Free Candle in the Darkness by Lynn Austin Page A

the dark was much harder, too. Jonathan gripped my hand tightly to keep me from stumbling.
    “Are you sure there aren’t any wild animals?” I asked.
    “Just deer and skunks and raccoons and such. Nothing dangerous. The worst we might run into are hogs. They run wild until slaughtering time. Sometimes the boars can be mean.”
    “Do you think we’ll meet any boars?” I hated that my voice shook.
    “I brought my knife,” he said, pulling it from his pocket to show me. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with me.”
    We heard the sound of singing in the distance long before we got there. The Negroes were meeting in the same pine grove we’d visited earlier that day. When we were a short distance away, Jonathan steered me off the main path and we cut through the dense brush, careful not to be seen or to make too much noise. I saw flickering lights from two or three torches, but the meeting was hidden from view by a wall of quilts, strung on ropes around the perimeter of trees.
    “What are the blankets for?” I whispered.
    “To deaden the sound so it won’t carry back to the house.”
    “But why?”
    “Don’t you know? The slaves are forbidden to leave the plantation without their masters’ permission. And they’re strictly forbidden to gather in groups like this without white supervision.”
    “Even for a church service?”
    “For any reason. If they’re caught they could be whipped.”
    I remembered the man with the lash-scarred back I’d seen down on Slave Row. The thought of someone doing that to Eli’s broad back sent a shiver through me. “You’re not going to tell anybody, are you?” I asked Jonathan.
    “Of course not.” He started to move forward again, then stopped. “And just so you know, it’s against the law to teach them to read and write, too.”
    I remembered once asking my governess if Grady could study my lessons along with me. She had been horrified. “Those people can’t learn things like this,” she’d said. “They don’t have the same minds we do. You can’t teach a dog or a horse to read, can you?”
    “Grady isn’t a horse!” I’d protested.
    “He isn’t white, either.”
    “But why is it against the law for slaves to read and write?” I asked Jonathan. He looked astonished by my ignorance.
    “Because if the Negroes can communicate in writing, they’ll plan all sorts of things—secret things. Next thing you know, they’ll write up some false papers and use them to run away. You have to kill a Negro if he learns to read and write.”
    Eli had said they would kill a Negro woman if she told who the father of her child was. I didn’t want to believe that either one of them was telling the truth.
    “Come on,” Jonathan said, “follow me.” He crouched down on his hands and knees to crawl forward. I tried not to think about snakes as I followed. Jonathan found a sheltered place for us under a bush, where we could see beneath the wall of blankets. Grass and insects tickled my arms and face as we lay down on our bellies to watch.
    I can’t begin to describe the sheer joy I witnessed that night. I’d never heard such singing before—certainly never in a church. The sound of it took my breath away. It was so much more than mere singing—it was dancing, swaying, clapping, shouting. A celebration. I couldn’t stop my toes from tapping to the elaborate rhythms as the slaves clapped and stomped and drummed.
    I never wanted the glorious music to end. But gradually it calmed down, changing into some of the slow, mournful songs I’d heard the slaves singing early each morning on their way to the fields and coming home again at night. By the time the music died away altogether, the people had found places to sit on the ground or on logs and tree stumps. Then Eli stepped forward to deliver his sermon, and I thought my heart would burst with love and pride. He began in the quiet, gentle voice I loved so much, but as he spoke I sensed a dreadful, wonderful power rising up