SO PA WAS ON the panel, which met every day for two weeks at the courthouse.

We were not to talk about the matter, he said. Not amongst ourselves, not to anyone on the outside, and not to him. It was the same as if he were on a jury, he told us.

Oh, how I longed to speak of the matter to Mammy Sally. As I watched her dark figure move about me, I had to bite the words down on my tongue.

I knew she was weighed down with the matter. All the slaves, in our house and in others, were not only brought low but anxious to know what would happen to Caroline Turner. For, if you could just throw a seven-year-old boy off a second-story balcony and cripple him for life, well then...

Well then.

They would not look us in the eyes, any of the negro servants in the house, including Mammy Sally. Lines were drawn. Sides were taken. Silence was the weapon of choice.

As she helped me, in my bedroom, pack my trunk for school, I felt myself teetering on the edge of some precipice. And I knew that if I fell into the blackness, if I left for school without breaking this silence between us, I would lose her forever.

Slavery was tearing us all apart. It was Sunday. Tomorrow I would leave for school. In church this morning our minister reminded everyone how Kentucky's negroes would soon outnumber the whites. And when they did, they would overcome every obstacle, he said. He did not mention Caroline Turner. But he knew that there were at least several members of the panel in the congregation. And he knew there were dozens of negro servants in the gallery, listening. One being Mammy Sally.

Our hands touched now as she folded up one of my skirts and put it into the trunk. For an instant the world stood still. I looked at her.

"Mammy," I said, "don't worry. Pa will find Caroline Turner sane, and then she can face a trial."

"He be not the only one on that panel."

There were tears in her eyes. Tomorrow morning, early, the panel was to meet and come up with its decision.

"Pa will do the right thing," I assured her.

"Don't put it all on your pa. There be a lot of negro unrest. People are scared," she said.

Across the trunk we sought out each other's eyes. She understood! I went around the trunk and ran into her arms. She enfolded me there and rocked me. "Bad times a-comin', child," she said. "But we always remember our friends."

"I'll be your friend forever, Mammy," I said.

She crooned a song softly, still rocking me. "No matter what, Caroline Turner, she get hers," she said. "God ain't on no panel."