Free Elm Creek Quilts [07] The Sugar Camp Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

Constance eventually. “He had a torch and said he was going to set fire to the barn, and if we didn’t clear off after that warning, he’d set fire to the house. He slid off his horse and made like he was going to fling that torch into the hayloft, but all he did was scare his horse so it lit off down the road the way he came. He stumbled around and swore, all red in the face, and went into the barn saying we owed him one of our horses for the one that ran away. When he came out with a horse but left the torch behind, Abel ran to the door, but I wouldn’t let him leave the house. So Abel set the dogs on the man. They just nipped him a bit to make him let go the horse. They chased him away and came right back to the house once he was off our land, but from the way he was screaming, you’d have thought they’d taken his legs off. Abel and I both ran out to the barn, but the torch had just fell on a bare spot of ground. But not two feet away was a bale of hay. If he’d dropped the torch there instead—” Constance shrugged, studiously overturning soil. “I guess Abel would have asked you all to come help with a barn raising today instead of harvesting.”
    “You must have been terrified.”
    “The man didn’t have no gun. It could have been worse.” Constance looked away, her eyes sweeping from the barn to the place were the road from Abel’s barn met the main road. “He stood right there hollering that he’ll be back with friends to finish the job.”
    “He wouldn’t dare. You must inform the authorities at once.”
    “Why? They wouldn’t do nothing. They can’t lock up every drunk who swears at colored folks, not even here in the North.”
    “He did much more than swear at you.”
    “I’m not afraid of him.” Constance stuck her hoe firmly into the ground. “If he comes back, Abel’s going to shoot him.”
    Dorothea felt a sickening shiver of dread. “If he should kill him—”
    “Then he’s as good as dead himself. I know. You white folks don’t take kindly to having a colored man kill a white man, even a white man you don’t like.”
    “Constance—” Dorothea did not know what to say. “If you go to the authorities, they will warn Mr. Liggett to leave you alone.”
    “Liggett. So that’s his name.” Constance nodded, satisfied. “Abel wouldn’t tell me. I figured he didn’t want me to find out how close he lives. He lives close?”
    Dorothea nodded reluctantly. “His farm lies no more than a mile away, in the direction of town.”
    “Too close.” Constance gazed off to the northeast, to the thick mass of elms and oaks that hid Elm Creek from view.
    “It may be some small consolation to know that one part of his threat rings hollow,” said Dorothea. “Mr. Liggett does not have any friends, so if he does return, there will be no one to help him, as he put it, finish the job.”
    “I guess that’s something.” Constance took up the hoe again and resumed her work. “I knew we’d have trouble with white folks up here. Abel didn’t tell me what it would be like, but I knew.”
    “But you came anyway.”
    “Of course. What choice did we have? He couldn’t live with me on the plantation, him being free and me not. He wouldn’t have wanted to leave this farm anyhow, nor all his goats.” She snorted and shook her head, but she could not conceal a smile, or the affection in her voice. “He could have saved himself a lot of work and trouble by marrying some free girl up here instead of me.”
    “But he chose you.”
    “Lord knows why. Maybe he knew I’d say yes if he promised to buy my freedom.”
    Dorothea regarded her with surprise. “Is that how it happened?”
    “No, no. He always said he’d get me free, even before he ever said he loved me. I just thought he was the crazy cheese man, trying to fill my head with notions just like folks had warned me he would.” Constance stuck the hoe into the earth again and rested her chin upon it. “Every few months he would