Free Redfield Farm: A Novel of the Underground Railroad by Judith Redline Coopey Page A

go for the eggs.” I stood looking out the window for a long time, but Pru didn’t reappear. She’d probably gone straight down over the hill. I turned to Josiah, who sat on the floor with his back to the wall of his hiding place. He smiled.
    I sat down in Jesse’s rocker, facing him, hands in my lap.
    “You all right, Miss Ann?”
    I straightened, smiled brightly. “Of course, Josiah. Why do you ask?”
    “You stay home from Meetin’.”
    “Oh, yes. I’m a little headachy today. It will pass.”
    “’Bout Mr. Finley?” he asked.
    I frowned. “Mr. Finley? What about Mr. Finley?”
    “He brought him home a wife.”
    “Yes. Yes, he did, but why should that matter to me?” I wanted to assure myself that Josiah didn’t think . . . didn’t think what?
    “Josiah, what can you be thinking?” I asked, rubbing at the ink stains on my fingers.
    “I think you loved him and expected to marry him.”
    “No, Josiah. It was nothing like that. We were just friends. That’s all.”
    Josiah smiled and shook his head. His hands hung limp from forearms resting on his knees. “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me.”
    “Talk to you? Why wouldn’t I want to talk to you?”
    “’Cause I’m a slave. Or was. Ain’t no more.”
    “Do you think I see you as below me? Is that it?”
    He nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”
    “No, Josiah. Don’t ever think that. You know we’re all equal in the eyes of God.”
    “Equal in God’s eyes don’t mean equal in man’s eyes.”
    I studied his face, anxious to reassure him. “You’re a curiosity to me. I’ve never known a Negro before. Never talked to one at all, let alone about my feelings.” I toyed with a thread on my apron pocket. “I wonder how you see the world. What you think about things.”
    “Don’t try and figure me out like I’m so different from you.” He sounded offended. “I’m a man with black skin. You can’t clump us all together and put us in a box on a shelf and expect us to stay where we’re put. We’re people, just like you.” He looked at me, his eyes dark. “And I know hurt when I see it. You’re hurt, Miss Ann. You can talk to me or not talk to me, but I know hurt.”
    He watched me struggle for control. I’d come over here to distract myself, not to give in to the pain. A tear slowly made its way down my face. I brushed it away but another followed.
    “I wanted to be his wife,” I whispered. “I thought he wanted that, too.” Now the tears flowed freely. I fumbled in my apron pocket for a handkerchief.
    Josiah reached up and took my hand. I let him hold it as I talked—babbled really—about my feelings for Elias Finley. “He never said . . . I just thought . . . I know he cared for me. What happened? What happened?”
    Reaching up, he pulled me toward him on the floor. I let myself move until I knelt facing him, between his knees, his hands on my shoulders. He gazed steadily into my eyes.
    “He fell in love,” he said. “He didn’t mean to hurt you. It just happen. Sometime people fall in love of a sudden. They don’t plan to, but they do.”
    “He completely forgot about me,” I said, thinking of Melissa Finley’s pert little body and sunny face.
    “He didn’t forget you. He just want her more. Can’t help himself.”
    Now I leaned into him and let myself cry. The smell of his body, like leaves in the fall, comforted me.
    “I hate him. Hate his deceit. How could he do this when he knew I was waiting for him? How could he forget about me so easily?”
    “I know you hate him now. Her, too, prob’ly. But someday it be all right. You’ll understand. Most times folks do things that hurt other folks not ‘cause they want to hurt but ’cause they’s a hunger inside that’s not bein’ fed.” His words brushed my ear as I leaned against him.
    “I know you’re right, but it hurts.”
    “Hurts ’cause of your own heart, or ‘cause of what other folks think?”
    “Both, I think. I feel so foolish and that