I was four years old the summer the cannonade
struck Fort Sumter, so half my life was used when RE Lee said, it was ‘killing enough’ and sent his brave, footsore
soldiers home. I knew no other life, and never saw my mother smile. We’d seen many men straggle past
our house, some in groups, and some alone, leaned on branches they’d craved, all in tatters and broken ins spirit; missing
arms and legs, missing the heart they’d gallantly carried with them into battle. But seeing her face, even knowing she
was a Quaker person who’d taken an oath to ‘build your house by the side of the road and be a friend to all men’;
they had no fight left in them. They didn’t even look in our direction as Ma and me paused in our weeding and she glared
them on down the road! One young Black man stood his ground, as best he could with hunger-trembling legs, offering to work
for the smallest scraps a widow woman and her twelve-year-old had to offer. Ma gave him cooked oaks with raisins and a dusting
of cinnamon and honey so he had the strength to stand, much less do a day’s work in return for a meal and a place to
stay the night. But first, Ma made him take off his shirt and turn around in the hot sun. If he were a troublemaker his back
would be scarred. I shook with embarrassment for him, but he was so grateful for the chance to eat, he simply did as he was
told.
When the noon day
meal included a spotted apple, he seemed to savor it’s sweetness till there weren’t no flesh around the core at
all, then he wrapped the small black seeds in a piece of cloth and stuck it in his shirt pocket as respectfully as if the
hand of the Creator had give them to him personal like. He worked like a demon with a little food in his gut
so Ma warned him sternly not to think he was going to stay all worthless like and soak up their reserves, this was a one day
affair! She warned three times.
“ Yes’m.”
He agreed politely, as if hearing it for the first time, and his smile never slipped.
The next morning Ma scrapped what was stuck to the bottom of the pan to give him a ‘send-off meal’. I pretended
to eat mine; knowing she’d never care and I added it to what she provided him. Half a loaf of bread too stale to make
Heel Pudding and a surprisingly large chunk of yellow cheese and two more apples. She was obviously grateful for the hard
physical work he’d done in patching the roof and rebuilding the fence around the pasture that had been beyond our abilities
even working together. I didn’t mind going a little hungry for a good cause, it certainly wasn’t the first time
and it wouldn’t be the last!
As she was watching from the gate, to make sure he didn’t sneak back, a voice called her name and Ma paled. Turning
around slowly she sunk her fingers into my arm.
There stood my brother Clem! His arm was behind him so we thought he’d lost it. She gasped in shock
and frowned at him angrily. How could he help her without both hands?
Then he pulled his hand free and opened it palm up. The golden locket catching the glint of the sun as she gasped.
“ I kept my word, Ma.
I’ve returned it to you. And I took no man’s life in the War. I worked in a hospital and held them down, held
them while they were dying. I saw the savior in each young man’s face, no matter the color of his uniform, just like
you said, Ma. “
“
How dare thee mock me with my own words, and yore father buried no ten yards from this spot? Dead from a Yankee grapeshot?
“
“ It’s time to put off yore widow’s weeds, Ma. And take up life. “
He said with a sad sigh.
“ Go to blazes!
“ She said with a loathing that shocked the man at the gate as much as it did me.
“ Even the Puritans wore bright clothing, expect on the Sabbath, Ma. “ He
said with such meaning I knew there was more than the words themselves, but I couldn’t decipher their meaning.
“ I can’t stay, Ma. I cain’t risk losing what HE taught me. “
“ Take the boy with you! “ She slapped him, hard, for mouthing off
to her, his Ma, and ran back toward the house.
“
She ain’t the same woman I left a’fore the War. “ He said sadly, placing his arm
over my shoulder, easing the strangeness of seeing a stranger wear my brother’s clothes.
“ Yes, she is. “ I protested innocently; he rewarded me with a smile
and a tousling of my hair.
“
Yore a good boy, Deke. “
“ I’s try to be. “ I admitted, a trifle ashamed.
“ Stay and care for her, you hear? But don’t lose what’s good in life by her rejection,
no! “ he turned to the Black man at the gate.
“ Brother will you join me? I’m going to get me an education by hook
or by crook! “
“ You don’t want the likes of me to spoit it. “ he said shamefaced,
his gaze cast downward.
“
I do! “
“
But taking care of hogs and butchering them is all I knows! “ Itchy said
with tears in his voice to math the ones in his eyes; his face pleading not to be shoved out of the one place he felt confident.
Clem shook his head no with the profoundness of a judge sensing a man to death on the gallows, as implacable and resolute
against the cringing man’s fears as he sunk to his knees in front of him, beginning to sob. He reached down his hands
and tenderly coaxed the taller youth to his feet, ready to desist at any moment. A look of sheer incomprehension, matching
what I felt, broke across the young Black’s face and I held my breath, a `feared they’d remember I was there and
rob me of seeing the resolution suddenly so important to my soul.
“ It ain’t what you’ve been allowed to know, but who you are on the inside, what
can see with a man’s eyes and learn new things. This is the beginning of wisdom …It….my son.
“
My brother’s face contorted with a rage I’d never guessed.
“ What you want to be called, Boy? “ He demanded
harshly, his breath coming in sharp gasps, like he’d been running a mile because he’d been called for and couldn’t
get there fast enough?
“ There said
I was as pale as a hank when I was stillborn. But I like the name Hank. A ghost no one won’t never see.
“
“ No! “ Clem said sharply and the taller youth crumbled. “ What name do you want
men to say when they’s shake yore hand and say ‘How do you do, Mister… “
His pause left the lank space vibrant with life and possibility!
The sun seemed to move the shadows several inches as we waited. Itch said down where he stood, his long, gangly legs
finding themselves tucked under him like a newborn colt, and from time to time he interrupted his frown of concentration to
scratch at the nappy felt at the side of his left ear. Finally his chest rose and fell as he gave a great sigh. “
Cloud. I’d like to be called Mister Cloud. They’ve always been my best friends when I had to spend the
day with the hogs and they slept.
Clem
nodded but kept his lips pressed close together, hard, as if he wasn’t going to speak until the shy youth named himself
for real, for fear of jinxing the moment. Then another two sighs.
“
Abraham. “ He said at last. “ Like Honest Abe. Abram McLeod. That’s
goanna be me, Mister Clem. “ He nodded slowly, his lips moving slowly as he tested the new name silently several times.
Clem burst out in tears and hugged the young man over their strange positions seated on the ground, then they helped
one another to their feet. But this time they was tears of joy. I straightened up, feeling the bark of the tree where I’d
leaned this whole time having left a deep impression on my skin, but nothing as deep as what I just witnessed as color and
age and race dissolved in ways I’d never guessed possible. I sensed even then, as young as I was, I would never be the
same person I was when I started to walk behind the bother, skipping rocks across the undergrowth!
