The Wagoners

By

Claudine Lebeau

Copyright 2012 Claudine Lebeau

Smashwords Edition

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead in either a contemporary and/or historical setting is entirely co-incidental. The author cannot be legally held for such co-incidences.

Chapter 1

Grandma was in possession of a big old brown trunk with an arched top and copper latches. The trunk had been in the family for years, passed down through three generations to Grandma. When I was fourteen and discovered what the trunk contained, the highlight of my visits with grandma was to go to the attic and pore over stacks of daguerreotypes; people gazing back at me with solemn, unreadable eyes. I rambled through a miscellany of documents: diaries, letters, wills, deeds. In a compartment of the trunk were two bibles with pages on which a great-great-grand-parent had entered dates of marriages, births, and deaths in antiquated curly script with a quill pen. Grandma was delighted to see how consumed I was with the trunk’s contents.

By the time I got out of college I resolved to unearth stories inside the documents and discover secrets within the hypnotic eyes in the daguerreotypes. I went to historical plantations and to court houses, libraries and museums in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Texas and with the aid of librarians, curators and docents, I browsed through multiple archives and met plantation heirs who graciously allowed me access to private journals.

Once, in our search we happened across a soiled and frazzled plantation ledger with the heading: Breeding Wenches, a scrawled list of women where nothing of their humanity remained except for a single name. After each woman’s name was a date and the words infant boy or infant girl. As my eyes ran down the list I recognized a pattern and after several pages it suddenly dawned on me that what I was looking at was clearly a breeding operation; a place for breeding humans like livestock.

As I continued my search throughout the South I found a plantation register with the surname Wagoner. In scanning that surname I saw several given names listed and after them (like a shameful afterthought in an almost illegible scribble) was the notation illicit issue. These were genealogical links to daguerreotypes in Grandma’s trunk.

Papa always had in his mind to write about our ancestry but what with one thing and another never got around to it, Grandma told me.

Grandma I said, Let’s you and me tell our family story.

So with documents from the trunk, Grandma’s recollections of what was told to her, my imagination and some research, here is what we came up with.

Chapter 2

It’s just what I wanted.

The young missus skipped brilliant emerald eyes over the cooks and the wide bright room, as up-to-date as a kitchen could be on a Mississippi plantation in 1852. The tall bearded man rested worshipful glances on his young bride and smiled with indulgence over her new-fangled whims. The missus’ use of the big room would be a mere peek now and then to show visiting plantation ladies where their head cook Cynthia, who was quite worth what they paid for her, made their excellent meals. Her husband, so wise, so perfect, had carried out her wish to construct an indoor kitchen, something like those in Europe. It replaced that sooty brick cookhouse from where servants trotted across the gallery to the main house with carts and trays of steaming victuals, the savory aromas swirling before them.

The kitchen was finished and all the fixtures were in. He stroked his sandy beard and thought: No danger of a house fire from this fine construction. Pine cabinets lined a wall and light from a row of windows splashed a gleam on the black and white tile floor and gave a luster to the steel trim of the black iron range. He had got the cookstove in Charleston and brought in by four-in-hand to the plantation. The stove had two front grate openings and an oven with a porcelain door engraved with floral patterns. On the stove top the round eyes of the eight burners were enough to cook pots of fancy dishes as well as space to heat kettles of water which her handmaid Priscilla fetched for her afternoon baths.

She lay delicate fingers on his arm. One more thing, darling. By the time the boys get back with ice from the river icehouse it’s nearly melted to water. I need an icehouse closer by.

He looked into the thick lashed eyes and the vibrant oval of her face. He worshipped his wife second only to his God, and as a man of the cloth felt somewhat guilty about it but would do anything for her. It will be done in a fortnight, my love.

After two weeks of sun-up to sundown toil the slaves had the icehouse built which actually were two sheds, one inside the other. Layers of corn cobs, pebbles and sand covered the wall of the larger outer shed. Straw, sawdust, sand and pebbles were packed into the space between it and the smaller inner shed and straw and moss was spread over the roof and the floor was covered with gravel. Heavy oak doors were attached to each door frame.

Wendell, his manservant, helped the Master slide his feet into high field boots, then the slave followed his lanky owner as he strode to inspect this new icehouse down by the creek. Ducking his head beneath overhanging branches of water oak, the Master inched through thick underbrush into the sudden chill, squinting to accustom his eyes to the dimness. He moved around the outside shed, examining it from all angles. Wendell shoved open the doors into the murky interior shed and the Master stepped inside, looking up to satisfy himself that the overhead ventilating spaces were wide enough to catch any breezes. It occurred to him that more sawdust would be needed to cover ice and shelves built to store milk and butter. He felt good. He and his manservant left the cool dark area around the icehouse and climbed into the hot sunny yard where an overseer waited with two slaves. The Master congratulated the overseer for a job well done.

Back inside the plantation house Wendell knelt on one knee while he placed his master’s feet on a footstool, unlaced and pulled off his field boots and slid on his shiny black oxfords. In an apple-green crinoline gown the Missus swept to her husband in the parlor, embraced him and declared that she had married a true southern gentleman.

Wrenched from sleep by the rooster’s first crow from the chicken house beside her cabin, the woman blinked open the lids of her large black eyes, turned over, sprang from her corn shuck pallet and fumbled through the darkness to the bench by the fire pit. She lit the grease candle; it sputtered and flickered to a sickly yellow flame in the windowless, moldy cabin which held a strong stagnant reek. She dipped water from a bucket on the bench, filled the wash pan and ran a wet rag over her broad ebony face. Lathering the rag across a piece of lye soap, she mopped her armpits, reminding herself that before camp meeting time she would get in the washhouse tub and scrub herself from top to bottom. With long calloused fingers she pulled her brown and yellow checked calico dress from the peg and slid it over her head and sinewy shoulders, past her shift and drawers and down to her ankles. She tied her long white apron around her waist, plucked her head-wrap from the bench and twisted it over her mat of crinkly salt and pepper hair while peering toward the corner where Lonnie was asleep. In the dim light it was hard for her to make out his thin body splayed belly down on the pallet, his legs like twigs the color of gingerbread slung from his buttocks. She had lost sleep while her child filled the chamber pot with his runny bowels before she held him and rubbed his belly until he dozed off. As she pulled on her brogans, she was thinking: I reg’n my pickaninny got dem trots last night from eatin dem chinaberries. I wake him up terrectly.

She left the cabin with the chamber pot, the door squeaking behind her, and made her way through the dawn to the outhouse on the terrace behind the chicken yard. She pitched the contents into the hole, went to the water pump by the wash house and rinsed the pot. Back in the cabin, she shook her boy awake. Get up child, duties waitin’.

He had learned, from the time he could toddle behind her to the Big House kitchen, that he had to get up right away or he would get a switching. Yawning and stretching, he dragged himself from the pallet, tugged at the negro-cloth shirt tail crumpled over his rump and pulled it over his knees.

Come here, boy. I wash dat sleep outta yo eyes.

She tramped over the trail in the iridescent grey-pink dawn, her skirts swinging around her ankles and her brogans slapping against the hard dirt. Her little boy scampered to keep up, his legs pumping and his feet striking the ground like little hammers.

The five year old stood on unsteady legs, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and looking at his mother feed pine kindling strips into the cookstove. Cynthia placed the kindling cross-ways into the grate and lit it, sending flashes of light dancing into the dim kitchen. Lonnie stared, hypnotized by the leaping yellow and red flames as they licked and chewed, circling their tongues around the scraggly fingers of wood. Then dropping to the black and white tile floor, he curled himself into a ball and fell asleep.

She lifted chunks of pine from the wood box and shoved them into the stove. The fire roared and the kitchen was filled with the smell of burning pine wood.

Massa must not be made to wait; she was obliged to have a meal ready whether he was late or early at the table. She set about making his breakfast. Cupping her hands, she measured flour into the mixing bowl; the flour dust settled into her palms and drew sharp white patterns into her skin. She stirred in leavening and buttermilk, rolled and shaped the dough into circles and arranging them in the bake pan, shoved it in the oven. She sliced and laid thick pieces of ham in the iron skillet, made gravy and whipped a bowl of eggs.

She stoked the fire with the poker; heat flared, stinging her face. She frowned and backed away, running her tongue over her dry lips. The coffee pot was boiling and the ham was sizzling, filling her nose with aromas that made her mouth water.

She knew his quick, sturdy footsteps.

Morning, Miss Cynthie, you got Massa’s victuals ready? He be wantin’ to eat terrectly. Gon’ be making rounds to them other preachers today. Likely be gone ‘til supper time.

Sho ‘nough, Wendell, breakfast ready for serving right now.

Wendell looked down to the floor at Lonnie. Yo pickaninny sleep. Woke him up with a switchin’ this mornin’?

He done learned to get up when I say, Wendell. Don’t, he know he get a licken’.

She forked ham and biscuits onto serving trays, slid eggs onto a platter and spooned grits and gravy into bowls. Placing a mug of coffee on the tray, she got the master’s porcelain dishes, silverware and napkins from pine cabinets and put them with the food on the serving cart. Here you be, Wendell. She stroked a dish cloth over the cart’s shiny metal handle.

The manservant left the kitchen, wheeling the cart into the hallway. He called over his shoulder: Much obliged, Miss Cynthie, ma’am.

Doing my duty, Wendell.

She got a brush from a drawer and buffed the handles and knobs of the stove, bringing more gleam to the steel. She watched her boy turn over, straighten his legs, stretch his arms, sigh, and twist his mouth from the furry feel of sleep. He sat up, yawned and rubbed away rheum from his eyes with his fists. She put the brush back in the drawer and sat at the table.

Come to Mammy, Lonnie.

He came to her and laid his head in her lap. She stroked her fingers over his cheek and hummed some tune to him.

Mammy’s lil pickaninny hongry?

Ye’thum Mammy.

We eat soon’s Massa through.

Wendell rolled the serving cart back into the kitchen. When it come to eatin’ dat white preacher don’ dally. Plenty left for us Cynthie. I take a bite or two and run. Oscar be bringin’ the carriage round for him right quick.

Cynthia got two dinted tin pans and two old spoons which were for their own use from a can by the back door, dumped food from the master’s platters and bowls and plate into each of their tin pans, and put the Master’s porcelain dishes and utensils to soak in a dishpan.

Wendell sat at the table in the light now streaming through the windows and with a big brown fist shoveled spoonfuls of food into his mouth. Lonnie stood against the table, his chin a little above the top, scooping his dumpy fingers into Cynthia’s pan and slipping eggs between his small teeth. Wendell made short work of his food, wiped his chin with the back of his hand and rose from the chair. Obliged to see to Massa, Miss Cynthie.

Nodding to Wendell, she poured coffee into her tin cup and lowered herself into a chair at the shiny square pine table. She chewed slowly on a pinch of ham and watched her boy’s sparkling brown eyes as he squeezed grits into his wide open mouth. Her heart swelled with love for her child. While she spooned eggs into her lips and washed the bits down with sips of coffee, her thoughts turned backwards and inwards. She gazed at Lonnie and began to remember when she was a pickaninny about his size. She lifted her eyes and stared into space and commenced to ruminate on bygone times.

She was brought up on an Alabama plantation with her Mammy, her sisters Sudie and Jenny and her brother Daniel. Her papa was a slave at a neighboring plantation and was allowed to visit them now and then. Mammy was cook in a brick cookhouse connected to the Big House by a gallery. When Cynthia was little more than a pickaninny in a calico dress, Missus put a stop to her days as a housemaid, took her to the cookhouse and told Mammy to see that she learned cookery. Cynthia took to cooking like she was born for it, and by the time of her womanhood she was as expert as her Mammy, and faster on her feet. On the occasions that Missus’ brood of grandchildren visited, she sent a housemaid to give Cynthia a hand in the kitchen and summoned Mammy to the Big House to help Delilah mind the noisy bunch.

Cynthia learned that there were differences between house slaves and field slaves. Many a black morning she was awakened from her pallet in the Big House attic by the horn summoning slaves from the quarters to fields a half mile away. She wondered if Sudie and Jenny, who had been working in the fields for as long as she could remember, had time to get their ash cake done and eaten before they scrambled through the darkness. Sometimes, at daylight while she and Mammy prepared omelets and scones and pancakes and sausage for Missus’ breakfast table, she would think of them, knee deep in muddy water with the sun beating down on their bent backs and the overseer’s lash stinging anyone who was slow at work. Once, when she stopped in at Sudie’s cabin, she caught a glimpse of dried torn flesh on her sister’s back and shoulders. At night, when she lay on her pallet long after she had cleaned the cookhouse and chopped kindling for tomorrow’s cooking fire, she knew her sisters and the rest of the field slaves were just returning to their cabins. She felt lucky. She did not have to rise until just before daybreak. She had the cook fire made when the sky was turning pale pink and by sun-up she and Mammy were starting breakfast for their owners in the Big House.

One sweltering midday while she stood peeling apples for a pie, wails and moans from the quarters filled her ears. Her curiosity stung her over the cause of the grieving but she could not leave her cooking. She didn’t have long to wait. Charlotte came hurrying from the cabins, her face wet and twisted. Charlotte grabbed her arm and choked out, Sudie done got bit by a cottonmouth. Sudie was her mulatto sister, Mammy’s child got by Massa some years back; a charge which had to be spoken in secret or otherwise suffer a flogging. Placing the knife on a table, the apples in a bowl, she gathered her skirts above her shins and ran down the hill behind Charlotte. Sudie lay lifeless on the ground. Mammy was on her knees beside her, hands raised upwards, moaning prayers for mercy and tears flooding her face. Cynthia lingered in the quarters as long as she dared before she dried her tears and rushed back to her cooking.

For some time now Sudie had been sunk into the slave burial grounds. Harvests had come and gone. On a late spring morning rich with the sweet, pithy smell of green ripening things, Cynthia and her Mammy had just cleared the breakfast fixings and were at work on Massa’s midday meal. Cynthia was stirring dumplings and the fragrance of dogwood blossoms and the warm air drifted through the door, merging with the spiciness of the dumplings. She heard footsteps and turned to see one of the plantation overseers standing in the doorway. He slapped his white palm against the door frame and crooked his index finger, gesturing for her to follow him. She was reluctant to leave her cooking but she knew she had to obey him. Mammy looked up from the table where she was carving a fowl, her eyes big with worry and her mouth gaped with unspoken questions. Laying the spoon at the edge of the pot, Cynthia walked behind the man and followed him to a wagon where one of the plantation slaves was holding the reins to a team of horses. Without a word the overseer motioned for her to get into the back of the wagon. She climbed into the wagon and wondered why the overseer was hauling her in the wagon instead of making her walk wherever he wanted her to go. They passed the field slave quarters. They passed the end of the rice paddies and rumbled over a bridge which she had never been across. Looking around in bewilderment, she realized that she was leaving the plantation for the first time in her life. As the wagon bumped along the road she looked up at overhanging branches and then back to where all she could see were trees. She was being sold. Tears sprang to her eyes and a choking moan began in her gut and escaped from her throat. She raised her face to the sky and screamed: Mammy! Mammy! Mammy! For a moment she thought about jumping from the wagon and escaping into the woods, but no sooner had the thought registered with her than the overseer turned from his seat in front and struck her with his whip. Blood seeped through her dress sleeve.

Shut yo mouth wench! Don’t, I do wuss! he bellowed.

She scrunched in the wagon bed, her arms encircling her knees. She sobbed and heaved; her salty tears rolled into her mouth, slid down her chin and mixed with the blood on her sleeves. Drained and exhausted, she fell asleep. She didn’t know how long she slept but the next thing she knew she heard a cacophony of voices and noises the likes of which were foreign to her ears. She uncurled her cramped limbs from the wagon bed and sitting up, looked around in amazement at more buildings and people than she had ever seen. Streets were crowded with shiny carriages and wagon teams and riders on horseback. She saw a white man leading a coffle of nearly naked slaves tied behind his wagon. She saw Colored people plodding along the streets, bent with bundles and baskets on their backs and shoulders. The slave slowed the horses to a walk. He drew in the horse’s reins to stop by a building where a crowd of white men stood around a low plank platform which served as an auction block.

The overseer alighted from the wagon and rapped his whip handle against the wooden side, pointing for Cynthia to climb down. Her muscles were stiff and her heart was broken; she crawled from the wagon bed. He cursed, took a rope, bound her wrists together and dragged her from the wagon. She stumbled after him. Turning, he untied her wrists and shoved her with the toe of his boot onto the auction block where other women stood naked with their clothes piled at their feet. A ragged grimy white man came and tore her clothes from her body, leaving her naked like the other women. He tossed her clothes on the planking at her feet and left. Yet another white man dressed in black, a handle bar mustache above his sliver of lips, stood by the platform and gestured toward each of the naked women, shouting to the crowd of white men whose eyes were like the chill of ice.

One of the slave merchants was a gaunt scarecrow of a man who lurked like a specter in the background, his hat nearly touching branches of the tree under which he stood. His eyes were shaded beneath the brim of his hat and the only features visible were from his nose to his long pointed chin. He called to his overseer, a short squat white man in the crowd, and said something to him. The squatty overseer spoke to the auctioneer, pointed to Cynthia, came up on the block and with his rough hands probed her body parts from her head to her feet. He yanked her chin, opened her mouth and moved his fingers over her teeth and gums. He did the same with another young woman whose slender height towered above him. Then he kicked at the piles of clothes at their feet, making it known that he wanted the two women to put them on.

Cynthia was now chattel to a new master.

The new master’s squatty overseer hollered and beckoned to a scraggy young man leaning against a wagon with his arms crossed over his chest. The youth, clad in osnaburg breeches and shirt, was viewing the auction proceedings through strings of dishwater blonde hair falling over robin’s egg blue eyes. You. Scipio. Git over here nigger. Come git these wenches.

Yassuh Massa Pratt. Flinging his arms from his chest, he scooted over to the women, motioning for them to follow him. He helped them into the wagon and dashed to the front to grasp the overseer’s boot soles and hoist him onto the front seat. The slave darted around to the other side, seated himself beside the overseer, shook the reins and clicked to the horses. The horse hooves clip-clopped through the streets as the slave drove away from the town center. Shrinking in the wagon bed, the two women threw teary glances at each other until Cynthia pulled her apron over her head and sat doubled against the side of the wagon. After awhile she no longer heard the jumble of noises from town, only the clatter of the wagon. She drew the apron from her face and raised her head. They were on a wide tree-lined road bordered by white colonnaded houses set amid park-like grounds. A Colored man was at work trimming a tall hedge at the gateway of one of the estates. He was a slave, Cynthia reckoned, and wondered if she would be taken to one of the houses for cooking duties. Then she caught sight of a towering figure astride a black horse following close behind the wagon. Clothed in black, he looked like he was part of the horse. It was her new master. She again spread her apron over her head. They left the houses at the outermost parts of town and rolled through shadowed woods for what to Cynthia seemed a long time. The man on the horse still followed.

The sun was sinking toward the treetops when they came to a plantation. A great white house with a wide verandah stood on a green hill above a flowered terrace where slaves sat on their haunches, digging among flowers. A black wrought iron fence surrounded the terraced grounds around the Big House. The Master walked his horse through an arched gate and over a drive toward the house on the hill. Some slaves appeared, trotting to meet him.

The white-looking slave turned the team of horses and wagon off onto a side road and continued toward a grove of trees where several cabins huddled. He halted the team, hopped off the wagon and holding her elbow, helped each woman down. Seated in the wagon, Overseer Pratt scrutinized him, spat to the side and thought: One thing I can’t abide is a white nigger. It’s ‘bout time he got a lashing to see he stay in his place and ack like the nigger he is. Another slave scampered