Free Morning in Nicodemus by Ellen Gray Massey Page A

Virgil didn’t watch where he was going. He almost collided with Hunter. The Osage had stopped and was looking down at the horses’ tracks he’d noticed earlier that morning. He pointed north across the river, where the animals had entered the water and to the deep prints in the steep, wet bank on their side. A quick survey showed where the horses had spent the night. The grass was flattened where they rested. Fresh tracks headed west.
    Â Â  “Let’s go,” Hunter said. “We’re not far behind them. We’ll find them for you.”
    Virgil spotted Beauty’s halter dangling on a limb where she had rubbed it off. Forgetting the story of the Spanish gold, he tied the halter to his belt and followed Likes-to-Hunt as they traced the horses’ trail up the south side of the Solomon River.
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    Â Â  The fine black soil glistened in the late afternoon sun. Marcus pulled his brown felt hat down farther on his face to protect his eyes when he and Lady faced the setting sun while marking off the last row for Liberty to plant the seeds.
    Â Â  The row was straight east and west. Liberty knew how Marcus prided himself on his straight rows, both here and in the garden. 
    Â Â  It was as if the plants wouldn’t thrive as well if the rows varied even an inch one way or the other. And though he didn’t actually measure the distance apart, she knew they measured exactly three feet each way.
    Â Â  That’s Marcus, she thought. Virgil wouldn’t care, as long as the rows had enough space between them for Lady to pull the hand-held cultivator through to get rid of the weeds and grass.
    Â Â  Though she was tired enough to drop, Liberty wished there was more work so she wouldn’t have to go to the soddy to fix supper. She envisioned what it must have been like back in slavery days when her mother prepared all the meals for the plantation owners. All the Lady of the House had to do was wear a fancy dress, sit at an elegant table, and eat what the slaves set before her. No wonder people in the south fought a war to keep slavery. They didn’t want to do all that work.
    Â Â  But even the child she was, Liberty knew the trouble was much more than that. It was about money. About power. And something else she didn’t understand, states’ rights. That business was all over and done for now for lots of years, actually since she was born. She and her brothers were working for themselves now. And back in Kentucky her parents were working hard to get money to join them.
    Â Â  But was it much better now? She was the Lady of the House, she, Liberty Lander. But the picture of her as a lady was all wrong. She wore no fancy dress or lacy fascinator over her hair. She owned only two dresses besides the calico one she had on that was patched and faded, and now covered with dirt. Nobody had clean clothes unless she washed them and hung them out on the line where the ceaseless wind blew strong enough to blow the hems out of her dresses. 
    Â Â  Her table was not elegant. It was slabs of wood Virgil had cobbled together. At every meal she had to first wipe off the dirt that fell onto it from the sod roof. And far from being waited on, nobody at her house ate unless she herself prepared the meal.
    Â Â  Working out in the field, her face protected by her sunbonnet, her hands by worn-out gloves, and a faded apron covering her patched dress, she rejoiced at being outside and working with Marcus. Here she could see her accomplishments. She covered the last kernels of corn at the end of the last row. When this crop she planted is harvested and fed to their hogs and the hogs fattened and sold, they would have money to send to her parents so they could come. She and the boys could actually bring them here.
    Â Â  Liberty didn’t notice the weariness in her legs and shoulders. She ignored the blisters on her hands