The Color of Your Skin Ain’t the Color of Your Heart (5 page)

His voice trailed off, or maybe he turned away. Then I heard him add, “… why I needed a place to come where I could hole up for a spell … but … didn’t expect … more than I bargained for …”

He laughed again, though sadly this time. “I am sorry about your mama and papa, Kathleen,” he said, “… a good sister to me … try to help you if I can.”

We didn’t pick any more cotton that day, or the next either, or the next day after that. With Katie’s uncle there, everything was suddenly different. None of us knew what to do. He didn’t say anything about what was going to happen, and Katie didn’t want to ask. Sometimes he was boisterous and friendly, sometimes sober and thoughtful. He was more like a visitor than a family member. He didn’t help and we did our chores and fixed meals and he ate with us and talked like everything was perfectly normal. The clouds kept coming and the sky kept darkening, which seemed to quiet us all the more. It was a strange couple of days. I was anxious to talk to Katie, and I knew the uncertainty was gnawing on her too. But I thought it best to wait until she brought it up. She had to work things out with her uncle first. She and I may have been friends, even best friends. But she and him were
family
.

On the afternoon of the third day since he’d come, I was upstairs in the room that we had been calling mine, which used to belong to one of Katie’s brothers.

I sat down on my bed, or whoever’s bed it was. All my old doubts had come back to plague me about my staying in a white man’s home and sleeping in a white man’s bed and taking the almighty presumptions I had. Everything Katie and I had done and been through together now seemed like a blur. I was again wondering if I should leave … or would
have
to leave. Katie’s uncle was nice enough. I guess you’d say he treated Emma and me about as nice as any white man possibly could. I hadn’t a single complaint. But he and Katie were
white,
and I was
colored,
and there wasn’t any getting around that fact. I figured that one way or another Katie’s uncle would wind up staying here with her and running the plantation now. I didn’t see any other way it could be.

Unconsciously I found myself starting to go through the stuff in my room, looking at the few things I called my own, then at the things Katie had given me, looking at everything … clothes, her doll, mementos, my scraps of journal paper, and of course the nice journal Katie had given me and the pen and ink to write in it with and my mama’s Bible.

I don’t reckon I was consciously thinking of it, but I think I was again preparing to leave, like I had a time or two before, wondering to myself what things were really mine, and which I ought to take, and which I oughtn’t to take.

I was quiet and a little sad, though I was happy for Katie. We’d been worrying all this time about her kinfolk finding out. But now that her uncle Templeton had, I saw that maybe our worries had been for nothing. He had turned out to be a fine man. It was obvious that he cared about Katie, and also that she loved him.

So it would all work out for the best, I tried to tell myself.

But still I couldn’t help being a little downcast. And nervous. Because what was to become of Emma and me? She and I would probably have to leave and I’d need to take care of her. Even if Mr. Daniels might let
me
stay and work for them, he’d never let Emma stay. What white man would want to have her around? She was no earthly good for anything and just meant two extra mouths to feed. She had no one else. I couldn’t very well let him send her away by herself. She’d never be able to survive, especially with William McSimmons looking for her. I’d
have
to take care of her.

Suddenly a sound disturbed me in the midst of my thoughts.

I turned around and there was Mr. Daniels standing in the doorway looking at me.

“I was just—” I started to say. But the sudden look that came over his face the moment I turned to look at him silenced me.

Obviously he’d known it was me when he stopped at the open door. But the instant his eyes met mine, his face went white and he almost gasped. It was such an expression that I couldn’t take my eyes off him either. We just stared at each other for what must have been three or four seconds. Goose bumps flooded my arms and back and neck just like they had earlier. Then his eyes wandered down to what I was cradling in my hands.

“Where’d you get that?” he said. His voice was so soft I could barely hear it.

“It was my mama’s,” I said.

If I didn’t know better I’d have thought I almost saw tears struggling to rise in his eyes. He turned away, like he didn’t want me to see him, and stumbled away and down the stairs. Half a minute later I heard the kitchen door open. I went to the window and looked outside. He was walking out toward the fields and just kept walking.

The next morning when we got up, Templeton Daniels was gone.

A V
ISITOR
F
ROM
T
OWN

6

I
CAME DOWNSTAIRS THINKING TO MYSELF THAT
the house sounded a little uncommonly quiet. I found Katie sitting alone in the kitchen.

She glanced up at me with a different expression than anything I’d seen before. She looked older. It was both a relieved expression and a sad one, mixed in with almost a little bit of the feeling that she’d almost expected it, though hadn’t realized it till after it happened.

“He left, Mayme,” she said in a quiet voice.

She tried to smile at me, but then tears flooded her eyes and she looked away.

I walked over and put my hand on her shoulder. She leaned her head against my side and just cried softly for a minute or two.

“I don’t know why I’m crying, Mayme,” she said. “I ought to be happy. Nothing’s going to happen to us. Nobody will have to leave. Nobody will find out. But …”

Again she sniffled and cried for a few seconds. “… but he’s the only family I have,” she went on, “or at least the only family who knows and who cares about me. And I had hoped …”

“I know,” I said. “I hoped something good would come of it for you too.”

It was silent awhile. Katie took a few breaths to steady herself, then glanced back up at me from her chair and smiled.

“So I guess life gets back to normal now,” she said.

She stood, turned toward me, and embraced me. We stood in each other’s arms for several seconds.

“You’ll never leave me, will you, Mayme?”

“No, Katie,” I said. “I’ll never leave you.” She drew in another deep breath and stepped back, wiped her eyes, and smiled again.

“I’ll be all right now,” she said.

“Did he say anything?” I asked.

“No, just this,” replied Katie, handing me a piece of paper. “It was on the table when I came down a while ago.”

“What does it say? I can’t read his writing.”

Katie took the note again and read it aloud.

“Dear Kathleen,”
she said. “
There are some things I need
to take care of. Right now things are a little complicated for me.

I am sorry but having to care for you and the others is more
than I can face. I am sorry about your mama. She was a good
lady and I will miss her too. I know you and Mayme will be
able to take care of yourselves until I figure out what’s to be
done. I’m sure you can take care of yourselves better than I
could anyway. I’m sorry I haven’t been a better uncle to you.
Your secret is safe with me. Your uncle Templeton.”

She stopped and brushed back a few remaining tears.

“I don’t know why I’m so sad,” she said. “But I can’t help it.”

“Do you think he’ll be back?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Katie. “With Uncle Templeton … you never know. And he …” she began to say, then paused and smiled sadly again, “and he took the money we had in the cigar box behind the sugar bin, just like Mama said he used to do. Why did he do that, Mayme?” she asked, looking at me with a bewildered expression. “If he’d asked, I’d have given it to him. But why did he just take it?” I didn’t have the chance to answer Katie’s question.

I didn’t have an answer anyway. Just then we heard Aleta’s steps coming down the stairs. Emma wasn’t far behind her.

It took us a day or two, and then Katie and I started to think again about the cotton. It was ready to be picked and we couldn’t wait forever, and her mama’s second loan had to get paid. It was still cloudy and dark and a little chilly, but the next day we prepared to resume our work in the field. We didn’t get out till the afternoon and only put in two or three hours at it. But that was enough to get back into our working routine.

The next morning, once we’d milked the cows and tended the other animals, all four of us went back out in the field to work again. It was tedious, but we were happy to put in a full day. We worked slower and went along in rows next to each other. Katie and me worked slow enough to stay even with Aleta and Emma in their rows. We’d been working two or three hours and the weariness had begun to set in.

“I think these rows are getting longer every time we turn around,” said Katie with a sigh.

“That’s the way cotton is,” I laughed. “It seems like it’s never going to end!”

“I’m tired, Katie,” said Aleta. “May we please stop?”

“Maybe it’s time for a water break,” nodded Katie, brushing her hair back from her face and standing up straight. “And we don’t have to work as hard and fast now anyway.”

No one argued with her. A water break sounded just fine!

We walked toward the wagon, where William was sleeping and where we had jugs of water and milk.

“Why we gotta keep pickin’ dis cotton, Miz Katie,” said Emma as we went, “when you already gib dat bank man his money?”

“I only gave him
some
of the money, Emma,” replied Katie. “My mama owed the bank a lot of money and we still have another—”

Katie stopped abruptly.

I looked over at her. She was standing still as a statue. I turned around in the direction she was looking. There was a tall black man walking slowly toward us from between the long rows of cotton.

It was Henry!

Suddenly we forgot all about water! We just stood there stock-still as he walked toward us. I was sure that Jeremiah hadn’t told him. But there was no way around his finding out now more than we’d wanted to tell him. It seemed like our secret was suddenly spilling out all over the place—was
everybody
going to find out?

He sauntered up and stopped and just looked us over one at a time. We’d been trying so hard to keep what we were doing a secret from anyone in town, I figured we were in big trouble now. And I reckon I figured that the worst of it’d come on me. Black folks are mighty protecting of their whites, and when something’s wrong they figure it must be a colored’s fault. And the few times we’d seen Henry in town, the look he’d given me felt more than a little uncomfortable.

But Henry just stood there a few seconds. Then he finally spoke, and it wasn’t what I had expected.

“Y’all got anudder satchel a feller cud use?” he said, like there wasn’t anything unusual going on at all.

I took mine off and handed it to him. I wasn’t quite sure what he wanted it for, but I figured I could use the big pockets in my dress for a while.

He slung it over his shoulder, then stooped down and started picking away on the next row beside mine. Katie looked over at me, and we all looked at one another, and then started slowly in again, none of us saying a word.

It was dead silent. All you could hear was our feet shuffling along the dry ground as we went back to where we’d left off and then slowly began inching our way from one plant to the next.

“Yep,” Henry finally said, “eben wiff dose clouds up dere, a body cud git mighty tard in dese ole fields er cotton.” Again it was quiet, with just our feet moving slowly along the ground.

“Yep,” he said again, “dis ole cotton’ll make yo han’s ruff an’ red an’ full er prickles. Ain’t da kind er work mos’ white folks eber done. Ain’t dat right, Miz Kathleen? Right un- ushul work fer mos’ white folks!”

“Yes, sir,” mumbled Katie, keeping her head down.

Again we shuffled along in silence.

“You like pickin’ dis yere cotton, Miz Kathleen?”

“Uh … I don’t know,” answered Katie.

“Who’s dis yere frien’ er yers, Miz Kathleen?” he said, looking toward Aleta.

“Her name’s Aleta,” said Katie.

“Well, Miz Aleta,” said Henry, “my name’s Henry. Wha’chu think ’bout pickin’ dis yere cotton?”

“I’m helping Katie and Mayme,” answered Aleta, her forehead crinkled in a scowl of uncertainty.

“Ah see … dat so?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’ I reckernize you from ober Oakwood way?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“An’ what ’bout you?” he said, now looking toward Emma. “Who you be?”

Emma glanced toward Katie with big eyes of question. Katie nodded for her to speak up.

“Dat’s right,” said Henry. “You kin tell me. I’m jes’ a colored like you what ain’t gwine hurt you nohow.”

“Emma,” said Emma. “My name’s Emma.”

“
Emma
… I see. So dere’s Miz Kathleen, Miz Mayme, Miz Emma, an’ Miz Aleta all workin’ out chere togeder, sometimes wiff a boy called Jeremiah helpin’ ’em, ain’t dat right. Mighty strange situashun it ’peers ter me.”