I WALKED PAST the kitchen to see Mammy Sally on her hands and knees cleaning up the soup.

"You didn't throw it." I stood there in the doorway on my way into supper. "Tell her to make Judy clean it up."

"Judy serving supper," Mammy said. "Anyways," and she raised herself up on her knees, "you knows what I tol' you, little one. No slave in this town is safe from bein' sold down the river. The trader be around alla' time. An' the slave pens be close at hand."

Even though no negro servant in our house was ever spoken to roughly, they all feared being sold down the river. To the rice swamps or the sugar or cotton plantations. They knew that any minute things could change for them. A death in the family, or a marriage, or a decline in the hemp prices could do it. Mammy Sally had explained it all to me. Even admitted she was afeared of Betsy.

I knew about slavery. You didn't grow up in Lexington without knowing about it. It was the chief discussion at every dinner party my father had when politicians gathered at the table. And we lived on Short Street, not far from the town square where, in the southwest corner, there was the black locust whipping post, ten feet high, from where you could hear the screams of the slave being whipped, if you couldn't see it. And every Monday morning when court was in session our slave auctions took place.

My pa didn't like slavery. He didn't believe in selling them, though he'd purchased Harvey for $700, Pendleton for $550, and Chaney and her small daughter and son came at a real bargain for $905. Pa was one of the men in town who wanted to send freed slaves to Liberia.

I knew by then that slavery was an explosive topic that affected everybody in my world. I knew that I loved Mammy Sally, that she had been my safe harbor since before Ma died, and that now I depended on her more than anything.

"Go in for supper," she said. "An' doan make trouble."

I obeyed. As I slid into my chair at the table, Betsy gave me a disapproving look. Judy set a bowl of mashed potatoes down in front of me, and Nelson, Pa's personal body servant and our carriage driver, winked at me as if we had some secret. He was standing over Pa, serving him wine.

"You're late," Pa observed.

"I was talking to Mammy."

"And I was telling about my niece, Elizabeth Humphreys. Do you think you could listen, Mary?" Betsy queried.

"She'd best, as she's to be Elizabeth's companion while she's here," my sister Frances said.

As it turned out, she was right. Elizabeth Humphreys was coming to live with us. She was to be called Liz, she was my age, and she was coming because of the good schools in Lexington. She was from Frankfort, and I was to share my room with her.

"You'll go to school together," Pa said.

"I don't go to school," I reminded him.

"You will. Next semester. You'll go to Ward's with Liz. She'll be a good friend."

I don't want a friend, I wanted to say. I want my ma back. I want you to love me, Pa. I want a pony to show you love me. I want a hoopskirt. I want to live in the White House someday. And I want your promise that you'll never sell Mammy or Nelson down the river.

We ate supper. The conversation took another turn. And Judy served.

I ALWAYS WANTED to live in the White House when I grew up. It was something I dreamed about the way other girls my age dreamed of marrying Prince Charming. Our neighbor and most prominent citizen, Senator Henry Clay, who wanted to be president, told me that when he lived there he'd invite me to visit. There wasn't a soul in Lexington who wanted him to be president more than I did.

THE REASON I'D NEVER BEEN to school was because in Lexington boys started at six or seven and girls at eight or nine. As it was I'd be almost nine when I started at Ward's in the fall. Only young people from important families went to Ward's, so my family must be important, in spite of what Pa's new wife had said to me last time she got angry.

"It takes seven generations to make a lady, Mary. You have a long way to go."

I didn't mind the insult to me. But I minded it to my family.

"My ancestors founded this town," I told her. "They named it Lexington after the town in New England where the war was started."

"That still doesn't make you a lady," she'd retorted.

That was yesterday, and today there was the business with the soup and Elizabeth Humphreys coming. She was trying to undo me all right, this lady. My spirit was brought low, exactly as she wanted.

It was time to go and visit Grandma Parker.