Authors: Patricia C. McKissack
Slave Girl
Honouring Lizzie Passmore my great-great-great grandmother who dared to learn and teach
Belmont Plantation
Virginia 1859
March 1859
The spring blooms are comin’ and the sky is a sure blue. March never knows if it wants to be a spring month or a winter month. The heat’s come early to Virginia this
year. That’s fine with me though. As long as it’s hot I have to fan young mas’ William and Miz Lilly, my mistress, during their study time. This mornin’ was the first day of
my third learnin’ season. For now on three years, I been fannin’ them, liftin’ and lowerin’ the big fan made of woven Carolina sweet grass – up and down, up and down.
The fan stirs the thick air – up and down, up and down – and chases away worrisome horse flies and eye gnats. It may seem like a silly job. But, I don’t mind one bit, ’cause
while William is learnin’, so am I.
Standin’ there fannin’ – up and down, up and down – I come to know my ABCs and the sounds the letters make. I teached myself how to read words. Now, I can pick through
things I find to read – like throwed away newspapers, letters in the trash and books I slip off Mas’ Henley’s shelf. It scares me to know what I know sometimes.
Slaves aine s’posed to know how to read and write, but I do. Miz Lilly would fall down in a fit if she knew I had made myself a diary like the one she’s got on her bed table. It
don’t matter to me that hers is all wrapped in fine satin and got ribbons and beads on it and mine is just made up of papers I found in the trash and keeps tied together with a measure of
yarn. It’s a diary just the same. Mine. And I aim to write in it whenever I get a chance.
I got to be real particular and make sure nobody finds out though, ’cause if my mas’er finds out I would fall under the whip. Time and time again I done heard Mas’ Henley swear
that if he catches his slaves with learnin’ he’ll beat the skin off us, then sell our hides to slavers from the Deep South. He got the law on his side, too. Anybody found teachin’
a slave in the state of Virginia can be sent to jail. Sure! Wonder why the white folks is so determined to keep us from knowin’ things? What are they scared of?
Cain’t help but laugh a little bit when I think of what Mas’ Henley would think if he knew I could read better than his boy – and that it was his own wife that had teached
me!
It’s near dark. Pray Lord, don’t let nobody find my diary hid behind the loose brick in the outside chimney wall, back of the kitchen. Hope it can stay dry and safe until I can sneak
away to write again.
Next mornin’, first light
I got up extra early and churned the butter for breakfast and helped out in the kitchen the way Aunt Tee ’spects me to every mornin’. That give me a little time to
practice my writin’ at my spot by the big tree out behind the kitchen. Sunrise is a good writin’ hour – when all is still and quiet.
I want to tell somebody ’bout all the things I done learned for the past three years. Words got magic. Every time I read or write a word it puts a picture in my head.
Like when I write H-O-M-E I sees Belmont Plantation and all the people that live here. I sees the Big House where Mas’ Henley, Miz Lilly and William stay, livin’ easy. I sees the
separate kitchen with the attic above it where I sleep along with Aunt Tee, Uncle Heb and Hince. I sees the Quarters where my friends live, and beyond their cabins, the fields and orchards where
they work. I sees Aunt Tee cookin’ at the fireplace, and the stables where Hince takes care of Mas’ Henley’s prize racin’ horses, and the gardens and grounds that Uncle Heb
makes pretty. Home. That one li’l word shows me all of that.
Mas’ Henley thinks he owns everything here at Belmont, but he don’t own all of me – not really. I know, he can tell me to come and I got to come. When he say do this, I better
do it or he’ll put the whip to my back. But I done learned that he cain’t tell me what to think – and feel – and know. He look at me every day but he cain’t see
what’s in my head. He cain’t own what’s inside me. Nobody can.
Few days later
It rained all the long, long day. Everything is dampish and sticky. I wondered if my diary stayed dry in its hidin’ place. No need to worry, the stone covered it well.
Next day
It rained again today. When it rains hard, the field slaves don’t have to work. But our work in the kitchen goes on all the time – no days off.
Aunt Tee say I’m lucky, gettin’ picked to work in the Big House. I aine so sure. Livin’ right under Mas’ Henley and Miz Lilly aine so easy to me. We got to do their
biddin’ all hours of the night and day. But field work is hard – hard on your back, and in the summer, the heat is smothery. I guess what it comes to is bein’ a slave aine no good
no matter where they got you workin’.
Next day
I just wrote T-R-E-E. I see my tree – the live oak behind the kitchen where I come to write whenever I can slip away. I put a “s” on tree and now the word is
trees. The picture in my head turns to the apple orchards. In spring, the apple trees are filled with bright, white blossoms. I close my eyes and see the same trees in the green of summer and full
of good-tastin’ apples in the fall. I love playin’ with words – puttin’ letters in and takin’ letters out and lettin’ the pictures change.
Monday
I know it’s Monday, ’cause Miz Lilly comes to the kitchen every Monday mornin’ to pass out the flour, sugar and meal.
It’s so hard keepin’ secrets from the people I live with. Sometimes when I’m helpin’ Aunt Tee in the kitchen, I want to tell her ’bout my learnin’ so bad. But
I cain’t, even though she’s ’bout the closest thing to a mama I got since my own mama died five years ago. I don’t think she’d do a thing to hurt me, but she been real
close with Mas’ Henley all his life. Been his cook – since before he got married to Miz Lilly. Cain’t take the chance.
I want to tell Uncle Heb how I used his whittlin’ knife to make a writin’ pen out of a turkey quill. He’d be right proud of his Sunflower Girl, that’s what he calls me.
But he’s old now, forgetful. He might just slip up and tell the wrong person, who’d tell Mas’ Henley on me just to win a favour.
What I wouldn’t give to tell Hince how, whilst I’m dustin’, I slip ink out of Mas’ Henley’s study in a glass bottle. I can see him laughin’ so his eyes would
water up. I’d come more close to tellin’ Hince my secret than anybody – him bein’ like a big brother to me, always teasin’ and funnin’. Hince say I study on
things all the time – off by myself too much. He don’t understand I aine off to myself ’cause I want to be. I’m just bein’ careful-like, not wantin’ to be caught
practisin’ my writin’ and readin’.
If Mama was alive I could tell her. But Mama is gone, gone forever. Dead. So there’s nobody I trust enough to tell.
Two days later
It aine even summer yet, and William is fussin’ ’bout the heat. I am twelve and he is, too. But he seems so much younger. Maybe it’s ’cause William is
forever whinin’ ’bout something – ’specially at study time. I just stay quiet and listen, fannin’ – up and down, up and down. Aunt Tee say William is spoiled to
a stink. Mas’ Henley thinks his son is a little piece of heaven here on earth. ’Course, nobody else shares that notion, not even the boy’s mama.
Next day
There’s goin’ to be a dinner party in the Big House tonight. Aunt Tee sent me down to the Quarters to get Aggie and Eva Mae to help out in the kitchen. Whenever I
write F-R-I-E-N-D, I always put a “s” on it, ’cause I have two friends – Eva Mae’s daughter, Missy. She’s fifteen. And Aggie’s daughter, Wook. She’s
sixteen. They all growed up now, but we still be friends. Known them all my life. Cain’t even remember a time when I didn’t know them.
I’ve always been a little jealous ’cause Wook and Missy be closer to each other than they’s to me. And they each got their mamas with them. Missy’s daddy was Mas’
Henley’s best jockey, but he was throwed from his horse and killed a year or so back. Now Hince do all the ridin’. Eva Mae is still grievin’ and Missy misses her daddy much as I
miss my mama.
Wook is lucky to have a daddy like Rufus. Anybody who knows Rufus and Aggie likes them. Rufus came to Belmont ’bout two years ago from over in Hampton. He’s a strong man, big, but
not fat – not tall either. Uncle Heb say he’s a God-fearin’ man. Mas’ must have seen that Rufus was a natural-born leader, so he made Rufus the field boss.
A lot of women had their eyes on Rufus when he came, but he married Aggie, a big fine woman who had a daughter, but Rufus took Wook to be his very own daughter.
Aggie is goin’ to have a baby real soon. When her time come, Aunt Tee will do the birthin’. Aunt Tee is the plantation midwife – birthed Hince, Wook, Missy and even birthed me.
She look out after all the ’spectin’ women. She’s showed me the secrets to all her medicine recipes, but she will not let me go to a birthin’ with her. I want to know
’bout such things, but Aunt Tee say, it’s not for me. How do she know it’s not for me, if she aine never let me go?
Next day
Even though we don’t live but a short walk from each other, Wook and Missy and I don’t get to visit much durin’ the week – just on Saturday nights and
Sunday. I got to ’fess, I likes Wook better than Missy. Missy always pushed and hit us when she was young. Now that she’s a big girl, she push and hit with words. Just yesterday she
come sayin’ I thought I was somebody, ’cause I work in the Big House. Aggie and Wook work in the fields, hunched over all day in the hot sun. Aunt Tee say that’s enough to make a
body mean.
Friday
Fear of another frost is over, and the moon is full. Aunt Tee said it was time to plant the house garden behind the kitchen. The family will eat out of it all summer and well
into fall. Put in greens, goobers, cabbage, okra – all we could plant on that one spot. Takin’ care of the house garden is one job I don’t mind doin’. Its fun workin’
with the plants, watchin’ them grow and make food.
Next night
It stormed earlier tonight. Flashes of lightnin’ lit up the attic room. I tried not to be scared. Lord, I miss Mama. When I was little and it would storm, me and Mama
would hug up close and I wouldn’t be scared.
The rain has finally stopped, but it is still, hot and muggy – cain’t sleep. Besides, I woke up dreamin’ ’bout Mama again. I slipped quiet-like out of the kitchen,
careful not to wake nobody, so I could come write.
I am here at the live oak, my spot. Here I can let my tears drop like the rain and tell the moon ’bout my sadness. Writin’ ’bout my dream helps the hurt go away.
In my dream, I touched Mama’s round, brown face. Like she used to do, she wet the tip of her apron and dabbed away the sweat over my upper lip and on my forehead. I saw myself
readin’ to her. She smiled and clapped her hands. I heared her soft voice praise me the way Mas’ Henley do William when he gets the least li’l thing right.
“I knows so much more, Mama. Let me show you.” The soft in her face changed and her eyes held a warnin’ I couldn’t understand. “What’s wrong, Mama?” She
wanted to say somethin’, but she was pulled away into the dark by some powerful big hand. “Mama, wait.” She was gone, and I woke up to the cold, hurtin’ truth. Mama is
dead.
Next day
I slipped off to visit with Missy and Wook today. I found them ’mongst the young tobacco plants, ’longside Rufus. I was so glad to see them. We used to have a great
time together, playin’ games. Then Mas’ put Missy and Wook to work in the fields, and I got put to work in the Big House. Wook’s face looks tired and drawn. All Missy wanted to
talk ’bout was how cute she thought Hince was. Cute? Hince? Missy got eyes for Hince? She did say somethin’ that made good sense. She say that Rufus had asked Mas’ Henley if he
could hold a service at Eastertime. I’m surprised. Mas’ aine in the habit of doin’ things nice for nobody less’n it serves him.