Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons Read online

  Those set to the task of making the slaves look presentable did not bother with me or Obour. John Avery came by and scowled at us as we sat in a corner on some hemp.

  "You want them brought out?" one of his men asked.

  He shrugged. "Two small girls. What can they bring?"

  All this was translated to us after they passed us by. And we breathed sighs of relief. We would not be sold this day!

  But then, later, when the sale started, they brought us out anyway. All was confusion and fear and noise as, one by one, the nigras were put on a block for display and John Avery turned them around and talked about them. Men came to stand around them, to touch and feel them, to open their mouths, to pinch and peer. Then the bidding commenced.

  I clung to Obour. What would I do if they put me up there with everyone gaping at me?

  I should have starved myself to death, I decided. And Obour with me.

  The slave market was next door to John Avery's distillery. And the sale had been advertised. So people came not only to buy but also to see what manner of cargo Captain Quinn had brought this time. And they came for entertainment.

  One by one the cargo of Captain Quinn's ship was sold. Money exchanged hands. The satisfied customers left with their purchases in tow.

  The sun was high. Obour and I cringed in a corner in some shade.

  Then, of a sudden, a man stepped forward. "How much for that child?"

  John Avery was taken with surprise. He made no reply. "Which? There are two," he replied.

  "The smaller one. My wife is in need of a domestic."

  John Avery laughed. "She'll not get any work out of that one. All skin and bones, she is. Now, if you'll come back tomorrow, I'll have another lot for sale. More costly, of course, but better suited to your purposes."

  I did not understand much of this, of course, but I did know the stranger was gesturing at me. Tall and well dressed he was. And I, who knew nothing of the manners or customs of this America—even I sensed that he had dignity and kindness. And something else.

  Power. Not the kind Captain Quinn had, where he shouted things and had men quivering. Not like first mate Kunkle's, either, whose power was in his whip.

  This man had no need to either shout or carry a whip. There was power in his demeanor. People stepped aside for him. Yet his voice was soft.

  "I want that one," he said. "How much?"

  "Two pounds sterling," Avery told him.

  "Bring her forth," the man said.

  John Avery fastened a rope around my waist.

  "No," I said in my own language, "I don't want to leave Obour." Our hands reached out to each other.

  And, strangely, then Obour smiled. "Go," she said. "You'll do well. He is a man of good parts."

  "But I want to stay with you!"

  "Don't worry for me. I'll find a master. And someday we'll see each other again. Be of good heart. Don't dishonor your family."

  I was turned around then by John Avery. "Mind your manners," he said sternly. "Here is your new master." His words meant nothing to me. His gestures did.

  I looked, for the first time, up into the blue, smiling eyes of John Wheatley.

  "What's her name?" he asked.

  John Avery shrugged. "Don't know. But she and that other one over there are the last of the lot from the Phillis"

  "Phillis," John Wheatley said. "Her name is Phillis, then."

  John Avery shrugged.

  "I'd like to see the other one," another man said.

  "You'll find plenty of work in her," John Avery said.

  Then my new master held out his hand. I heard the other man say Tanner. They knew each other. They talked for a while. I heard the man who had said the word Tanner now say the word "Newport."

  I was shivering from fear, though the sun was hot. My lips were parched. My head throbbed. I was hungry and dirty. And I shrank in shame before these well-turned-out men who moved about with such ease and grace in this fearful place called America.

  The men parted with smiles and good words. Then my master called out to someone. And my fear vanished. Out of a fearful thing with wheels pulled by creatures I'd never seen before came a young man with skin the color of mine.

  "Prince, look what I found. She looks starving. Come, carry her into the carriage and we'll get her home."

  "Lawd awmighty," Prince said.

  He looked to be about seventeen. He was garbed in Koomi clothing and he seemed very much at home in this place.

  In a moment Prince scooped me up in his arms. "Lawd awmighty," he said again. "She be light as a feather. But shakin', Mr. Wheatley. This child shakin' like a leaf."

  "Get the blanket," came the reply.

  I was put in the thing with wheels by the one called Prince, who then climbed up on a seat and yelled at the creatures. They started off.

  I sank into the seat in my blanket. I couldn't stop shaking, it seemed. But one good thing: Obour had been sold, too. She would have a home. But where? Then I remembered two words. Tanner. And Newport.

  I kept repeating them over and over in my mind as I fell asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  "Jesus loves you, chile. Hold still now, while I make you presentable."

  I didn't know who this Jesus person was that the large woman spoke of as she scrubbed me in a copper tub in a corner of the kitchen. But her skin was like mine. Her language was peppered with some words I could understand. And some I couldn't. So I thought Jesus was the name of Mr. Wheatley.

  He had turned me over to Aunt Cumsee immediately. I heard the words "feed her" and "evening prayers." Did that mean he loved me? I was too spent to care. So I allowed Aunt Cumsee to wash and diy me. Then came the soft cotton garment. It had a fluffy neck. All the while, Aunt Cumsee told me about Jesus. And how he had died for me.

  How could he have brought me home from the slave market if he was dead? I put it down to weariness and drank the warm milk she put in front of me. There was ham, too, and bread. I ate hungrily. If this Jesus could manage all this and live in this big house, it was all right with me. Even if he was dead.

  "How is our little newcomer faring, Aunt Cumsee?"

  The woman who came into the room was buxom and ever so pretty. She wore a gray gown with rose fluff on it She had a round face and her skin was like ivory. Her lips were the color of the fluff, and always ready in a smile. But it was her eyes that held me.

  They were of the bluest blue, and made you think she was just about to tell you something wonderful.

  "She be just about ready, Miz Wheatley."

  Wheatley. This was the wife of Jesus, who loved me!

  "Oh, she's just darling. Poor little thing. We're going to have prayers now. Bring her in."

  "Yessum."

  I was led across the wide hall, past drawings of people that hung on the wall, windows covered with shining cloth, tall doors trimmed in heavy wood. There was another high arrangement of wood that curved upward. Where did it go? Surely these people were gods.

  "Come along, chile." Aunt Cumsee tugged my hand. "You must look sharp and learn some manners."

  "Well, what a difference! Bring her in!" Mr. Wheatley, or Jesus, stood up and held out his hands as I walked across the soft floor. I looked down. It had flowers on it. I reached down to pluck them, but they lay flat. I knelt, staring at them.

  Everyone laughed.

  "Silly thing. She's trying to pick the flowers off the carpet." The girl said this. She was young and not as pretty as her mother.

  "Hush, Mary. You never know when to keep a still tongue in your head, do you?"

  I looked up. The boy was sitting with a flat object that had leaves in it in his lap. When he set it aside I saw the leaves had squiggle markings on them. His voice was deep and sure. He came over to me and raised me up to stand. "What's her name?" he asked.

  "Phillis," Jesus told him.

  "Come, let us start prayers," the lovely woman said.

  The boy took me on his lap. "Hush," he told me. "These are
evening prayers."

  I did not understand the words, but I understood that I must be quiet and still. It was not difficult in the protection of his arms. He had white fluff at his neck and wrists. He wore breeches the color of the sun when it goes to sleep. He smelled very good. And when no one was looking, he took something out of his pocket and slipped it into my mouth.

  It tasted so lovely and sweet!

  I fell asleep in his arms. Vaguely, I heard the family's murmurings to their god. And I heard the mention of this Jesus who was so important to them. But I saw no water, no fountain. So I could not figure out how they could pray.

  Then their murmurings stopped and the boy carried me out of the room. I opened my eyes for a spell. The house was getting dark. There were blazing candles set around, on tables and in holders on the walls. Then we started going up the piles of wood. Climbing.

  I whimpered in fear.

  "Hush, it will be all right," the boy said. The sureness of his tone becalmed me. So I closed my eyes and drifted again to sleep.

  It was the first time I'd felt safe since I slept on my pallet at home. Now I was set down on another pallet. It was very soft. And I was covered.

  "Sleep well," the boy said.

  In the morning he was gone. I thought I had dreamed him. In the morning there was only Mary, the girl. And she was angry.

  "She cries at night, Mother. She wakes in fits and yells. I can't have her in my room! 1 tried to put her on the chamber pot and she wet the floor! Do something else with her!"

  I was shamed. I had done wrong. I had not known what the chamber pot was for. My soft garment was wet and smelled.

  Aunt Cumsee had to take me in hand and wash me again and give me clean clothes. I stayed with her in the kitchen.

  By the time of the next full moon, I knew what the chamber pot was for. And I'd also learned the other important things I needed to learn to survive.

  The blocks of wood that went upward were called stairs.

  The boy and girl were in their seventeenth summer. And they had been born at the same time. In my land this was considered great good fortune. And benevolence from the gods.

  Here it was called twins.

  The boy's name was Nathaniel. He went out of the house every morning to a place called Latin School.

  "His mother wants him to be a man of God," Aunt Cumsee told me. "But I think he wants to be a merchant."

  Daily, I was learning their language from her. One word at a time—but everyone seemed surprised that I was learning so fast.

  Mary did not want me back in her room.

  "Someone must train her, Mary. I want to make a Christian of her," Mrs. Wheatley said.

  "I'll take her only if you give her to me as my personal servant. All my friends have Negro servants."

  Mrs. Wheatley looked perplexed. But she agreed. "Remember kindness, dear. Her little soul belongs to God."

  As far as Mary was concerned, my little soul, and my body, belonged to her. From that moment on I was at her beck and call. And kindness had naught to do with it.

  All day I fetched for her, picked up her discarded clothing, held her things, followed her around. By the time of the next full moon, I learned that not to do what Mary asked, when Mary asked it, earned me an immediate slap.

  She washed away all her meanness, of course, when her mother was in view. But her mother was not often around. And Nathaniel came home from school late in the afternoon. After the evening meal he retired to his chamber to pore over his books.

  I knew they were called books because Nathaniel told me.

  It was he who taught me to climb the stairs. And to eat properlike, with a pewter spoon.

  I was no stranger to some of the food they ate—fish, chicken, pork. But I knew naught about potatoes, cider, frothy syllabub, cakes. Or tea. They seemed absolutely demented about their tea.

  Their customs were strange to me. They sat at tables to eat. Bells called them to their place of worship. They had a small leopard that slept in the barn and betimes came into the house. Mary picked him up and stroked him. He was part of the family. They called him Caesar.

  When Mary went out with her mother, I was put to small tasks with Aunt Cumsee. There was another woman with skin like mine in the house, called Sulie. She was mean and sour, and I think she was jealous of me.

  Aunt Cumsee said that Sulie didn't love Jesus.

  By the time of the next full moon I was learning to do small stitches on a sampler. Mrs. Wheatley taught me.

  I sometimes followed Prince around in the yard when he cut wood or harnessed the horses. "Lawd awmighty," Prince would say, "you so little, you likely be stepped on. Mind yourself."

  I discovered that Prince's Lawd awmighty was the same as Aunt Cumsee's Jesus. And neither one of them was Mr. Wheatley.

  Jesus was another name for their god. And he needed, very badly, to be loved.

  I felt a kinship with this Jesus. Especially when Aunt Cumsee told me he'd been born in the middle of the animals, because he was poor. And I had been brought here, to America, so he could save me.

  "Save me from what?" I asked.

  "From the devil," she said. "From hellfire." She proceeded, then, to tell me about hellfire. And how I would burn in it if I didn't love Jesus. She spoke so plain, I started to cry. And I was hard put to stop. I didn't want to burn in fire.

  She took me on her lap and quieted me.

  "Why couldn't I stay home and be saved?" I asked.

  "Because then you wouldn't have known about Him."

  Well, I could have foregone the knowing. Especially when it meant seeing my mother thrown overboard, and seeing grown men be eaten by sharks, others go mad, and still others be flogged. I could have done without all the sickness and fear I'd suffered. I slipped off her lap.

  "Where you goin'?"

  "To the barn. I want to see where this Jesus was born."

  Aunt Cumsee laughed then and slapped her knees with her hands. "Can't see, chile. He was born far across the sea."

  I was astonished. "He wasn't born here in America?"

  "No."

  "Then why was I brought here to be saved?"

  She had no answer for that. So I asked her another question.

  "If he wasn't born here, if he was born poor, why are these people so rich? Why does everyone say they are favored?"

  Again she had no answer. Instead she told me she was born across the sea, too, a long time ago.

  "What sacrifices must we make to him?" I asked Aunt Cumsee. "Goats? Or will small animals do?"

  She looked at me with tears in her eyes. "In time, chile, you'll see," she said. And she said it sadly.

  By the time of the next full moon Mrs. Wheatley told me she was pleased with me. Never had anyone learned their language so fast. "I will make a true Christian of you. You don't have to fear Jesus," she said. "Do you understand?"

  I understood. The only ones I had to fear were Sulie and Mary Wheatley.

  Chapter Eight

  We were in the front parlor. It was one of the first cold days of the year. At home we would be in the rainy season.

  It was raining now, but Aunt Cumsee said the rain had snow in it. "Wait till you sees snow, chile," she said, "just wait."

  Mrs. Wheatley was out, "making calls." Mary and her giddy friends were taking their ease in the back parlor.

  "Where's Nathaniel?" one of the girls asked. "Shouldn't he be home from lessons by now?"

  "At the Salutation, likely," Mary said, "having a cup of flip."

  Another girl had a book.

  "Oh, a novel!" Mary squealed as her friend showed it around. "Don't tell my mother! She won't allow me to read novels."

  I did not understand what a novel was. But I did understand the words "Don't tell my mother." Mary said them often when with her friends.

  How I envied her her mother. How I ached with longing, seeing them together. How I wished I had my mother to tell things to. How I missed my father, the great hunter.

  I
was trained up by now to help when Aunt Cumsee served tea. She poured it into cups for the girls. I was expected to walk around and offer a little tray of cakes. And another of purple grapes.

  Aunt Cumsee left the room and I walked from one to the other, offering the cakes.

  "Curtsy when you do that," Mary said sharply.

  I just stared at her.

  "You know how. I showed you."

  "Nigras can't curtsy," one of the girls said.

  The others giggled at the very thought.

  "She knows how," Mary insisted. "She's just lazy. And spoiled. Curtsy, I say, Phillis. Now!"

  Still holding the tray of cakes, I grabbed my skirt with one hand. Then I tried to bend my knee. But I lost my balance and the cakes went toppling off the tray to the floor.

  "See what you've done!" And there was a sharp slap on my arm from Mary. "Pick them up!"

  I did so.

  "Are you allowed to hit her, Mary?" one young woman asked, wide eyed. "My mama doesn't hold with hitting the nigras."

  "My mama says you shouldn't belabor a point with them," another chimed in. "They are, after all, like children."

  "She's mine," Mary said. "She was given to me. And it's my job to train her. Mama wants to make a Christian of her. To what aim, I don't know. The little noodlehead can't even follow simple directions." She sighed. "I try with her. I know I shouldn't hit, but I am so vexed with her. She keeps me awake, crying at night. And during the day, she's useless. But there is one thing she can do, isn't there, Phillis?"

  My heart fell inside me.

  "Dance," Mary said. "Like they made them do on the ship. My mama is friends with Mrs. Fitch, whose husband owns the ship. She told Mama about it. They whipped the slaves if they didn't dance." Mary's eyes glittered with mischief. "Dance for my friends, Phillis."

  Tears came to my eyes. Dance. All I could think of was my mother, dancing with the others, jeered at by the crew. Obour and I had never been made to dance. But I knew how. Twice, Mary had made me dance for her, holding a little switch in her hand to threaten me. I had resolved I would never dance for her again.