The Freedom Star Page 11

  The door creaked and Raleigh stepped onto the porch. She wore a plain gray dress with a white apron. “Good morning, Isaac. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Isaac stumbled to his feet. “Morning.” He poked at a board in the porch with the toe of his shoe. “I was hoping we might have us a visit.” Isaac motioned to the other chair.

  “I have chores.”

  “Won’t take up much of your time.” He twisted the brim of his hat. “Since you don’t get up to church no more, I reckoned I’d come down here.”

  She brushed wrinkles from her apron. “Walk with me while I gather the eggs.”

  Raleigh took a basket from the back porch as they passed, hooking her arm through the wicker handle. “So, are you a city boy or a farmer?”

  “Growed up on a farm,” Isaac said. “My white folk, they has a place up by South Boston.” He paused while his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the hen house. “We grows tobacco, corn, some wheat, plus vegetables for the table.” He found a large brown egg under an old hen and handed it to Raleigh.

  She turned the egg over and scowled. “That hen’s too old for laying. Stew pot’s where she needs to be.” Raleigh placed the egg in the basket and continued down the row of nesting boxes. “Farming’s all right for some, but I hope to live in the city one day. I can’t see myself being a farmer’s wife.”

  “I . . . I don’t plan on farming. I makes furniture.” Immediately, Isaac cringed. Why’d he say that?

  Raleigh turned toward him. “Does Mr. Day intend to set you up in business?”

  “I ain’t ready for that, least ways, not yet.” He searched for another egg.

  “Someday?”

  “I hopes to open my own shop, maybe in Philadelphia.” He retrieved an egg from under a cackling hen and added it to the basket. “Pa and Mr. Day, they been teaching me all about making fine furniture. When the time comes, I’ll be ready.”

  “Missus Patterson has a brother in Philadelphia,” Raleigh said. “We visited there two years ago. It is certainly a fine city in which to open a carpenter’s shop.”

  When they finished gathering the eggs they returned to the main house. Raleigh set the basket on a bench by the back door and turned toward Isaac. “Tell me about your family.”

  He leaned against the porch rail. Pink blossoms clung to the branches of an apple tree in the backyard. In the fields, slaves bent over, transplanting tobacco seedlings. Isaac faced Raleigh. “Pa, he goes off fixing furniture and Mama, she just keeps on cooking, but if I get tore up with cat briars or such, she knows all sorts of potions for healing. Joseph, he’s my little brother, he got snake bit once and Mama sucked out the poison. She nursed him on back and cooked up that copperhead in a stew.”

  Raleigh laughed. “She sounds like quite a woman.”

  “She’s as good as they come.”

  They wandered back to the front porch. Isaac pulled up his chair and sat.

  Raleigh shook her head. “You must leave now. I have more chores that need tending to.”

  “Sorry,” Isaac said as he stood. “It’s been a pleasure.” He glanced down. A toe protruded through a hole on the side of his shoe. He turned his foot away from Raleigh. “Maybe I can come back? Maybe next week?”

  “Maybe.” She smiled.

  Isaac nodded as he stumbled down the steps. Raleigh waited until he climbed aboard the wagon, then she went inside. Isaac turned the horse toward the road. Was she watching from the window? He sat straight as the wagon rolled down the lane.

  The horse hesitated at the juncture with the main road. Isaac flicked the reins and the wagon turned north. “So, she ain’t gonna be no farmer’s wife? Ain’t taking up with no slave?” He snapped the reins again. “Horse, the day’s coming when this slave will cross over from field hand to freedman, then he’ll be paying her a proper visit.”

  _____

  To arms! Sons of Virginia, gather before the storm!

  Henry tossed the handbill on the side table in the parlor. “Virginia’s gone and joined the Confederacy, just like you wanted. They’re raising a regiment in South Boston.” He looked at his older brother, seated on the sofa. “I expect you’ll be the first to enlist?”

  Patrick crossed his legs and tapped the heel of his boot with his riding crop. “We all must serve, little brother, each in his own way. Should I be offered a commission in the home guard, I would gladly accept. It stands to reason, however, that one of us must remain here to help Father run the farm.” He smiled. “You are trained in the ways of the military. I am educated in the business of tobacco.”

  Turning his back, Henry gazed out the window at the fields that produced the family wealth. “Papa managed fine while you was away at the university, besides, we have Sean O’Farrell now, and our nigras know what needs doing. Papa will be fine.”

  Patrick slapped the crop into the palm of his hand. “O’Farrell lets those niggers run all over him, and Father’s no better. The rains have already set us back two weeks in getting the seedlings transplanted. Without a strong hand on the whip, this year’s crop won’t make it to market. The war will be over in a month or two anyway and one soldier, more or less, won’t matter—but there’ll be no tobacco harvest if I’m not here.”

  “Fine, then I’ll have to fight your damned war for you.” Henry snatched the handbill from the table, crumpling it and tossing it aside as he stormed out the door.

  “Where you off to, Henry?” Polly’s voice stopped him at the steps.

  Polly and Tempie sat cross-legged on the porch, a pile of spring flowers between them. Each girl wore a colorful wreath as they twisted dandelions and crocuses into necklaces and bracelets.

  “Morning Massa Henry.” Tempie smiled, raising her hand in the air and turning it for Henry to see. On her wrist she wore a yellow band of forsythia. “Don’t it look like pure gold?”

  Henry studied the girls for a moment, then took off his hat and swept it across his waist, bowing deeply. “Yes, and befitting a royal princess of the Ivory Coast . . .”

  Both girls giggled, then Polly shot him a quizzical look. “Where you headed in such an all fired hurry, Henry?”

  “Got business in town. Tell Mother I’ll be home by supper.” He picked a sprig of azalea from the pile and slid it behind Polly’s ear. “You beauties be careful or you’ll get kidnapped by pirates and held for a queen’s ransom.”

  The girls giggled again, then Tempie rose and retrieved the wadded paper. She smoothed it and handed it to Henry. “You dropped this, Massa Henry. Is it something important?”

  He glanced at the handbill. “It might be. I’ll know by tonight.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  May 1861

  “Corporal McConnell,” the captain asked, “how do you plead?” Captain Claiborne, Commanding Officer, Company K, Fourteenth Virginia Infantry Volunteers, glared at him from across the table set in the shade of a white canvas tarpaulin. In all directions, rows of tents filled the green fields. The fairgrounds north of Richmond, now dubbed Camp Lee, were home to Virginia’s fledgling army.

  Henry snapped to attention. The midday sun burned Henry’s neck as he stood between two sentries beyond the cool shade of the tarp. Lieutenant Bruce, the company first lieutenant, stood to one side of the captain, his hands clasped behind him.

  Henry reeled. The din of shouted commands and thousands of marching feet carried from the parade grounds, echoing through a head still throbbing from the previous night’s revelry in the Shockoe Bottom bars. A faint breeze tickled droplets of sweat running down his neck.

  “Sir, the corporal pleads guilty, but with an explanation—”

  The captain cut him off with a wave of his hand. “McConnell, we made you a noncommissioned officer because you had military training, West Point, no less. Did that training not include some discussion about the importance of actually showing up sober once in a while?”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Shut up. On the charge of absenting your unit without authority I find you
guilty and I hereby reduce you to the rank of private—and you can forget your damned request to transfer to the cavalry.” The captain ran a hand through his thinning hair, then leaned back and flicked open his pocketknife. He began digging dirt from under his fingernails. “Private McConnell, the Yankee army might let you get away with your chicanery, getting into God knows what trouble over there in Richmond, but in case you haven’t noticed, this here ain’t the Yankee army.”

  Henry stiffened, his knees weak, his mouth dry as corn dust.

  “Maybe you West Pointers don’t figure you need this here training.” The captain jerked his thumb toward the ragged columns of gray receiving instruction from Virginia Military Institute cadets behind him. “But I can tell you this, the rest of us sure as hell would like a little more drilling before we go up against them Yankees. Time’s growing short. If we don’t get trained, there’ll be a heap of dead Virginians when the shooting commences.”

  Henry stared straight ahead. His stomach churned.

  “Now, keep your nose clean, McConnell, and help me turn these clod busters into fighting men,” he pointed at Henry with the blade of the pocketknife, “and maybe you can earn back those stripes. You got that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Very well. Dismissed.”

  Henry saluted and took one step to the rear.

  “McConnell . . .” Captain Claiborne stood, leaning on the table with both hands.

  “Sir?”

  The captain glared. “You pull something like this once the shooting starts and I’ll throw you in front of a firing squad.” Captain Claiborne straightened and brushed the sleeve of his gray wool uniform. “Dismissed.”

  “Yes, sir.” Henry saluted and marched away. He maintained his posture until out of the captain’s sight, then doubled over, clutching his stomach. Not going to make it . . .

  Henry braced against a tree, spewing what remained of a hard night’s drinking onto the dry, packed dirt of the company street. When his head finally stopped spinning, he took a deep breath and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat.

  Company I, The Chester Grays, marched past. Old men and boys in a mixture of uniforms seemed to ignore the shouted commands of their NCO. They plodded on, each recruit marching to his own cadence. Some skipped awkwardly, trying to get back in step. A red-faced sergeant raced alongside the stumbling column, flailing his arms and pointing at their feet. “Dammit all, ‘left’ means the other un. Them’s your right foots, you dagburned good for nothing bunch a dirt farmers.”

  Henry grimaced, fighting back another wave of nausea as well as an urge to laugh. Then his captain’s words came back to him, “There’ll be a heap of dead Virginians when the shooting commences.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  July 1861

  “Did you fetch yourself to church this morning?” Gabriel asked. He leaned over the sawbuck table working a whetstone across the blade of a spoke shave.

  “I did,” Isaac replied. He didn’t much want to talk about it, though.

  “Well, did she show?” Gabriel tested the blade on his thumbnail, then spit on the stone and continued rubbing in a circular motion against the steel.

  Isaac shook his head. “She ain’t been back since that first Sunday. I reckon Missus Patterson must be feeling poorly again.” He rubbed the inside of the hot Dutch oven with a slab of fatback, then rolled corn dough into a ball and dropped it in the blackened pot. “Ain’t had a pass to head down her way for a month or more, neither.”

  Isaac set the Dutch oven on the outdoor cooking fire and placed embers on the lid. Another pot held a chicken that had mysteriously appeared about the time Mr. Jones returned from one of his afternoon strolls.

  “Why don’t Mr. Day give you a pass?”

  Isaac pulled a stool beside the fire. “He says the war talk is making folks skittish. Says this ain’t the time for no darky to be wandering off where them pattyrollers can catch ‘em, with or without a pass.”

  “I ’spect he be right, boy. Specially if that pass is signed by a black man.” Gabriel ran a thumb across the blade and nodded in apparent satisfaction. “So what’s you gonna do? You ain’t sneaking off on your own, is ya? A body could get kilt doing a fool thing like that.”

  Isaac shook his head. “I ain’t sneaking off, leastways not yet. I aim to ask Mr. Day again and hope he sees things different.” Isaac poked the fire. A shower of sparks drifted into the evening sky, mixing with the flashes of a thousand darting fireflies.

  Mr. Jones ambled up the hill from the ‘necessary’, adjusting the suspender fastened to one side of his trousers. He smiled at Isaac. “That there hen done yet?” He lifted the lid. The aroma of onions and chicken filled the evening air. “I swear, you’s a better cook than ol’ Mr. Jones.” He laughed and replaced the lid, then pulled up a log.

  After supper Isaac walked around the side of the large brick house. Most evenings Thomas could be found enjoying a cigar in his rocker on the side porch. Tonight was no different.

  “’Evening, Mr. Day.”

  “Why, good evening, Isaac. Was that chicken I was smelling? I declare, you boys eat better than I do some nights.” He smiled and flicked an ash on the lawn.

  “Yes sir, chicken and onions, a passel of cornbread too. Mr. Jones, he has a gift for attracting lost critters. They come a looking for that stew pot.”

  Thomas laughed, then wagged his finger. “You tell Mr. Jones that he’d best be certain none of those poor lost critters are coming from the neighbors’ coops . . .”

  With a smile, Isaac looked away.

  “So, to what do I owe this visit?”

  Isaac snatched his hat from his head. “Sir, I been meaning to ask about one of them passes. I’d be much obliged if I could get on down to Yanceyville for a visit.”

  “That gal caught you heart, did she?” Thomas said. “But now’s not a good time for colored folk to be wandering far from home. War’s got everybody on edge, and you’d be putting yourself at risk, even with a signed pass.”

  “I’d be real careful, Mr. Day, and I’ll only travel during daylight. Isaac won’t cause no suspicion, just another darky going about his chores.”

  Thomas pursed his lips and blew, setting a circle of smoke adrift on the evening breeze. Finally, he looked at Isaac. “I haven’t forgotten how hard a master the heart can be. If I don’t give you a pass, I reckon you’ll end up doing something stupid, then we’ll both be in a pickle, you with dogs on your heels, and me with Mr. McConnell demanding top dollar for a lost slave.”

  “Thank you, sir. Thank you.” Isaac grabbed Thomas’s hand and pumped it vigorously.

  Thomas peered at their clasped hands, then at Isaac, his eyebrow raised.

  “Oh, no . . .” Isaac released his grip and stepped back. “Sorry, Mr. Day, I didn’t mean no—”

  Thomas dismissed him with the back of his hand. “You throw some lumber in that wagon. If anyone asks, you were hauling it for me. I’ll have a pass for you midday tomorrow. Stop by after chores—but you make sure you’re back before dark, you hear?”

  _____

  “Wait. Hold up,” Thomas called, waving a yellow envelope.

  Isaac pulled back on the reins. The wagon halted. Summer air hung heavily over the Carolina afternoon. He wiped his brow. “Yes sir?”

  “I’m glad I caught you.” Thomas stepped from the porch. “This came today.” He handed Isaac the opened envelope.

  Isaac turned it over, examining the writing, the broken wax seal, the tiny flowers along the top edge. “I ain’t never had no letter before.”

  “Well, can you read it?”

  Isaac pulled out the two sheets of yellow stationary, carefully unfolded them, then stared at the flowing, cursive handwriting.

  “Do you know how to read?”

  “Some, Mr. Day.” Isaac shook his head, turning the sheets sideways. “But just book printing, I can’t read no curly writing.”

  “Then allow me.” Thomas held out his hand and Isaac passed him
the letter. Thomas read aloud:

  Dear Mr. Day,

  I ask that you pass this letter on to our slave, Isaac, who is currently in your employ. My dear brother, Henry, recently of the military academy at West Point and now serving with the Fourteenth Virginia Volunteers, has written us of his wartime adventures. Henry asked that I pass along his news to Isaac, as I am able and so you will find enclosed my letter to Isaac. I trust you will not find it too much of an imposition to pass along Henry’s news, as well as my own best wishes.

  Sincerely,

  Miss Polly McConnell

  Thomas folded the first sheet under and continued:

  Dear Isaac,

  Henry says to tell you he’s well. The army recognizes his leadership potential, and he says he should be seeing promotion soon. There was fighting last week by Bethel Church, near Fortress Monroe. Henry regrets that his regiment did not take part, arriving too late to the battlefield. However, he reports that Colonel Magruder sent the Yankees packing. He says next time, the Fourteenth will be there too, and then the Yankees will pay dearly for invading our home.

  Your mama asks to be remembered to you. Florence said you are to work hard, not cause any trouble, and learn all you can from Mr. Day. She’s rejoicing that my daddy gave you this fine opportunity.

  Little Joseph and Tempie both say hello.

  Take care and stay well,

  Polly

  Thomas handed the letter to Isaac. “Seems your white folks hold you in high regard.”

  “Yes sir, they‘s good people, mostly.”

  “Well, you’re a lucky man then. Now, home before dusk, and stay to the main road. Put this where it will be safe.” Thomas handed Isaac the written pass authorizing his travel to Yanceyville.

  “Yes sir. Before dark. Thank you, Mr. Day. ” Isaac stuffed the pass and Polly’s letter in his Sunday shirt pocket and flicked the reins. The horse stepped off in a spirited gait.