Good Fortune (9781416998631) (32 page)

“Miss Anna, let me stay wit you an' Miss Florence, pleeeease!” I looked over at Florence with laughing eyes but kept my lips set.

“Ned, they have children's church today. That's where you're supposed to be.” He pouted and crossed his arms. It was too much for me.

“All right, come sit between us. But you gotta be quiet. One little peep, an' I'm takin' you out!” I said to him as he hopped up between us with delight. I looked over at Florence, who was gazing at me with raised eyebrows, and I shrugged.

“We here today to celebrate what God Almighty done
fo' us.” Church always opened with a prayer followed by singing. The church had one small hymnal written by a black man that had been brought from Philadelphia, where it had been published. Not too many folks could read it, however, so it sat out of view until after the service, which is when I would get my hands on it to read its words.

We lifted our voices high, filling the building with a joyous sound. During the sermon, Florence and I joined in with the amens and yesses that rang throughout the room. At the end, a deep plate was passed around to collect what money the folks in Hadson could spare. If someone in the neighborhood had a problem, we would stay and continue praying and praising until the plate was filled with enough money to get them through it.

Finally, the feast came. Tables had been pulled out and set up in front of the church to seat all the people, and the yard rang with laughter and talk. The size of the celebration compared with the festivities for the two holidays we celebrated at Masta's.

After the activities had simmered down, I wandered around, searching for Florence. I came upon a group of young folks who were laughing and clapping around a tree. Henry stood at the center of the group, holding a hat. How silly Henry looked to me as he squatted by the tree with a half-serious, half-amused grimace. He was shaking the hat this way and that, regarding whatever was in it with amusing intensity.

“Any more buyers? Say, Anna, give me a few coins an' I'll show you the trick! Reckon if you figure it out, you get
your coins back, but if not …” Laughter burst from the group as Henry set his large lips in a deep frown and shook his head.

“You clever, Henry, but not that clever. I ain't givin' up no money to you!”

“I suppose Florence wouldn't want to try it?” he said as Florence approached us.

It was hard to hold back laughter. “Henry, stop!”

“I'll give you a coin!” Hattie-Mae, a young woman around my age who worked with her aunt in the stitching shop in Hadson, tossed a coin to Henry.

“Y'all ain't no fun!” Hattie-Mae said, turning to us.

“No, we just got sense, that's all,” Florence responded.

“Well, that kinda sense ain't gonna get neither of you married.”

Florence laughed. “You always talkin' about marrying, Mae.”

“What else we suppose to be doing?” Mae said as she fluttered her eyelids.

Florence laughed, and I joined in, a little less heartily, keeping my thoughts to myself. Five months in freedom, and I had done little more than attempt to keep John's bobbing image out of the forefront of my mind. I was waiting for him.

“I'm not marrying nobody right about now,” Florence said in reply. “It ain't no use. An' ain't nobody around here suitable for me nohow.”

“Don't matter to me.” Hattie-Mae said, shrugging and turning back to the fun.

As I looked around, my eyes rested on a slender figure in a nice-looking long dress that ruffled at the bottom edges and buttoned all the way up to the neckline. The woman's black hair fell loose and curly by her shoulders. Her arms were crossed, and her lonely stance called out to me. She was leaning against the church building a short distance away from Henry and the others. I made my way over to greet her.

“You from around here?” I asked kindly, walking up to her. She turned her head toward me. The woman was most likely a few years my senior. She had very light skin, and her eyes were an intriguing, waterlike blue.

Hearing no response, I said, “I'm Anna.”

“Anita,” she said simply, looking at me with almost no interest.

“You bin round here long?” I asked.

“I'd rather not tell my story. It's no different from anyone else's around here.” She looked away, in the direction of whatever had been catching her interest before I started speaking with her. Her words sounded kind of educated-like. But I sensed irritation, an unkindness I didn't feel I deserved. However, just as quickly as the notion entered my mind, it left.

“Why don't you join us?” I asked.

“I don't prefer to,” she said simply, holding strong to her rigid stance.

“Ah, c'mon. Those folks aren't that bad.” She eyed me for a long moment, and then, still looking irritated, turned her head to the side.

“You're from the South?” She asked it like a question, but her matter-of-fact tone brought a chill up my spine.

“I was freed,” I said, forgetting about making friendly conversation with her.

“I saw you reading in the church,” she continued, as if she hadn't heard me at all.

“I like learning. Plan on getting educated someday.” She laughed a laugh that turned my heart cold.

“And then what? You get educated, and then what?”

I frowned. “Gotta get educated first to know,” I said softly, feeling very small next to her words. She pushed herself lightly off of the building, and stood at her full height.

“I wish you well, then,” she said with a nod. Without another word, she turned on the heel of her boot and left.

“Don't worry about that one,” Florence said, slipping up behind me and pulling me back to the gathering. I looked back, watching the young woman walk off into the distance.

I headed back to Mama Bessie's a few hours later, after we had cleared the church grounds. Florence was still in conversation, so I went back alone.

Once I was far enough away, I voiced my questions and agitation to the heavens.

“Don't worry about Anita too much,” a deep voice erupted. I nearly jumped out of my shoes. I had thought I
was alone, but Henry had quietly come up behind me.

Turning back around and starting to walk again, I said, “I don't think it's mighty nice to scare a girl like that.”

“Ain't scarin' nobody.”

“An' didn't nobody say I was worried 'bout nothin'.”

“Ah, Anna, I heard ya. You might not have said it straight like that, but I can tell. She's like that with most everyone. Ain't much for social talking and all that. She live with old man Joshua some ways away from here. Got a right fine house, very large. Man got him a lot of money. Worked his way from poor to wealthy.”

“She his daughter?” I asked.

“Naw, just been working for him for a while now. Maybe they relatives—I wouldn't know. She the closest thing he got to life, bein' that his wife died an' he stuck in that house from sickness. Anita don't make it her business to get out much.” I nodded in silence. “She ain't too nice to folks, though most of us figure that's all she knows. So don't worry yourself with her.”

“I ain't worryin',” I said, picking up my pace.

“Hey, why you walking so fast, Anna? Ain't I good comp'ny?” Henry asked, taking a couple of large steps to catch up with me. “You know, with those quick legs and that smart head of yours, I see life taking you a long ways!”

I looked over at him. “Henry, you tell me. How far can we go in this place called Freedom?” I still heard Anita's mocking comment about education, about the idea that education offered nothing for us.

“Well, that's easy! You find you a job, build a house,
start a family in this place, and live life just like that. My pappy told me, when he was still living, that that's the farthest life will take us black folks….
Slow down,
would you, Anna? I can't think right, trying to keep up with you and looking at how pretty you are at the same time.”

I felt relieved when we came to Mama Bessie's house. I turned to face Henry.

“You know what I think?” I asked him.

“What?”

“Well, sometimes, this place called Freedom seems to get me down when I think 'bout what I want the most. But I think life'll take you as far as you wanna go. You can have that job, that house, and that family. But if you wanna fly farther, then shouldn't nothin' stop you.”

Henry laughed. “Well, then, guess you right about that. You gotta lay your eyes on what your really want,” he said with more amusement in his voice than seriousness. I looked at Henry for a moment, saw the way he was laying his eyes on me, then frowned at him.

“You know, Henry, I've laid my eyes on education. I've seen it, I've dreamed of it, but it's not mine. It seems the white folk don't want me to have it. So that just goes to show, you have to do a little bit more than laying your eyes on it for it to be yours.” With a smile, I retreated into Mama Bessie's.

CHAPTER
 
32 

“I
WONDER WHY THE DEATHS OF THE COMMON
BLACK
FOLKS
round the city never make it into the papers,” I said.

“Reckon you shouldn't think on that too hard,” Florence replied.

It was a sunny Friday morning, and I sat near Florence reading the local papers. I had come across a section highlighting the loss of a certain servant to some kind of milk sickness. Continuing as I yawned, I found that the white woman had spent part of her day working for the school in Dayton. I stopped short and ran back over the words I had just read. A grand idea hit me then, and I quickly sat up.

“What is it?” Florence asked, immediately attentive.

“Flo, it says here that a woman servant they had helpin' out at the school ain't there anymore. She died.” Florence's excitement waned significantly as her eyes fell back to the stitching in her hand.

“Flo, did you hear me?” I asked, wondering why she didn't see the possibility lurking behind the words.

“Yes.” She dragged out the word. “But I don't see what that's got to do with us,” she said, looking up again.

I frowned at her. “Florence, this my opportunity to do
what I wanna do! If I can get that job, an' help out for a couple of hours a day, I'd be in the school buildin' an' I could hear the lessons an' I could get my education …”

“Anna!” Florence bellowed, cutting me off. “I don't think you're really hearing yourself. What you're talkin' of is dangerous, Anna. The last thing those folks like is black folks with an' education. You know that!”

“Education's not banned here, Flo! There ain't no laws sayin' we cain't have no education!”

“But getting educated in white schools is against what they believe. An' you kno' their beliefs is more important than their laws. You know that. You can't do no learning there.”

“Well, just don't look at it as an education, then, Florence. It's a job as a servant. They don't gotta know I'm learnin'.” Florence shook her head as Daniel ran up to us and leaned against the wooden porch rail. I turned to my brother for the support I needed.