Chapter 2: Preparations

Friday, it was raining fairly hard at noon. Pearl and the other girls ran splashing the entire way from the mills to school. The students were eating on a porch mostly away from the wind. The boys were on one side of the stairs up to the porch and the girls on the other. Some of the boys said things about seeing their dresses sticking to their teats. Pearl went deeper into the girl’s side where the boys would have trouble seeing her. Some of the other girls from the mills, though, sat as close to the boys as they were allowed to.

Saturday was clear. There were still puddles, but the girls could mostly avoid them on their trip from the mills to school. When they got to the turnoff to Jonah’s farm, he was there.

“Miss Burton,” he said, “would you eat dinner with me?”

“Yes, Mr. Douglass, I will.” She turned off and followed him. The girls went on, chattering about her. The branch was deeper after the recent rain. He jumped; she waded. On the other side, he led her to a stump. When she sat down, he took a cloth from his belt and wiped her feet.

“Grass is still a mite wet,” he said. “If we talk in the cabin, nothing will happen to you.” She nodded. She wanted to go on with Jonah, and that had to mean trusting him.

In the cabin, he put the plate in front of the chair and another slice of ham on the plate. She sat down and took out her pone. Jonah didn’t get his own food; instead he paced up and down the length of the room across the table from her. She noticed that he was hard. He had said that nothing would happen to her. Did he want her to bring him off again? After all, she had had three.

“Did you enjoy Thursday night?” he asked. So, he did want her to bring him off again.

“You know I did.”

“Do you want a lifetime of that? Well, not of just that, but a lifetime which gives you many nights of as much pleasure?”

“What are you asking?” She asked. “What would you want in return?”

“Well, it would be a marriage. Everything that others could see would be a marriage like you see. But the part after we close our cabin door ... You will let me bring you what I brought you the other night, and you don’t let another man anywhere near your teats and cunt.”

“How about you?”

“I will only have sex with you ... If you marry me,” he said, “I’ll only fuck you, and I won’t bring that pleasure I brought you to any other woman.”

She couldn’t blame him for going back to set the condition. They were talking about marriage. But that brought another problem. “And you’ll want to bust me?”

“I’ll bust you, and it will hurt. But it will only hurt one time. I’ve been with women before, and it didn’t hurt any of them when I was in them. They were happy.”

Pearl believed him. At least, she believed Melly who had said about the same thing. She was really only pretending to bargain. She had long ago decided to have babies, and that meant having a man’s cock up her. Whether a formal busting or not, the first time a man’s cock went in there, it would hurt. For that matter, having a baby hurt worse, and that hurt happened every time a baby was born. She knew the last from more than Melly telling her; she had heard Mama cry when Davy came.

She was pretending to haggle. She would marry a man. He would fuck her and give her babies. The first time he fucked her, it would hurt; every time a baby came, it would hurt worse. She would cook the man’s food, sew his clothes, and help tend their fields. Now, would Jonah be that man? : In the sort of ways that she could tell her mother, Jonah was a good choice. Pearl lived in a world where men had land and boys – and girls – had some interest in the land. Maybe a boy had a father who would allow him to build a cabin of his own on the father’s land. Often, though, the new wife moved into the cabin – sometimes the room – where the boy’s family lived. Jonah had his own cabin on his own land. Twice as much land as Papa had. He had a stable and a smokehouse, a mule and a herd of pigs. He had made money farming, and he had put some of that money into what would make more money.

In the part she could never tell Mama, Jonah was even better. She had been with him two times, but the idea of being with him time after time had her all excited. Could another man do that? Maybe. Melly had been a lot clearer about what Pearl could do than about what Melly did do, but Pearl understood that she was quite happy with Jebu. Still, Jonah could bring her a lot of happiness, and maybe another boy could bring as much – if he decided to.

“And you’ll make me happy the way that you did Thursday night?”

“That way and other ways,” Jonah said. “I can’t do the other way until after you’re busted, but you’ll enjoy it as much. Anyway, I’ll do the thing that you know already, too. You know that you enjoy that.”

“I need to talk with Mother.”

“But you’re thinking about it?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “but I have to go to school, now.”

“Come here first.” The first part of the kiss was gentle, and he cupped her face in his hands. Then, he pressed his lips harder into hers, and he stroked down her back. He lifted her dress in back and held her ass cheeks through her drawers. He pressed his tongue past her lips, and hers tingled when the tongues met. She felt his hard cock against her belly; it was scary, but it was also exciting.

He squeezed her ass hard. Then he used that grip to push her away. “You need to go to school. Study hard.”

“Study hard,” she thought as she started along the path. She would be lucky if she even heard Teacher Nelson. Jonah wanted to marry her. She would have her own cabin to run, and he would bring her that happiness day after day. Well, it would be more likely to be night after night. Still, that last kiss had been a promise.

She got home in time to help Mama cook. “Can we talk after supper?” she asked before bringing the stew to the table.

“Of course, Pearl.” During supper, when Nattie reported that Pearl had come to the school late and with her lunch eaten, Papa looked over at her. “Tie,” Mama said. She shook her head.

After Pearl and Nattie had washed the dishes, Mama said, “Pearl.” They went out and walked nearly to the path out front. Mama looked a question at her.

“Mama, Jonah Douglass asked me to marry him.”

“And is that all that happened?”

“Mama, I have told you that we have talked. That talk led to his asking me to marry him. I don’t want to go into details on all that talk.”

“That is fair,” Mama said, “If you do marry him, you will have family secrets. Every family does. Did you say yes?”

“I wanted to speak to you, first.”

“But you want to say yes?”

“I will,” Pearl admitted, “whatever you say. I just ... When I leave you, I don’t want to leave you.” That didn’t make sense, but Mama didn’t say so.

“Well, that’s good to hear. Enough girls go with men so they can get away from their families. That doesn’t end well, like as not. Well, there are things you have to decide for yourself, and there are things that your Papa and I can see about boys. We don’t know anything bad about Jonah, and some things are easy to see. Married life isn’t easy, but the man has enough to keep it from being harder than usual.”

“I want to invite him to eat Sunday,” Pearl said. It was Mama’s house, and she had to say yes or no. Still, she thought that marriage involved families. What she had done with Jonah were some of the things you didn’t tell your mama. What she would have with him was something you told the whole world.

“Tomorrow?”

“Too soon.” She would have to go to Jonah’s cabin in the dusk and come back in the dark to invite him. “Next Sunday?”

“We can have chicken and dumplings. You do that best. Come back Saturday noon when you’re done at the mill. You can start after dinner. Come back from the mill at noon.”

“Yes, Mama,” Pearl said.

“You may be going to be a married woman with her own cabin, soon. Until then, you are my daughter; I will look out for your future, and you will do what I tell you.”

“Yes, Mama.” And Pearl would do what she was told to do, as long as Mama could see what she did.

At dinner the next day, Papa waited until everybody was eating. Then, he asked her, “Pearl, do you have any news?”

“Yes, Papa. Jonah Douglass has asked me to marry him. Mama said that I could invite him to eat with us next Sunday. Mama and Papa know him. I sometimes eat dinner with him.”

“You’re going to be married,” Nattie said.

“He has asked. I haven’t answered. I think he should be the first to hear my answer.” Mama had obviously told Papa, since he let that go. Still, this was going to be all over the school Monday. She should invite Jonah for Sunday dinner before he heard about it from somebody else.

Even though Monday had rain off and on, she cut off from the route from the mill to the school to look for Jonah. He was chopping weeds in a far corner of his grant.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” he said. “My hands are dirty.” He rubbed them on his pants.

“You still want to marry me?”

“Do you have an answer?” Jonah didn’t think she had walked further and risked the rain to tell him no.

“No, I don’t. Why don’t you ask me at Sunday dinner? I said that wrong. I’m here to invite you to dinner this coming Sunday.”

“Thank you. Noon?”

“We leave church about noon,” Pearl said. “Why don’t you leave here a little earlier?” He nodded. “Bend over a little.”

“My hands are dirty.”

“And my dress is clean. So, keep your hands to yourself and bend down a little.”

When he did, she grabbed his ears to get his head where she wanted it. She gave him a luscious kiss.

“I’ll see you Sunday,” she said. “I don’t think we should talk before then.” She ran off. The sky looked as if rain would come before she could get to school.

Jonah watched her hips twitch until she turned the corner, and the bushes hid her ass. Pearl really enjoyed her power of turning him on. That was fine. He wanted a woman who enjoyed turning him on, and he wanted a woman who enjoyed his turning her on.

For a minute, he feared that Pearl had invited him for Sunday just so she could have more people to hear her refuse him. Maisie, he thought, wouldn’t let her do that. Then, too, Pearl enjoyed her power, but she enjoyed his actions, too.

When they got out of class Thursday night, he drew Maisie and Titus aside.

“Pearl asked me to dinner Sunday,” he told Maisie. “She was speaking for you, wasn’t she?”

Maisie gave him the longest look until Titus started to say something. “Tie,” she said, and then to Jonah, “We said that she could. Do you want to walk back with us tonight and learn the way?”

“She told me, and I looked it up on the map. I think I can find it.”

Maisie looked at him again until Titus tugged at her arm. The others had gone on. “Well, we won’t start dinner without you,” she said. Then the two of them hurried after the others that they walked with.

Jonah had slaughtered a half-grown pig because David Grant, the tanner he worked with, especially wanted the hide. He’d kept the meat hanging in the smokehouse through several smoking sessions. Saturday night, he brought one of the small hams into the cabin and hung it by the chimney. Sunday morning, he bathed all over in the branch. Back at the cabin, he trimmed his beard and ate breakfast before dressing in his school clothes and his linen jacket.

Jonah didn’t think of himself as a rich man. The linen jacket was the only clothing that he reserved for church. He had 80 acres like any other veteran, but he couldn’t pick that much. His cabin was large for a single man, but it wasn’t even as large as Pearl’s family had. He had a stable and a smokehouse besides, and he owned a mule and a herd of pigs. He had a deposit at the store, money in the Freedman’s Savings Bank, and $20 in silver buried in a corner of the smokehouse.

He put a dime in the plate every Sunday he attended, which was more than half of the weeks in the year. He gave the preacher a ham on Palm Sunday and a side of ribs the Sunday before Christmas.

He had tried to make the grant more productive every year, but he was fairly sure that this would be harder after his marriage. He would need a new cabin. Pearl would need clothes. They would have babies, and babies were expensive.

On the other hand, he had not enjoyed the last year although he got more money in than he needed for supporting himself. He wanted a wife, and Pearl looked like she would be a good one. He wanted that response, and he needed the other things a wife would provide him.

He took a long stick from his kindling pile and tied the ham on one end. With that over his shoulder so that the ham wouldn’t brush against his clothes, he set off for Pearl’s cabin.

He got there before the family was back. He waited in the best shade he could find until they arrived. The first of the family to get there were a boy and a girl who came running up. They both looked a little like Pearl in the face.

“Who are you?” the girl asked. “This is our cabin.”

“I’m Jonah Douglass. Your parents and Pearl are expecting me.”

“He’s Mr. Douglass,” Tie’s voice came from around the corner. A smaller boy came staggering up. He stopped when he was in plain sight, then sidled over to his sister and put his thumb in his mouth. “And these are Nattie, Orrie, and Abe,” Titus continued as he came into sight. Maisie and Pearl came right after him. Pearl was wearing shoes and a different dress.

“Hello, Nattie. Hello, Orrie. Hello, Abe.” Jonah already knew Titus and Maisie, and their future relationship would be determined by how they thought he treated Pearl. The kids would make up their own minds and having a sister or a brother who thought him stuck up would strain Pearl’s feelings toward him.

He heard the outhouse door slam. A minute later, Maisie came around the corner of the cabin with Pearl trailing behind. Pearl looked like she was scared that she had started this. Well, a scared Pearl was a new experience.

“We’re not ready,” Maisie said. “Pearl needs to help me get the food on the table.”

“Church ran over,” Pearl said. She followed her mother inside.

“I meant to give her this,” Jonah said. He lifted up the ham and pushed it toward Titus.

“They have the meal all planned. It’s chicken and Pearl did most.”

“That’s fine. I just brought it.”

When Titus carried the ham into the cabin, Jonah squatted down on his heels, so his head wasn’t all that much higher than Abe’s. “Are you named for Abraham Lincoln?” he asked.

Abe nodded without pulling out his thumb. Nattie swatted his arm so the thumb popped out.

“Talk to the man,” she said.

“Yassuh.” He put the thumb back in his mouth and retreated behind his sister. Jonah thought that was a little unfair. He hadn’t hit the boy.

“Mr. Douglas,” Nattie asked suddenly, “you going to ask Pearl...”

“That’s her business. Isn’t it? And mine. Why don’t you listen, and maybe you’ll learn something.”

Nattie shut her mouth, and Jonah darted a glance at Orrie. Obviously, the boy knew what his sister had been asking. Well, there was really no reason to put it off.

Pearl was getting more antsy every minute. She shouldn’t have invited Jonah here. She could see being married to Jonah. She would rule his cabin the way Mama ruled this one. They would have fun every night. She wouldn’t go to school anymore. What she couldn’t see was getting married to Jonah. The ceremony was no problem, she could remember her parents’ ceremony. But they had had a family and already had their own land. She was leaving her family, and how do you leave a family?

“Don’t worry, Pearl,” Mama said. “Either he asks you, or he doesn’t ask you, and if he doesn’t ask you, he is a friend of your papa’s and mine coming for Sunday dinner.”

Papa came in carrying a ham. “Said it was for you. Doesn’t have to be this meal.”

“Why don’t you cut a slice for each, anyway? Not Abe. See, Pearl? He likes you.”

Pearl couldn’t see why the ham meant that Jonah liked her. Anyway, it must have been the smallest ham she had ever seen; did that mean that he liked her only a little? She didn’t worry that he didn’t like her. At least, he liked her teats and ass just fine. She worried that she couldn’t talk to him in front of her family, and she didn’t want him talking about her teats and ass in front of Mama, let alone Orrie.

They got the food on the table and started out. She wanted to go last, but Papa made her go in front of him. Jonah was squatting down, and he stood up smoothly.

“Pearl,” he said, “I love you. Will you marry me?” He started walking toward her.

“Y ... Yes, I will.”

He was right close. He took her face in both hands and kissed her. She didn’t want his hands on her teats or ass in front of her family, but he kept them on her face. He didn’t even try to get his tongue into her mouth. It was a gentle kiss, but it lasted a long time.

“Well,” Mama said when he stepped back. “Dinner is on the table. Nattie, why don’t you help me with Abe? Jonah, you and Pearl are sitting on the side of the table with two chairs.”

Pearl had been expecting to help with Abe, as always. She could have sworn that Mama had expected her to when they set the table.

Anyway, they went in and sat down. Papa said the prayer and asked Jesus to look after the “new couple.” The ham tasted stronger than usual, and Papa said so.

“I left it in the smokehouse,” Jonah said. “Got smoked three times. Chicken tastes good, too.”

“Pearl cooked it,” Papa said.

“She’s a good cook.” Pearl liked that Jonah had said that.

“Jonah,” Mama said, “you two are agreed you’re going to get married. Now, it’s a matter of where and when.” That’s what had worried Pearl. Now, Mama was going to take charge. One, but only one, of the reasons that Pearl wanted to get married was that Mama always took charge. This time, though, she didn’t have any plans of her own. “You mind if it’s our preacher? We’re Baptists.”

“So am I,” said Jonah, “but not a strong one. Your preacher is fine. You going to expect me to attend your church after Pearl and I are married?”

That was something Pearl had thought about. “It’s way over the other way from the school,” she said. She was going to be a woman, and those people all thought of her as a little girl.

“I’ll talk to Pearl about when,” Mama said. “Mind if I tell you Thursday?”

She started to complain, but Mama shot her that look, and she settled back.

“That would be fine,” Jonah said. Well, she could argue that out with Mama.

As the talk went on, she found out that Jonah expected to have a new cabin built for their future family and seemed to think he had the money for it already. When the food was eaten and the talk wound down, Jonah got to his feet and said his goodbyes. Mama told Orrie to help Nattie with the dishes. That left her free to walk Jonah to the path.