AFTER A WEEK OF KEEPING FIRES GOING ALL THE time in the main house and in one of the slave cabins, Katie said to me, “This is too much work. We’re going to run out of wood and kindling and matches. Why do we have to keep doing this and putting clothes out on the line if nobody’s watching?”
“ ’Cause we don’t know when somebody might be,” I said.
“Why don’t we just get it ready, then, and do it when we need to?”
“Because by the time they come, it’d be too late. We couldn’t do it after they were already here.”
Then suddenly it dawned on me that we had a big problem—what if anyone caught sight of Emma and William in the main house? Then we’d be in a fix for sure! The crazy way Emma carried on, no one would ever believe her for a house slave.
“Miss Katie,” I said, “what are we gonna do about Emma if someone comes?”
“Why can’t she just hide in the house?” said Katie.
“What if William starts fussing or crying? Or what if Emma gets scared and starts yelling and babbling like she sometimes does and we can’t shut her up?”
Katie thought a minute.
“I don’t know, Mayme,” she said finally. “But you’re right—we’ll have to do something with her if anyone comes.”
Our talk put an idea into my head a little while later. We could set a fire all ready to go in one of the slave cabins and maybe in the blacksmith’s shop. Then if anyone came, I’d run down and light it and then come back pretending to be coming from the colored village. If and when Emma got her strength back, she’d be a big help too.
“And we can do the same with a basket of laundry,” said Katie. “And let’s hitch up a horse and buggy outside so it’ll look like my mama’s fixing to go someplace.”
For the next several days we thought of more things like that, making plans and practicing what we would do the next time we had a visitor. We planned and practiced other stuff too, thinking of what we would do when somebody came, how we’d explain ourselves.
“But, Mayme,” said Katie after a while, “we’re going to wear ourselves out.”
“Emma will be able to help us directly,” I said.
“Not very directly. She’s still so scrawny and weak and needs all her energy just to keep William alive with her mother’s milk.”
“I reckon you’re right,” I said. “She ain’t likely gonna be much help till we manage to get some meat on her bones, and who knows how long she’ll be here anyway with those men she says are after her.”
It was a good thing that we’d come up with a few plans, though we still didn’t know what we’d do with Emma and William.
One morning I was coming back from the barn and heard a bee buzzing around up in the rafters. Probably a bee’s nest, I thought, looking up wondering where it was. Then the words came back into my mind from the old poem I used to hear the men singing. Pretty soon I was singing it myself as I walked toward the house.
“De ole bee make de honeycomb,
De young bee make de honey,
De niggers make de cotton en’ co’n,
En’ de w’ite folks gits de money.”
I smiled to myself. I sure wasn’t making any cotton or corn, and Katie wasn’t getting any money!
“De raccoon totes a bushy tail,
De ’possum totes no ha’r,
Mr. Rabbit, he comes skippin’ by,
He ain’t got none ter spar’.”
But I didn’t have time for any more of the verses.
Because just like we knew would happen, all of a sudden I heard a sound. I looked behind me and saw a covered wagon with painted writing on the side coming slowly, rattling along the road from the direction of town.
Two people were sitting in front. The minute I saw them I forgot all about bees and cotton. I ran straight for the house.
“Who’s that?” I said as I ran inside, then turned and looked out the window. Katie ran to my side.
“It’s the ice delivery man, I think,” she said, squinting to look.
“Will he come to the back door?”
“I think so.”
“There’s no time for me to get there going out the back,” I said. “I’ll run out the front where he can’t see me and go light the fire down at the cabin. You do like we planned and pretend your mama’s upstairs!”
“But, Mayme, what about Emma?”
“Put her somewhere out of sight and tell her to be quiet!”
I turned away and dashed through the parlor.
I was out of the house from the front, a direction where nobody could see me, while inside Katie hurriedly hid Emma and then ran upstairs herself. Then she waited for the man in his wagon to pull up and walk to the kitchen door while the boy who must have been his helper sat in the wagon. She had already opened a window looking right down over the kitchen door. When he got near enough, and trying to make her voice a little deeper like her mother’s, she called out loud enough so he could hear.
“Katie, Mr. Davenport’s here with the ice,” she said in the pretend voice. “Will you go down and tell him we need four blocks.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Katie, changing her voice back to normal.
Then she ran down the stairs, through the house, and opened the door.
“Hello, Mr. Davenport,” she said.
“Good morning, Kathleen. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it last month. I take it you need some ice?”
“Yes, sir. Four blocks please. You can put it in the ice cellar.”
He walked back to where he had parked the wagon next to the ice cellar.
By then I was just getting to the slave cabins. I hurried inside the one we’d got ready and lit the fire we’d set. It only took a few seconds for the smoke to start drifting up through the chimney. I watched and waited about five minutes till the man and his boy had finished unloading the ice and taken them down the steps. When the man was walking back to the house, then I walked that way too. He and Katie were just starting to talk again when I came up. Katie looked toward me.
“Oh, there you are, Mayme,” said Katie. “Mama wants to see you. She’s upstairs in the sewing room.”
“Yes’m, Miz Kathleen,” I said, keeping my head down as I walked into the house.
“How much is the bill for the ice, Mr. Davenport?” asked Katie.
“Sixty cents for the four chunks.”
“I’ll go ask mama about it.”
Katie went inside, ran up the stairs, exchanged a look with me, got a few coins, and went back downstairs.
“Here is half of it. Mama wants me to ask if we can pay you the rest when you come next month.”
“Tell her that will be fine.”
“Thank you, Mr. Davenport.”
The ice man took the money, kind of looked about, saw the smoke coming from the fire I’d just lit, seemed to hesitate a second or two, then started walking back toward his wagon.
“Uh, Mr. Davenport,” said Katie. “I just remembered. Do you know who might be able to fix our windows … who my mama might be able to get to fix them for us?” she added.
He paused, turned, and looked back. “Why, Mr. Krebs, the glazier—your mama knows that,” he said.
“Uh, yes … could you wait just a minute please?”
Katie ran back inside. Mr. Davenport likely thought he heard voices talking from the open upstairs window. A minute later Katie returned.
“Could you please tell Mr. Krebs that my mama would like him to come out and fix these four windows that got broken?”
“All right … yes, all right, Miss Clairborne—I’ll talk to him. But—”
“Thank you, Mr. Davenport,” said Katie, then turned, went back inside, and closed the door.
By then I was nearly laughing to split my sides. Katie was some actress!
I had been peeking out of one of the windows from behind a curtain. I watched as the man just stood there a few seconds watching Katie come back inside, then kinda shook his head with a puzzled expression, and finally went back to his wagon, got up, shouted to his horses, then rattled off toward the Thurston place.
As soon as he was gone, I came running down the stairs laughing.
“You did it, Miss Katie,” I said. “You really made him believe your mama was right up there all the time!”
A sheepish smile crept over her face. Then she started laughing too.
We talked for a minute, then suddenly a startled look came over Katie’s face.
“Oh, oh—I forgot about Emma!” she exclaimed.
I’d forgotten too. “Where is she?” I said.
But already Katie had turned and was running into the parlor. She threw up the carpet and opened the trapdoor in the floor leading down into the cellar. The instant she did, the sound of a baby crying came up from the blackness below.
“You can come up now, Emma,” said Katie, taking two or three steps down the ladder. “Here, hand William up to me.”
“Miz Katie,” I heard Emma calling from below, “it was so dark down dere, I wuz skeered.”
“I’m sorry, Emma. It all happened so fast. But next time we’ll put a candle or lantern down there for you.”
“You gwine make me go down dere agin, Miz Katie?” wailed Emma as she climbed up out of the dark hole.
“Only if we have to, Emma. Only if someone comes again. But it will be better next time, I promise.”