Free Catherine's Cross by Millie West Page B

Beaufort.”
    â€œYes. I’m glad your mother has someone.”
    â€œWhat about your folks?”
    â€œThey split up while Steel and I were at home. As soon as we turned eighteen, we joined the Marines.” He paused for a moment. “Jenks, I have to be at work tomorrow at seven. I’ll say good night now. Please call me tomorrow after you read more from the journals at Miss Meta’s.”
    She walked with him to the front door, and he took her in his arms. He gently leaned her backwards and kissed her on the mouth. “You smell good— like jasmine and honey,” he whispered. She felt her entire existence become fiery hot, and then he released her.
    Attempting to regain her composure, she opened the front door and took a deep breath of the cool night air.
    As he stepped outside, he said, “Don’t forget to call me.”
    â€œI won’t,” she said as she watched him go down the walkway to his car.

    At two o’clock the next afternoon, Jenks rang the bell in the hallway of Meta’s home. Ida Mae called out from the back of the house. “Miss Jenkins, dat you?”
    â€œYes ma’am.”
    â€œI be right dere,” she declared.
    When Ida Mae entered the foyer, she was wearing a floral print dress with pink roses and little white flowers.
    â€œMiss Ida Mae—you look very pretty this afternoon.”
    She smiled broadly and responded, “Thank you, Jenkins. Meta and I are attending a program at church dis evening.” She looked at herself in the mirror of the hall tree and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Come to de kitchen. I have de books set out for you.”
    Once again the books were on the table along with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. Ida Mae excused herself into the room where she and Meta met with clients, and left Jenks in the room alone.
    The next journal was from 1861, and as with the book from 1860, some of its entries were illegible. She turned the pages until she came to a recording from early April.
    My cousin, Scipio, and me went with Mr. Jacobs to the wharf at Beaufort to pick up Miss Andrews’s nephew, Simon, who arrive from Charleston. A freedman name Jessup one of the crew on the ship. He real talkative and says that the Confederates have fired on Fort Sumter and there’s sure to be war now. I want to be free but I gets scared with this kind of talk. Scipio and me collect Mister Simon’s luggage as quick as we can and start back for Andrews Hall.
    During the late summer of 1861 was an entry that began:
    18 August 1861
    Master Preston has gone with his father to fight in Virginia. Why would they go so far away? He writes to his mother and she read a letter to us. It is not so much about fighting. I think he don’t want to scare his mother. The letter about his family and how much he miss everyone. I pray for him every day.
    In November of 1861, there was a chilling entry that marked the beginning of fighting in Beaufort.
    We hear the sound of big guns all morning at Andrews Hall. Then we learn what the shooting bout. The Yankee navy done destroyed Fort Walker and Fort Beau-gard. Scipio and me went to the river. Ships fill up Port Royal Sound as far as eye can see. The white folks flee Beaufort- not a white man to be found. Missus Andrews pack a trunk and she leave with Miss Adelaide. She tell us to stay on the plantation and she be back when she able. She say she going to her sister in Columbia.
    An entry dated two days later read:
    For the first time in my life I am free. Scipio and me walk to Beaufort and we see both soldiers and workers in the big houses. What they can’t carry off they destroy. We see a piano in the front yard of one house it hacked to pieces. A soldier see us and call out come here nigger. We run for the swamp. When we get back to Andrews Hall the workers is inside Miss Andrews’ house. They is stealing and ripping things to pieces. I tell them to stop and they laugh