Read Online Dessa Rose by Sherley A. Williams - Free Book Online
Authors: Sherley A. Williams
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been no file. Nathan had knocked out the trader where he slept and taken the keys to the chains from the saddlebags the trader used as a pillow. So, having no answers, she gave none, though she had listened carefully at first: Maybe this white man would tell her something she didnât know. But it was soon apparent to her that the white man did not expect her to answer. She had kept a careful expression on her face, now and then cutting her eyes at him to see if he required some response; but, despite her best efforts, her attention wandered. Once she had looked up and seen his face contorted with the violence of some unexpressed feeling. She had shrunk from him, her chains clanking about her, and he had hit her in the face. She had not taken the full force of the blow; she had been warned by that one startling glance. Her nose had bled some and she now kept her face vacant (better to appear stupid than sassy); but her mind continued to roam.
Had Master looked at Kaine like this white man looked at her? Why? White folks didnât need a why; they was: his voice, quiet and mocking, pulsing like a light through the darkness inside her. âKaineââ She didnât know she had spoken aloud until she became aware of a voice in the stillness and knew it in the next instance as her own. How hoarse and raspy it sounded. She had notspoken above a whisper, except in muttered response to some white manâs questions, in weeks. Caught in her own flow, she listened and continued, seeing as she spoke the power of Master as absolute and evil.
Terrell Vaugham, by virtue of his marriage to Mary Lenore Reeves, owned three farms, the large Home Farm and two smaller outlying properties, and a house in Charleston. Dessa didnât know how many people he owned. Somebody was always being born. Two or three times, a relative or family friend had died and left someone to one of the Reeveses, as Martha had been inherited by Young Mistress when an elderly cousin died. Master Vaugham had brought no slaves to the marriage (not even a manservant, Childer, scandalized, had reported), as Old Mistress had brought mammy, the dairy maid, and Lefonia, the personal one. All the children were separated early from their mothers and raised on the Home Farm under the care of Mamma Hattie and a couple of older or younger womenâdepending on who was just up from childbed or otherwise ailing. When the children were old enough to work, usually around six or seven, they were parceled out among the farms and the town house to fetch and carry, as Dessa had been put with her mother in the dairy. Often they were hired out to local farms or businesses or apprenticed to a craftsman on the Home Farmâas mammy had feared that Dessa would be apprenticed in the dairy. Carrie Mae, Dessaâs older sister, already worked there; the only reason they would need three women in the dairy was that one was going to be sold. But Dessa, like many others, found a permanent place on one of the farms.
If they lived, they lived long. But the toll of those who did not, who died or were permanently debilitated by the annual fevers, by one or another of the ailments that walked through the Quarters with agonizing regularity, from punishments or their aftereffects, left a gaping need for more and more hands to plant, to reap, to make, to clean, to feed. Or, you were sold away. Increasingly, they were sold away. Even in dreams that threat had haunted her.
Master Vaugham had improved their working conditions. Theywere never in the fields before sunup and seldom there much after sundown. They were given an hour-and-a-half break at noon, nursing mothers two. Roofs were repaired, weevily meal replaced. But they all knew, without, it seemed to her, ever having discussed it among themselves, that as soon as they learned some craft or task, they were liable to be sold. They were bred for market, like the cows mammy milked, the chickens that she fed. Dessa had not
Had Master looked at Kaine like this white man looked at her? Why? White folks didnât need a why; they was: his voice, quiet and mocking, pulsing like a light through the darkness inside her. âKaineââ She didnât know she had spoken aloud until she became aware of a voice in the stillness and knew it in the next instance as her own. How hoarse and raspy it sounded. She had notspoken above a whisper, except in muttered response to some white manâs questions, in weeks. Caught in her own flow, she listened and continued, seeing as she spoke the power of Master as absolute and evil.
Terrell Vaugham, by virtue of his marriage to Mary Lenore Reeves, owned three farms, the large Home Farm and two smaller outlying properties, and a house in Charleston. Dessa didnât know how many people he owned. Somebody was always being born. Two or three times, a relative or family friend had died and left someone to one of the Reeveses, as Martha had been inherited by Young Mistress when an elderly cousin died. Master Vaugham had brought no slaves to the marriage (not even a manservant, Childer, scandalized, had reported), as Old Mistress had brought mammy, the dairy maid, and Lefonia, the personal one. All the children were separated early from their mothers and raised on the Home Farm under the care of Mamma Hattie and a couple of older or younger womenâdepending on who was just up from childbed or otherwise ailing. When the children were old enough to work, usually around six or seven, they were parceled out among the farms and the town house to fetch and carry, as Dessa had been put with her mother in the dairy. Often they were hired out to local farms or businesses or apprenticed to a craftsman on the Home Farmâas mammy had feared that Dessa would be apprenticed in the dairy. Carrie Mae, Dessaâs older sister, already worked there; the only reason they would need three women in the dairy was that one was going to be sold. But Dessa, like many others, found a permanent place on one of the farms.
If they lived, they lived long. But the toll of those who did not, who died or were permanently debilitated by the annual fevers, by one or another of the ailments that walked through the Quarters with agonizing regularity, from punishments or their aftereffects, left a gaping need for more and more hands to plant, to reap, to make, to clean, to feed. Or, you were sold away. Increasingly, they were sold away. Even in dreams that threat had haunted her.
Master Vaugham had improved their working conditions. Theywere never in the fields before sunup and seldom there much after sundown. They were given an hour-and-a-half break at noon, nursing mothers two. Roofs were repaired, weevily meal replaced. But they all knew, without, it seemed to her, ever having discussed it among themselves, that as soon as they learned some craft or task, they were liable to be sold. They were bred for market, like the cows mammy milked, the chickens that she fed. Dessa had not
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