Free Northern Light by Annette O'Hare

when slaves fall in love and wanna get hitched, we just jump over the broomstick together to show everybody we’s married.”
    This young woman had lived in Louisiana…just as Margaret had. And she was to be married…just as Margaret had planned. Her dreams had been dashed on the rocks of life as surely as Margaret’s own.
    “Ye might know that if ye’d ever taken the chance to talk to one of them.”
    Thomas’s words stung deep in her heart. What he said about the slaves was true. It hurt all the more to admit that she knew very little about slavery. There was a more important reason than just states’ rights that the war was being fought. And even with all the modern resources available for a person to learn, she’d never taken the initiative to find out. She crossed her arms over her churning stomach as the young woman continued.
    “We wanted to get married cause I’s gonna have Moses’s baby.”
    Shocked, Margaret’s instinct was to gasp and slap her hand over her mouth, but she made a concerted effort to control her actions.
    “Life was hard for the menfolk working at the sugarcane plantation. I’s thankful I don’t have to work in that boilin’ house where they melt down the sugar. My Moses work in there keepin’ the fires going all day, every day. It so hot your skin feel like it gonna drop off your bones. But I got to work in the big house taking care of the missy’s little ones.” A smile crept across her face. “They little, white-haired babies be so sweet…not like the massa.” The edges of Necie’s mouth turned down. Her brown eyes closed to slits.
    “What happened? Did the master beat you?” Margaret watched as tears began to roll down Necie’s face. She shouldn’t have made her dredge up such painful memories.
    “No! He sold me away so I can’t be with my Moses. I fight hard so I don’t has to leave my mammy and my Moses. I kick and I scratch that man so he thinks I’s so bad he don’t want to take me with him.” Her bottom lip trembled and her voice squeaked. “But then he kicked me so hard and I fell down and can’t get back up. He just scoop me up and throwed me into the wagon and drive away with my mammy layin’ with her face on the ground bawlin’ and squallin’. Down the road a ways, I started to hurt so bad in my belly. I look down and sees blood all over my skirt and all over the floor of that wagon. My baby died and I passed him right there in the back of that wagon on my way to Texas.”
    Margaret couldn’t hold back her tears. She’d held her dead baby brother, Jeremiah’s twin, when Mama wasn’t able to. And, oh, how hard it had been when it came time to give him back to the Lord. The memory was painful and it wasn’t even her child. She couldn’t imagine the pain and loneliness Necie must have felt. “Oh, Necie, how can you stand it? My fiancé is dead, but the man you love is still alive and you’re not allowed to be with him.”
    Necie wiped her tears on the towel she had draped over her shoulder. “My heart hurt for a long, long time. But I can’t stay sad about it. Mrs. Stoltze told me about Jesus and how when I get to heaven, my baby boy’s gonna be there waiting for me. She say Jesus was God’s little boy, and He love me so much He gave His Son to die for me, and if I believe in Him, I’s gonna go to heaven when I die. I got faith He gonna do what He say He gonna do.” Necie’s words of God’s grace seemed to soothe her and give her back her smile.
    It was incomprehensible to Margaret how this young woman managed to go on living after what she’d been through. Guilt and shame washed over her and made her feel sick. What kind of Christian was she that a slave had more faith in God than she did?
    Necie wrung water from the shirt she’d so thoroughly scrubbed and placed it on a rock beside the washtub. As she fished for another piece of clothing, she began humming the tune of the song she’d been singing earlier.
    “Necie, what is that