SUDDENLY WE HEARD A KNOCK ON THE DOOR.
We all stopped right where we were. Katie and I glanced at each other with wide eyes. The kitchen was silent as a tomb. We’d been so involved in the cheese making that we hadn’t heard any horse or buggy approaching. And we’d been outside just a minute earlier.
Katie looked at me again, then slowly began moving toward the door. I didn’t know whether we should all scatter and hide or stay where we were and pretend that nothing was wrong. But it was too late to hide anyway—there we were, all messy and with our sleeves rolled up, and there was the figure of whoever it was standing at the window of the kitchen door.
Slowly Katie opened the door. Standing in front of her was the last person we’d expected to see … Henry’s Jeremiah.
“Afternoon t’ you, Miz Clairborne,” he said. “My pa thought dat you might be needin’ dat bridle ob yers fixed so it don’ break on you.”
Still taken by surprise, Katie just stood there for a second or two. From where I was standing on the other side of the room, I saw that he was holding some leather and tools.
“Is … uh, Miz Mayme here?” he asked.
I heard the question in his deep voice. I don’t know if he saw me or not, but my heart started beating faster the minute he said my name. I didn’t know why. In the middle of my thoughts, I heard my name again. But this time it was Katie.
“Mayme … Mayme,” she was saying. “Henry’s son … uh, Jeremiah brought a piece of leather to mend that broken bridle—would you show him where it is … in the barn?”
I could tell from her voice that she was nervous—especially after what she’d told me after her last trip into town, that she’d had the feeling that Henry knew all about us. I knew she didn’t want anyone, least of all someone who was curious, looking too closely at what was going on inside the kitchen—though he was standing right there at the open door. In Katie’s mind I was the logical one to get him away from the house.
I walked toward the door and outside. The instant I was on the porch Katie shut the door behind me. I was left alone with Jeremiah.
I didn’t look at him but walked down the steps and toward the barn. He followed. I glanced back and saw Katie’s face in the window.
“Where’s your horse?” I asked.
“Don’ have one, Miz Mayme,” he said. “I walked.”
“All the way from town?”
“Yes’m.”
“That’s a long way.”
“My pa thought Miz Clairborne might be needin’ dat bridle. He’s been worried it would break.”
I thought to myself that I wished Henry showed a little less concern about us.
“An’ I been wantin’ a chance t’ try ter see Miz Clairborne an’ yerse’f agin,” he added, speaking slowly. Heat rose up the back of my neck. I didn’t say anything and didn’t dare glance over at him.
“Ain’t too many young folks my age ’bout town,” he said. “Leastways, no coloreds. Now dat we’re free, dey all lef ’, I reckon.—Is you free too, Miz Mayme?”
“I reckon so,” I said. “I heard about that proclamation, whatever it’s called.”
“Why you still here, den?”
“Where else would I be?”
“Why ain’t you lef ’?”
“I’ve got no place to go. This is my home.”
“Your ma an’ pa here too?”
“No.”
“Where are dey?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’ you want ter fin’ dem, now dat yer free?”
“I can’t find them,” I said. I was getting uncomfortable with so many questions, especially about my kin. “I told you—this is my home. I don’t have anyplace else to go. I don’t want to go someplace else.”
“Mister an’ Mistress Clairborne pay you?” he asked.
The question took me off guard. I didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve got all I need,” I said. “I’ve got food and a bed, and …” I paused briefly, “… and folks who care about me.”
“Yep … I reckon dat’s mighty important.”
“And I feel like I’m needed,” I added. “And Katie … I mean, Miss Clairborne needs me.”
I don’t know why I was talking so much, but I realized it was easy to talk to him. We’d already reached the barn but had unconsciously stopped while we kept talking. I’d been around plenty of boys of my own color. But this was so different from any situation I’d ever been in before in my life … just talking to a black boy my own age. Back at the colored town where I’d lived, if I’d been standing together with a black boy like Jeremiah, we wouldn’t have been talking. We’d have been standing there keeping our mouths shut, while some white man looked us over wondering what kind of babies we’d make together.
But now we were just two people … two free people. Nobody was watching us. Nobody was thinking anything. And we could just talk. It felt strange, but good.
“Dey really need you?” asked Jeremiah. His voice sounded like he’d never considered such a thing—that a white person could need a black person. “And you think Miz Clairborne cares ’bout you? You make it soun’ like yer frien’s.”
“We are,” I said with a little laugh. “What’s so strange about that?”
“I jes’ neber considered dat afore, I reckon.”
“Miss Katie couldn’t get by without me … or me without her either. I don’t know what would become of us if we hadn’t—”
I stopped myself, realizing I’d gone too far. Feeling comfortable talking to Jeremiah was one thing, but what was I thinking!
“I mean … they …” I said, fumbling to correct myself, “—they took me in and helped me, and … well, that’s all.”
Again I stopped. He was looking at me funny.
“What do you mean … took you in?” he said. “Din’t you used ter be one ob dere slaves?”
“Uh … yes … that’s what I meant to say. I mean, they let me stay after I was free.”
“Where’s Mister and Mistress Clairborne?” he asked. “My pa wanted me t’ ask dem somethin’ fer him.”
“Katie’s pa ain’t back—”
“What about Mistress Clairborne—she in da house? I din’t see nobody but jes’ two other girls, an’ one ob dem was colored.”
“She’s … she’s somewhere and it ain’t … well, it ain’t none of your business where she is,” I said. Then I turned and led the way into the barn. “Here’s that bridle,” I went on. “Just fix it and mind your own business.”
He set about his work with the straps of leather and few tools he had. I saw him looking around the barn. I knew he was noticing things—maybe we’d done a few things wrong, but at least it was pretty clean.
I walked outside, more mad at myself than at him. I hoped I hadn’t got us into a worse fix than we were already in.
I went back to the kitchen where Katie and the others were waiting for me. Katie sent me a look of question and I just shrugged.
“I don’t think he’ll be too long,” I said. “We can finish the cheese when he’s gone.”
Then I went back outside and waited on the porch. I didn’t figure it’d do anybody any good for him to come snooping around looking inside again.
Five or ten minutes later I saw him coming out of the barn. I got up and walked over to meet him.
“Got it mended,” he said. “Reckon I’ll jes’ tell Miz Clairborne.”
I didn’t like the idea of him looking into the kitchen again, but after what had happened I figured I’d better not protest too much.
We walked in silence back to the house. He climbed the steps and knocked on the door again. Katie had been watching and immediately opened it.
“Bridle’s fixed, Miz Clairborne,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“Anything else you’d like done aroun’ da place?”
“Uh, no … but thank you,” said Katie. Then without waiting for anything further, she closed the door, leaving me to get rid of Jeremiah by myself.
Slowly he came back down the three or four steps.
“Well … reckon I’ll be headin’ back t’ town,” he said slowly. “You, uh … you min’ if I come out agin?”
“I don’t think Miss Katie, I mean Miss Clairborne—” I started to say.
“No, Miz Mayme … I mean, does you min’ if I comes fer a visit?”
“What would you want to visit for?”
“I thought maybe I’d come t’ visit you, dat’s all. An’ my pa, he said dat if I asked ’bout Mistress Clairborne an’ got no answer ’bout where she was an’ din’t see her wiff my own eyes—an’ I wasn’t sure what he meant, but dat’s what he said, an’ he was serious when he said it—dat he wanted me ter make sure you young ladies was all right.”
“What did he mean by that?” I said.
“Nuthin’, miss … just what I said. Dat’s why he wanted me t’ come out an’ men’ dat bridle, ’cause he wanted t’ know if you an’ Miz Clairborne was all right.”
“Well. you can tell him that we’re fine,” I said. “And that he ought to mind his own business too.”
I shouldn’t have said it. But it was clear enough that Henry was thinking more than either he or Jeremiah was saying.
Jeremiah looked at me real funny, then nodded and shrugged and turned and started walking along the road back toward town. I watched him a minute, then suddenly ran after him.
“Jeremiah!” I called out.
He stopped and turned back toward me.
“Please … don’t tell,” I said.
“Tell what?”
“What you saw here—who you saw in the kitchen … what you said before about only seeing us girls.”
He looked at me seriously, and it was the first time we’d both looked in each other’s eyes.
“What you really want me not t’ say,” he said after a few seconds, “is what I ain’t seen, an’ dat’s Mistress Clairborne—ain’t dat right, Miz Mayme?”
“Please,” I said without really answering him, “you can’t tell. Please promise you won’t tell anyone.”
“Dat’s a hard one, Miz Mayme,” he said finally. “Reckon I’ll have t’ think on dat some on my way home.”