FROM WHERE I WAS SITTING, I LOOKED UP AT THE horse standing there patiently waiting for me.
Finally I got up. But instead of getting back on the horse, I stepped back up on the boardwalk and started walking along it and looking into some of the other shops. My mind was still full, and I just wanted to know what it felt like to walk through town along a boardwalk like white people did, just taking my time and seeing what was in the store windows.
I passed a linen store. Two ladies were just coming out. Not knowing what to do, I half smiled at them as I walked by. They seemed surprised to see me and moved away to the other side of the walkway, as if they didn’t want to get too close to me. I reckon I had been riding all morning. Maybe I smelled bad, though I couldn’t tell myself. They said a few unkind things as they walked away. But I didn’t mind. They couldn’t hurt me and I was free, so what did I care what they said?
There were other people about as I walked too, and most of them acted the same, either saying something like, “Get off the walk, girl!” or “This ain’t no place for you!” or else just moving to the other side to avoid getting too close to me. I pretended not to notice and just kept going, but after a while it kinda stung to hear what they were saying. Even when I was a slave, nobody said those kinds of things to me. Maybe the white folks were mad to think that I was now free just like they were and could walk anywhere I wanted, even right through a town full of white folks.
I passed a baker’s shop, and for the first time almost wished I hadn’t spent the nine cents on the handkerchief. There were some mighty good smells coming from inside!
But I kept going and came to a store with some equipment in it, then walked past some offices, and then a bank. Across the street was a saloon with music and loud voices coming from the open swinging doors. I had no interest in getting too close to it, so I turned at the bank and went along the walk in the other direction from it.
People kept staring at me and sometimes saying rude things. I still hadn’t seen any other coloreds. Maybe I was the only black person in this town. Maybe that’s why none of them seemed to like me being there.
Up ahead I saw a hotel and restaurant. There were people walking in and out of it. I started to turn around, but then I saw a notice in the window and for some reason it drew my attention. I walked toward it, curious to see if I could read it. I stopped in front of the window and slowly tried to make sense of the words. I was surprised at how easy it was. It only took me a few minutes before I knew what the whole thing said:
Wanted: white maid, 25 cents a day plus room and board.
Wanted: colored girl for cleaning, 10 cents a day plus r & b.
I turned and slowly started walking away on the boardwalk back in the direction of the bank. But the words from the sign kept repeating themselves over and over in my mind.
Wanted … colored girl … ten cents a day …
What if—my brain was spinning around and around with the thought of it!—what if I was to … could someone like me really get a job? One that actually paid money? That was more than Josepha got in a day. If I took a job that paid ten cents a day, would that be what I was worth?
All of a sudden I found myself turning around and walking back, and then I was walking into the hotel, walking right past the white ladies in fancy dresses and hats, and past the white men in black suits. I walked up to the counter and stood waiting there till the man behind it noticed me. I reckon the work dress I was wearing wasn’t none too pretty, and maybe I did smell, for all I knew. But I didn’t care. They weren’t asking for somebody who smelled nice and was dressed pretty, but for someone who knew how to work. And that’s something I knew how to do all right.
Finally the man looked over the counter at me. He just stood there and stared.
“I … I want to ask about that sign you got in the window,” I said, “saying you’re wanting a colored girl.”
“I’ll get the manager,” he said, then turned and left.
My heart was pounding, but I stood there and waited and tried to calm my insides down.
A minute or two later the same man appeared again from through the door where he’d gone. He was followed by another man, a little older and half bald and kinda fat, though nowhere near as large as Josepha. He was wearing a shiny black vest and a funny-looking thin string tie around his neck and down the front.
“What’s your name, girl?” he said when he got to me. He was just like all the white people in this town—he didn’t seem to know how to smile.
“Mary Ann,” I said.
“Mary Ann what?”
“Jukes.”
“Where you from? Who was your master?”
“Master McSimmons, sir.”
The man nodded.
“You still living there?” he said.
“No, sir.”
“Where, then?”
“Uh … somewhere else … where I went after I left Master McSimmons,” I said.
The man looked at me a little suspicious. “Well, I don’t suppose that matters. You know how to work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know how to keep your mouth shut and mind your betters?”
“Uh … yes, sir.”
“And do what you’re told?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come along, then, I’ll show you the room.”
He came out from behind the counter and walked through the hotel. I followed him. We walked through a long hallway and pretty soon came out at the back of the building and outside. I kept following until we came to a little building out at the back. We went through a door into another dark hallway, walked almost all the way to the other end, turned a corner, went up a narrow stairway, and then stopped. He opened a door and walked in.
“This is where you’ll stay,” he said. “You got any things with you, put them in here. Then come to the front desk and I’ll put you to work.”
I glanced around. The room was so tiny, there was only room for the bed against the small wall and a tiny table and chair. It didn’t look too clean, and from where I was standing I thought the mattress on the bed was stuffed with straw, like my old one had been at the McSimmons colored town. The place didn’t particularly strike me as where I wanted to live for the next few years, even for ten cents a day.
“I don’t know if I want to take the job yet, sir,” I said.
“What! An uppity one, are you? I should’ve seen it in that ugly face of yours. What are you wasting my time for!”
“I’m sorry, sir. I just wanted to know about it.”
“Get out of here, and don’t show your face around this hotel again unless you’re ready to go to work.”
He huffed out of the room and down the stairs, leaving me to find my own way back out to the street in front.