Negro quits expecting there to be explanations: for why they getting lashes, or why they getting sold to Mississippi, or why they got to live here while the white people live there. The Negro had learned to praise Jesus instead. The Negro might even forget to look for someone to explain why her son been killed. No more , Mariah thought. No more, or I might as well put the shackles back on myself .
Mariah turned to April and May. “It just now come to be that I should be here asking for your help, you two and Minnie and Patsy and Maggie and Pleasant and all of ’em. You tell ’em all I came by to see you, and if they hear anything about what happened there in the square, seen anything, heard some white old fool whisperin’ from down the bar. Anything. You tell ’em come find me. You hear? Tell ’em to tell the white folk what they want, but I want to know the truth.”
They heard what she meant, how her words sounded in a world where the fate of a black man was of as much concern to the white man as that of his favorite horse.
This time she would not go forward quietly, Mariah thought. And thus it began: the first conversation, the first stirring. Mariah would fight to know . And with knowing, change the world.
* * *
Over Carnton lay a low, starless sky. The trees were like dark clouds against the sky before they disappeared entirely into the coming night. Mariah’s walk back to Carnton had been quiet.
Now she sat at the window, letting the reflection from the window glass magnify the oil lamp as she hemmed and rehemmed table linens, an unending task within a household that seemed threadbare at every turn. Mending was a break in the list of Carnton’s daily chores. Today had been wash day, which had meant that clothes had been boiled in the old work yard, behind the wing of the house. Washing and ironing were constant, as was setting the menu and overseeing the preparations for supper. She had taken on the duties of mistress years ago, after the McGavock children had died and Carrie McGavock had lost all interest in the daily life of a working household. The difference now was that there were only three folks on staff—including Becky Ann, but she was a young and inexperienced cook, generally irritating to Mariah. What had Miss Carrie been thinking, hiring her?
Then again, who else was there? Most of the former slaves had either run off during the Union’s military occupation of Franklin, or had simply walked off since the end of the war. The McGavocks were trying to adjust by hiring freedmen, but most didn’t want to be servants anymore.
But Mariah could take comfort in such tasks: fixing the cracked windowpanes and finding a local man to replace rotting floorboards, cleaning last winter’s leaves from the corners of the stairs, and on and on the list went. She’d even found bats hanging upstairs in the room of one of Carrie’s three dead children. Carrie had not been spared that pain, Mariah grudgingly admitted.
There was still a cook and a staff of two to clean the place, but nothing seemed right. Carrie, focused on the cemetery, cared nothing for the house. Her husband, John, away now in Memphis, was buying fruit trees, thinking that a great orchard would save them. Who’d tend the trees and pick the fruit? Mariah wanted to ask him, but of course this wasn’t her concern, and he wasn’t around to hear her anyway.
Mariah was overwhelmed in disbelief at what she saw when she returned to Carnton. It had felt as if she’d inherited the place years ago, before the war, while Carrie was consumed with grief at the loss of three of her five children. Somehow it had seemed understandable then, but Carrie’s focus and obsession with the soldiers killed on the battlefield—killed on Carnton’s front fields, many of them—now seemed too much to Mariah.
Did Carrie believe that Mariah would return forever and fill the vacuum that Carrie had left while she patrolled the cemetery and her cult of the
Mariah turned to April and May. “It just now come to be that I should be here asking for your help, you two and Minnie and Patsy and Maggie and Pleasant and all of ’em. You tell ’em all I came by to see you, and if they hear anything about what happened there in the square, seen anything, heard some white old fool whisperin’ from down the bar. Anything. You tell ’em come find me. You hear? Tell ’em to tell the white folk what they want, but I want to know the truth.”
They heard what she meant, how her words sounded in a world where the fate of a black man was of as much concern to the white man as that of his favorite horse.
This time she would not go forward quietly, Mariah thought. And thus it began: the first conversation, the first stirring. Mariah would fight to know . And with knowing, change the world.
* * *
Over Carnton lay a low, starless sky. The trees were like dark clouds against the sky before they disappeared entirely into the coming night. Mariah’s walk back to Carnton had been quiet.
Now she sat at the window, letting the reflection from the window glass magnify the oil lamp as she hemmed and rehemmed table linens, an unending task within a household that seemed threadbare at every turn. Mending was a break in the list of Carnton’s daily chores. Today had been wash day, which had meant that clothes had been boiled in the old work yard, behind the wing of the house. Washing and ironing were constant, as was setting the menu and overseeing the preparations for supper. She had taken on the duties of mistress years ago, after the McGavock children had died and Carrie McGavock had lost all interest in the daily life of a working household. The difference now was that there were only three folks on staff—including Becky Ann, but she was a young and inexperienced cook, generally irritating to Mariah. What had Miss Carrie been thinking, hiring her?
Then again, who else was there? Most of the former slaves had either run off during the Union’s military occupation of Franklin, or had simply walked off since the end of the war. The McGavocks were trying to adjust by hiring freedmen, but most didn’t want to be servants anymore.
But Mariah could take comfort in such tasks: fixing the cracked windowpanes and finding a local man to replace rotting floorboards, cleaning last winter’s leaves from the corners of the stairs, and on and on the list went. She’d even found bats hanging upstairs in the room of one of Carrie’s three dead children. Carrie had not been spared that pain, Mariah grudgingly admitted.
There was still a cook and a staff of two to clean the place, but nothing seemed right. Carrie, focused on the cemetery, cared nothing for the house. Her husband, John, away now in Memphis, was buying fruit trees, thinking that a great orchard would save them. Who’d tend the trees and pick the fruit? Mariah wanted to ask him, but of course this wasn’t her concern, and he wasn’t around to hear her anyway.
Mariah was overwhelmed in disbelief at what she saw when she returned to Carnton. It had felt as if she’d inherited the place years ago, before the war, while Carrie was consumed with grief at the loss of three of her five children. Somehow it had seemed understandable then, but Carrie’s focus and obsession with the soldiers killed on the battlefield—killed on Carnton’s front fields, many of them—now seemed too much to Mariah.
Did Carrie believe that Mariah would return forever and fill the vacuum that Carrie had left while she patrolled the cemetery and her cult of the
Similar Books
