Miss Katie's Rosewood (25 page)
Read Miss Katie's Rosewood Online
Authors: Michael Phillips
Tags: #FIC042030, #FIC042000, #FIC026000
In the meantime, Katie grew closer to Rob Paxton's family. She had met them before, but only briefly. Now she was older and it was becoming clear to everyone that she and Rob were serious about each other. Now that she knew so much more of the family's story and the grief of the loss of Rob's sister, it was a much different visit than before. She was no longer a stranger, and they welcomed her as if she was one of the family.
The night before Katie was to take the train back to Philadelphia, she and Rob were together in the small library of the Paxton home. Katie was absently perusing the spines of the books on the shelves.
“This sounds like an interesting book,” she said. “â
Dealings With the Fairies
. What's it about?”
“I don't know,” answered Rob. “I haven't read it. It's by a Scotsman my mother discovered a year or two ago.”
“There sure are a lot of books.”
Slowly they wandered away from the shelves, out of the library and downstairs, and finally outside toward the garden.
“My family thinks the world of you,” said Rob as they went.
Katie smiled. “They've all been wonderful.”
“Do you think you could ever be happy here . . . in the North?” asked Rob. “I mean . . . Baltimore isn't technically
in the North, but you know what I meanâit's farther north than the Carolinas.”
“I don't know,” said Katie. “Our people used to be Pennsylvanians before we were Southerners, from near your town of Hanover like I told you about.”
“It's still hard to believe I missed you,” said Rob. “I wish I had been there to see the place with you.”
“Aunt Nelda said our family used to be Quakers. But I've been a Southerner all my life. Rosewood
is
my life. I can't imagine ever leaving it.”
Rob smiled.
“Maybe Greens Crossing needs a sheriff.”
“The one at Oakwood is corrupt. He's in the KKK.”
“Then maybe I should go down and run against him.”
“I'm still not sure I like the idea of you wearing a gun,” said Katie, “even if you did save that Mr. Davidson's life like Mayme said. It frightens me.”
“I suppose we shall have to figure something else out, then. It's no secret that I am very fond of you, Miss Clairborne. I'm just trying to figure out what's best . . . what's best for you, for everyone. Just be patient with me . . . can you do that?”
“I can. I trust you, Rob.”
He took her in his arms and she returned his embrace. They stood a long time holding each other in contented silence.
They did not need to know times and seasons and timetables. Their hearts had become joined as one. And for the present, that was enough.
G
OOD-BYE TO THE
N
ORTH
42
K
atie's twentieth birthday party at Aunt Nelda's was festive and fun. Aunt Nelda and I baked a big cake and she had been teaching me about cake decorating and I decorated it with frosting and whipped cream and all sorts of little colored candies. It was beautiful, if I do say so myself. We had a gay time eating and laughing and singing to Katie
.
But in another way, there was an undercurrent of sadness too. We knew that we would all be parting soon. We might never be together again in the same way like we were right then. Maybe birthdays make you pensive too. I think so. We told everybody about the first birthdays we had celebrated together at Rosewood. I think everybody felt sorry for us. But Katie and I remembered them with a quiet peace and joy. Katie's birthday reminded us, along with everything that had happened, that we were growing up . . . suddenly very fast. Maybe the sadness came from knowing that life continually brings changes and that you can't always tell what they're going to be ahead of time. Some of them are good changes. But life brings pain and hurts with it too, as we knew all
too well. So even in the midst of the celebration, we knew that partings and change would come sooner than we wished they would
.
Those partings started the very next day
.
Rob, who had just come for the day, left early on the train back to Hanover
.
Katie cried
.
That afternoon, Jeremiah left to return to his job across the river in Delaware
.
“You tell my papa an' my stepmama dat I'll be back next munf,” he said. “By den I'll hab a good little bit saved away.âAn', Mister Templeton,” he added to my papa, “I'll be dere fo da cotton harvest.”
“We appreciate it very much, Jeremiah,” said Papa. “It will be the most important harvest Rosewood's ever had.”
“My papa tol' me dat in a letter. So you kin count on me bein' dere. We'll git dat cotton in, Mister Templeton, don't you worry.”
“Thank you, Jeremiah.”
“When you come, you be careful you don't sit in a car that comes unhooked from the train,” said Uncle Ward
.
“I's try, Mister Ward.”
He and I hugged each other and had a few private words together. Then I watched him go
.
And then I cried
.
The next morning Katie and I and Papa and Uncle Ward set off for the long trip back to Rosewood. It's funny how they'd been missing us, and we'd been missing them. Yet now the four of us were together again and something seemed missing. Even together, something was incomplete. I knew what it was. For Katie it was Rob. For me it was Jeremiah. We weren't alone anymore. Our lives were intertwined
with theirs and whenever we were apart, it didn't feel complete. The family we had known was growing. I think Papa and Uncle Ward felt it too, maybe more toward Aunt Nelda than Jeremiah and Rob. After all the years, all kind of going their own separate ways, the bonds of brothers and sister had grown deeper in all three of them. None of them were married. Aunt Nelda had been but was now alone. For so long they'd had so little to do with each other. Yet now as they were getting older, they realized how deeply they loved each other
.
But sometimes brothers and sisters don't know how to talk about those kinds of things so well. So as we stood on Aunt Nelda's porch saying good-bye, they just hugged and said things like, “Well, you take care of yourself.” But what they were really saying without saying it was, “I love you.”
Katie and I hugged Aunt Nelda and she kissed us both
.
Then we loaded into the carriage. We no longer just had uncles, we had a dear aunt and a new woman-friend. We would miss her
.
As Uncle Ward called to the two horses, Aunt Nelda turned back into the house
.
Now it was her turn to cry
.
The first day of the trip was quiet. We were all lost in our own thoughts. By the second day we began to talk, and by the third we were talking and laughing like our old selves. It wasn't that we forgot Rob and Jeremiah and Aunt Nelda, we just were able to have fun being togetherâthe four of usâagain
.
It took us six days to get home
.
“Well, don't keep us in suspense any longer,” said Papa one day
.
“What do you mean?” I said
.
“Are you two going to move north to go to that girls' school?”
Katie and I looked at each other
.
“I don't think so, Uncle Templeton,” said Katie
.
“Didn't you like it?”
“It was all right. But . . . I don't know, it seems that wherever we go, there's no place we fit in. It was like when we were on the trainâwhen we're together, people look at us different. People don't seem to like to see a black girl and a white girl being best friends. Not that I wouldn't love to study history and geography and literature and music. But after all Mayme and I have been through together, learning etiquette and about how to dress and how to place silver for a fancy dinner just doesn't seem very important.”
Papa nodded, then glanced over at me
.
“I think what Katie is trying to say,” I said, “is that after our visits we both realized that Rosewood is our home and that we're happier there than anywhere.”
Papa and Uncle Ward had brought camping things and we camped and cooked along the way. Especially the way our money was right then, we couldn't afford hotels! Our train ride up to Aunt Nelda's had cost more than we could afford too, but they had insisted. But from now till the harvest, we would have to watch every penny
.
“What did you mean, Uncle Templeton,” asked Katie as we went, “when you told Jeremiah that this is the most important harvest Rosewood has ever had?”
He and Uncle Ward looked at each other. It was almost a look that said, “Should we tell them?”
“It's just that the finances are tight, Kathleen, that's all,” said Papa after a minute
.
“You mean because of the taxes.”
“Yeah, that's mostly it.”
“But we'll pay them off with the cotton.”
“Possibly. But prices could be down. And . . . we're not completely sure Mr. Watson will be able to buy all our cotton.”
“Why not?”
“He may have too much. Everyone is having a huge crop this year. It's just that there are a lot of things to think about and a lot that could go wrong.”
“You're frightening me, Uncle Templeton. You sound so serious.”
“I'm afraid it is serious, Kathleen.”
He paused and took in a deep breath
.
“Remember how it was when I first came, with Rosewood's debts?” Papa asked
.
Katie nodded
.
“It's crept back on us again.”
“I know there are a few bills, but it's not that bad . . . is it?”
“I'm afraid so, Kathleen. Debt creeps up slow, but then it can eat you alive. The long and the short of it is that everything depends on this harvest. If we don't have a good one, I don't see how Rosewood can survive.”
His words sobered Katie and me. We had no idea it was that bad
.
“And that's why we've got to work hard to get the whole crop in,” said Papa, trying to sound cheerful, “and make sure we beat the rain and make it the best harvest ever.”
“We will, Uncle Templeton. I know we will. Rosewood's been in bad trouble before and we always find a way out of it, don't we, Mayme!”
Papa and Uncle Ward didn't say too much more about it. I could tell they were thinking. But I didn't know what
.
H
ARVEST
T
IME
43