Free Chasing Freedom by Gloria Ann Wesley Page B

the white labourers had done, to show their unity and discontent. They demanded Colonel Black lead them.
    Sarah listened with great interest. Colonel Black grew weary as he argued that an illegal gathering to show their frustration would only serve to stir up violence, not bring sympathy or justice. His refusal to support them or even to offer a solution angered the crowd. And when Harris Clark stood up and screamed that such a leader deserved a tar and feathering, Sarah saw Colonel Black slowly sneak along a wall and disappear into the night.
    On the way home, Sarah said, “It’s Colonel Black’s responsibility to seek justice for all the wrongs we face. It seems he’s still bound to the master with his loyalty.”
    Grandmother said, “Master Redmond once said that for the sake of a little privilege and money, most would sell themselves to the devil.” She let out a long turkey chuckle.
    â€œWhy are you laughing, Ma’am?” Sarah asked.
    â€œIf you had an angry crowd ready to tar your behind, you would run too.”
    Sarah shook her head. She could not bring herself to smile. “The man in him is weak,” she said with disgust. “Our people have lost all respect for him now.”
    Grandmother walked along, changing the words of her favourite hymn to a newer version, her version: Come back Moses, way down in this free land, Tell old pharaoh it’s time, oh Lord, time to let my people go.
    When she finished several rounds, she said, “This place needs prayers. Everyone in this colony has forgotten why we came. Lord, Lord, will we ever learn to work together?”
    THE WORRY, ANGER AND SORROW THAT WERE OVERWHELMING the Birchtowners also nibbled at Lydia. On an early October evening, she sat soaking in the washtub. She looked at her feet, all lumped up with corns and bunions, swollen and rough. She remembered a time when her feet danced to tribal rhythms and ran along the banks of the Niger. She also recalled the long march to the West African coast to board a slave ship. Her slave’s feet had travelled thousands of miles in all her years, sometimes covered, sometimes bare.
    She gently touched her face, felt the hollows in her cheeks, the winkled brow, the sagging pockets of fat along the jaw. How many times had her mouth endured the slaps and spit of overseers? She looked at her sore hands, all puffed up, chapped and rough like tree bark from chores and lye. They were work hands. She rubbed them kindly with a little pig grease from the pot at the side of the tub. She rubbed her shoulders, marvelling at the softness of a slave woman. She pressed her fingers through the tight wad of crimped grey hair and massaged her scalp. It felt good.
    A slave woman, she thought, never fully realizes the joy of her heart nor the sweetness of her body. All these years, her body has served others. It has known the work of a man and a woman, the cut of the lash and the forced bearing of children, but never the tenderness of love. She stared at the back wall and mouthed the name given to her by her mother: Abena . The name was in a place beyond her memory. “I have lost the way to go home,” she whispered.
    â€œJust a slave,” Cecil had said that day in the store. The hateful words stirred a pain in Lydia that gnawed and ate, but could not find its fill. There it was—three cruel words to sum up a lifetime of bondage. In the pain, she found her voice and it was loud and sharp. “Just a slave. Is that what he thinks? I am just Lydia, an empty soul, something to claim and abuse. No, Cecil, never again.” The days of being afraid of Cecil MacLeod had passed. But having secrets was dangerous. She must be on her guard, forever watchful. She sat in deep thought, looking back at her past until the water was icy cold. She wiggled her toes in the water and prayed, then dried herself with an old blue rag.
    The next day was cold for a fall day. Mrs. Cunningham had paid