Chapter 8: New Life

Ab felt fairly happy with the planting season just past as he rode to school Monday evening. He’d plowed his land and Cellus’s land, and Martha still seemed happy. He’d planted a lot of cotton, some corn, and even beans and turnips. He had a new cabin with a fireplace and a floor. He’d bought a ham to hang from the ceiling of his new cabin, and he figured to eat well the next year.

He was even happier when he got to class. He knew that there were four teachers in the school, and they taught different classes; they changed which teacher taught which group on a system that he didn’t understand. Teacher Purcell was back in front of the room. He thought of her as just Teacher, and he liked her best. Mostly, he’d had classes with Teacher, though.

“Tonight,” Teacher said when there were many people there and others were only drifting in, “we have a special gift from General Warren and Teacher Warren. You should remember that Teacher Kendrick married General Warren last Christmastime. She is Teacher Warren, now.

“Anyway, she and the general have drawn us this map. You have seen a map of the world: there is a map of the United States right here. This is a map of a much smaller area. It shows the river and several miles this side of the river. The grants are marked. See these little squares? And the names of the people who live on the grant. You are going to come up and find your grant.”

“Teacher,” Ab said loud enough for her and everybody in the room to hear. Then he raised his hand. Teacher had been insisting on that for the month before the break for picking.

“Yes, Ab.”

“General told me that soldiers put the map down with the north part of the map facing north when they look at a map. Wouldn’t it be easier to find our grants if we had the map on the north wall?” Teacher was looking around. “That’s the north wall, Teacher.” He pointed.

Marjorie thought that he might be right. More than that, one of the students had a suggestion that was far from foolish – never mind that it was Ab whose presence she enjoyed. The freedmen were free men and should experience their freedom in unselfish ways. She should accept any halfway-decent suggestion. “Can you put it up there now?” she asked. “The hammer and some nails are still here.”

“I’ll help,” Cass Washington said. He was one of the men who worked as carpenters. She kept assuming things after all her experience. She had grown up where every man could handle a hammer and nails. She had put in the nails from which the map was now hanging herself, and she was a woman of the Dalton Purcells. These people had worked from dawn to dusk since they were of an age at which she was still learning to make her own bed. Most of them, however, had not worked with tools.

In short order, the two of them got it up and hanging straighter than she had managed. She asked Ab to find his grant and read what it said. He traced a route from the river with his finger. It didn’t take him long, but she was reminded that he had cited how General Warren treated maps. That meant that he had more experience with maps than the other students had.

“I am listed on the map, as well,” she said. “Here is the school in this big, blank space. ‘Marjorie Purcell,’ it says, ‘Jane Nelson, Diane Rawlings, Messalina Jefferson.’ We all live here. Teacher Warren teaches here, but she doesn’t live here. She is listed over here: ‘Warren, Samuel, Deborah.’ They live by the store. These wider spaces are veteran’s grants, and the general got one the same size a private did.”

Now, they knew where the school and the store were on the map; they already knew where they were on the ground. This would help them figure out the relationship between the ground and the school. These were intelligent people. They were ignorant as sin, but they were – for the most part – not stupid. She decided against having anyone else find his name on the map during class time, though. She would break earlier than usual and let them look at it on their own time. She would go to the next part of what the teachers had decided they would do now that they had the map.

“In our time together, we have learned to read and spell many words. Those words are as important in Dalton, Massachusetts, the town in which I was born, as they are here. What is important to us and might not be as important in Dalton, is the names of our neighbors. For the next few weeks, we are going to learn to write them.

She had an alphabetical list of the students who had attended this class. The freedmen who had yet to choose a last name were at the end. She called her roll until someone answered.

“Crispus Adams,” she wrote on the slate in large letters so everyone could read it. “Mr. Adams, will you stand up so everyone can see you? Now, can you go to the map? Ab, would you help him find his grant? Everyone should write down that name. This person is Crispus Adams, and we shall soon see where he lives. Do you have anyone else in your family here?”

“No, teacher,” Adams said. “My woman, Saphy, goes to another class.”

“Well, right now, we’re only leaning to spell the names of the people in this class. We should know how to spell the names of all our neighbors, but we’ll take it in steps.”

They went down the roll slowly. Probably it was still too many people to recognize. The locations on the map, except for the people who found their own, were probably forgotten as soon as they were mentioned. When her watch said that it was half an hour before the normal 9:00 end of class, she allowed them to go up to the map to see if they could find their names.

Ab had them gather in the groups that walked to school together. He showed one person in the group where he lived and told them the directions on the map. The map, which had seemed so large, was much too small to accommodate everybody crowding around.

Well, the ones who hadn’t come would hear about this. They might have decent attendance for growing season this year, at least for the classes who met in the room with the local map. They would move it as the year went on.

Deb said, “I think it is my time. Mrs. Jackson will be in Marjorie’s classroom tonight. Before you go for her, fetch another pail of water and build up both fires.”

Sam did those chores, tore out of the house, and harnessed Stepper to the shay. He was so nervous that he fumbled doing jobs he would have thought he could do in his sleep. When he turned off his grant, he whipped the horse into a trot. A cavalryman’s care for his mount soon got his sense back, though. It was dark, with clouds blowing across the moon, and the road wasn’t trotting quality. Even so, he got to the school faster than he would have on foot.

Margorie took one look at General Warren from the front of her classroom, and she decided that he was far beyond his depths. She was used to making decisions for other people, if former slaves rather than former commanders of cavalry divisions. Anyway, the freedmen probably had more experience with childbirth.

“Just a moment,” she said. It was her usual announcement of an interruption in the class. “Belle, we are going to need you. General, I’ll take your buggy. You take the class.”

“But...” Sam was even more flustered than he had been a minute ago.

“Teach them something.” With the repetition necessitated by low rates of attendance, just what he taught them didn’t much matter. He knew how to read, didn’t he?

Sam watched Miss Purcell walk out of the room with Mrs. Jackson. Then he shook himself and walked up to the front.

“I’m a tad worried,” he said on the way. “This is my first child.” He had never felt that there was any use in pretending to be fearless. “Maybe we should do a little reckoning. How far have you got in subtraction?” He could see their faces now, and none of them looked like they even recognized the term. Damn it! Miss Purcell had told him that the school was teaching subtraction. “What is two minus one?”

“Do you mean added to or take away?” some voice asked. Take away, he could live with.

“What ‘s two take away one?”

The same voice answered,” One.”

“And what’s seven take away four?”

A score of voices answered, “Three.”

“Okay,” Sam told them, “here’s how we’re going to do it. I’ll ask the question; nobody will speak, but everybody will think of an answer; when you have thought of an answer, raise your hand; I will call on one of you; that one will give his answer. If you think it’s the right answer, take your hand down; if you have another answer, keep your hand up. I’ll call on one of the people who as another answer. And don’t get out pencil and paper; this is an exercise for your mind.”

Sam learned that when the larger number was less than ten, the first person he called on had the right answer, and nobody challenged him. On the other hand, even when the first answer was wrong, less than half the class challenged it, and fewer than a quarter of the women did. When there was a challenger, he always called on one, even when the first answer was wrong. He would never ask for a third answer unless the first two were wrong.

“Twenty nine, take away sixteen,” he asked. He pointed to a man who had been showing more than the usual urgency to answer for the last four questions.

“Eleven.”

“Who has another answer?” Nearly half the men in the room had their hands up, and only one woman did. He was suddenly conscious that he hadn’t called on any women. He pointed. “The lady in the red dress.”

There was nervous laughter in the classroom. “Ain’t no lady,” she said.

“There are black ladies, and there are white ladies. There are women of both races who aren’t ladies, but it isn’t polite to say which ones. Anyway, what is your answer to twenty-nine take away sixteen?”

“Thirteen.”

“That is correct,” he said. He went on.

Sam went on like that until Miss Nelson came to tell the class that it was time to go home. She had the school clock in her room, but the freedmen had heard the others walking out. They had been trained so long in deference that none of them had shuffled his feet like everyone in a northern class held past ending time would have. Sam hadn’t heard a thing.

Nobody had told Jane Nelson that General Warren was in the building before he listened at the classroom door to see why Marjorie was holding her class over. She could guess the reason, though.

“Has Deborah’s time come, then?” she asked.

“Yes.” Sam had been able to lock that in the back of his mind while he was leading the class through their exercise in subtraction. Now, it hit him full again.

Jane could understand why Marjorie had kept him out of the house. “Well, now I can say that I’ve seen what the Georgia Colored Cavalry never saw, General Warren showing fright.”

“Man ain’t scared when the Minnie balls are flying isn’t brave; he’s crazy. Look, I’m walking. Done it often, and so have you. Miss Purcell gets back, ask her to have somebody care for Stepper. I’ll come for the shay sometime in the morning.”

“I’ll take care of him myself.” Just whom Sam Warren thought they could assign was a real question. Messalina was a cook and housekeeper; she didn’t take care of the stable. Jane couldn’t think of another reason to keep the general there, and the look on his face as he left suggested that she couldn’t have held him back with a pistol.

Sam was a good deal less cautious about his legs than he had been about Stepper’s. He had walked from his house to the school often enough to know how fast he could go the entire distance, and he took that pace.

When he saw the house, all the light seemed to be in the kitchen. He headed for that door.

As soon as Marjorie Purcell had started the shay towards the Warren house, Belle Jackson asked her, “What is the general going to teach them?”

“It doesn’t much matter.” And then, understanding that she had blasphemed her profession by saying that lesson content didn’t matter, she explained, “we always tell you that we are going to learn this for this month and that for that month. That is mostly to keep our own enthusiasms in check. There is so much that the owners kept you from learning. It is critical to know how to read and write; you have to read the Bible for yourself, but also to read the newspapers. You need to tell time and to know where you are in the nation as well.

“You also need to know practical things. General Warren always emphasizes that, and it is good for teachers to hear from a practical man. Someday you will read a novel, but you should probably be able to add up your purchases first.”

“Is the general tired of adding them up for us?” Belle asked.

“He will keep adding them up, but you should do that for yourself, too.”

“My Cass says that anyone who doesn’t trust General Warren is a Damned fool.” Belle had been a healing woman with the Georgia troops; she had married one of the soldiers. These veterans seemed to have a great deal of both respect and affection for Sam Warren. Marjorie had never heard them express such feelings for Ben Butler, who had been – after all – Warren’s superior. Butler was governor now, too.

“Was your husband in the cavalry?” Cassius Jackson was in the same class, but Marjorie knew Belle better because she had found her for Deb.

“All the army knew about General Warren.”

Which left Marjorie with the task of explaining about the custom of checking the storekeeper’s arithmetic against your own. That wasn’t really about distrusting the storekeeper, except it nearly was. Not quite all the customers of Purcell’s Mercantile did, but you weren’t a good Yankee if you didn’t. She left it at, “Ask the General if he wants you to add up your purchases the next time you’re in the store – don’t ask him tonight.”

Belle laughed softly. “Do all white men get that scared at a childbirth, teacher?”

“Well, it is his first child.”

They rode in the mutual womanly amusement at the male discomfort at woman’s bodies. When they reached the Warren house, Belle helped Marjorie put Stepper in his stable before they both went to the house.

The parlor was warmer than the schoolroom had been, even though the latter had been packed with bodies. The bedroom was even warmer.

“Wash,” Deborah said. “There is water on the stove and soap on the stand.” Belle began to peal the dress off Deb while Marjorie investigated the water. It was simmering, and he went around to the kitchen for cold water to dilute it. When she got back, Deborah was naked, and Belle had her drenched drawers on a chair back.

“Her water just broke,” Belle said. She covered Deborah with the sheet. When Marjorie brought her the soap, water, and some sacking for a towel, she washed and dried her hands quite thoroughly. That was the last order she followed for some interminable time. Whatever her respect for teachers or for white ladies, Belle was in charge.

Marjorie, at least, was still “Teacher.” For example, Belle said, “Could you check the stove, Teacher? It needs to burn hot, and that means it needs to burn fast. If it’s burning up the sticks, can you find more?” Marjorie knew where the Warrens kept their firewood in the kitchen; she fetched more and threw one more substantial section of a branch on the fire.

Deborah was “Dear.” “You can’t be modest, dear. There are only women here, and I have to see what is happening.” And she said, “Don’t be afraid to scream. dear. It hurts, and we know it hurts.” After that, Deborah moaned our loud, although she didn’t scream. After what seemed to Marjorie a long night although the general hadn’t come home, she finally said, “It’s trying to come out, Dear, but you must push harder ... That is it!”

Then Deb did scream. There were four wails, each louder and higher pitched than the last.

Belle said, “Good.” She held the baby up by his ankles. It was turned so that Marjorie’s could clearly see that they were his ankles. Belle swatted him, and he cried a tiny sound in comparison with those his mother had made at the end. “You aren’t quite done, Dear. Push two more times to get rid of the afterbirth. Then I’ll put him to your teat, and you can both get some sleep ... Good.”

Belle took a tiny knife from somewhere on her person and cut the umbilical cord. She lay the baby on Deborah’s chest and scooped up the mess between her legs. She took it and a lantern with her, and Marjorie heard her steps go into the kitchen, that door close, a pause and the door close again.

“Could you bring the third lantern, Teacher? They won’t need any light,” Belle said from the bedroom doorway. She took up two lanterns and led the way into the kitchen. She blew out two and set the one Marjorie carried on the table facing way from them. The first one she had taken was already there facing in the opposite direction. They sat down. “We have to listen. Teacher Warren will be weak, and her son is still tiny.”

They sat for a little while. Marjorie didn’t mind the silence. While she had scores of questions, she could only articulate one, and she didn’t want to ask it: “Does it always hurt like that?”

Before she could bring herself to ask that, she heard footsteps outside the kitchen door.

When Sam saw the house, all the light seemed to be in the kitchen. He headed for that door.

Mrs. Jackson said, “General, you have a son,” as he came in the door. “Shall I bring him to you?” She took a lantern off the table and walked into the bedroom. He held himself to a slow pace following her, but when she plucked the baby from Deb’s chest, he was right behind her. “The neck is still weak...” she began, but he figured that you held a son like you did a sister or brother.

“It’s... he is wet.”

“Yes. Do you know how to change him?”

“It’s been a while,” he admitted. “Somehow, cavalrymen never change babies. They seldom ever see them.”

“Why don’t you do it in the kitchen? I will watch.”

When he had functioned to Mrs. Jackson’s approval, he remembered to pay her before she and Miss Purcell leave.

“I’ll come for Stepper in the morning,” he said.

“When he cries,” Mrs. Jackson said, “change him again and take him in to his mama.”

He followed directions. Then he blew out the extra lantern, banked the fires, and wrapped himself in a blanket on the floor. He has slept one hell of a lot worse, and it seemed to him that Deborah and the baby need all the bed that night. They already had a crib, but that must be for later.

He woke for every sound that night. Sometimes it was wind or rain outside; sometimes Deb was taking care of their son. Then she spoke:

“You are really a mess, but I am unsure I could get up.”

“Do you want me to take care of him?” he asked.

“He is hungry, too.”

“Feed him, and I will stir up the fires.” He puts on his shoes. He gets both the bedroom Franklin stove and the larger kitchen stove going well. Then he visits the outhouse. Deb handed him the boy soon after he came back.

“He doesn’t drink a lot; he can’t hold much,” she said. “But he does drink often.”

The boy was a real mess, but Sam cleaned him up. They couldn’t keep calling him “The Boy.”

Deb was awake, if not particularly alert, when he got back. “Have you been thinking of names?” he asked.

Deborah Warren had decided. “Sam. Samuel Adams Warren Junior.”

“I’m a junior; he’ll have to be a third.”

“Samuel Adams Warren Tertius – that’s Latin for ‘the third.’” Nobody ever asked you why you named a child for his father, and Deb was happy that she wouldn’t be asked. Her reason, though, was that they both caused her so much trouble.

Ab was happy enough to stay late after class to help more students find their grants. It was raining. It didn’t stop raining, though, and Teacher came back after a while to tell them leave. Ab waited a bit on the porch so that the others would have a little lead. Martha didn’t seem to mind the rain, but he found that sitting on the wet saddle was a bit uncomfortable. When he caught up with some folks who were walking, he had already passed several places where the route branched.

“Start for class early next time,” he told them. I’ll show you your grants on the map.”

It rained the next day, but it had dried off by the day when he had his next class. He walked rather than riding Martha, but he started early enough in the dusk that that he got to school while the first students were drifting in. He came with a half dozen of the people from near him that he’d told to come early. He showed them on the map the route that they had taken together going home, and then where his nearest neighbors had split off. He found their grants on the map. Then he traced the next group’s route and found their grants. By this time, others had come in and wanted him to do the same for them. So, he did, tracing the routes on the map as they described them on the ground. He found the grants for a group which walked together before looking on the map for the next group.

While this was happening, Teacher came in. She didn’t say anything, though. She just went to the space she usually spoke from.

She finally spoke in her usual teaching voice, “Maybe we should learn something else for a while.”

“I’m sorry, Teacher,” Ab said.

“Not at all. We are here to learn, and you have been learning, at least some of you. There are more than five thousand freedmen for every northern teacher. Only a few can learn until they can learn from other freedmen. We now have seen Ab teaching others. Still, while we are here to learn, my schedule says that we are going to learn something else just now.”

Marjorie felt that she was holding out a false hope. Sure, Ab was teaching map-reading skills, and he’d been only off the plantation for a few years. But she had eight years of common school, four years of high school, and two years of normal school behind her. She felt unprepared to teach freedmen. Only the children who had begun last year would have that opportunity – assuming they could get normal schools which weren’t built yet, let alone staffed. Could she hold out for twelve or thirteen more years? Some days, she didn’t feel capable of holding out to the end of the week.