Free Freedom Stone by Jeffrey Kluger Page B

boy entered. The proprietor turned to them when he’d finished with his first customer, seeming not to notice Lillie and Bett at all. He smiled agreeably at the mother, inquired if she wasn’t finding it warm for September and offered the boy a licorice stick from a large glass jar he kept on the counter. He filled the woman’s order—a long shopping list of what seemed to be no end of items—and helped her out to her wagon with her bundles. It was only after the mother and child had left and the proprietor had sorted through some receipts on his counter and poured himself a cup of coffee from a pot he kept on a black iron stove, that he turned to Bett and Lillie.
    â€œTraveling pass,” he said brusquely. Bett stepped forward and handed the man the folded paper; he scanned it quickly and handed it back to Bett. “Greenfog,” he said with a snort, as if this was somehow bad news. “Tell me what you’re needin’ and scat.”
    Bett told the man what they had come for and he gathered up the items quickly and wordlessly. Slaves were not allowed to carry money and the purchase would thus be billed to the Master. The shopkeeper made a note of the amount and carried the heavy sacks out to the sidewalk—less to be courteous, Lillie suspected, than to be done with her and Bett. Samuel spotted them and ran over. The man waved Lillie and Bett off the sidewalk and away from the front of his store.
    â€œYour man can do your liftin’,” he said. “You two wait in the street meantime. And tell your Master he’s owin’ me for two months of goods; I’ll be expectin’ payment soon.”
    Lillie went a little cold at that. The emptier the Master’s purse grew, the more he’d need the money he could raise selling his slaves. The two hundred dollars the appraiser said he’d get in exchange for Plato would settle a lot of debts. Bett seemed to know what Lillie was thinking and squeezed her hand, and the two of them stepped off the sidewalk as Samuel began to hoist the sacks and load them into the wagon. Lillie tried to help, wrapping her arms around what looked to be the lightest one and feeling its scratchy burlap against her face and arms. She heaved with all her strength and while she got it off the ground, she staggered under the weight of it. Samuel took it from her with one hand and flipped it into the wagon bed. Bett then pulled Lillie aside, looked about herself and leaned toward her. She spoke in a low voice.
    â€œWe done with what I come here to do today, and the smart thing now is just to go home,” she said.
    Lillie nodded.
    â€œYou still mean to look for that man what can speak for your papa?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œYou understand the trouble you can fetch yourself messin’ in affairs like that?”
    â€œI do.”
    Bett looked at her thoughtfully. “I reckon you do know,” she said. “You best go do it, then, ’fore you lose your nerve.” She waved Lillie off the way the shopkeeper had just shooed both of them. Lillie stayed where she was.
    â€œYou ain’t comin’ with me?” she asked.
    â€œI’m old, child,” Bett said. “I can’t go chasin’ around a town this size. And Samuel can’t leave the wagon.” She pointed Lillie toward the tall tower that crowned the top of the Bluffton town hall. A great clock with fancy hands looked down at them. “You read time as good as you can read words?” she asked.
    Lillie nodded. “It’s quarter past ten,” she said.
    â€œYou got till quarter past four,” Bett said. “That travelin’ pass says we don’t got to be home till sundown, but we don’t dare get back a minute later. Keep that clock in sight and be here on time, lest we got to leave you behind.” Bett pointed to a stand of sycamore trees that was casting a shade big enough for a wagon. “Samuel and I brought