BECAUSE OF ALETA BEING THERE, KATIE’D BEEN occupied with her all day. I could see that it was tiring Katie out having a little girl dog her steps every minute. Some of our chores were falling behind too.
“I reckon we oughta be doing a wash soon, Miss Katie,” I said one day. It was a hot day early in June. “The aprons and drying cloths are getting a mite greasy.”
“I was thinking just last night,” said Katie, “how nice it would be to have clean sheets on the bed again. Shall we wash today?”
I saw Aleta look back and forth between Katie and me at the idea of Katie asking me what to do. But she didn’t say anything.
“An’ William’s diapers,” put in Emma. “I’m about out ob da ones I washed afore, an’ dey’s getting too ripe even fo his own mama’s nose!”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Then I think we oughta get everything ready today,” I said, “and do the wash tomorrow. It’ll take a good long while to get the water hot enough. We’ll have to start in the morning.”
“Aleta,” said Katie, “you and I will go through the house today and gather up everything, our clothes and the bedcoverings, and the kitchen things.”
“And I’ll bring wood and set the fire outside,” I said. “But I’ll need the rest of you to help lift the tub over the fire pit.”
“I kin help, Miz Mayme,” said Emma eagerly.
“We’ll all lift it together,” I said, though when the time came Aleta didn’t do much. The three of us managed to get it onto the iron stand, though how much weight Emma lifted was doubtful too.
By the end of that day we had everything all ready and a nice big fire set in the pit with the washing tub in place on the rack over it. There was a wooden washing platform to keep the washing area from getting muddy, with the fire pit on one side of it and a metal frame where the tub sat. So the fire burned under part of the tub without setting the platform on fire, and we stood on the other side to do the wash. A second tub—the rinse tub—had its own pump and sat on another wooden platform near the clotheslines.
We filled the main washtub with water that we carried in buckets from the pump. Then all that was needed was to light the fire and wait till the water got hot enough to get the clothes clean.
I was the first one up the next morning, like I usually was. I got up and went downstairs, thinking that I’d get the fire lit so the water could be warming. It looked like it was gonna be another hot day, and the sooner we got the wash done, the better we’d feel. I walked outside and looked around. The air was still and cool, and all the birds and other creatures were starting in on their day’s noises—the pigs and the cows, and of course the roosters had already been at it for an hour. And then here came the dogs to greet me and make a fuss like they’d never seen me before.
I walked around a little bit, thinking about how things were. Just when Katie and me had been starting to get used to having Emma around, now we had Aleta to think about. Were things ever going to be normal again? I wondered. Of course, in our lives what was normal anyway? Not that I didn’t want Aleta here, but it changed things, that was for sure. And yesterday I’d noticed a funny little change in Katie too. I think it might have been because of what I told her about the slaves being freed. I never would have expected it, but she almost seemed to be treating me different, occasionally looking at me and not saying anything, and hesitating before she spoke, almost more respectful or something. You wouldn’t think that’d be something I’d mind. But it made it a little awkward a couple of times to have her look at me that way. I’d been comfortable knowing how to act before. And now it was a little confusing. I reckon it was a change we would both have to get used to. I didn’t feel any different inside. I was still the same person I’d always been. But being free rather than a runaway slave was a big change, whether I felt any different or not.
I went back inside the kitchen and scooped out some coals from the stove and carried them outside in a bucket. I emptied them carefully beneath the fire pile, keeping the coals together so they’d stay hot. I put a few bits of straw on top of them, then kindling, and blew on it. The straw jumped up into flame right away and pretty soon the whole fire was going.
I went back in and stoked up the fire in the kitchen stove with some fresh wood. By the time it was going, the other girls were getting up. When we’d milked the cows and fed the pigs and chickens and horses and dogs, we took the cows out to pasture. Aleta went with Katie and me for the first time while Emma saw to William, and though she walked back next to Katie, it seemed like she might be gradually getting used to me. As we got back to the house, I could see steam starting to rise from the washtub.
“Let’s check the water,” I said. “I think it’s ready.”
Aleta scampered ahead and stuck her hand in it.
“Ouch!” she cried. “It’s too hot!”
Katie and I laughed, and by now Emma was trudging out with a basketload of her things and she laughed too.
“Get a bucket of water from the pump,” I said to Aleta, “and douse the fire.”
While she was doing that, Katie and I went inside to help Emma lug out the piles of laundry. Our first load was the sheets and aprons and our underclothes. We took them out and dumped them into the tub, then added soap and bluing.
“Grab your pile, Emma,” I said, “and dump it in.”
She did, and then we swished it all around with two laundry sticks, working from the wood platform on the opposite side of the tub from where the fire in the pit underneath was still smoking and smoldering and sizzling from Aleta’s dousing. We’d wash the white things first, and when they were done, do the work dresses and quilts and heavier things, and at the very last, do our dirty work dresses that had manure on them from milking and cleaning the stalls.
“Shall we get the rinse tub ready, Miss Katie,” I suggested, “and leave these to soak a spell?”
“Aleta,” called Katie, “why don’t you keep stirring the clothes with Emma while Mayme and I fill the other pot.”
Aleta came round and took hold of the stick from Katie and started stirring energetically.
“Stir and bounce and swish the clothes all around,” said Katie. “Watch what Emma’s doing—that’s right … good, Aleta.”
We walked over to the rinse tub and first cleaned it out, which we hadn’t done since our last wash. We wanted to make sure the rinse water was nice and clean. After dumping it upside down, we set it back on the platform and pumped in new water.
“I reckon it’s time to start scrubbing,” I said as we returned to Aleta and Emma.
“I’ll go get the two washboards,” said Katie.
“I don’t mind doing the scrubbing, Miss Katie,” I said.
“That’s silly, Mayme. I’ll help too.”
As we went Katie glanced at me with an unspoken look of hopeful question as we slowly left Emma and Aleta alone, stirring and swishing in the washtub while we walked away. I heard them talking a little but couldn’t make out too clearly what they were saying. But I know it warmed Katie’s heart just to hear them talking at all.
“Dat real good, Miz Aleta,” Emma was saying as we returned. “She’s washin’ dese here clothes, right good, Miz Mayme,” she said to me.
“I can see that, Emma,” I said. “It looks like the two of you have them ready for the washboards. You know how to use a washboard, Emma?”
“Dat I do, Miz Mayme. I done washed like dis a hunner times.”
“Good. Then let’s you and me scrub these clothes and get them the rest of the way clean.”
When Katie came back with the two washboards, we set them in the tub leaning against the rim. Aleta kept stirring—though she was already starting to run out of energy and was slowing down—and Katie joined her. Then Emma and I leaned over and scrubbed each thing one at a time. Once we started getting them done, we wrung them out, and Katie took them over and dumped them into the rinse tub.
It went a lot faster with four of us than the last time we’d washed and I’d done all the scrubbing myself. Katie was really learning how to work hard! Every once in a while I’d glance over and think to myself, Is this the same Katie? I hadn’t ever known her mother, but I doubted she could have been a harder worker than Katie when Katie got going.
We did three loads of different wash, and scrubbed and wrung out and rinsed and wrung out again all morning. By noon there were clothes and sheets and towels and linens and stockings and quilts and aprons and dresses all hanging from the line, and we were almost finished. Our arms were so tired from the scrubbing that they were about ready to fall off! The last of the quilts were so heavy when they got wet, we didn’t scrub them as hard as the rest—we mostly just stirred them around and let them soak in the water, though the wash water was pretty dirty by then too. But we were just getting too tired to scrub them any harder.
“I’m tired,” said Aleta.
“Me too, Miz Aleta,” said Emma.
“And me,” I said, “but we’re almost done.”
The day was hot by then too, and we were sweating like horses out for a hard ride.
Katie was just wringing out one of the last work dresses when it fell back into the rinse tub. The water from the splash came up and hit her in the face.
“Oh, that cold water felt good!” she said.
Instead of picking it back out, she just stood there for a minute, as if she was too tired to do anything. Then she started to laugh.
All of a sudden she slammed her hand into the water toward where I was standing on the other side of the tub, sending a big spray of water all over the front of my dress.
“Katie, what are you doing!” I cried.
She was laughing all the harder by now. She swatted the water again. I jumped away. Then she picked up a bucket and scooped it half full of water and ran toward me. I saw what she was about to do and tried to run. But it was too late. I felt a flood of water all over my back, followed by a shriek of laughter.
“Katie,” I yelled, “I can run faster than you!”
I dashed for the nearest bucket and then back. But as I was dipping it into the rinsing tub, Katie was pouring another bucketful over my head.
“Ohh!” I exclaimed. “Just you wait!”
It was cold, but after the first shock it felt good!
I spun around and there was Katie running across the grass. I went after her with my own bucket of water. I tried to throw it as I ran but only got one of her shoulders wet.
By now Aleta had a bucket and was chasing us both. I didn’t see her coming, and the next thing I knew water was dripping from my head again.
“I got you, Mayme!” she cried.
“Yes, and now I’m gonna get you!” I said, turning and chasing after her.
She howled in a frenzy of terror and fun and ran away from me. Katie was running to one of the water pumps to fill up her bucket again, and within another minute, an allout water war had begun.
At first Emma just stood watching, too bewildered at the sight to enter in. Sometimes I wondered if her brain just went a little slower than other folks’. But finally, after laughing at the rest of us, it seemed to dawn on her that she could join us in the fun herself. But I think she was still a little intimidated at the thought of being too free with white folks, so when she finally started splashing water about, it was always toward me. Before long she was running and laughing and shrieking too.
All four of us were running around back and forth between the clotheslines, the barn, and the house. Within ten minutes we were soaked to the skin from head to foot. But after all the work and the heat of the day, it felt as good as swimming in a creek.
Pretty soon we were laughing too hard to keep running and were just taking turns pouring buckets of water on each other. Aleta and Emma were laughing as hard as me and Katie.
Right in the middle of it, as we were standing there dripping and starting to think about going back to finish hanging up the last few things, Aleta interrupted our laughter.
“There’s somebody coming,” she said.