Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (15 page)

A few moments later, when Obour brought another platter of ham to the table, she leaned over me and I felt something drop in my lap. When she moved on I looked down. It was a folded paper. A note! I watched her glide out of the room, head held high. Mr. Tanner was now talking about Block Island, thirty miles across the Sound, and how its coves once provided hiding places for Captain Kidd the pirate.

I waited in the Tanner library, as Obour's note had suggested. The others had all gone off for their sail. Impatiently, I paced, not even looking at the books. I stood in front of the great window, looking out at the water.

"I've finished my chores. Are you ready?"

She stood in the doorway. I ran to her. We embraced.

"I can't believe it's you." She touched my short, curly hair, examined my gown. "My, you're fancy. And you've grown up."

"No," I said, drawing back to take her measure. "I'm still skinny and ugly, skin and bones. But you! Obour, you're a woman!"

She was tall, and rounded in all the right places. But more than that, she had an air of practiced calm I knew I never could have. "I'm older by a year, remember?" She laughed. "Come, let's get out of here."

"What is this place, Obour?"

We had run, hand in hand, shoes off, for about ten minutes along the coast, away from the Tanner house. Now we stood on the heights overlooking the harbor. If we turned, we could see the house in the distance, like a great ship rising out of the dunes. Candlelight already glowed in the windows.

In front of us was the Sound. Behind us, a massive stone tower at least thirty feet high, supported by columns, abandoned and overgrown with sea grasses and weeds.

"This is the old windmill. Been here for more than a hundred years. Nobody comes here anymore. I make it my private place. I come here to read. And think. Let me show you."

She took me inside. Here were sand and a mixture of wildflowers and weeds. In a corner were a blanket and an old chest. "I keep some books here," she said. "I come here to read your letters. Look."

She pointed. From a crack in the stone wall, you could see the Sound clear across to Block Island. "Do you have a private place?"

"No. Always I am in sight and sound of the Wheatleys."

"I could tell that. She would never let you talk to me, would she?"

I blushed. "They're good to me," I said.

She nodded knowingly. "Tell me about Boston."

"I've told you in all my letters. There are ten printers, eight booksellers, and many newspapers. All near our house."

"Tell me of the soldiers and the fighting."

"The soldiers have left. Driven out by the Patriots."

"They'll be back. The Patriots are spoiling for a fight. There will soon be one."

"How do you know?"

"I read the papers. I hear Mr. Tanner talking. And others who come to this house. This is Rhode Island. You think you people in Boston own the anger at the Crown? We have royal schooners patrolling our coast. A year ago the Sons of Liberty rowed out to a customs raider and burned and scuttled her in our waters. Merchants and tradesmen are angry. There is a spirit of rebellion here. Political meetings all over."

I listened, in awe. She knew things that mattered.

"We have the Free African Union Society here. Negros here are educated. Your own Prince belongs to it."

I gaped. "You
know
Prince?"

"Everyone in our society does. He and other Boston nigras are establishing a relief society for nigras who wish to take their freedom. He writes to us all the time."

"Prince? I didn't know he could write! Oh, Obour, I feel so humble of a sudden. Prince is doing something of worth for his fellowman. What have I ever done for anybody?"

"You can't do for others unless you do for yourself first," she said. "First you must get free."

"Prince isn't free."

"Says he's going to be when the fighting comes." She sighed. "I wonder how our race will fare when the war starts. We have a stake in it. Do they speak about drawing up your free papers?"

"No."

"My master has promised me freedom when I reach twenty-one. What about you? What's going to become of you when your master and mistress get old and die?"

"I haven't thought of it, Obour."

"You should. Are you laying aside for it?"

"Laying aside?"

"Money, silly. The king's shillings. Don't you get paid when a poem gets published?"

"No. Mrs. Wheatley has to bear the expense of publishing it."

She sighed. "So you're even more in her debt, then."

"I don't think on it that way, Obour."

"How do you think on it, then?"

"Someday soon I'm going to have a book of poems published. The first Negro in America ever to do so! And I'm going to London. With Nathaniel."

"This is all good," she said quietly, "but only because they allow it. By their leave you do these things. They're playing with you, Phillis. They're making something out of you that you can never be. A Negro woman poet."

"Why can't I? It's what I am."

"By their leave," she said again. "What will you do when they tire of you? You'll be cast aside. No woman gets published in America. Especially not a Negro woman."

"Nathaniel would never let me be cast aside."

"Tell me about this Nathaniel who won't let them cast you aside. You're besotted with him, aren't you?"

We were sitting on the blanket inside her tower. When I didn't answer, she smiled.

"I thought so. In all your letters, it was 'Nathaniel this' and 'Nathaniel that.' To what aim is this love of yours? He's the master's son, Phillis. No good can come of it."

"I don't expect anything to come of it, Obour. Good or otherwise."

"But you still love him."

"I can't help diat. If not for Nathaniel I wouldn't have learned to
read.
I wouldn't have started writing."

"I read and write. And no Nathaniel brought me to it."

"You don't understand, Obour."

"You haven't let him play free with you, have you?"

"Don't be silly. He isn't even sensible of my feelings. And he's a man of honor."

"Honor, is it?"

"Yes." I met her gaze. "Please don't worry about me on that score, Obour. I will die before I ever let him know I harbor such feelings. And as for Mrs. Wheatley, she is doing so much for me. They love me. I'm like a daughter to them."

Silence inside the old stone walls. A seagull cried somewhere. It was getting on to dusk.

She stood up. She pulled me to my feet and put her arms around me. "I'm happy," she said, "and you have it in you to do much for our people. But hear me now, won't you?"

I nodded.

"When we were on the ship and your mother was thrown overboard and you were sick, you wanted to die. I told you you must live. You said there was no reason."

"Yes."

"Then you rallied and ate. Do you recollect why?"

"Because you told me Captain Quinn would kill you if I died. I couldn't abide that."

She smiled. "I lied."

I drew back. "You jest."

"Captain Quinn never said such. I lied to give you a reason. Was I right? Isn't there good reason to live?"

Tears came to my eyes. "Yes."

"And I'm right now, too. There is a reason to be free. Think on it. Promise."

I hugged her. "I promise," I said.

"For a Scotsman, you surprise me, Mr. Mein," my master said.

The bald-headed John Mein, notorious publisher of the
Boston Chronicle,
was not offended. He turned from his great cherry desk in his office on King Street. "How so?"

"You had the courage to publish the names of those who were violating their own nonimportation agreement and importing from the British, yet you won't bring out a volume of poems by a Negro girl."

"I'm stupid," Mein said, "not crazy. And every time I feel another attack of courage coming on, I mind the pain in my shoulder for being beaten by the Liberty Boys. That's what publishing those names got me."

"I don't think you need fear the Liberty Boys if you bring out a book of Phillis's poetry."

"I fear my subscribers. I need three hundred signatures to bring such a book out. My subscribers will not agree that the poems were written by a Negro girl."

Silence in Mr. Mein's office, except for the sound of snow falling against the multipaned windows. It was the end of January. Mary had been married two weeks ago and, as he had promised, Mr. Wheatley had visited every publisher and printer in Boston, with me in tow, to try to convince them to bring out my first book of poetry.

At every place we stopped, the answer was the same.

No.

Their subscribers would not believe the poems were written by a Negro girl.

The
Boston Chronicle
was the last stop on our list.

"This is America," my master said. "Why are these Patriot publishers so fired up about things if they fear bringing out a book of poems by a Negro girl?"

"Don't ask me, I'm a Tory," Mein said, "and proud of it." He sipped his tea and gestured that we should partake of ours. "I thought your Captain Calef was engaging a London printer?"

"He did. Our merchantman dropped anchor only yesterday. Calef engaged one Archibald Bell. He's a little-known printer of religious works in London."

"Then you don't need me," Mein said.

"Bell sent word he will bring out the book only if we have some kind of written verification that Phillis wrote the poems," my master told him.

"In heaven's name, man, get the verification and go with a London publisher," Mein advised. "These are bad times in America."

He turned to me. His gaze narrowed on me like that of a hawk on a field mouse. "Did you write those poems, girl?"

I started in my chair. "Yes, sir," I said.

"You aren't lying? With all the talent of your race?"

"One moment, Mein!" Mr. Wheatley leaned forward.

Mr. Mein held up his hand. "Let her reply, John."

I saw a look pass between them. Then Mr. Wheatley sat back.

"I wrote them," I said. "You never doubted it when you published my elegy on Reverend Whitefield."

"It was published first elsewhere. Philadelphia, New York, Newport. I thought it only proper it be published here in Boston. Where you claim to have written it."

"I
claim
nothing, Mr. Mein. I did write it."

"Why should anyone believe you?"

"I don't lie, sir."

"Like Crispus Attacks, the mulatto killed in the massacre? Came into town claiming to be a crewman off a Nantucket whaler. When, in fact, he was brought here as an outside agitator and did more rioting than any man in Boston."

I felt anger pounding in my veins. "Attacks is a martyr," I said. "He's dead. You should let the dead rest in peace."

"There's a martyr on every street corner in Boston these days, willing to die for what he believes in. Every time I bring out another issue of the
Chronicle,
I'm a martyr. But I have no fancy to be tarred and feathered or have my presses destroyed for bringing out the poems of a little nigra girl. Especially one who is such a saucy little piece."

He sat back, spent by the speechifying. And pleased that he had given me my comeuppance.

"I've no intention to be rude, sir, but you did push me. And you hurt me grievous much."

"You listen to me, girl." He shook his finger at me. "How do you think you're going to get this written verification that you wrote the poems?"

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"Well, I'll tell you, then. You'll have to appear before some kind of examining body. And be questioned about this poetry of yours. And if you think what I just said hurt you grievous much, wait until you hear what
they
will say to you!"

He took up his teacup, drank, and smacked his lips.

I was trembling. I looked at my master.

His face was white, and from the way he was leaning forward, favoring one leg, I knew his gout was giving him trouble.

"I'm sorry, John," Mr. Mein said. "But you should tell your little protégée that when she does appear before this examining body, she should mind her tongue. And affect some Christian humility. Artists
need
humility, John. Their gifts are too great. They encourage envy."

My master nodded and stood. The meeting was over. They shook hands, and Mr. Wheatley helped me into my cloak and guided me outside to our carriage.

"Don't pay mind to him, Phillis," Mr. Wheatley said inside the carriage. "He's gone a little daft. He's turning his newspaper into a Tory propaganda sheet. The Patriots will soon run him out of town, you'll see."

"He was right, wasn't he, sir? About what I must expect from an examining body?"

He cleared his throat. "If he was right about anything, Phillis, it was about your gift being great." He patted my hand. "Your poetry will be published. Don't worry."

And so I come to sit in the garden of the governor's mansion, waiting to appear before the esteemed gentlemen who will decide if my poetry is, indeed, mine.

As I wait, I know I can do it. They may be the leading lights in Boston, these men, but I know I have the mettle to stand before them.

Until I think of what Mr. Mein said to me.

If you think what I just said hurt you grievous much, wait until you hear what they will say to you.

I trembled, waiting. The sun disappeared behind a cloud. Then I heard footsteps on the brick walk and turned to see Mr. Hancock approaching.

"Well, Phillis?" he asked, smiling down at me. "What have you decided?"

"I shall do it, sir," I said. "I am ready."

***

"Phillis, you know some of these people," Nathaniel said.

As I walked into the vast enchoing chamber, they all stood. Eighteen of them sitting before a long polished table, sipping tea. Dressed in silk breeches, some of them, wearing wigs. Others in the plain broadcloth of the ministry.

"Yes, sir." I curtsied.

Nathaniel said the names. And each man gave a little bow.

"Gentlemen, let's not keep Phillis waiting," Mr. Hancock said. "Phillis, you may sit if you wish."