21.
THE NEXT DAY is a Sunday, so I'm not obliged to work.
I wake up beside Hannah on Zahhall's bed. I arrange my headwrap, say "bye" to Hannah and leave at dawn to find Mama, who prepares a small meal of bread, corn and carrots for me.
I'm eating my food on the grass outside my cabin when I see Hannah hurrying towards me.
"Mama an' Papa are crying," she says, "An' I can't be aroun' them 'cause it makes me sad an'... I jus' don't know what to do Cass. I ain't been able to stop thinking 'bout...you know...since it happen."
I offer her some corn and she accepts it gratefully.
I notice the effort needed to restrain her emotions.
As she eats, her eyes gradually begin to fill up with tears. She's breaking down again.
She needs a distraction, something to take her mind away from her grieving.
Suddenly I have an idea.
"Here, I'm gone show you something'.'
I consider, for a moment, whether to go to the pond, where we would be completely alone, but I recall what Mama told me. I promised not to return to the woods, so instead, we head towards the stream at the border of the Planation.
But first I go to Amos's cabin and I ask him to come along.
When we reach the stream, I am glad to find no-one else there. I tell Hannah to search for a small stick. Then I hunt for one for myself. I locate a large twig half emerged in water, further up the steam. I pull it out and dry it with my shirt. It's long and knobbly. Hannah's is slightly shorter and thicker. I decide that both of them are sufficient.
We sit cross-legged in the dirt, with the dynamic stream gurgling beside us. Amos settles himself on the ground by a tree. He closes his eyes and I imagine that the bubbling water is soothing his feelings of fear and distress.
"Watch this," I say. I drag my stick through the dirt in a curve. Then I mark out two more lines next to the curve, and I connect them with another, shorter line.
C A
"They is letters!" Hannah gasps.
I nod. I draw two 'S's. "You knows what this spells?"
She studies the word for a long time.
C A S S
Finally she shakes her head with reluctance.
"Its my name," I say. "Cass."
"Oh." She scrutinises each letter in turn. Then, using her stick, she copies the word in the dirt in front of her.
"Can you write my name, too? Can you write 'Hannah'?" She asks me.
"Sorry," I say regretfully. "I only knows 'Cass' an' the numbers from one to ten."
"Show me," she says.
I pick up my stick.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
"Can you jus' try an' write my name Cass? I ain't ever seen my name been written afore."
"Well, it's got an 'a' in it, jus' like mine," I say thoughtfully.
"It got two, I thinks," says Hannah.
"Yes." I draw two 'A's with a big space between them.
A A
"Jus' don't know the rest," I say sadly.
She smiles. "Thanks for tryin' though."
"Hey Cass!"
I shuffle around to see Beckey hauling two buckets into the stream. She dumps them in the cold water and they promptly sink to the bottom.
"Why's you gettin' water from here?" I ask her curiously.
"Ah, some ol' folk tell me there's a real bad disease infectin' the water in the wells. Rumour probly ain't true but I sure as 'ell ain't gone take no risks." She walks over to inspect my drawing. "You writin' Cass?"
I nod. "It's ok, right?"
She shrugs. "How's Amos?"
I glance at where he is curled up by the tree trunk. His eyes remain closed.
"Not so great," I say.
"Ah, he's gone get over it soon, you'll see!"
"But you thinks"-
"An' o' course he's gonna be back to normal afore you knows it." She winks. "Now you don't hafta worry 'bout it, Cass."
I look down at the letters I have drawn in the dirt.
"Jus' can't help but worry that maybe he not gone recover." I say it to myself but I know that Beckey heard because she comes over and crouches beside me.
"If he's survive the battle, he can survive the pain a remeberin' it," she assures me. She shoots me an encouraging glance and leaves to wash her clothes in the cold water.
I brush my fingers over the dirt, slowly wiping away the letters I have drawn.
"Cass?"
I raise my head. "Yes?"
"Where did you learn to write?" Hannah asks.
"My Mama taught me, when I were little. She's gone teach me more, later, when...when the South lose the war."
"How do she know how to read an' write an alla that?"
"She were educated," I explain, "but..." And I immediately remember something else Mama told me. "It's dangerous, you know."
"What?"
"For a slave to have got an education. Most a us ain't got none. We slaves ain't meant to know nothin' 'bout learnin'...that's white folk things."
"Why were she educated then?"
"I don't know," I say, as I realise how very little I know about my own Mama. How did she get an education? Why was she allowed to be educated?
"So she's gone teach you?" Hannah asks.
"Yes, an' then I'll know how to read an' write jus' like a white girl." Like Julia, I think. "An' then I'm gonna teach you!" Hannah's face lights up.
Her eyelids close. She smiles, dreamily. "Then I can be educated real good!" She exclaims. She grins for the first time since the death of her brother.
And it stirs up a real good feeling inside of me.
YOU ARE READING
Mind Of A Slave
Historical Fiction"The life we're living is the easiest of the difficult." Cass Jinney Jackson is a Louisianan slave girl. She has recently moved to a plantation near the woods, but her life there is far from ordinary. Growing up as the civil war rages on, she finds...
