The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (45 page)

There was a great deal of traffic between Independence and Kansas City, even on a Sunday, and many men on horseback, or driving wagons, went by. Some of them offered me rides, and as the day got hotter and my hat began to weigh upon my head and my case to weigh upon my arm, I was tempted to take one, but I had now been a man, a boy, for five or six days, which put me in an odd situation. Any lady could safely take a ride. No one would hurt, or even challenge, a lady in those days, but then it was as likely as black apples that a lady would be walking along the side of the road, carrying her case. On the other hand, no man, or boy, could safely take a ride, because he was sure to be probed as to where he came from, where he was going, what his business was, who his friends were. This was the effect of the goose question. And answers would have their degree of rightness and their potential punishments. Reflection gave me to believe that quizzes on the goose question were ones I didn’t necessarily know the proper replies to. Tarring and feathering, whipping and throwing in the river, shooting and hanging, had gotten to be things folks rather hankered to be doing, as an outlet for their feelings. So I didn’t accept any rides. Pretty soon my feet began to hurt inside my too large boots, but I took hold of Thomas’s watch in my pocket and went on. In the middle of the day, I sat down under a large oak, around on the side away from the road, and rested and dozed.

It was late in the day when I woke up, maybe an hour before sunset, and I didn’t quite know how far I had gone or how far I had to go yet. I’ve got to say that I felt a moment of panic, or rather, I was once again intimidated by the largeness of my project. It seemed far beyond my strength and my wit. I had twenty-nine dollars now, with the three Mr. Morton had given me. Not much, but no doubt enough to get me to Blue Springs, to the Samsons there. After I was finished with them, I felt, I would have no need for money. I was hungry. I got up, smoothed down my clothes, took off my hat and put it on again, and resumed walking. In K.T., it was a regular thing that if someone was making his way in the countryside late in the day or at night, or if someone had no food, he might stop at any claim cabin he saw and ask for hospitality. Sometimes the places where he might stop had little enough to offer, but sharing was the rule, and in return the traveler might pay a bit of money, or do some work around the place. No doubt, even though Missouri was longer settled, it wasn’t so surprising to farmers and householders by the side of the road when travelers did the same here. But of course, anything like this would expose me the same as taking a ride would. My hunger soon began to conflict with my prudence, though, and I wondered what to do. While it was August, and I knew there must be various things ripening by the side of the road, berries and whatnot, I didn’t see any, and I was afraid to explore and to be caught stealing. I kept on walking, not so fast as before. The afternoon light reddened and grew shadowy, and not so many folks passed me, leading me to wonder if I had gotten off the road to Independence. I scrambled down to a little stream I passed and took some water. It was clear enough.

What could you eat? I hadn’t ever thought much about this question before. In Quincy, I ate what was set before me—pork, sometimes chicken, bread, corn bread, butter. Cucumbers. Pickles. Steak. Greens. Apples. Peaches like the wonderful peaches I had shared with Nehemiah (peaches were ripe in Missouri; I looked around but saw no orchards). Watermelons, which grew in the sandy areas down by the river. Eggs. A lovely boiled egg. Cakes and especially pies. Alice had liked to make pies, had a definite way with a crust. Toast. Jam. Blackberry jam especially, seeds and all. I had picked and boiled down many a pail of blackberries myself. Hotcakes.

In K.T., we had prided ourselves on making do. Much was scarcer than in the States, though there were prairie chickens enough and turkeys. Bread flour was almost unknown, corn and cornmeal ubiquitous. Hot corncakes, stirred up with that limey water they had there, and a bit of salt. Well, there were many things worse and not many better. That was what I wanted right then—not anything fancier than that: just a dishful of fragrant yellow corncakes, with maybe a bit of honey on them.

These thoughts made me feel faint, I admit, but I didn’t want to stop thinking them; that seemed like yet another deprivation, hunger beyond hunger. So I walked along, thinking of good food and feeling my stomach turn over and my mouth water. I’d heard that people could go without food for three days or more. Sometimes in the newspapers or other places, there were pieces about mountain men or parties of pioneers who went without food for weeks on end, and it wasn’t as though we hadn’t been a bit pinched from time to time the previous winter. In addition, I had eaten what most people would consider a good enough meal the previous evening. Nevertheless, a bit of hot sausage would be good, and some boiled potatoes with butter. Even a carrot, just a crisp raw carrot out of the ground. I cast my eye down each side of the road, but I didn’t see any gardens. No doubt they were planted back near the houses. Each time I saw a house or a cabin, of whatever sort, I was tempted to turn toward it, but each time I saw a man or a woman in a field or in a yard, I knew I dared not. I kept on, Thomas’s watch firmly clenched in my hand, but no doubt I wasn’t making much progress. Soon enough, it was dark, and I went under some bushes, where, if I placed my case at my head, I could see a sliver of moon but was myself hidden from the sight of passersby. The ground was damp and soft with leaf mold. The sharp, earthy, woody smell helped to drive away thoughts of food, and I quickly fell asleep.

I woke up considerably bolder, and eager to vacate my night’s bed, as small insects, or the ghosts of small insects, seemed to be crawling all over me—up my trouser legs and down the back of my neck. I scrambled out of the bushes and jumped up, throwing off my hat and running my hands through my hair, shaking my shoulders and stamping my feet. The sun was up, and I immediately heard the haw haw of Missouri laughter. I put my hat on and tried to summon some dignity. I coughed, then croaked, "Is there something funny, sir?"

"Haw haw haw haw!" shouted the man, who was sitting on his wagon seat, flicking his whip at the tips of his mule’s ears. The mule stood there calmly, only shaking his ears as if at flies. "That was some little dance, boy, that was!"

I could still feel things running up and down under my clothes, so I snapped, "Thank you very much!" and reached under the greenery to retrieve my case.

"Now, boy, you been walking a long way, I ken tell by lookin’ at ya! Where ya headed?"

"Independence. Blue Springs."

"Is that so? Haw haw haw. What’s wrong with ya? Why are ya talkin’ that way?"

It seemed tedious to tell, and even a bit dangerous to pursue further colloquy with this man, so I didn’t answer but only adjusted my hat and coat and began down the road. After I had taken maybe five steps, he shouted, "That an’t the way, boy! You got turned around!"

I stopped.

He laughed.

I glanced toward the wagon and saw that a Negro youngster of maybe ten or twelve had sat up in the back of the wagon and thrown off its covering. The child was now staring at me. I couldn’t tell from either the cropped head or the shapeless garment whether it was a boy or a girl. The master saw me looking and turned around, shouting, "You lay down, now! You an’t got to sit up and look around!" The child disappeared. Then he said to me, "Independence is that way," and pointed behind me. I tried to walk confidently forward, but after two steps I couldn’t do it, and hesitated. The inevitable "Haw haw" rose from the wagon. In fact, the man was so excited that he laid the whip exuberantly across the mule’s shoulders a couple of times and then stood up and slapped his thigh. The mule jumped forward, knocking the man off his feet. He fell back in the wagon.

Now it was my turn to laugh. And I could have sworn I heard a giggle from under the wagon canvas. The mule, however, came immediately to a halt, rather than running off, which would have been my preference. In the meantime, I got my bearings and saw that I was headed in the right direction, after all. The undergrowth that had provided me with shelter for the night had been to my right when I sought it and was still to my right; across the road was only rail fencing and pasture. Without glancing at the man or the wagon, I marched forward. Soon enough, the mule came up beside me, and then I felt a poke in the middle of my back—the whip, no doubt. I quickened my step. The mule quickened his step, and I felt another poke. All at once, I turned around and demanded, "Who are you?" in my most authoritative croak.

The man was grinning, showing clearly the effects of tobacco—his few teeth were brown as nuts—and behind him, a little dark head bobbed up, and a high voice said, "He Massa Philip!" then dropped down again. Master Philip spun around, his whip held high, but the child had disappeared. The shaft of the whip came down rather ineffectually on the canvas, then Master Philip spit into the road, raising a puff of dust. He turned around on the seat and faced me again. I had gotten a few yards off by now, maybe twenty, and I was walking fast, though every step was agony in my large, heavy boots. Over the night, my feet had swelled, and numerous tender spots from the day before now burned against the heavy leather as if I had no stockings on at all. But I hastened forward, looking for a break in the brush to slip through, out of the sight of a man who appeared to me possibly mad and certainly threatening. He whipped the mule into a trot and closed the distance between us. I stumbled and dropped my bag, which fell partly open, necessitating sufficient delay so that the mule came up beside me again. I looked at the man and began backing away. He said, "Now, boy, I notice about you that you an’t got no manners. Here I am, your elder and better, no doubt, and I asked you a question, and you an’t answered it but just croaked at me like a duck. Round these parts we know a thing or two about a thing or two, and I’m guessing you to be a stranger, and an unfriendly one at that. You some G— d— abolitionist, or something?"

I didn’t say anything but turned and attempted to hurry away. A curve in the road now revealed a break in the fence across the way, and I thought if I ran I could get there and off into the field. I doubted whether Master Philip had enough interest in me to pursue me off the road. Nevertheless, he did whip up the mule to a steady trot, and they came on behind me. At the break in the fence, the mule was practically on top of me, Master Philip was haw-hawing to beat the band, and I was able to duck around in front of the animal, waving my arms and brandishing my bag in the mule’s face, so that he threw up his head and came to a halt, toppling the man out of the wagon into the dirt. I slipped through the opening in the fence, hearing but not seeing Master Philip pick himself up with a torrent of curses. From the back of the wagon came high-pitched yelling: "Massa Ablishinist! Save me! Tak me ’long, Massa Ablishinist! Don’ leave me wid Massa Philip! Tak me! Tak me!"

I ran across the field as far and as fast as I could, never looking back but hearing both the screaming and the cursing until they blended into one sound and then were lost in the other sounds of an August morning. When I stopped at last, out of breath and ready to drop, I couldn’t be sure that I actually saw the wagon and the mule, nor did I care, as my pulse was pounding so hard in my ears that that itself made me afraid, and a kind of red cloud seemed to be closing over my sight from both sides. I staggered into the shade of a stand of hackberry trees and knelt down, resting the top of my head on the cool earth. I closed my eyes.

Perhaps I crouched in that position for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, not unmindful of Master Philip but too overwhelmed by my own exertions to make much of him. Then I came more to myself and peered about. He was nowhere to be seen. I spied some deeper shade and crawled to it, and only then did I recall the pleas of the child.

At first they seemed only strange, as if, somehow, they were a performance that had nothing to do with me. Of course, they had nothing to do with Lyman Arquette, who was the boy walking along the side of the road, who was from Palmyra, Missouri, and for whom the institution of Negro servitude was a righteous and inevitable disposition of natural, and scripturally justifiable, inequality. A slave screaming to be saved was, to Lyman, a piece of disobedience that deserved punishment. If Lyman were a kindly fellow, then he would stay the master’s hand from too severe a rain of blows and counsel Master Philip to attempt to win his servant’s love and loyalty through gentler means. But all things considered, taking to his heels had been Lyman’s wisest choice, given the unpredictable irascibility of Master Philip, who was certainly armed and might be happy to shoot a strange boy of no value to himself, while desiring only to whip his own property. It was surely not required of Lyman that he risk his life to preserve the child from but a few of the many, many blows he had received and was certain yet to receive.

And yet it was with Lydia Newton’s ears that I heard the child’s pleas. I knew perfectly well the difference between Lydia and Lyman, that Lyman was merely an outward appearance. Save me! There had been a fullthroated note of pure desire and pure grief, mingled, in the child’s plea. Tak me! Surely Master Philip had heard the same desperation that I heard, the same hatred of himself, the same richly felt revulsion. Would he have then turned on the child and beaten it senseless, beaten it to death, beaten the hatred out of it? For I had noticed one thing in this far western territory, and it was that men, and southerners in particular, couldn’t stand to be made to seem mean or dishonorable in their own eyes, that they would commit any aggression to efface that feeling. New Englanders, like Thomas, acted on what they called conscience, which made them seem self-righteous but also allowed them to turn away without a fight from those who disagreed with them. Southerners acted on what they called honor, which existed only in how they considered themselves to be regarded by others. Often, this made them friendly or sociable, but someone who thought ill of a southern man and made him see himself through disrespectful eyes had to be proven wrong, even if you had to kill him to do it.