Chapter 5

Mary escorted Ellie through the back door into her kitchen. The odour of fresh apple pie and cinnamon hit her nostrils. Ellie noticed two very pregnant black women working in the kitchen.

“Fresh apple pie for dessert tonight,” one of them said.

“This is Lula, and this is Opal,” Mary introduced. Ellie offered her hand to each one. “Pregnant women in their last month will work in the farmhouse doing light chores. Women on other farms have been known to give birth, then resume working. The mortality rate for newborns and infants is quite high in the farming industry for migrant working mothers. To us, a life is a life, and we’ve never lost a baby. The wife of our foreman is also a midwife and tends to every baby’s birth. You’ll meet Moses, Richard’s right-hand man, and his wife, Leona, soon. She will be Sam’s foreman, or, should I say, forewoman.”

“A woman working with Sam? I’ll have to keep an eye on them,” Ellie joked.

“You may have to; Leona is quite beautiful.”

Mary gave her the grand tour of her home, with Ellie anxious to make her new house a home.

“Come with me; there is someone else I want you to meet,” Mary said, leading her out the back door onto the shaded porch.

Ellie noticed an elderly black woman sitting on a rocking chair, crocheting. She had a full head of wavy white hair combed back. She looked elegantly attired in a dark grey-patterned dress with ruffles hiding the buttons.

“Pearl, this is the woman I was telling you about. Mother Pearl, this is my sister-in-law, Ellie Fletcher. She and her family moved here from Kansas. They’re going to operate the other half of the farm with Richard.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Ellie said, offering her hand.

“Kansas, that’s quite a long stretch from here. Welcome to Fort Meade, and with the Lord’s help, I wish you well.” Pearl placed her crochet needle and wool on the seat and shook her hand. Ellie noticed her dark-skinned hand, worn like fine leather, with blood vessels prominent on the back of her hand.

“Please, you don’t have to get up,” Ellie said as Pearl began to stand.

“I need to stretch these old bones anyway,” she replied, using Ellie as support to get to her feet.

Pearl picked up her wide-brimmed hat and put it on. “Pardon me a tickle.”

Ellie watched as Pearl stepped down the two steps to the grassed lawn, picked up a long-handled hoe leaning against the railing, and walked towards the garden. Mary smiled and laughed lightly as Pearl yelled and threatened the half-dozen or so seagulls walking through the garden rows.

“Would you believe that woman is 102 years old? She’s Moses’ great grandmother.”

“Wow, 102? I don’t know many people who live to be that old.”

“The stories she could tell you about her life are unbelievable! I’m sure she’ll capture you and your family to regale you with some of them.”

Ellie chuckled, watching Pearl pick up a clump of dirt and, with great accuracy, hit one of the birds. They scattered a few feet, then landed to continue tormenting her.

“Seagulls taste horrible; otherwise, we’d trap them for food,” Mary remarked. “Pearl probably still has a good many years left in her.”

Pearl returned to them. “Damn those birds for crapin’ in our garden! Mary, I’ll need your shotgun again.”

Ellie looked on with growing fondness as Pearl climbed the steps, took her seat, and sipped on her tall glass of lemonade.

“Pearl, the last time you tried to scare away the gulls with the shotgun, you shot out the porch window.” Mary smiled.

“I had much better aim in my younger years.”

“She’ll no doubt tell you how she almost killed General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War,” Mary said quietly.

“The Civil War? That long ago?”

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Sam, Richard, and Moses. They were followed by David, Mary, Donny, and Sarah. Richard made the introductions of Sam, Donny, and Sarah to Pearl. Ellie went to Sam, giving him a warm embrace and hug.

“We can use the extra help running the other sections of orchards and pastures,” Moses commented.

“You’re a strappin’ fine-looking youngster, just like your brother,” Pearl said, going to them. “If I was eighty years younger, I’d take you on,” she joked, patting his chest.

“Pearl wanted the shotgun to go after the gulls again,” Mary said to Richard.

“We can’t afford another new window, Pearl,” he joked.

“I don’t want to kill them; just scare the bejesus out of them!” Pearl remarked. “Let me tell you how I almost won the Civil War, all by myself.”

“Please, not now, Pearl,” Moses remarked.

“There is no time like the present. I remember it all as if it happened only yesterday.”

“If it even happened at all,” Moses muttered to Sam and Ellie, and they quietly chuckled. “We should sit down; this could take a while.”

“I was born a third-generation slave. I know I had two brothers and one sister. I remember them being sold away when I was about ten, and I never heard from or saw them again. I recall working in the fields, no matter the weather, for two different owners. By the age of thirty, I was sold to General Lee’s family.”

“That son of a corncob pipe was a brutal slave owner. He’d mercilessly beaten many people. To him, like many plantation owners, we were property to be bought, sold, and traded. He wasn’t my first owner, and thankfully he was my last.”

“Many slaves tried to escape from the clutches of General Lee. I remember a brother, sister, and cousin being able to escape. I can remember the brother and sister as plain as day, Westly and Mary Norris. They made their way as far as Westminster before being captured. They were returned to General Lee, where he ordered us, other slaves, to watch the men receive fifty lashes and the sister receive twenty lashes as a lesson if we tried to escape.”

“I heard and witnessed unspeakable horrors. Many of us women were treated as if we were sexual slaves rather than actual slaves. Some owners would force us to have sex with the male slaves to make more slaves. Others took us for their own pleasure and created mixed-skinned babies. Husbands were forced to witness their wives and young daughters being raped. I bore four children, two of them by white owners, and outlived them all.”