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

come by with that wagon selling his cheese. My master’s wife loved it and always bought some. Of course I noticed Abel, being as he was the only free colored man I had ever seen, but I didn’t know he had taken any notice of me until one day he gave me a big wheel of cheese and said he had brought it all the way from Pennsylvania especially for me.”
    Dorothea smiled. “He wooed you with cheese.”
    Constance grinned and nodded. “He brought me other presents, too. I liked his stories about the North best, about how he could go where he wanted, when he wanted. About how he had his own house and farm and didn’t answer to no one. Then he started talking about me running away—” Abruptly Constance fell silent.
    “Running away, or running away with him?” prompted Dorothea.
    Constance shrugged. “Both, I reckon. I wouldn’t do it, though. I didn’t know him all that well, for all his stories and gifts.” She looked abashed. “I was too scared.”
    “You had every reason to be.”
    “I don’t know about that. Others have done it. Abel thought I didn’t want to go because it wasn’t proper, us not being married.” Constance shook her head. “That wasn’t it at all, and I told him so. Once we jumped the broom and I still wouldn’t run off, well, then he believed me.”
    “You must have been so lonely when he left.”
    She considered. “I was, but I always knew he would come back for me. The mistress liked me and she liked Abel, so she thought it was real sweet. My master hated us being married, though. He only had ten slaves and didn’t want any of us to think about being free.”
    “How could he expect you not to think about it?”
    Constance shrugged. “Lord knows. My master was real sorry he ever said we could get married, so when Abel finally understood that I wasn’t going to run away, he asked about buying my freedom. He told Abel to pay two thousand dollars.”
    “Two thousand?” Dorothea echoed, aghast. It was an enormous sum and yet shamefully little for a human life. “How did he expect Abel to raise so much?”
    “Well, he didn’t. We figured he expected Abel to tire of visiting me only now and again and either leave me, and stop being a nuisance, or settle down there. My master thought he would get another slave out of the bargain, but he didn’t know my Abel. Or his own wife. She made him lower the fee to one thousand, and a few months later, Abel paid it.”
    Dorothea smiled. “And here you are.”
    “And here I am.” Constance waved a hand toward the house, the barn, the fields, the goat pens, shaking her head in disbelief. “Never thought I’d be working in my own garden on my own piece of land. Abel’s a good man, too. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know why he fell in love with me, but I thank the good Lord he did.”
    “He must love you a great deal to have fought for you so determinedly.”
    “Most days I think so.” Constance grinned. “Some days I think he just didn’t want to lose to my master. Abel’s quiet, but he’s like an old dog that’s got hold of a bone. Try to take it from him, and you might never hear him growl before he bites you.” She glanced toward Mr. Liggett’s farm. “Some folks around here haven’t yet learned that, but they will.”
    Dorothea, too, looked off to the northeast in silence. She could not imagine what had possessed Mr. Liggett to try to frighten off the Wrights. She hoped it was nothing more than the drunken notions of a lazy man who would abandon his hateful promises once he sobered up.
    Just then Dorothea’s mother emerged from the house and called them to dinner. Dorothea and Constance gathered their tools and returned them to the barn before going to summon the men.
    As they strode out into the fields, Constance said, “I still don’t need no reading lessons.”
    “And no friends, either, I assume.”
    Constance gave her a sidelong look. “I guess I don’t mind that part so much. I don’t need no reading lessons