Golden's Rule. C. E. Edmonson

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СКАЧАТЬ covered with dust so thick they was near mos white. Lands, there musta been a hundred of em. Mens, womens, and chirrens. Babies, too. And ceptin for the babies, each one of em had a iron collar runnin right round their necks. A long chain run through rings on the collars and I could hear that ol chain clankin on the stones in the road as they come up the drive. The slaves was holdin the chain up so it wouldn’t be draggin on their necks, but the chain was long enough to hit the ground anyway. Goin clank, clank, clank with every step they takes.

      Now I ain’t gonna make no big story outta this, cause that ain’t what I’m after tellin. Sides, peoples mosly talk too much anyway, always makin the simplest thing go on forever. The trader’s name was marston and he was the one rode up to the porch, an older man with mustaches that dripped down past his chin. The other two mens was his overseers and they kep a respectful distance till Masta invited them forward.

      Slaves was marston’s business. If you was in need of slaves, he’d sell em to ya. If you was after sellin slaves, he’d buy em. That particular day, Masta didn’t need no slaves and didn’t wanna sell none, neither. But he was right cordial. He offered marston and his overseers lemonade and they stood there for a few minutes, chattin bout the price of tobacco, which was Masta’s cash crop. Then Masta asked marston does he want water fetched for his slaves. But marston, he said, “no, they can jus drink outta the streams with the horses.” Then marston and his overseers started off, walkin the horses back the way they come. And the slaves started up after em. Didn’t have to be tole or nothin. Jus picks up their feet and chains and follers down the road.

      Not right away, but after a time thinkin it over, what I done was imagine my mama gettin sold. I imagined the slave trader and Masta Harris makin a deal, like I seen him do in later times, and my mama bein led out to the back of the line. In my mind, I see a collar fixed round her neck and a chain run through the collar and mama standin out from the rest cause she’s the only one who ain’t covered with white dust. And I see her lookin back to the house as the long line begins to move. I hear her cryin out to me, her onliest child, as the dust rises to shroud her in haze.

      “Good-bye, my daughter. Good-bye, my love. For I will never see you no more. Farewell, farewell.”

      We made or growed mos everythin we used or ate at Belle Maison. We had carpenters and a blacksmith and a little mill on the stream where we ground corn and wheat. In the fields, we growed greens, taters, snap beans, peas, corn, squashes, and bout every kinda melon there is. We had sheep for wool, which the women field hands spun in the winter. We had cattle and hogs and chickens for meat, and cows for milk and butter. We growed apples and pears in the orchard. Yessuh, we sure growed a lot of food. Only it weren’t for the field hands. No, the slaves was fed thisaway. The house slaves got scraps from the table. The hands who done special work, the blacksmith and the carpenter and the stable hands, got reglar meat rations. The chirrens who was too little to work in the fields was fed cornmeal and milk. The cook mushed it up in the kitchen and carried it to the yard in buckets. Then she dumped them buckets into a trough, like you uses to feed the livestock, and them chirrens gotta run and git it right fast fore it’s all gone.

      The field slaves got a ration of cornmeal, molasses, peas, and greens every Sunday and had to make it last through the whole week. Only there weren’t never enough, not for no man or woman who was out in the fields fore sunup and didn’t come in till it was too dark to see a hand in front of their own face. Sometimes, the field slaves was able to sneak out in the middle of the night to fish in the creek, but mosly they stole food from Masta’s gardens to git by. Masta didn’t spend much time at Belle Maison. He was some kinda mucky-muck in Kentucky politics and he was always in Louisville or Frankfort. The plantation was run by Masta’s overseer. His name was Henry Sewell and he was quick to whip any slave he caught stealin. Myself, I don’t know what that man figured, cause you can beat a starvin man halfway to death and he still gonna steal food iffen he be hungry enough. But that’s the way they done it. Henry Sewell was always fast to the whip if a field slave was stealin or slackin off.

      Mista Henry Sewell didn’t have nothin to do with the house slaves, for which I guess was our fortune. And he didn’t mess much with the stable hands, long as they kep his horse fit. That was cause we raised thorobred horses on that Kentucky plantation. Them horses was Masta’s pride and it was my pa who mosly took care em when they was in the barn. And they wasn’t no easy horses to git along with. Fact, some of them thorobreds Masta Harris owned, they’d kick to death any man that tried to enter their stall. Ceptin for Pa. He jus had that way and the horses trusted him. He was the one groomed em and tended to their ailments.

      Masta, he did have himself a vetranarian name of Doctor manville. He was a nervous little fella, kep all his medicines in a buckboard he rode out to the farms. I rememba one time he tried to examine a horse name of Greenback. Now Greenback was ornery as all git out and he bit Doctor manville hard in the shoulder one day. Tore out a big ol chunk of flesh. After that, Doctor manville grew mighty careful. He reglar stood outside the stall, tellin my pa, do this and do that.

      I was allowed to stay with my pa on Saturday nights. The way Pa tole it, Mistriss Sarah started lettin me go to him back when I was grievin for my mama. I don’t rememba nothin bout that, but bein with Pa on Saturday was bout the onliest thing I looked forward to. That’s cause missy Ann growed into a treacherous child. She was mean in her spirit and I wasn’t allowed to do nothin to oppose her, which only made her meaner. I swear that gal was born without no conscience a’tall.

      Sometimes, when she was in a temper, she’d slap me. The first time, I was only three and didn’t know better, so I slapped her back. Missy Ann, she run out cryin to Mistriss Sarah and Mistriss Sarah switched me good. Didn’t ask me what happened, or say nothin. Jus come into the room, grabbed me up by the hair and whacked my legs with a hickory switch. Then she walked out the room like I wasn’t no more than a dog she found chewin on the rug.

      Course, I didn’t hit missy Ann no more. I wasn’t a fool altogether. But Mistriss Sarah had herself a bigger story to tell and I was slow to git the message. Fact, I wasn’t allowed to frustrate that child in any way. Fact, I was some kinda way responsible for her happiness, all day and all night, too. I slep on a pallet at the foot of her bed and Lord have mercy if she cried in the night.

      How I was sposed to care for missy Ann every hour of the day or night was a mystery I didn’t git. Like I could never figure why Mista Sewell and Masta Harris blamed a hungry slave for pickin a few melons. But I understands much better now. I was trainin to be a slave, like Pa trained them two-year-old horses to the saddle. I would live my whole life at the foot of missy Ann’s bed. I would care for her chirrens. I would serve her till one of us died.

      Over time, specially when she was young, missy Ann and me would play together. She didn’t have no choice, since there weren’t no other chirrens to play with. But her kinda play was to use me like she was usin her dolls when she held her tea parties at the little table in her room. I’d line up between her dolls like I was a doll myself. Then she’d tell me what to say and how to act. Sometimes I was the bad doll and I had to be punished. Course, I didn’t like takin punishment from a girl who couldn’t lace up her own shoes. But it was a heap better than gettin switched.

      Ceptin for visitin Pa on Saturday nights, the other thing I looked forward to was church on Sunday mornins. Mosly, Masta Harris didn’t want his slaves gatherin together, even if they was gatherin to worship the Lord. Masta Harris figured they was gonna make some kinda uprisin. I don’t know what he thought they was gonna rise up with, sticks and stones? But him and all the slaveholders was scared to death bout slave rebellions that took place further east. That’s why they organized the patrollers.

      The patrollers—mos slaves called em patterollers—rode every night, lookin for slaves who was off their plantations without a pass signed by their Masta. When the patrollers caught one, they would give em a good whippin and bring em back to the farm they come СКАЧАТЬ