Read Online Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons by Ann Rinaldi - Free Book Online

made up their wings.
    They carried me outside myself. They released me from my ignorance.
    I could fly.
    One day, when I had finished my recitation, Nathaniel jumped up and pounded the fist of one hand into the palm of the other.
    "I know what I am going to do, Phillis. I have a plan to convince Father I should be a merchant."
    Again his plan was brilliant. He had some money of his own, left to him by his grandmother Wheatley. He would purchase some merchandise from a ship that had just docked, advertise it in the
Boston Evening Post,
and get one of his father's trusted workers to stock it in the shoppe on King Street.
    "Come on, Phillis, put on a warm cloak. I'm taking you with me to the wharves."

    Besides the thriving shoppe on King Street, Nathaniel's father owned several warehouses on the docks, much wharfage, other fine houses over on Union Street that he rented, and a two-hundred-ton merchantman,
London Packet.
    So Nathaniel knew his way around the wharves. Workers and merchants greeted him. He knew what coffeehouse to drop into to get information, what ships were due and from where, and who would be at what alehouse.
    "Likely, Prince, this time of day young Hancock is at the Cromwell Head on School Street, having a late repast of fish and chips and striking a deal to split the cost of a cargo of South Carolina rice."
    Prince drew the chaise up outside the Cromwell Head.
    "Wait here," Nathaniel told us.
    Across the street was Hancock's Wharf. There were things to see aplenty, and Prince pointed them out to me.
    "There's old Mr. Hancock's countinghouse. He's uncle to John. They say he's worth seventy thousand pounds."
    "Is that a lot of money?" I asked.
    Prince laughed. "Enough for him to have bought Clark's Wharf and have plenty left over ... There's a lady there on the wharf what makes waxworks. She makes kings and queens and dresses 'em like they was real. Name of Mrs. Hiller. Ask Master Nathaniel to take you there someday."
    I nodded solemnly. Prince knew everything.
    "Old Mr. Hancock just gave young Mr. Hancock a three-masted schooner, the
Liberty.
Young John be only four-and-twenty and they say he gonna inherit everythin'... There's another shoppe owned by Mr. Fletcher. He has toys. A little town wif houses you can fit in your hand. And he has little moons and suns and he shows how they go 'round. It takes four shillings sixpence to get in there."
    For an hour, Prince pointed out sights to me. I felt the excitement, the bustle, the mystery, and the sense of purpose. Then suddenly my fancy was caught by a young nigra dressed in a blue satin suit trimmed with yellow. He even wore a wig.
    "Who is that?" I asked Prince.
    "Robin. You doan wanna know 'bout him. He's a bad one."
    "He looks like a peacock." The Wheatleys had peacocks in their yard. The birds made noises when intruders came around.
    Prince chuckled. "Fine feathers doan make fine birds." And then he told me about Robin and how he'd supplied the arsenic to Phillis and Mark, ten years ago.
    "One of these days I'm going to have fine clothes, too. Nathaniel said he'd buy them for me when he becomes a merchant."
    His face went solemn. "What you want fine dresses for?"
    "So I can be somebody."
    "You ain't never gonna be nobody, little one. You is always gonna jus' be little Phillis the slave."
    "That's not true, Prince. I'm learning to better myself. Master Nathaniel said I could."
    "You kin strut around in fancy clothes like Robin there, but it won't matter none. You still be a nobody. No matter what you do."
    Even if I learn to read?
But I couldn't ask that Because that was our secret, Nathaniel's and mine.
    "Only way to be anybody is to be free," Prince told me. He seemed so sad. This was not like him. He was always happy, cheering everyone else up. He took life as it came.
    "How can I do that, Prince?"
    "They can do it. It's done alla time. Master writes a paper and you is free. You wanna better yourself, get them to write that paper and make you free. If'n