Never Too Late by Michael Phillips Page B

too intimidated by the woman’s forcefulness to speak.
    â€œWe’s been gettin’ da bakin’ done, miss,” said Josepha at last. “Den we’s wash up.”
    â€œWell, I don’t like an unsightly kitchen,” she snapped back, taking the opportunity to send her eyes up and down Josepha’s large frame. “I also don’t like the idea of a slave eating us out of house and home. You’ll have to find somewhere else to spend your time when I entertain. I can’t have someone of your size serving my guests.”
    â€œYes’m,” mumbled Josepha, duly humiliated by the lady’s tongue.
    As the master’s son and his bride-to-be continued into the parlor, Josepha realized that hard times lay ahead for herself and the rest of the McSimmons slaves.
    But before the wedding came a day no one who lived through it would ever forget.
    The war was over, and roving bands of angry Southern soldiers were all around in the weeks following the surrender of the South.
    Josepha was in the kitchen with the rest of the house slaves working on preparations for the day’s dinner when they all heard what sounded like a dozen horses thundering toward the plantation in the distance. Josepha paused and listened. A grave expression came over her face.
    The master had gone into town for the morning and none of the other men were at the house. She shuddered momentarily at the sound, realizing that something wasn’t right.
    Explosions of gunfire followed a few seconds later.Then Josepha really knew that something was wrong.
    Shouts and more gunfire had stilled everyone else in the kitchen. The commotion was coming from the direction of the slave village. They continued to listen with dread.
    â€œCome wiff me!” shouted Josepha, leading the others to the cellar door and pulling it open.
    â€œInter da cellar, all ob you!” she cried. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on, but it ain’t good. Git goin’—down dem stairs!”
    The girls and women scurried down through the black hole, even more terrified now to hear the fear in Josepha’s voice.
    Josepha glanced back into the kitchen where one girl still stood.
    â€œEmma, you fool chil’, git ober here!” she cried. “Else we’ll jes’ leab you dere all alone. Git ober here!”
    By now Emma was six or seven months along with young William’s child, and because she was still skinny as a rail, her pregnancy was easily noticeable. At last she came and began awkwardly inching down the narrow stairs, crying and babbling incoherently.
    Finally Josepha followed. The stairs creaked under her weight. She hoped the stairs did not collapse beneath her. She pulled the door shut behind them, hoping nobody would think to look down here. They were left in total darkness, a few whimpering, the newcomer Emma talking to herself.
    They stayed there the better part of an hour in complete blackness and silence until Josepha judged that whatever had been going on must be done with. She was almost afraid to go up and look, but she knew she had to.
    She rose to her feet, felt for the steps, made her way back up them till she felt the door. She pushed it open.
    Light flooded the cellar. She poked her head out, then stepped slowly out into the room and walked into the kitchen, listening intently.
    A deathly silence was everywhere.
    Almost on tiptoe, Josepha crept toward the back door. Fearfully she opened it. Outside, the quiet stretched in all directions from the house. An eerie silence. Again Josepha shuddered. Everything looked normal. But the occasional bark of a dog or bellow of a cow or cackle of a chicken in the distance sounded strangely off-key. There were no human noises to go with them—no singing, no shouts and laughter of children, no calls to plough horses.
    Something was dreadfully wrong. She could feel it.
    â€œKin we come out now?” came a voice from inside the house