Free Together is All We Need by Michael Phillips

‘‘Den I’ll jus’ git out ter dat hen house an’ kill us a coupla fat ol’ hens an’ get ter pluckin’ dem.’’
    She waddled off, happy as could be, as the rest of us walked into the house.
    â€˜â€˜Papa, Papa!’’ cried Aleta. ‘‘I want to show you my room!’’
    She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the stairs.
    â€˜â€˜This is good,’’ said Reverend Hall when they were gone. ‘‘Aleta needed to come here again, and I think Hank did too.’’
    â€˜â€˜How has it been?’’ asked Katie as she offered him a seat at the table while she and I started fixing some tea and put on a pot of water to boil for Josepha.
    â€˜â€˜Very good,’’ he replied. ‘‘Obviously Hank has a great burden of guilt to bear. But Aleta has been wonderfully tender toward him. Somehow the time was right. And I have no doubt that the seeds you and Henry planted in her mind, Mayme,’’ he added, turning toward me, ‘‘have helped too. Great healing is taking place, though they still have a long way to go. They are having to get to know one another all over again. But I am so grateful to God for what He is doing between them.’’
    â€˜â€˜We are so glad to hear it!’’ said Katie. ‘‘That is wonderful news. Does he . . . will he want me to show him where the accident happened,’’ she went on, ‘‘and where I buried his wife?’’
    â€˜â€˜I don’t know,’’ answered the minister. ‘‘It may be a little soon for that. I will mention it to him if I get the opportunity.’’
    Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of Aleta’s feet running back down the stairway, again followed, though more slowly, by her father.
    â€˜â€˜Come on, Papa!’’ cried Aleta, running through the kitchen heedless of the rest of us. ‘‘I want to show you the blacksmith’s shop where I pounded the hammer to make people think there were grown-ups here!’’
    Before Mr. Butler even appeared, Aleta was running out the opposite door and outside. Laughing, he hurried after her.
    A minute or two later we heard the familiar clang, clang, clang from Aleta’s hammer.
    â€˜â€˜So that was what I heard when I came out here!’’ said Reverend Hall.
    Now it was Katie and I who burst out laughing.
    â€˜â€˜We had all kinds of schemes to make it seem like we weren’t alone,’’ said Katie. ‘‘We built fires in the slave cabins and sometimes I even dressed up and pretended to be my mama. It wasn’t honest, but I was so afraid of what would happen if people found out. I was afraid they would make Mayme leave and worried what my uncle would do.’’
    Katie paused and sighed. ‘‘I suppose all that didn’t do any good anyway,’’ she said. ‘‘He found out anyway and now he’s going to own Rosewood before long.’’
    â€˜â€˜Yes, I have heard,’’ said Reverend Hall. ‘‘But what about your other uncle, the one who was here for a while?’’
    â€˜â€˜He’s gone,’’ said Katie. ‘‘We haven’t heard from him in a long time. And he couldn’t help anyway, since he is from my mama’s side of the family.’’
    â€˜â€˜Ah yes . . . I see. Well, if there is anything I can do, please let me know.’’
    While we were drinking our tea a little while later, and Emma and I were cutting up potatoes, and Aleta was chattering away telling her father everything she could think of about her time at Rosewood, Josepha came in with two headless, plucked chickens and put them in the pot to boil. Then she and Aleta set about mixing up the biscuits, and before long the kitchen began to smell like good things were coming.
    â€˜â€˜There is certainly a difference in a woman’s