Sarny (12 page)

And she entertained ’most all the time. Some of what she did I knew and understood and won’t write on it. Don’t care to. But parts of it I didn’t. Sometimes single men would come but sometimes it would be men and women and they would sit and talk business all night and she would laugh and pour drinks for them and chat with them and they would leave.

I don’t know how she made money on all this and we didn’t talk about her work or money but she must have made more than
most. She spent money like water on food and good wine and caviar and always paid in full each month. Once I saw her talking to three men and one of them said something about investing in a new business that was coming to town. Something about hatmaking. And she gave him an envelope with money in it so maybe that’s how she did it. Helped to start businesses or loaned money.

We didn’t talk on it so I didn’t find out until later. Didn’t matter. I had my work to do and my studies at home. I was getting to be fair at arithmetic and had Stanley reading ’bout as good as me. He never took to Shakespeare the way I did but he read the paper every night sitting in a chair by the oil lamp in the parlor while I studied at a desk in the corner with another lamp. Couldn’t get enough. Like I was dying of thirst to know more all the time. Same for Tyler and little Delie, though they weren’t such children anymore.

Tyler he was getting to where he looked at girls and little Delie she was starting to get legs on her. Didn’t matter. They’d always be my babies and of an evening when I sat and read sometimes I’d read aloud and they got to thirsting after more like me. Tyler he was a serious boy, seemed to take time to think on things, and Delie she had a mind on her that set like a steel trap on ideas.

Stanley he watched me one night, reading to them, and he said, “You know, Sarny, you know so much you ought to teach other young ones.”

“Me? A teacher? I guess
not
 …”

“Think on it. You’re so good at it you’ve got these sprites reading more than most grownups ever do. And they ain’t sick of it yet. I hear talk at the market lots of people wish there was a colored school to get more young ones to reading. Why don’t you start one?”

“Maybe you hadn’t noticed—I’ve got me a full-time job.”

“Just an hour now and then. Miss Laura she wouldn’t grudge you that. And you have a day off.”

“I like to sit by the river …”

He nodded. “And I like to sit with you. But an hour from your day off wouldn’t be so bad.”

Sat there smoking his pipe. He liked a corn-cob pipe in the evening after working all day. Would drink some herb tea and smoke his pipe and read the paper. Smell of twist cut tobacco filled the room. Tasted awful on his lips but smelled good in the room. Still smell that tobacco. Such a good man, my Stanley. Always good.

So I went to Miss Laura and she surprised me by being against it.

“I think it’s a bad idea.”

“I won’t miss any work.”

“It’s not that. I know how good you are. It’s just that there are people who still haven’t lost the war. There are many who do not want us colored to learn reading and writing—do not want us better than we were. I’m afraid if you start a school you will set yourself up to be noticed, and the people who notice you will be bad people, Sarny.”

“I know about them. Night riders, white-sheet riders.”

“Sarny, they’re hurting people. Shooting and stringing people up. Anybody they think is getting out ahead they notice and they might do bad things to you.”

I thought on it, then shook my head. “Listen to you. Wasn’t that long ago I was in the quarters and man could sell me or whatever. Then there was the war and people died and set us free. We can’t turn that around now and let a little thing like fear put us back. Got to keep going.”

She studied on me for a long time. Must have been a minute and then she nodded slow, head up once, down once. “There can be no other way for you.” She sighed. “Well, that’s it then. I’ll do all I can to help you.”

And she did. Found an old small house down in the section by the river and bought it
flat out to make a school. Stanley and the children and me we spent our spare time fixing on it and cleaning it up and painting it. Found some chairs and then Miss Laura she bought a bunch of old small tables for desks and a blackboard and chalk. Don’t know where she found all the makings for a school but she did. Wagon would come with tables, wagon would come with blackboard, wagon would come with chairs. Miss Laura she just knew how to get things done. And I set to work teaching.

Taught three days a week, one hour in the evening each day, and two hours on Monday, my day off.

At first nobody came. Then Stanley he told it around the market that we were ready and after that we didn’t have the room. Tyler and little Delie they helped and Stanley when he could but even so sometimes I thought we had started a flood we couldn’t stop.

Near everybody wanted to learn to read. Wasn’t just children, neither. ’Bout the second week I came to teach after working at Miss Laura’s and there was a crowd of people waiting by the door and I thought, wonder what they want, all standing there. Must have been twenty or thirty of them.

Wanted to learn.

So I set in to teaching. Didn’t know how at
first but Miss Laura she found me some books on it and I had helped Nightjohn back on the plantation and remembered on that.

Taught them letters. Taught them to make the sound and the letter at the same time and when some got to getting it faster than others I did the same as Nightjohn with me and turned them to teaching each other.

Same with numbers. Got one or two to working them right and they went to helping others and pretty soon ’most everybody could do sums and even fractions. Funny sight. Little sprite no more than eight years old teaching sums to a man had to be over forty. Just as natural as daylight.

They called it Sarny’s Riverside School and somebody even painted the name over the door in gold letters. Did it when I wasn’t there and I never found out who but it looked fine in the afternoon sun. Little school with my name on it.

No trouble seemed to come. Months went by and coming on a year and the school it was getting so big I was talking to Miss Laura about using canvas to make a tent nearby to hold the extra.

Then it burned down. Nobody hurt but one night the school it burned. No reason at first and I thought somebody left a lamp on and it tipped over and the oil caught the house. But
nobody owned up to it and people found wood for a frame and canvas and we made a new school in not much over a week. Not as nice as the first one but it kept the weather out and we found new tables and a blackboard and set to teaching again.

Then I was walking back one night from Miss Laura’s and two white men they stopped me in a dark place away from any lights. One of them held a lantern up to my face.

“You the one teaching at the colored school?” Only he didn’t say colored. Used the other word. I don’t use it, ever—just gives them more. Hate to give them more.

I didn’t say anything but the other man he swore and said, “Yeah, this is the one. I’ve seen her before.”

“You people aren’t supposed to be reading.” He hit me in the shoulder. Not hard. I’ve been hit harder by kittens. But he hit me. I thought on killing him but I didn’t have a knife or club. I’d start carrying one though. Carry a butcher knife in a bag. They do this again they wouldn’t be going home. Won’t have anybody lay a hand on me. “We burned you once, and if you don’t shut it down we’ll burn you again. And maybe we’ll throw you in the fire when we do it. You understand?”

Still didn’t talk. Thinking, well, it wasn’t a lamp tipping over. Thinking Miss Laura she
was right—some don’t want us better. Rather keep us down.

The same man he hit me on the shoulder again, a little harder, then they went away into the dark and I walked home. I was some scared but I didn’t dare tell Stanley or the children because Stanley he’d go out and try to find them and whip up on them.

Told Miss Laura though and she nodded.

“I expected it before this. Are you going to shut the school down?”

I stared at her. “What do you think?”

“I think,” she said, letting her breath out slowly, “that you’re going to get in trouble.”

“Can’t stop teaching, can I? Without them winning?”

“No, I think not.”

“Can’t let them win.”

“No.”

“They burn it down and we’ll build another.”

“Yes.”

“And another.”

“I know all that but, Sarny, they might do worse than that. These men are entirely capable of violence. They might kill you.”

“I take some killing,” I said. “More than most.”

“How did I know you’d say that?” She shook her head. “Well, as I said before, I’ll
help all I can but I cannot control what those men do. I’ve tried but I simply I don’t have any contacts who can reach them.”

“There’s so many of us now in the school, children and grown-up, that they wouldn’t dare do anything to one of us. We’ll be all right.”

“I know you think that, but I fear for you, Sarny. I fear for you.”

Went back to the school and kept teaching and it kept growing and nobody came to burn it. Months went by, fall to spring and spring to summer, and nobody came to bother and I told Miss Laura one morning while we were having coffee in her room, “It’s like I said—we’re too many for them to keep coming at us.”

She didn’t say anything but didn’t nod either and I knew she didn’t agree with me and we went ahead and planned on a party she was going to have that night for a senator and some of his friends.

“I need the party to go especially well,” she said. “The senator is working on a bill governing shipping on the Mississippi. I have some interests there and need him in a good frame of mind.”

So we set the party up right. Best food, best wine and best music and I didn’t head home until dawn the next morning, just first light
and happened to walk past the school when three men they came running out of it. All white men. Not hiding their faces. Saw smoke come up from the back of the tent-school and I ran to stop it but it was too late. They must have put lamp oil on the canvas because it went so fast I near didn’t get out my own self. Didn’t have time to save anything but a handful of pencils.

But I saw the men and knew one of them. Name of Haggerty. Ugly man, walked with a limp from a horse breaking his leg years before. He had a booth in the market where he sold leather goods. Harness leather.

Should have kept my mouth shut. Knew it later and wish to God I had but I went home and Stanley he was just getting ready to go to work and I swore and told him.

“They burned the school. I saw them. One of them was that Haggerty from the leather booth.”

“You’re sure?”

“I saw him clear as light.”

“Does he know you saw him?”

“I suppose so. He saw me.”

“Well then I ’spect I’ll have a talk with him.”

He was gone before I could stop him. Wasn’t thinking right because I hadn’t slept all night and I had an anger on me that
burned like a sore. Kept me from thinking straight and I didn’t chew on what I’d done for a full ten minutes.

Stanley he was slow to anger but when he did it was a fright. Only saw it once when he got mad at a mule that somebody left tied near the fish booth. Mule kept getting into things, making messes, and Stanley he went to move the mule and it wouldn’t move. Gentle man, Stanley, slow and soft and gentle, kept pulling on the mule and it wouldn’t come and the mule it finally bit him. Looked like a snake—that fast it just out and bit him and he said real soft, “Damn mule,” and hit it once, right between the eyes, and that mule went down like it had been shot with one of those wheel guns from the war.

Now he was going to go “talk” to Haggerty about burning the school. Wouldn’t be a problem except for Stanley getting his anger up.

And Haggerty he was white.

There was freedom but it wasn’t anywhere near clean yet. Some places the colored couldn’t use and some places they weren’t allowed to be and some things they weren’t supposed to do.

Like hitting a white man. Even when they deserved it hitting a white man was dangerous because it scared other white people who
thought on how bad they’d been to black people in the past and were worried on the black people getting it back. And Miss Laura she said it, “My dear Sarny, there are very few things more dangerous than a scared white person, because they have all the guns.”

I should never have told on who I saw and I knew it and ran after Stanley hoping to catch him before he got to the market but I was too late. He had a good ten minutes on me and the bad luck held because Haggerty he was there in his booth.

People told me later. Stanley he walked up and said, “My wife she saw you set fire to the school this morning.”

“Your wife is lying.”

“My wife she don’t lie.”

Then they say Haggerty he pushed Stanley away from his booth and called him names and Stanley he didn’t say anything but his eyes got a storm in them and he started in to hitting Haggerty. Haggerty was a no-count anyway, not much on muscle, and once Stanley he started he couldn’t stop and beat him down and then set in to kicking him. It was all over in five minutes.

He came close to killing Haggerty and then he walked back to the fish booth and I came. Saw him there sucking his knuckles and went
over to where everybody was looking down at Haggerty on the ground in front of his booth and I thought, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.

He wasn’t but it didn’t matter and I knew it. I went to the booth and took Stanley over to the side. “You have to run.”

“Run? Why?”

“You beat a white man down and other white men are going to be mad.”

“It will be all right, Sarny. He was just trash. Even white folks know it. They won’t bother me and even did they want to I ain’t running. We don’t run anymore.”

“I have money. A lot of money. You take some and head up north to Chicago. The children and I will follow. Just go. Please.”

“I ain’t running.”

Was like a wall, standing there. I couldn’t get him loose no matter what and I knew the more I tried the more stubborn he would get. Couldn’t push a wall.