Freedom Stone by Jeffrey Kluger

me after all, girl,” Henry said. “How about you fetch two small sittin’ boxes from inside that workshop and set them up over here in the shade?”
    Before the man could change his mind, Lillie ran into the furniture barn, grabbed two crates that looked to be about the right size, and carried them to where he had indicated, under the canopy of a leafy magnolia tree. She approached him and tried to take hold of his arm and to her surprise, this time he allowed it. She walked him to one of the boxes and eased him down.
    â€œNow why don’t you fetch us a drink of water too?” he said, pointing to a rain barrel with a dipper hooked to its edge. Lillie ran over to it gratefully, scooped out some water and started to drink, then stopped herself and offered it to Henry first. He smiled and waved it off. “I don’t really need it, but you do,” he said. “You got road dust over most your face.”
    Lillie drained the dipper thirstily, then scooped another and drank that off too. “Thank you,” she said, a little out of breath from the gulping she’d done. She hooked the dipper back on the edge of the barrel, wiped her face with her arm, and then sat down on the crate near Henry.
    â€œI know why you come, girl,” Henry said.
    â€œYou do?” Lillie asked.
    â€œIt’s ’bout your papa.”
    Lillie nodded.
    â€œAbout the way he died,” Henry added.
    Lillie looked at him wonderingly. “How did you know?”
    â€œI’d wanna know too if I was his child. And with that face o’ yours, there ain’t no other man’s girl you could be.”
    Lillie reached up and touched her face. As always, she had to fight back tears at just the mention of Papa.
    â€œHe said you looked like him, ’cept I didn’t reckon how much.”
    Lillie’s voice felt choked. “He talked about me?”
    â€œAll the time. Talked about all of you. Your mama, your baby brother—boy with a funny name. Ploto.”
    â€œPlato,” Lillie said. She laughed slightly and blinked her wet eyes.
    â€œHe said you was called Lillie, but he said he give you another name too—one he said was more suited to you.”
    â€œQuashee?” Lillie asked, her throat choking.
    Henry nodded. “Child born on a Sunday,” he said. Lillie merely nodded, not trusting herself to speak. “So what do you reckon I can do for you, Quashee, girl?”
    â€œYou can help us get free before the slave traders come to take my brother,” Lillie answered plainly. “We was s’posed to be freed no matter whether Papa come back from the war or not. But now they say we can’t cause o’ some lie about a bag o’ coins he had when he died. The Master has ’em now and he aims to keep ’em—and keep us too.”
    â€œIt weren’t no lie,” Henry said softly.
    â€œPapa didn’t steal no coins!” Lillie snapped.
    â€œI didn’t say he stole coins. But he had coins. Went off to a farmhouse about two or three miles from the battlefield to fetch bandages one day; come back with a purse full o’ Yankee money. He showed it to me plain and admitted he got it from the farmer; wouldn’t never tell me how.”
    â€œSo he didn’t say he took it?” Lillie said.
    â€œSome things don’t need sayin’.”
    â€œThat woulda.”
    â€œYou think a Southern farmer gonna give a slave man a bag o’ gold?”
    â€œMy papa weren’t no thief!” Lillie repeated.
    â€œAll right, then,” Henry said, spreading his hands. “Ain’t no way o’ knowing anyhow, seein’ as your papa’s dead.”
    â€œBut there is a way.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œYou could ask the farmer.”
    â€œThe farmer’s in Mississippi,” Henry said. “We’s in South Carolina. I don’t got a wagon, and I ain’t gonna hop there on my one good