Free Morning in Nicodemus by Ellen Gray Massey Page B

as she ran skipping to the soddy where to her delight she saw Virgil dismount from Buck while holding Beauty’s lead rope.
    Â Â  “Virge!” she screamed. “You found them.” She danced around him admiring the horses who showed no signs of their wandering. She hugged Beauty. “And Virge, Marcus and I finished planting the corn. Ma and Pa will be here soon.”
    Â Â  “Good. Good work, little sister,” Virgil answered, though he didn’t follow her reasoning how that would bring their parents here. “Now, where’s supper? I ain’t had nothing but a cornbread sandwich all day.”
    Â Â  As she entered the soddy, Liberty’s bubble of happiness leaked a bit. Her lower lip protruded as she cut out a fat slice of ham meat from the joint hanging from a cottonwood pole that held the sod roof in place. 
    Â Â  She slapped the ham into the skillet as if she hated it. She didn’t feel like a Lady of the House, nor did she feel the thrill of achievement she had felt out in the cornfield. Instead she wondered if there was anything a colored girl could do to work for herself. Could she get a homestead claim. Or be a schoolteacher like Jenny Fletcher? Or . . . ? She saw no way she could do any of these things.
    Â Â  The boys sat down to rest while she prepared their meal in the home that belonged to her brother. Then she looked at it another way and grinned as she said softly to Nicky who patiently waited for her to toss him a scrap. “This place belongs to someone in my family, and I’m cooking supper for my brothers, not for a pampered White Lady.”
    Â Â  When Virgil saw her smile, he poked his brother and said in an undertone. “I don’t know what was bothering her, but whatever it was, she’s over it.”
    Â Â  Marcus grinned. “She never pouts for long.”
    Â Â  Virgil nodded. He leaned back to take a short nap while Liberty fixed his meal.

Chapter Six
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    “Virgil! Marcus!” Liberty cried as she ran through the yard into the soddy early in the morning a few weeks later. Goosie and her new goslings scattered, honking noisily as she ran through them. With an annoyed meow, Nicky jumped up on the shelf out of her way. Marcus was tying his boot laces. Virgil was still in his bed roll.
    Â Â  Liberty grabbed Virgil and shook him. “Virge, Beauty is gone. She’s not anywhere.”
    Â Â  Virgil raised up, scattering his bedding. “What?”
    Â Â  “Beauty’s gone!”
    Â Â  He grabbed his clothes. “She’s probably gotten out. We’ll find her.”
    Marcus raced out of the soddy to the horse paddock. Liberty followed. Both Lady and Buck were standing quietly by the gate. Buck nickered when Marcus came near. In a couple of minutes Virgil dashed out of the soddy. He had pulled on his trousers and boots, but hadn’t taken time to put on his shirt.
    Â Â  Marcus was looking over their acres. “Are you sure she was here last night?” he asked Liberty.
    Â Â  “Yes, I came out to pet her goodnight as I always do. I told her and Goosie to sleep tight.”
    Â Â  “I saw her last night, too,” Virgil said. “All three horses were standing over in the far corner.”
    Â Â  Before he finished speaking, Marcus was in the enclosure, walking around the fence to see where she had gotten out.
    Â Â  “The fence isn’t down anywhere,” he said.
    Â Â  Virgil was studying the ground. Within the paddock the bare dirt showed where the horses had eaten the grass and paced the fence line. “There’s too many tracks to see if she jumped the fence,” he said. After walking the perimeter carefully inside, he searched the outside. The grass was cropped close as far as the horses could reach through the fence rails, but after that few inches, the thick grass showed no recent prints.
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