Free Rebellious Heart by Jody Hedlund Page B

Phoebe. What if all my work with these young girls is merely a waste of time?”
    “Don’t say things like that, Miss Susie,” Phoebe said sharply as she slipped one apple slice after another onto the twine above the fireplace where she would dry them in readiness for their winter stores. “You’re doing a good thing for them, and that’s all there is to it.”
    “But they don’t seem to be excited about learning.”
    “Don’t you go thinking that anyone’s gonna be as excited about learning as you.” Phoebe’s dark skin glistened with the heat from the hearth. “’Sides, you’re helping them better themselves. And that’s all that matters.”
    “Maybe they don’t want to better themselves. Maybe they’re content without an education.”
    “Sometimes people don’t know what they need till they have it.” Phoebe didn’t break her steady rhythm in stringingthe apples. Since she was tall and thin, she could easily reach the twine, except that her turban continually bumped against the bundles of herbs dangling from the beams in the ceiling.
    Susanna smiled at the slave who was as dear to her as Tom. “How’d you become so wise, Phoebe?”
    Phoebe wove the last piece of apple and then flashed her a sly smile. “Those girls aren’t the only ones getting a learning from you. I might be busy in here with all my work, but I got my eyes and ears wide open.”
    “Good.” Susanna pushed away from the door and crossed the room to the table where she’d left her supply of books and teaching materials. “I only wish you’d let me teach you properly.”
    “Maybe someday.” Phoebe sprang toward the bubbling pot on the hearth, stirring it before bounding over to the last bushel of apples and dumping them onto the chopping block. Susanna had never seen Phoebe walk. She always moved at top speed, never rested, never stopped working.
    “You work more than anyone should have to.”
    “I like my work. It’s good to work hard.” Phoebe sorted through the apples, rapidly setting aside the ones too bruised or wormy that she would later make into vinegar. “Besides, we’ve got to know which things we can change, and accept the things we can’t.”
    Phoebe had been Mother’s slave forever, had grown up with Mother over at Mount Wollaston. And when Mother had married and moved to the Weymouth parsonage, Phoebe had come with.
    After so many years, Susanna wished Mother would free Phoebe and pay her a fair wage like so many of their peers were beginning to do. At the very least, she’d asked Motherto hire more help so that Phoebe didn’t need to shoulder so much of the work all the time.
    But Mother had insisted she and Mary learn the chores and assist Phoebe so they would be well equipped to manage their own homes someday. Sometimes Susanna wondered if Mother used the work as one more excuse to keep her out of Father’s study and away from the books. After all, William didn’t have to do manual labor. Everyone assumed he’d have slaves and servants to do his work for him.
    A light tap on the back door startled Susanna, and one of the books slipped from her pile and fell to the floor with a smack.
    Her first thought was one of dread, that something had happened to the girls on the walk home.
    She rushed back to the door and swung it open, letting the cold misty air hit her again.
    A cloaked figure of a young woman hunched against the siding. Peering out from the shadows of the hood was the same lovely face of the young woman Susanna had met in the apple orchard the previous week, only this time she was thinner and more haggard, and her lips were blue from the cold.
    “Miss,” the woman greeted her hesitantly. Her cloak was damp, and strands of her wet hair stuck to her neck. “I don’t know if you remember me. . . .”
    “Of course I do.” Susanna opened the door wider. “Please, come in.”
    “Oh, I can’t, miss. I can’t—”
    “Please.” Susanna had no doubt the woman was starving. “I