Free Slave Girl by Patricia C. McKissack Page B

and ran to the window.
    We seen Rufus come slipping from tree to tree then turn toward the Quarters. We figured he’d been out possum hunting. But, a little later, I seen Mr Harms creeping out from the other side
of the woods. We watched as he stole from shadow to shadow until he reached the house and stepped inside. We held our breath until we heard his footsteps pass the door and go down the hall to his
room.
    We quietly cleaned up, put everything in its place and left Miz Lilly’s bedroom just the way we found it.
    What were Mr Harms and Rufus doing out in the woods together so late at night?

Monday, October 3, 1859
    I’ve been staying with Aunt Tee down in the Quarters. She takes care of Baby Noah and the other children that cain’t work yet. When Wook came to get the baby, we got
a chance to visit. She aine seen her husband but twice since they got married. Seems he loved another girl from his own plantation and wanted to marry her. Wook has changed a lot. She looks so sad
all the time.
    I told her how Missy was acting, and she said she wasn’t surprised. “Missy has always been for Missy – selfish.” When we was growing up, I never knew that side of her,
but Wook did. “If I got something, she wanted it, no matter how small it was. She’s put out at me ’cause I got married first. She coulda got married ahead of me and I
wouldn’t a-cared at all.”
    Later, it was like old times in Aunt Tee’s cabin. We sang, told stories and Spicy and me even got to work on our quilt.
    Tuesday, October 4, 1859
    Mr Harms fussed at William about saying ’cause instead of because. I learned it, too.
    Later I took Hince his meal down at the stables. We talked for a good while. Him and me talking is fun. The words just pop right out of my head without me thinking on them long. “You ever
think of running away?”
    He studied on that for a spell. “Sometimes.”
    “What would you do if you was free?”
    “I figures, if I be a free man, I could hire myself out as a jockey. I’d bet on myself and win and win and win, ’til I had ’nuf money to buy all of y’als freedom
– Spicy, Aunt Tee, you, Clotee. That’s what I would do.”
    When nobody was looking I wrote F-R-E-E-D-O-M in flour. It still don’t show me no picture.
    Later the same day
    True to her word, Eva Mae told Mas’ Henley that I’d been staying in the Quarters with Aunt Tee instead of in the kitchen. He spoke to me about it when we served him
the last meal.
    “Aunt Tee is like my mama,” I said. “I’d like to stay with her.”
    “You want to stay down in the Quarters with Aunt Tee? Well, what does your mistress say about this?”
    “I haven’t asked her.”
    “When she comes home, ask her. See what she says. I’ll go along with what she says. You’re one of her favourites.”
    Me? I never thought of myself as being favoured by Miz Lilly, unless she wanted something from me.
    Wednesday, October 5, 1859
    Mas’ Henley pitched a red-in-the-face fit ’bout Eva Mae’s fried chicken. He called it tasteless slop! Serves him right.
    Thursday, October 6, 1859
    Tonight Spicy took me by the hand and led me to a hollowed out tree. My heart sank when I realized that it was the tree where my diary was hid. Had she found my diary? All of a
sudden, Spicy blurted out that she had a book. To prove it, she reached in and pulled out a Bible. My diary was just inches away. “I’ve wanted to tell you this forever, but I been
scared,” she said.
    Spicy had a Bible that had been her mama’s. “My mama could read and write,” said Spicy. Then she told me her mama’s story. It was like others I’d heard.
Spicy’s mama tried to run away, but each time she got caught and beat bad. Finally her mas’er say if she ran away she was gon’ get sold. Spicy’s mama learned how to write
– took her a while. Spicy was borned and still she kept learning. Then one day, she wrote herself a pass and tried to run again. But a slave who worked in the Big