Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons Read online

"Least she's got a way," Prince replied.

  "Ain't natural." Sulie spoke as she flung food at the chickens. "She's gettin' above herself. It'll bring the wrath of the Lord down on us all."

  "Leave the Lord outa this," Prince told her. "You is just jealous, Sulie."

  "Got nuthin' to be jealous about." She finished her chore and came up the back steps to stand beside me. Hatred runs deep in Sulie. She is thirty and blessed with a bosom and looks I do not have. Yet she outright hates me, ever since my poetry writing got me excused from household chores.

  "Aunt Cumsee gotta work twice as hard since you ain't in the kitchen no more. Last year or two didn't matter none. Now she gettin' old."

  "I said leave her be, Sulie." Prince came out from around the horse and chaise.

  "You're the one best leave her be. 'Lessen you're plannin' on havin' her sit up next to you on the carriage seat agin today. I heard Mrs. Wheatley say you do that agin and you'll be sold off."

  Prince moved toward her. I stepped down quickly, between them. It wouldn't have been the first time they'd come to blows. Both would be punished if that happened. The Wheatleys do not hold with servants fighting, as do many other families in Boston.

  Yesterday I'd been sent to call on Mercy Otis Warren, who wrote plays. The weather took a turn for the worse and my mistress sent Prince to fetch me home.

  "It was my idea to sit up on the front seat next to Prince," I told Sulie.

  "Then you should know better." She spit at me. "Fool girl, got him in trouble. You heard what the Missus called him. 'Saucy varlet.' 'Impudent,' to have you sit next to him. You git him sold off and you'll answer to me," she hissed. "I'll kill you. I'll put poison in your chocolate. I know where to get it. I know Robin on the wharf."

  "You crazy, you!" Prince lunged for her. "Doan even say such!"

  To make matters worse, she was smitten with Prince. And he not with her. So she was jealous of me on that score, too. She hated me because Prince and I were friends.

  Sulie pushed past me and went into the house.

  "Doan mind her none," Prince said. "She's crazy!"

  "Does she know Robin?" My voice shook.

  "Everybody does. Doan mean nuthin'. Robin learned his lesson."

  Robin does odd jobs for Dr. Clark, who owns the apothecary shoppe on the wharf. In the fifties, when the notorious slaves Mark and Phillis murdered their master, John Codman, it was said they got the arsenic from Robin.

  Mark and Phillis were hanged and burned. People still talk about it in Boston. Mark's skeleton still hangs in a cage on Charlestown Common.

  Robin has never been brought to trial. He still roams the wharves, dressed like a dandy. What lesson has he learned? I wanted to ask.

  "She just takin' on 'cause she be jealous," Prince said. "You please these mens this mornin' wif your white people's learnin', and your words be in a book. She heard Aunt Cumsee say it."

  "Maybe she's right, Prince. Maybe I am getting above myself. And it will bring the wrath of the Lord down on us all."

  "She don't care a fig for the Lord, 'ceptin' when it please her."

  "Surely Sulie's right about Aunt Cumsee. She is getting on." I minded how cumbersome she'd seemed while serving breakfast this morning. "Threescore and ten Aunt Cumsee is now. All that lifting and carrying could kill her."

  "Only thing that'll kill her would be if'n you didn't make use of your mind. It's all she talks 'bout, Phillis, you makin' this book ... An' I do the liftin' and carryin' for her."

  "If I make this book, everything will change, Prince."

  He moved back to the horse and chaise. "I know. No more you'll be plain ol' Phillis. You'll be miss Fancy Phillis then, and you'll never talk to Prince no more."

  He was making sport of me. But tears came to my eyes just the same. "I'll always be friends with you, Prince. And I'll always speak to you. I promise."

  "Phillis!" Mrs. Wheatley came out the back door. "I slept late. Come, let me wish you well."

  I ran to her. She embraced me in the folds of her sky blue morning gown. Her delicate face, like a flower about to open to the sun, closed with distress at seeing me talking with Prince. But all she said was, "Phillis, dear, do your best this day. My prayers are with you."

  I smiled. "I'll make you proud," I said. Then I got into the chaise with Nathaniel, who had just come out behind his mother. And, two-faced wretch that I am, I did not look at Prince as he hopped up front to drive.

  "I noticed you were conversing with Prince," Nathaniel said to me as we rode through Boston's busy streets.

  "Prince is my friend."

  "Be careful. For one thing, it displeases Mother. For another, he has unsavory friends. Need I say more?"

  "No." I've long known that Prince is running with the Sons of Liberty. We all know. The Wheatleys do not question him about it. Though they keep their own counsel, it seems to me that they have leanings toward these new Patriots and countenance Prince's activities.

  Nathaniel does not. As an upcoming merchant, stepping into his father's shoes, he is still not declaring himself.

  "He's my friend," I said again.

  Nathaniel sighed. "Just don't hurt Mother," he said.

  Chapter Three

  Province House. The sight of it made me weak with fear. It is three stories built of brick, laid in English bond. It has great dormers and is topped by a tall weathervane that is a statue of an Indian with a bow and arrow. There is a brick walk in front. And sentries standing guard.

  There is power here. The power of wealth earned through accomplishment and strength.

  Yes, I thought as the carriage drew up on the roundabout, I want to be part of that power. I want my poetry published, so I can be a true daughter of Phoebus, Greek god of the sun. And not a shadow, existing forever only by the leave of someone else.

  Nathaniel helped me from the carriage. A servant came rushing forward to see us down the path and through the English gardens.

  Right into a courtyard we went, where there was much greenery and flowers. Never had I seen such a garden! I cried out with joy. And in the middle of it, a fountain. Water gushed. I started toward it.

  Nathaniel put a restraining hand on my arm.

  There were benches and a table nearby. All that was missing was the sun, for though it was mid-May the day was overcast.

  The servant bade us sit. Another brought a silver tray of tea and cake.

  "Are they ready to receive us?" Nathaniel asked the servant. I could tell he wanted me out of there, away from that fountain.

  At that very moment a tall, elegantly turned-out young man came from the house. "Nathaniel!"

  "John!" Nathaniel got to his feet. "Phillis, you remember Mr. Hancock," he said to me.

  Indeed, I did. I stood up and curtsied.

  He is tall, elegantly dressed, and possesses such grace of movement that the very air around him seems rarefied by his presence.

  He is very rich. Everyone in Boston knows him on sight. He had been most kind to me on past visits to the Wheatley house. He took a chair and gestured that we should sit. "Phillis, how has this rogue friend of mine been treating you? Kindly, I hope."

  I smiled and said yes.

  "And are you ready, then, to walk into the lion's den?"

  "I am ready in the most humble manner, sir."

  "Are you." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the knees of his satin breeches. "Phillis, before you go inside I would advise you of something."

  His face is lean and has about it that look of quiet strength that bespeaks breeding. I have learned, by now, that it is a commodity only money can create, yet that no money can buy.

  "Phillis, since the sixteenth century, Europeans have wondered whether or not the African species of man could ever create formal literature. Or master the arts and sciences. If it is determined that they can, then it will also be determined that they belong to the same family as the European variety of man."

  "And if not?" I asked.

  "Then it will be a
scertained that they are destined, forever, to be slaves."

  I studied my hands in my lap. His gaze was fixed on me. I raised my eyes to meet his. They were warm and brown.

  "So you can see that a lot rides on your answers to us this day, Phillis."

  I thought of Sulie, mean as a hornet, ready to kill me if I caused Prince to be sold. I thought of Robin, dressed in satins and roaming the wharves; Robin, who sold the arsenic that killed a man, and thrived from the doing.

  Could they create formal literature? Master the arts and sciences?

  For I am doing this for them, as well as for everyone else of my race.

  "These men inside have power and far-reaching influence," Mr. Hancock was saying. "Mayhap, before you decide to come inside, you should have more time to reflect on whether you want to go through with this examination."

  I looked at Nathaniel. He returned my gaze. "Whatever you wish to do, Phillis," he said. "No one is pushing you."

  What I wished to do was throw up. My head was swimming. I felt nauseous.

  Mr. Hancock stood up. "I would suggest we leave her alone to think, Nathaniel," he said.

  It is not fair! Not fair that the whole future of my race should be put on my shoulders. I am only seventeen! How did it come to this?

  I put my arms over my middle as I sat in the chair and bent over, as if taken with gout of the stomach.

  All I ever wanted to do was write some words down on paper. The fact that I could do so never ceased being a matter of incredulity to me.

  I love the way the words look, all of a piece on the parchment beneath my hands, weaving my thoughts into a tapestry, like a spider weaving a web.

  I love the way I can make them rhyme. I love the smell of the very ink I use.

  Most of all, I love that when I write I am not skinny and black and a slave. My writing has no color. It has no skin at all, truth to tell.

  When I write I am the real me.

  I am whole, beautiful, alive, filled with a sense of pleasure and worth. Why can't they all just leave it be?

  I was supposed to come here just to answer questions about those poems. Show these men that I do, indeed, know Greek and Latin. And all the other lessons Nathaniel has taught me.

  Now they have turned it all into something else.

  Now the future of my race depends on my answers this day. Oh, it isn't fair!

  Mother! Suddenly I wanted her so badly I felt the hole inside me I always feel, wanting her. Because my best memories cut sharp. And they make me bleed.

  The morning I was taken. The vision of her pouring out water before the sun each morning. And the bittersweet memories of what happened on the ship.

  "Mother," I said to the hole, "tell me what to do ... As you told me on the ship to stay quiet and make myself small and sleep anywhere and eat what I was given and never make a sound."

  Mother, what shall I do?

  I am ashamed to admit it, but I cried, sitting there on that bench in that lovely garden. And then, after a moment, something happened.

  The sun came out for the first time that day. A clearing came to the sky and the sun shone down, sparkling on the greenery around me. And on the water in the fountain.

  I knew what I must do. I stopped crying and stood up.

  On the table was a silver teapot. I picked it up from its silver tray. The tea was cold by now. Slowly I poured it out into the grass. Then I took the teapot over to the fountain, knelt, and filled it with water.

  And, as I had seen my mother do so many times as a child, as I had done in the fountain the Wheatleys once had in their garden—before Nathaniel tore it out to stop me—I poured the water out, slowly, back into the fountain, while facing the sun.

  Something else happened then. I felt like my mother. I was her for a few minutes as I poured the water. And when it was all poured out of the teapot, I felt becalmed and strong. Back to the chair I went. I set the teapot on the tray.

  My mind was clear now, cleansed. And I let the thoughts pour into it, like water into the fountain.

  Chapter Four

  JANUARY 1761

  We lived near the River Senegal on the Grain Coast. And if the leopard hadn't come, I would still be living there.

  But he came, to steal the antelope my father had killed for us, and that hung outside our house.

  My father was known as a great hunter. We never lacked for food. Mostly he was known for hunting the black-legged mongoose. These creatures plagued us. They seemed tame and children would try to catch them. But they would bite, and many times the bitten child would die.

  Other people in my village depended on my father to catch these creatures. Also he hunted the African wild dog. And die bat-eared fox.

  My father's brother, Dahobar, was jealous because of the name my father had gained as a hunter. And because both brothers were rival chiefs. Dahobar had slaves. Not only that, he sold his own people to the traders for the white man's presents.

  From the River Senegal to the River Congo, the slave traders' great ships came with brightly colored cloth, beads, rum, and most of all, cowrie shells.

  A man's standing as a chief depended upon how many cowrie shells he had.

  My father had no slaves. We were farmers. He and all the people in our tribe raised rice and maize and cattle. But we had muskets, even like the Wheatleys have here in Boston. Muskets and gunpowder we had, brass pans and kettles, red cloth, scissors, needles, colored thread. My father bartered for these things at market in exchange for what he raised.

  Well, what happened is that the leopard that tooK our antelope had to be shot. So my father, the great hunter, went out to shoot it one day, took aim, missed, and shot a man instead.

  My father had never missed his mark. Nobody knows what happened. To make matters worse, the man he shot was from Dahobar's tribe.

  My father was brought up before one of Dahobar's tribunals and sentenced to be sold into slavery.

  A ship with great masts lay riding at anchor in the River Senegal. White slavers had rowed ashore to visit Dahobar.

  My father was taken away from the tribunal to be sold, but he escaped and came back to our village. His warriors were placed on guard. The ship left the River Senegal without him.

  We children were not allowed to venture from our home for fear the slavers or, worse yet, Dahobar would seize us.

  My friend Obour lived not far away, near the rice fields. To be together, for sport and to earn a few cowries ourselves, we sometimes worked at scaring the birds away from the grain.

  But now I was not allowed to leave my home to meet Obour anymore. Kidnappers hid in the thickets along the creeks and they kidnapped children as well.

  Obour worked hard chasing away birds to help her family. And I knew she would be in the rice fields early of a morning. So one morning I sneaked out before the sun was up and made my way along the familiar paths and roads just to see Obour.

  I would be back before the sun favored us. Before my mother poured the water out of the stone jar to honor the sun.

  There Obour was in the rice fields, busy chasing birds, laughing and enjoying herself as she always did. When I splashed through the creek, she saw me coming and raised her arms.

  It was still not light, but I could see her clearly. And she could see me.

  Then, as I ran to her, another figure leaped out and grabbed her.

  Before I got to her, she was struggling in the grip of the strong arms of a large dark man, a kidnapper. Likely one of Dahobar's men.

  I fought him for Obour. And for myself. I scratched and bit, hit him with sticks. All I knew was that he was hurting my friend.

  Soon, without my understanding it, another person was fighting him. My mother. She had seen me leave the house and had followed me.

  The man pushed me and Obour aside. He hit my mother in the head with a big stick. Then, even while we clung to his legs and still attacked him, he tied my mother with grass rope, and then he tied us.

  Some other children who had
just come into the fields to work saw what was happening and ran for help. But it was too late.

  By the time help came the three of us were gone. The man who captured us took us a distance, to meet with evil companions.

  One was my father's brother, Dahobar. He grinned when he saw us. "The great hunter," he scoffed. "He may have run from me, but now I have hunted what is his. And he will never see you again."

  We were taken on a long walk with Dahobar and his men, through the green forests to the ocean, where a great ship waited in the distance with its sails furled.

  And the man I was to come to know as Captain Quinn.

  Chapter Five

  I had never seen the ocean before. I wept when I saw it. Fear swooped down upon me like a great bird, like a roc. Its talons clutched at my heart.

  I was accustomed to the river. It went by us silently, in one direction. You knew what it was about all the time. Rivers play no tricks on you.

  The ocean was a two-headed beast. It went both ways. First it came at us, attacking like the leopard, making great roaring noises and threatening to eat us alive. Then it retreated, creeping backward, making smaller hissing noises. Only to return with even greater force.

  So much openness! The sun on the white soil hurt my eyes. Where were the friendly green trees of the forests that always protected us?

  Obour and I clung together beside my mother.

  We had marched for near a whole day to get here, tied one to the other. We had been given only some thin meal and tepid water. And I was tired.

  Twenty others were with us, men, women, and children. Some we knew, some we did not know. But when we got to the ocean, the men in our group started snapping their fingers.

  This was a bad sign. It meant there was no hope. And then Dahobar ordered those men who had snapped their fingers to be put in irons.

  Soon we saw the great canoes coming toward us on the water.

  "Kroomen," one of the men with us whispered. The word went round and round amongst us.

  Kroomen were a tribe that lived on the Guinea Coast. They made their living by fishing. Until they found they could make a better living carrying people who were sold into slavery from the shore to the ships. They were the only tribe who knew how to get their canoes out over the great crashing waves, which even the sailors on board the ships could not manage.