Read Online The Black Rose by Tananarive Due - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tananarive Due
Tags: Biographical fiction, Fiction, Literary, Historical fiction, Historical, Biography & Autobiography, Cultural Heritage, Cosmetics Industry, African American Women Authors, African American Women Executives, Walker, C. J, African American Authors, Businesswomen, African American women
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become, she and Louvenia still relied not only on the money he brought, but the comfort of having a brother in the cabin to tell them stories of Vicksburg, with all its people and excitement, and help them with heavy work they couldn’t manage on their own. Besides, with Mama and Papa gone, Alex was the only family they had.
“Y’all take good care of yo’selves, hear?” Alex said, tugging at the rim of his dusty cap. “Treat each other good.”
When Alex Breedlove set out west, he was eighteen years old and Sarah wasn’t yet nine. Sarah would be a grown woman with her own child before she would see her brother again.
By the summer of 1878, a new plague had begun.
No matter how much the sharecroppers frantically picked at the little pink worms nestled in the plants’ blossoms, mashing them dead between their fingertips, the bollworms kept coming back, feasting on the cotton-seed in the bolls. So, despite ample rain and sun during the growing season, by the time the fields should have been awash with white cotton ripe for picking, there were only occasional spots of white in acres of empty, worthless bolls. Day after day, no matter how long Sarah picked, her bag dragged virtually weightless behind her because it was so empty. She and the other croppers walked listlessly through the fields like grave robbers looking for trinkets to steal. “Lawd, what we gon’ do?” she heard the croppers agonizing. Many, in fact, had already left in search of other work in hopes of paying off their debts to the growers.
The yield was everything to a sharecropper. If there was no yield, there was nothing.
Sarah was ten and Louvenia was fourteen, but their hardscrabble lives had given their eyes an ageless quality defined by their toil. The cabin had slowly fallen into disrepair because Alex wasn’t there to mend it and neither of them had the time or the spirit to keep it tidy. Able-bodied men nearby who might have cleaned the chimney or nailed new wall planks where the old ones sagged had families of their own to care for; besides, Sarah had noticed their women neighbors had cooled off toward Louvenia ever since her face had lost its baby fat and her chest was sprouting breasts already the size of grapefruits. ’ Fraid they gon’ lose they man, Louvenia had explained to her with a hint of pride.
Alex sent them money three months after he left—it was only two dollars, granted, but it was welcome—and they were sure they could expect a letter from him again soon. Missus Anna told them whoever had scribbled her address on the envelope for Alex had not enclosed any note inside with a return address, or any news of his doings. Still, Sarah and Louvenia hoped Alex’s next letter would say something about when he would be sending for them, and they especially hoped he would send more money. A lot more. They hoped there would be enough to pay their rent and help them buy the seed they would need for the next planting season, which was bound to be better than this year’s. As she gazed helplessly at the naked cotton plants that seemed to mock her, Sarah began to realize that Alex was their only hope.
For the first time in a long time, Sarah felt vivid pictures stirring in her imagination: She saw Alex married to an Indian squaw, swinging a pickax against a rock until he threw his cap in the air and hollered, “ Gold! I done struck gold!” She imagined Alex mailing them a box full of money, and new dresses besides. And Alex’s big house with two stories, just like Missus Anna’s, where Sarah would have her very own room.
Louvenia might have been having the very same fantasies, because one afternoon she said cheerfully to Sarah, “Time to go over Missus Anna’s an’ see if she heard from Alex.”
“Same thing been on my mind, too,” Sarah said, and they set out on their mile-long walk.
It was late August, and the full heat of the summer sun slowed their progress. As they made their way up the neatly bordered
“Y’all take good care of yo’selves, hear?” Alex said, tugging at the rim of his dusty cap. “Treat each other good.”
When Alex Breedlove set out west, he was eighteen years old and Sarah wasn’t yet nine. Sarah would be a grown woman with her own child before she would see her brother again.
By the summer of 1878, a new plague had begun.
No matter how much the sharecroppers frantically picked at the little pink worms nestled in the plants’ blossoms, mashing them dead between their fingertips, the bollworms kept coming back, feasting on the cotton-seed in the bolls. So, despite ample rain and sun during the growing season, by the time the fields should have been awash with white cotton ripe for picking, there were only occasional spots of white in acres of empty, worthless bolls. Day after day, no matter how long Sarah picked, her bag dragged virtually weightless behind her because it was so empty. She and the other croppers walked listlessly through the fields like grave robbers looking for trinkets to steal. “Lawd, what we gon’ do?” she heard the croppers agonizing. Many, in fact, had already left in search of other work in hopes of paying off their debts to the growers.
The yield was everything to a sharecropper. If there was no yield, there was nothing.
Sarah was ten and Louvenia was fourteen, but their hardscrabble lives had given their eyes an ageless quality defined by their toil. The cabin had slowly fallen into disrepair because Alex wasn’t there to mend it and neither of them had the time or the spirit to keep it tidy. Able-bodied men nearby who might have cleaned the chimney or nailed new wall planks where the old ones sagged had families of their own to care for; besides, Sarah had noticed their women neighbors had cooled off toward Louvenia ever since her face had lost its baby fat and her chest was sprouting breasts already the size of grapefruits. ’ Fraid they gon’ lose they man, Louvenia had explained to her with a hint of pride.
Alex sent them money three months after he left—it was only two dollars, granted, but it was welcome—and they were sure they could expect a letter from him again soon. Missus Anna told them whoever had scribbled her address on the envelope for Alex had not enclosed any note inside with a return address, or any news of his doings. Still, Sarah and Louvenia hoped Alex’s next letter would say something about when he would be sending for them, and they especially hoped he would send more money. A lot more. They hoped there would be enough to pay their rent and help them buy the seed they would need for the next planting season, which was bound to be better than this year’s. As she gazed helplessly at the naked cotton plants that seemed to mock her, Sarah began to realize that Alex was their only hope.
For the first time in a long time, Sarah felt vivid pictures stirring in her imagination: She saw Alex married to an Indian squaw, swinging a pickax against a rock until he threw his cap in the air and hollered, “ Gold! I done struck gold!” She imagined Alex mailing them a box full of money, and new dresses besides. And Alex’s big house with two stories, just like Missus Anna’s, where Sarah would have her very own room.
Louvenia might have been having the very same fantasies, because one afternoon she said cheerfully to Sarah, “Time to go over Missus Anna’s an’ see if she heard from Alex.”
“Same thing been on my mind, too,” Sarah said, and they set out on their mile-long walk.
It was late August, and the full heat of the summer sun slowed their progress. As they made their way up the neatly bordered
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