a big black kettle. Daylily was hanging clothes on the line and practicing her spelling in her head. She happened to look down the road and saw a horse and buggy coming their way. Miss Rowell was driving. “Mama,” she said to Iona, “here come Miz Rowell.”

Iona dropped the petticoat she was washing into the black kettle of hot water. “Gracey,” she said, “run tell Caswell to hide in the shed, now! Quick!”

Miss Rowell stopped the buggy in front of the house and got down. She was knocking on the door at the same time Caswell got to the shed. Iona walked through the house and went to the front door, wiping the soap off her hands. Her eyes were bright and tense. Daylily was right behind her.

“How do, ma'am,” Iona said when she opened the door. “Come on in. Ain't you Miz Rowell from the school?”

Daylily said, “How do, ma'am.”

“Well, hello, Mrs. Madison. Daylily, so nice to see you.”

“Won't you sit down, ma'am? I was doin my washing. Sorry I ain't more presentable.”

The teacher looked around for a chair. She was a short, plump woman with bright pink cheeks and mouse-brown hair that was parted in the middle and slicked down on either side. She had on a long brown and white gingham dress. Iona motioned to the chair usually reserved for Iona or for company. It had a stuffed embroidered seat. Iona sat in a little wooden chair by the front door. There was still very little furniture in the house.

Iona turned around and noticed Gracey wasn't there. She said, “Daylily, go get Gracey to say hello to Miz Rowell.”

“But it's Daylily I came about,” said Miss Rowell.

Daylily got hot and cold all at once. What had she done wrong? Would they take her out of school? Her eyes filled with tears.

“Now, it's nothing to worry about, Daylily,” said Miss Rowell. “The truth is you are doing very well, and I just stopped by to encourage you, and to tell you the Freedmen's Bureau is very impressed with you. They want to make sure you don't stop coming to school. They think someday you could be a teacher and help teach your people when you grow up. There are many, many colored people who need to learn, many more than we can serve here, and we need your people to train them, so we want to be sure you are studying, because you are one of the brightest pupils in the school.”

Daylily was smiling all over now. Even her dimples were showing. “Thank you, ma'am,” Iona said. “We real proud of our Daylily. Daylily, say thank you.”

“Thank you, Miz Rowell,” said Daylily. “I do love school.”

Iona looked toward the kitchen. “Daylily, get Miz Rowell a cool cup of water from the pump. And tell Gracey to come in and say hello to our company.”

On her way to the pump, Daylily heard Miss Rowell say, “How many children do you have, Mrs. Madison?”

Oh, Lordy, thought Daylily, let her remember not to count Caswell. She heard Iona say, “Six. I have six, ma'am.” Her schooling was safe unless Miss Rowell found out about him, and then none of them knew what would happen. She just couldn't lose her chance to get more schooling. She even had her own book now, called
The Freedmen's Spelling Book.
More than anything she wanted other people to know what her granny said. “The words, the words be God's voice. Make you free.”

Gracey was standing by the back door. “What she want?” she said under her breath.

Daylily mouthed silently, “Where is Caswell?”

Gracey pointed to the shed. “What she want?” she said under her breath.

Daylily headed to the pump. “Tell you later. Mama say come in and say hello.”

Gracey made a face, but she went inside. Daylily got the water and took it to her teacher. Miss Rowell left soon afterward, and nothing else exciting happened that day. That would come later.

CHAPTER 38

HIDING OUT

After Gracey warned him, Caswell had run to the shed and shut the door. The shed was made with small logs, and light came through the open spaces. He could peek out and see what was happening without being seen. The girls' teacher Miss Rowell was in the house.

He got used to the dark quickly and looked around at Zach Madison's farm tools, at least those Iona had not sold during the lean times when the family did not have enough to eat. She had kept two rakes, two hoes and a shovel. There was an old mule harness hanging on the wall. The shed smelled faintly of manure and old feed sacks.

Caswell sat on the ground and peeked through a chink in the shed. He didn't see anyone but Gracey, who was watching the younger ones, Matt, Harriet, Zach and Vina. They were running around playing some game; he didn't know what it was. He could hear Matt protesting about something.

He didn't like this hiding. What if he was caught? Would he be punished like his papa's slaves were? He remembered hearing about a slave on the home place who was a runaway, and had finally been brought back. He was little then, and in the kitchen, underfoot with the women, Gran Susie, and Bett the cook and others. They were talking as if he wasn't there about a captured slave who had almost made it to freedom. “Hid out in the wilderness for forty days and nights like Jesus,” said Bett. “Just like Jesus in the wilderness. Miracle he wasn't dead when they found him.”

“Well, he be dead tomorrow or near dead when they finish with him,” said Gran Susie.

Caswell remembered those words
hid out like Jesus.
He thought how awful it would be to hide in the swamp for days. At least when he was with Daylily and Luke, they were in the woods and not a nasty swamp. He didn't like this hiding, and it wasn't fair that just because he was White, he couldn't go to school with Daylily and Gracey. It felt like he was being punished for being White like the runaway slave was for being Black. When he grew up, he was going to stop hiding. He was going to school, and he was going to find out why Jesus was hiding in the wilderness. He thought Jesus was White. He wanted to learn, and he wanted the whole world to stop this Black-White thing. It just made life messed up all the time.

Betty had said he was a pathfinder. Well, he wanted to find a path where he could be free and so could everybody else. All the pictures of Jesus that he remembered were White. Was he like Caswell? Was he being punished for something that wasn't fair? Mama Iona didn't take them to church, but she prayed all the time.

He looked through the crack and saw Matt, Harriet, Zach and little Vina still playing with Gracey. When the school-teacher lady left, he was going to ask Mama Iona why Jesus was being punished and hiding out. Suddenly he heard the back door squeak. He looked through the hole again. Daylily pointed to the shed and then Gracey went into the house. He sat very still and watched. In a few minutes, Mama Iona came out, and Gracey came to fetch him.

CHAPTER 39

STEPMOTHER

Somewhere between the bloody finish of the war and the rise of the Klan, Caswell's father had married again, and moved to South Carolina. The new Mrs. Washington was older, smarter, and a better judge of character than Caswell's mother had been. The war had hardened her as it had hardened them all.

Mrs. Troy Washington looked up from her work at the table in the kitchen. She had heard him coming. She always knew when he was in the house because he had been wounded in the war, and walked with a cane. Shelling peas was something that would have been done by the darkies ten years ago, she thought. Now her hands were much less softened by beauty oils, when she could manage to get some, and she thought of this rather than hearing the voice of her husband.

“I'm off to fetch my son,” he had said. “The federal troops have located him with the help of some concerned citizens, friends of mine, and some scared niggers who were willing to talk.”

The word
son
went out of her mind because she wanted it to. She had a way of not hearing what she didn't want to face. She pushed back her light brown hair that tended to come undone when she was working in the kitchen. She looked up at her husband, who was beginning to have a middle-age spread but was still a good-looking man.

“What, my dear?” she said, picking at another pea shell.

“You could at least listen when your husband is talking,” he said. “A matter like this should not be unimportant to you. My
son
. I have found my son, who has been stolen by some nigger woman in Harper's Ferry, I'm told. He should be thirteen by now. His mother was Loddy Washington, with whom you are not unfamiliar.”

Matilda thought, How could I not know who he was talking about, since he insists on comparing me with her as if she were some paragon of virtue, or some dead saint. But she bit her tongue.

“I intend to retrieve him and restore him to his rightful place as my heir,” Troy said. The word
heir
was what made the word
son
real to her. Her head snapped upright like one of the pea shells she was breaking open, and the peas in her hand rolled onto the floor.