Free The Lucky Stone by Lucille Clifton Page A

stone, black as night. But this time it had the letter
A
scratched on one side. Now Miss Mandy’s right name was Amanda, you know, and her old Mizz had showed her the letters of it one time. So of course now everybody slave knew where the child was hid.
    “After that every week regular some slave would walk or ride by the way of that cave and lose somethin there, sometime a chicken and sometime some fruit and sometime some potatoes and homemade bread. Every natural week until emancipation. Weeks and months, Tee Baby, more than a year.

    “After emancipation the girl came out from that cave with wild hair and eyes and with them long fingernails on her fingers and long toenails on her toes. And she had that stone with her and she give it to her daughter, Vashti, when she got one. And like I have told you, Vashti give it to me.”
    The sun was almost gone. Tee stretched and yawned and went to help her Great-grandmother up from the rocker and to hand her her stick.
    “Grandma, why was the stone lucky?”
    “Well, if she hadn’t heard that old horse and hit him and that old man with it so folks would know where she was, she would most likely have starved to death, Sweet Tee. That’s how it was lucky for her and it was lucky for Vashti too. And someday I might tell you about that.” She smiled.
    And they both went in for lemonade.

TWO

    Mrs. Elzie F. Pickens and her Great-granddaughter Tee were singing “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross” toward evening on the porch.
    Her Great-grandmother smiled when the song was over.
    “Your voice is so sweet, my Tee, it reminds me of my own mother singin.”
    “Was she a real singer, Great-grand?” Tee asked.
    “Oh, she used to be the lead singer in the Greater Glory Baptist Church Choir, Baby. They had meeting every Sunday, and they used to sing that song. She sang the lead from the time when she was a young girl.
    “And now that puts me in the mind of something I said I would tell you one time.”
    “What, Grandma?” Tee settled back against the porch railing.
    And that was the beginning of that story.
    “That puts me in mind of the time my Mama told me about,” said Mrs. Pickens.
    “After emancipation, when the colored people were free to travel and move around more, they could learn how to read and write and most everybody was anxious to do it. They could have church all out in the open then, too, so they started a church. And a choir.

    “My Mama was just a young girl then but she sang the lead right off. They had something like a stage built out in the field under the trees, you know. They would gather there and have singin and preachin and a good time. The Reverend Matthew James Jones was the circuit preacher and they tell me he was a mighty man of God.

    “Now you remember ’bout Miss Mandy and her daughter, Vashti? Well, Vashti was just a girl then herself, not yet so long-nailed and folks weren’t so scared of her as they were of her Mama, Miss Mandy.
    “Anyhow, this time I’m talking about, a meetin was to be held on Sunday afternoon. Everybody was eager to be there. It was a strange threatenin day like we have sometime in late summer. Thunder soundin from somewhere off and lightnin seem like it’s just about to come.
    “I tell you, Sweet Tee, ain’t nothin quite as heavy on you as a storm that seem to be headin your way. Everybody decided to attend the meeting though, because Reverend Jones didn’t get around but every so often.

    “I just know it seemed beautiful under the trees, everybody sittin on the grass around the stage wearin their pretty meetin shawls and smilin and howdyin each and all.
    “Under those trees I ’magine the sky didn’t seem so heavy. They tell me that the Greater Glory Baptist Church Choir gathered there on the stage and sang three or four numbers endin up with my own mother singin the lead on ‘Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.’ There was shoutin and happiness and people grown and small rushin forward to testify.
    “They tell