One of my favouritest chores is going to Chatham to check on the mail. It’s not something that happens regular ’cause we have our own post office here in Buxton, but every once in the while the mail won’t come for two or three weeks and someone’s got to go find out why. It’s one of my favouritest chores, but that’s only true if I’m allowed to take Old Flapjack ’stead of one of the saddle horses. Even when those horses are walking slow they’re still too fast for my taste.

On Wednesday, right after school, Pa told me to go straight to Chatham for the mail. He didn’t come right out and say to take a horse, so when I got to the stable I asked Mr. Segee for Old Flapjack. I knowed it waren’t right, but it didn’t seem like it was wrong neither, it was kind of middling twixt the two.

Me and Old Flapjack waren’t but two miles out of Buxton going slow and easy toward Chatham when I started wishing I shied away from the wrong and gone more to the right. Old Flap gave one n’em snorts that let me know he sensed something dangerous. He even kicked his front heels off the ground ’stead of his rear ones, something I didn’t know he could do!

I grabbed ahold of his mane and looked hard at the woods.

I couldn’t see nothing at first. Maybe Old Flap had smelt something wrong. Then, for the second time, he did the trick he’d just learnt. The first time was practice, now he was better at it. He throwed his front heels up so high that I slid right off his haunches. Me and my tote sack and the empty mailbag spilt out onto the road!

I didn’t hurt nothing, but soon’s I jumped back up, Flapjack did another trick I hadn’t never seen him do afore. He started running! It was real stiff-legged and clumsity-looking, but no other word but running would come to mind.

Ain’t nothing in the world more disturbing than watching your mule, who you thought was one of your best friends, try to gallop away after dumping you in the road so’s you could get et by whatever it was that got him so afeared.

I grabbed my tote sack and pulled three chunking stones out. I turned to the woods ready to throw. But waren’t nothing there. Whatever scared Old Flapjack must’ve took off soon’s I hit the dirt.

I looked a little farther down the road and saw Old Flapjack had decided he waren’t too fond of running. He’d quit and gone over in a field to chew on something. I ran to him, gentled him down some, then climbed back on top. We started back toward Chatham.

But this was a trip that waren’t meant to be. ’Twaren’t but five minutes later that Mr. Polite came out of the woods holding on to the necks of three pheasants and a shotgun.

“Afternoon, Mr. Polite.”

“Afternoon, Elijah. Where ’bouts you heading?”

“I’m going to Chatham.”

“What for?”

“To check on the mail, sir.”

“Not on that worthless mule, you ain’t. You head right on back to that stable and tell Clarence Segee to give you Conqueror or Jingle Boy. I been ’specting a package from Toronto and I needs to have it afore the twentieth century gets here.”

“Yes, sir.”

I turned Old Flapjack back toward Buxton to trade him for one of those doggone horses.

 

When me and Jingle Boy got to Chatham we went right to their post office. I tied the horse out front, waited for my insides to quit shaking, then stepped onto the stoop. I pulled on the doorknob and near ’bout jerked my shoulder out. The door was locked, which was mighty peculiar ’cause it couldn’t’ve been much past four o’clock. It waren’t till then that I saw the sign someone stuck up in the window:

 

CLOSED UNTIL THE FIFTH. ANY ENQUIRERYS SEE
GEORGE AT THE DRY GOODS STORE.

 

I went next door to MacMahon’s Dry Goods.

The place had a great smell. It was fresh-cured leather and new material mixed up with fancy powder and soap. When you opened the screen door a bell runged to let people know you were there. It runged again when you left so’s folks knowed you were gone.

The white man that was folding up sheets of cloth for women’s dresses behind a counter looked up at me.

“Why, hello, Elijah. How’re you?”

“Fine, thank you, Mr. MacMahon.”

“And what can I do for you today, laddy?”

I’d learnt a long time ago that Mr. MacMahon didn’t mean nothing bad when he called you laddy. It sure sounded like he was mispronouncing lady but we’d got told to ignore it.

“I’m here ’bout our mail, sir. The sign said come talk to you.”

Leastways that’s what I hoped it said. Enquirerys was one n’em words that I ain’t got notion the first about.

“Oh. I was wondering when someone from Buxton would come. Then you haven’t heard what happened?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, laddy, we’ve had to find a new postman. Larry Butler had an absolutely terrible accident.”

When Mr. MacMahon said words like terrible he made it sound like they had seven or eight Rs in ’em ’stead of just one.

“What happened, sir?”

“As near as we can figure, his horse threw him and trampled him. Hoof caught him right in the head.”

This was more proof that a mule is way better than a horse. If Mr. Butler had been riding Old Flapjack, he’d still be delivering mail.

Mr. MacMahon said, “Give me one more minute, Elijah. I know there’s a package in the post office and perhaps a letter or two. Not much.”

“Yes, sir.”

He finished folding the cloth and picked up his crutches to take me back to the post office.

A long time ago Mr. MacMahon had a bad run-in with a horse hisself. That’s why his right leg ended at his knee ’stead of at his foot.

When he was on his crutches he moved real graceful and smooth. He’d been without that leg for so long that it looked like the crutches were a part of his body. It almost looked like he was dancing when he walked.

When we got inside the post office Mr. MacMahon hefted a box onto the shelf then looked in a mailbag that had BUXTON writ ’cross the front.

“Hmm, seems to be only one package and one letter, Elijah. I could have swore there was more.”

He handed me the letter.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Someone’s going to have to come pick up the mail until the fifth. The new man should be up and running by then.”

“Yes, sir. Tell Mr. Butler I’m sorry ’bout his accident.”

“Thanks for the kind words, laddy. Wouldn’t matter much what we told him, his mind isn’t amongst us anymore.”

Mr. MacMahon danced to the door then locked up behind us. He went over to Jingle Boy and patted him on the neck. “Most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen, Elijah. Hard to believe he’s so fast.”

“He is, sir.”

I lifted the box onto the saddle then jumped up myself.

What with seeing all the damage horses had done in Chatham and being natural nervous ’bout being up this high, I didn’t look to see who the letter was to until we were halfway back to Buxton.

My heart sunked when I saw what was writ ’cross the front in proper letters: MRS. EMELINE HOLTON, NEGRO SETTLEMENT AT RALEIGH, CANADA WEST.

On the back, above the red wax seal, it said: APPLEWOOD, FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES.

This was trouble. Didn’t nothing good ever come out of one of these letters from America. If the words on the envelope were writ in regular old plain letters that looked like someone had fought hard and long to get the writing down, most times it meant that some person who was a slave had snucked it out and it was full of rotten news. It was gonna tell ’bout a father getting sick or a brother getting whupped bad or a mother’s children getting sold away. If the letter was writ fancy, like this one was, with swirlingness and curlycues and such nonsense it only meant one thing: A friendly white person was writing to let you know somebody was dead.

Since this letter was addressed to Mrs. Holton, it probably had some bad news ’bout her husband.

My ride back from Chatham waren’t a good one. It waren’t that the road had gone bad or the skeeters were heavier than they were afore or that Jingle Boy was bouncing more than regular, but the fancy writ envelope in the pouch made the ride home long and sad.

 

I left Mr. Polite’s package on his stoop then took Jingle Boy back to Mr. Segee. ’Stead of taking the letter di-rect to Mrs. Holton, I walked back home with it to see what Ma was gonna say.

I pulled my brogans off and went in through the front door.

“Ma?”

She waren’t in the parlour.

“Ma?”

Nor upstairs in her bedroom.

“Ma?”

Nor my bedroom.

“Ma?”

Nor the kitchen.

There was one of her peach pies on the kitchen table cooling and I thought for a second ’bout lifting a piece of the crust and digging a couple peaches out of it with my finger. Then I thought better of it.

I pulled my socks off and went out the back door. Ma was squatted down tending to her truck patch.

She saw me and smiled and was just ’bout to say hello.

Mas are some amazing and scary people. Seems like they got ways of seeing things that ain’t showing, and hearing things that ain’t being said. I didn’t even open my mouth but Ma knowed by some mystery way that something waren’t right. She quick stood up and said, “’Lijah? What’s wrong?”

The trowel she’d been using and a fistful of weeds fell out of her hand.

“What happened?”

She ran up to me and I showed her the letter from America.

She wiped her hands on her coveralls and said, “You see I ain’t got my spectacles on. Who it to, who it from?”

All the growned folks that hadn’t never learnt to read nor write whilst they were ’slaved in America had to take lessons at the schoolhouse at night. Between cooking and cleaning and gardening and sewing and knitting and working the fields at harvesttime and helping out at the chopping bees and the raising bees and tending to her sheep and shearing ’em and gathering wool and carding it and spinning it, Ma had been lazy and was slacking off on her school lessons and they waren’t sticking particular good.

I told her what was writ on the envelope and she said, “Awww, no. No, no, no. Don’t it never end?”

Ma didn’t waste no time, she said, “Go get your Sunday clothes on, ’Lijah. We gunn go together to tell her.”

I knowed I was gonna have to read the letter out loud to Mrs. Holton too. She was taking lessons with Ma, and I don’t mean no disrespect to Mr. Travis, but it ’peared he was having a powerful bad time in making his lessons stick with any of the growned folks.

I changed to my Sabbath school clothes and walked into the parlour. Ma had already put on her Sunday dress and was carrying that pie she’d baked.

She said, “Good thing I baked this here pie. I hate to go for something like this barehand.”

She set the pie down and opened her arms.

I walked in and she kissed the top of my head and mashed her cheek there.

Her voice and the warmness from her face both spread ’cross the top of my head. “Now, ’Lijah, you knows you most likely gunn be breaking some bad news to Mrs. Holton so don’t forget, I’m-a need you to be strong. I’m-a need you not to rile her and n’em girls up none by crying and carrying on, sweetie. And I’m-a ’specially need you not to go tearing out of Mrs. Holton’s home screaming if this here is bad news. Can you do it?”

I know it ain’t a child’s place to feel this way ’bout the person that raised you, but I was disappointed in Ma something awful. She hadn’t took no notice that I’d been doing a lot of growing in the pass couple of weeks.

’Twaren’t but the other day I was eavesdropping and heard her tell Pa that it’s a miracle I waren’t born in slavery ’cause I’m way too fra-gile to have survived even a minute of it. Maybe I use to be a little fra-gile, but I ain’t been afeared of nonsense nor run off screaming ’bout the littlest things for the longest time. And besides, it just ain’t right to be calling somebody fra-gile nohow.

“Can I count on you to be growned, ’Lijah?”

“Yes, ma’am.” It was gonna be hard, though. Don’t nothing seem to make you want to tear up and cry more than being told not to. I was even starting to feel something loosening up and slopping ’round in my nose.

Ma kissed the top of my head again and turned me a-loose.

We started out toward Mrs. Holton’s place.

Miss Duncan-the-first and Miss Duncan-the-second were tending their flower garden out front of their home.

Miss Duncan-the-first saw us and stood up and called, “Sarah? What’s wrong? What happened?”

Miss Duncan-the-second stood up too. She said, “Sarah?”

Ma told ’em, “’Lijah done pick up a letter for Mrs. Holton, it come from down home.”

Both the women wiped their hands on their skirts, and Miss Duncan-the-second said, “Hold on, we’s coming with you. That poor, poor thing.”

By the time we got to Mrs. Holton’s home, what started out with me and Ma and a letter had turned into a whole parade of people. There were twelve of us: me, three babies, and eight women that were all carrying something to eat. There were pies and corn bread and chicken livers and ham and dandelion greens and grits.

There waren’t a whole lot of talking going on as we walked to Mrs. Holton’s.

When we got there Ma pushed me forward onto the stoop to knock. There waren’t nothing but a screen door to keep horseflies out. The main door was open and I could look right into the parlour.

I knocked and Penelope and Cicely, Mrs. Holton’s girls, looked up at me from where they were playing on the floor. They smiled when they saw it was me.

Mrs. Holton got up out of her chair. She was holding the same reading primer that I’d studied from five years pass.

She smiled at me and said, “Why, ’lo, Elijah. Mr. Leroy ain’t working yet. My goodness, how come you’s in your Sunday …”

She opened the door and her breathing got stuck in her throat for a minute when she saw the bunch on her stoop. She said, “Oh! Oh.”

The primer slipped out from her fingers and landed on the stoop’s wood floor. I handed it back to her.

She smiled at everyone and said, “Welcome. Y’all come on in.”

We all pulled off our shoes and walked in.

She had her parlour set up just as nice as our’n. There was a table and a rocking chair and a bench and a big brick fireplace and maplewood floors and rugs.

She said, “I’m sorry there ain’t enough chairs, but please make you’selves comforted best way y’all can.”

She turned to her two children and told ’em, “Y’all go on in the garden and pick Mama some flowers. Make sure you bring me some them pretty purple and white ones.”

The oldest girl said, “But, Ma, you said they ain’t ready to be picked yet.”

Mrs. Holton said, “I think they’s ready now, Penelope.”

Penelope said, “Good afternoon, y’all,” then asked her mother, “Why’re all these folks visiting us?”

Mrs. Holton said, “Ain’t nothing to worry ’bout, darling. Now do as I say. Stay till I calls you, and don’t leave the yard.” She gave both of the girls a hug and a kiss.

Penelope held on to Cicely’s hand and took her out through the front door.

“Can I offer y’all something?”

Ma said, “Thank you kindly, Sister Holton, but ’Lijah done pick up a letter for you in Chatham. It from down home.”

Mrs. Holton told me, “Elijah, could you read it for me?” She waved the primer she was studying from. “I ain’t too far ’long in my lessons.”

Miss Duncan-the-first put her hand on the rocking chair and said, “Why don’t you get off your feet, Sister Holton?”

“I’m fine, Miss Duncan. Really I am, but thank you kindly. Elijah?”

I started opening the letter but afore I could get my finger in it and bust the wax seal open she said, “If you don’t mind, Elijah, I wants to open it.”

“I don’t mind atall, ma’am.”

She picked the wax off the envelope and put it in the front pocket of her apron. She pulled the letter out. She looked it over then handed it back to me.

I said, “It was writ ’bout a year ago, Mrs. Holton.” I looked the letter over and knowed I was gonna have to sound some of the words out. I read:

 

My Dearest Emeline,

I’m hoping that this letter finds you and the children in good health. We hear many wonderful things about the Negro settlement there and are grateful that God in his infinite mercy and wisdom has seen fit to provide you and yours a refuge.

 

Mrs. Holton stopped me. I was afeared she was upset ’cause I stumbled on some of the words, but that waren’t it atall. She looked the envelope over and said, “I believe this here’s Miss Poole’s handwriting. She do like prettying up what she say. You gunn have to tell me what some them words is, Elijah. What refuge mean?”

I knowed that from Sabbath school.

I said, “Refuge means it’s somewhere that’s safe.”

She nodded her head.

I started back up reading:

 

However I’m afraid this missive is not one of glad tidings. I’m afraid I have some tragic news I must tell you.

 

I stopped to see if Mrs. Holton needed any more explaining but she didn’t. I was glad ’cause I didn’t have notion the first what mis-sive meant.

 

After a harsh forced journey to Applewood, John was brought back into servitude. Much to our horror, to set an example and in retaliation for the gold he claims John stole, Mr. Tillman exacted a punishment so severe that due to the rigors of the march home, John’s body could not endure and he went to the loving arms of our Savior on the seventh day of the fifth month in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty-nine.

He is resting peacefully in the slave burial grounds and we made certain he had a Christian service and paid fifteen dollars for a marked grave.

I am sorry to have to burden you with such news. You and the children are in our prayers. If you are so disposed to remunerate me for this expense, please forward the money to me at Applewood.

 

Sincerely,
Mrs. Jacob Poole

 

Mrs. Holton stood there. It didn’t seem like none of those eight women looked di-rect in her face but I knowed they all were ready to jump in case she had a fainting spell or went fra-gile.

But Mrs. Holton didn’t flinch or nothing. She said to me, “Read that part again, please, Elijah, that part ’bout John getting punished.”

I cleared my throat and read, “‘Mr. Tillman ex-act-ed a punishment so severe that due to the rig-ors of the march home, John’s body could not endure.’”

She raised her hand. I got ready to tell her that I was middling good at reading words but lots of times I didn’t know what they meant, but she shooked her head back and forth and said, “‘His body could not endure.’ That sure ’nough is a gentle way of putting it when one man done killed another one with a whip.”

Mrs. Holton smiled at the women and said, “Thank y’all kindly for your care, but I’m-a be all right. I knowed. I knowed already.

“I been left kind of hanging since we got here but now … All I hopes is that he felt we got through. Spite of what Miss Poole say, that’d be the only thing what would make John rest peaceful. I hope he felt the joy and love y’all done give us this pass year.”

She gave a little snuffle and I thought for sure she was fixing to cry, but she just said, “I hope he knowed how beautiful his girls look when they free.”

Mrs. Holton sat down in the rocker and said, “He wouldn’t’ve wanted no heavy mourning and I love him ’nough to honour that, so I’m-a be all right.”

The women started in with touching Mrs. Holton and saying a lot of “sorry” and “here to help” and “call on me.”

Mrs. Holton touched each of their hands and said, “Y’all forgive me, y’all been kind enough to bring all this food and here I am acting like I ain’t got no manners atall. Please, let’s us eat.”

She stood up and went to the kitchen.

She called her children in and we all started eating.

When it came time to go, me and Ma hung back till everyone else had left. Once they ’d got to talking, Ma and Mrs. Holton found out they were both from the same state down in America and the plantations they were trapped on were a couple of miles one from the ’nother. They could even call the names of some of the same people from back there. But it was all white people ’cause the people who were slaves waren’t allowed to go from place to place.

We were on the front stoop and I was pulling my brogans on. Ma and Mrs. Holton hugged, and Ma said, “Sister Emeline, please, if you find you’self needing anything, come see me or send word through Eli or Leroy.”

Mrs. Holton said, “Thank you, Sister Sarah. Small world, ain’t it? It sure is comforting to know we’s from the same place. I’m-a be all right. I’s just relieved to know what happened, that’s all. Ain’t too much harder nor more wearying to keep up than false hopes, and I’m glad they gone. Only thing is, I caint get them words Miss Poole wrote out my head. ‘His body could not endure.’ It don’t seem to be right. It don’t seem like them should be the last words spoke ’bout John Holton.”

Ma said, “Well, the body don’t never endure, do it? But I hopes … naw, I knows that something inside all of us be so strong it caint be stopped. It fly on forever.”

Mrs. Holton said, “Sister Sarah, your words been a big comfort to me, and you and all the other Buxton sisters been a big help. Thank you kindly. And thank you kindly, Elijah, for reading this letter. Me and your ma is gunn be doing that on our own ’fore too much longer.”

Ma laughed and said, “You got more faith than me, Emeline. This reading and writing seem to be two them things what don’t come easy once you’s full growned. Ain’t nothing to do but struggle on, though.”

Whilst me and Ma were walking home I was ’bout to bust waiting on her to tell me how I did. You caint never be sure till you get the word from someone that’s growned, but I was thinking what I just did was a pretty good sign that my days of being fra-gile were over! I hadn’t cried nor let my voice get shake-ity nor even sniffled whilst I was reading the letter to Mrs. Holton.

I waren’t gonna tell Ma, but I didn’t think it was being growned that got me through it. Mostly I think I didn’t bawl ’cause once Ma and them women bunched up ’round Mrs. Holton with their watching, waiting eyes and hands, it felt like a whole slew of soldiers was ringing that parlour with swords drawed and waren’t no sorrow so powerful it could bust through.

Once them women bunched up like that in Mrs. Holton’s parlour, it seemed like they’d built a wall of Jericho ’round us, and a hundred Joshuas and a thousand children couldn’t’ve knocked the wall down if they’d blowed trumpets and shouted till their throats bust.

Once them women bunched up in that parlour ’round me and Mrs. Holton, I couldn’t’ve cried even if I was fragile as Emma Collins.

But I was hoping Ma would peg it on me being growned.

We were near ’bout home afore she wrapped her arm ’round my neck and pulled me in to her and said, “’Lijah Freeman, I knowed you could do it, baby! What you done was real growned, son! Wait till I tell your daddy!”

I felt so proud I was afeared I’d bust, but all that happened was that same stuff in my nose commenced to loosening up and slopping ’round all over again!

And that don’t make no sense. That don’t make no sense atall.