Read Online Second Daughter by Mildred Pitts; Walter - Free Book Online Page B

the crowd. Lawyer Sedgwick reacted quickly to gain control. “We cannot now recognize such a petition. I call for the vote.”
    Before more could be said the process was under way. Showing no signs of defeat, Josiah and Agrippa made their way to the back of the room. How could they remain so calm? I was raging inside. Was it because I was a slave? I grabbed the dishes, wrapped them carelessly, and escaped from the hall as quickly as I could.
    It was still raining, the streets hardly passable because of the mud. But I didn’t hurry. When I arrived, I was soaking wet. The mistress was waiting. I knew she was angry, but no more than I for different reasons. “Where have you been so long?” she shouted.
    â€œMistress, I waited until the master had finished to make sure he wanted nothing more. He was busy and took his food as he had time.” I stood and looked her in the eye, waiting for her response.
    â€œYour after-lunch chores are waiting for you. Do them right away.”
    â€œI am wet from the rain, mistress.”
    â€œDo your chores right away.”
    Josiah visited us that evening. Bett wanted more details from him of what had happened. He told her and ended by saying, “We warned you. Africans and wives are property. They are not ready yet to place your rights over property rights.”
    Bett, with her everlasting hope, did not appear upset, but I burst into tears, still feeling the hurt and pent-up anger. Josiah put his arms around me and said, “In due time. Don’t be so impatient under the yoke. As we learn our rights and our duties we will understand that we are not meant to be slaves. When we understand this, we will free ourselves.”
    â€œI know now I’m not meant to be a slave,” I cried. “Help me! Tell me what to do and I’ll free myself, now.”
    Josiah and Bett looked at each other. I saw the tears in her eyes as they both quickly left the room.

14
    We had just celebrated Christmas and a New Year when Bett came in talking about a lot of tea being dumped into the Boston harbor. Upstairs they called it the Boston Tea Party. “They emptied all the British East India Company’s tea in the sea. All of it.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œSome say the Indians. But upstairs they say it was colonists who dressed up like Indians on a dark night and destroyed that valuable tea.”
    â€œWhy do they dress like Indians?”
    â€œThey’re cowards and want the soldiers to think the Indians did it so they can be killed.”
    â€œThe mistress complains all the time about how much tea costs. Why would they throw it into the water?”
    â€œ Because it costs so much. And now the king has put even more tax on it, and closed off the harbor until they pay for what they threw into the sea. We can’t get tea, sugar, nothing from other places.”
    â€œOh, I hate to think of what the mistress is going to do. She’ll be hard to live with now.”
    At Christmas in 1774, things were rough in our town. We had some sugar and molasses but no tea. Everyone was angry and on edge, not knowing what was going to happen. I would have missed the sugar and molasses, but not their tea. Bett knew how to make the best tea from her roots and leaves, teas that the mistress would not have dared to taste. So she suffered. The children missed the puddings, tarts, and pies, but things got worse before they got better and our holiday was spent without the usual fun.
    One morning a messenger came to the door with a sealed packet for the master. Bett led him upstairs. Later she gave him some hot scones and cheese. The message was for Mistress Anna, all the way from New York, and even before the messenger had gone we knew that the news was not good.
    Our old master, the mistress’s father, Cornelis Hogeboom, then a sheriff in Columbia County, New York, had been killed in an anti-rent squabble. He had gone to settle a dispute between landowners and