Polly nodded and climbed stiffly down. She motioned to the African girl to do the same. Mr. Derby pointed to the shack. “Here is where you will live. This slave is your responsibility for now. I can’t spare any field hands to break in a new African, and I certainly won’t have anyone of my household doing such a task.”
“But . . .” Polly looked at him with a surprised frown on her face and started to object. Then she suddenly realized with dismay what he meant. She was not to be installed in his household, where she could observe and absorb fine living, but would be forced to live with this slave girl instead. How humiliating!
“I could be of great help to you, sir, as part of your household staff,” she offered.
“This is how you will assist me,” Mr. Derby replied, his face showing impatience. “I need for her to act like a human instead of a monkey. Do you think you can tame a savage?”
“Yes, sir. I can do anything I put my mind to,” Polly replied haughtily. But she hated the thought that she would have to deal with the black girl on a regular basis.
Mr. Derby looked at Polly carefully. His voice was like a sharp stone. “Don’t underestimate me, child. I will not tolerate insubordination. Do I make myself clear?”
What was clear to Polly was that Mr. Derby was used to having his way. “I’m grateful for the opportunity, sir,” Polly said with as much meekness as she could muster. “I will serve you well.”
Mr. Derby folded his arms across his chest, then continued. “Your job is to teach her a little of the King’s English, to teach her how civilized people live and act, and most importantly, to teach her absolute obedience. She belongs to my son, and when he needs her, it is your job to make sure she is delivered to him. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Polly said quietly. Clay stood behind his father, chewing on a blade of grass, grinning.
“Both of you are to assist Teenie and not get in her way. I demand perfection, and I expect my servants to be useful and occupied at every moment of the day. In addition, I will not tolerate the questioning of any orders I give—ever!”
“Teenie, sir?” Polly asked, a frightened question mark in her voice.
“Do you have a problem with any of this, young lady? Because I can take you right back to where I found you—working for common scum like Jeremy Carton as a scullery maid. I have given you a home, a job, and an opportunity to better your life—much more than you deserve! Now get on with you before I change my mind!”
Mr. Derby ordered Noah to take the wagon back up to the main house. He motioned to Clay, and the two walked away. Polly breathed a loud sigh of relief as they left. The slave girl did the same, almost at the same moment. They looked at each other tentatively, but neither girl smiled.
16. TEENIE AND TIDBIT
POLLY ENTERED THE SHACK, NOT KNOWING what to expect. The slave girl, who was about the same height as Polly, followed hesitantly behind her. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she looked around. It was just one room, barely large enough to turn around in, made of rough wooden planks. It held a small wooden table, a chair, one bed, and a straw mat on the dirt floor. It smelled faintly of sweat.
“I’ve lived in places much worse,” Polly said to the slave girl, who had already sunk to the floor and curled her arms tightly around herself. She thought back to the damp and moldy shack she’d shared with her mother while her father was in prison, and the attic room at Jeremy Carton’s place.
The slave girl whispered words that Polly could not decipher.
“You’d better quit talking that jungle talk,” Polly admonished. “I’m pretty sure that would be frowned upon in this place.” She scowled as she looked at the confused expression on the girl’s dark face. “I don’t know what Mr. Derby is thinking. How am I supposed to make you civilized?”
Polly looked closely at the slave. Her cheeks were sunken into her thin face, which made her eyes seem very large, like a deer’s. When the two girls exchanged glances, Polly could see bitterness flash in the slave girl’s eyes for a moment. Her lips were full, but her nose was tiny, almost like Polly’s own. Polly was unaccustomed to being this close to a Negro, and she marveled at how dark and mysterious the girl’s face looked. A thin sheen of sweat covered the slave’s slim body. Her hair, thick and matted, obviously had not been brushed in a long time. Welts and bruises, some of them quite recent, covered her arms and legs.
Polly’s stomach suddenly growled, and she pressed her hands against it. When had she last eaten?
The slave girl watched Polly carefully, then grabbed her own stomach.
“Well, I suppose you’re hungry too,” Polly said. “You have no idea what I’m saying, do you?”
The girl just stared at her.
“This is impossible!” Polly shouted, and the slave cringed. “What am I doing out here in a shack taking care of some . . . some . . . savage!” Furious with frustration, she pummeled the lumpy straw mattress with her fists until she was out of breath. “What am I supposed to do with you?”
The girl shrugged as if she understood.
Polly sat down heavily in the wobbly wooden chair and ran her fingers through her own uncombed hair. Her stomach growled again. “I suppose we must start somewhere,” she said with a sigh. “Hungry,” she said, rubbing her own stomach. “Hungry.” Polly put her fingers to her mouth and moved her lips as if she were eating. “Hungry. Eat,” she said, not expecting a response.
The slave girl looked around cautiously, then, to Polly’s utter surprise, said, quite clearly, “Hun-gree. Eeet.”
Polly looked at her suspiciously. “Either I’m a very good teacher or you are not as stupid as you look. Eat food,” Polly said, adding a new word. The slave girl repeated the phrase easily.
“Well,” Polly said with a look of amazement on her face. “I’m just going to talk to you as if you understand and teach you new words as we get to them. I imagine the sooner I complete this task, the sooner I can be assigned some more respectable duties, like sewing or serving the lady of the house.”
The slave girl stared up at her.
“From what Mr. Derby told me, this place is called Derbyshire Farms,” Polly began. “It is a rice plantation. Can you say ‘plantation’?” Polly repeated the last word slowly. “Plan-ta-shun.”
“Plan-ta-shun,” the girl repeated. Although she certainly hadn’t expected this, Polly refused to show the girl any encouragement.
“I am Polly, and I work for Mr. Derby just like you.” She hesitated, then added, “Well, not exactly just like you. You’re a slave, which means you belong to him.”
“Slave,” the girl said clearly. Her eyes narrowed and her lips drew back fiercely over her teeth as she said the word. She knows exactly what that word means, Polly thought.
“Let’s do something easier, like introductions,” Polly said, trying to change the subject. “I am Polly,” she said, pointing to herself. “Pol-lee.”
“Pol-lee.”
“Yes,” Polly said, allowing herself a smile, “and you are Myna. Can you say Myna? It’s your new name.” She pointed to the girl on the floor. “Myna.”
The slave girl shook her head. “Amari,” she said with pride, pointing to herself.
“I warned you about talking those African words,” Polly reminded the girl. “You are Myna. My-na.” She said it clearly several times.
“No Myna.” The slave girl frowned and shook her head forcefully. “Amari!” She said it again slowly. “Ah-mar-ee.”
Polly sighed and said, “Ah-mar-ee.”
Amari smiled at her for the first time. “Amari!” she said again.
“Well, Amari, the master and his son say your name is Myna, so you better learn that one since it looks as though there’s not much chance you’ll ever get back to Africa. Just like I’ll probably never get back to Beaufort,” she added, almost to herself, “not that I’d want to.”
The door of the cabin burst open then, and the shortest, skinniest black woman Polly had ever seen pushed her way through the
door. She barely came to Polly’s shoulder, but she carried herself with the dignity of a giant. Hiding behind her skirts was a very small boy—about three or four years old—who clung to her leg like a little insect. “Well, ain’t this the berries! What we got here?” she boomed, even though the two girls were sitting right in front of her.
Finally, Polly said timidly, “How do you do? I’m Polly, and this here is Myna.”
“I knows who you is,” the little woman said with a smile. “I knows everything. Hiding stuff from me is like tryin’ to put socks on a rooster! You want to know the dirt goin’ on roun’ here, just ask old Teenie. Tiny little Teenie.” Then she erupted into a full, hearty laugh that didn’t seem possible to Polly, considering how small the woman was. “And this here is my boy, Tidbit.” The child retreated farther behind his mother, but he peeked out to see the new faces.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Teenie,” Polly said with difficulty. She didn’t think a Negro deserved the title of “Miss,” but somehow this woman seemed to require it. Her father had taught her to disrespect Negroes, but her mother had taught her to respect her elders.
“Don’t be callin’ me Miss Teenie lessen you want to get us both in trouble, gal. Just Teenie be fine. Y’all hungry?” she asked with a broad grin that showed she had almost no teeth. “Y’all both ’bout as thin as a bat’s ear.”
“Hun-gree,” Amari whispered.
“Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit! The little African can speak a little English, huh? Don’t let the massa know, gal. Play dumb as long as you can.” With that, she turned and headed out of the door, her child right behind her. “Come on to the kitchen. I’ll set you up with some vittles. Lordy me,” she said, “now we’s got a African and a ’dentured gal to keep track of.”
She walked toward a small building just off the big white house so quickly that Amari and Polly had to trot to keep up with her. The child Tidbit scurried next to his mother, and a small brown dog scampered up to join them. Smoke snaked from the chimney of the cookhouse, and the smells of stewing pork and fresh bread wafted from its narrow door.
Enticed by the smells, Polly eagerly entered the room. A stone hearth made up the entire back wall. A huge pot hung over the fire, which held a delicious-smelling sauce bubbling within it. How did this tiny little woman lift that heavy kettle? Polly couldn’t help but wonder. Cooking pans and long utensils that she had never seen before hung from spikes nailed into the wall. She saw jugs and pointed sticks and even some utensils made from gourds. The floor was hard-packed dirt.
In a matter of minutes Teenie had two steaming bowls prepared for the two girls. Polly took a seat at a bench and motioned to Amari to do the same. Polly picked up her spoon and noted with disgust that Amari put her hand into the bowl and greedily scooped the food into her mouth. Table manners, she mentally added to the long list of impossible tasks ahead of her.
Tidbit sat with them, eyes large with questions. His bare feet swung beneath him. The dog curled quietly under the table. Polly smelled the food, then tasted it. Brown peas, flavored with salt pork, maybe? Mashed with onions into yellow rice, Polly thought. Looks bad, tastes wonderful “This is very good,” Polly said to Teenie between mouthfuls. “What is it called?”
“What’s that you say, gal? You never had no Hoppin’ John? Ain’t you got rice and peas and salt pork where you come from?”
“Not like this,” Polly admitted. “My mother wasn’t much of a cook.”
“The old folks say that iffen you eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s, it s’posed to make you rich for the new year,” Teenie said. Then she added ruefully, “Never worked for me, though!” She laughed and scooped more into Polly’s bowl.
As Polly ate, she thought with a smile of her mother, who always managed to either undercook the spoonbread, burn the occasional rabbit or squirrel her father brought home, or forget to add spice to the stew. They ate lots of fried catfish—some of it quite raw and some of it crispy black. When her mother had fixed Hopping John, it was crunchy and gritty—obviously not cooked as long or as well as Teenie’s meal. Polly glanced at the girl who insisted her name was Amari and saw that her thoughts were far from this warm kitchen as well.
Tidbit watched every move the girls made. He giggled every time Amari stuffed her fingers into the bowl.
“What’s the dog’s name?” Polly asked Tidbit.
“Hushpuppy,” the boy replied cheerfully as he reached down to hand the dog a scrap of bread. “He know how to hush and hide,” the boy said proudly.
“I’m gonna give you two gals a couple of days to learn your way round here ’fore I put you to work,” Teenie told them as they finished eating. “And, Tidbit, I done told you to keep that raggedy old dog outta my kitchen!” The boy just laughed and disappeared under the table with the dog.
“Come by here tomorrow and watch me work,” Teenie continued. “That’s the best way to learn. Just stay outta my way, ’cause I be busier than a stump-tailed cow in fly time. I fixes all the meals round here.”
Before Polly could respond, Teenie added, “Your job, Miz Polly, is to explain everything you see to this here African gal. Teach her the words, ’cause Massa ain’t gonna wait no long time ’fore he be expectin’ her to hold her own. And Miz Africa, learn what words you can, but learn to keep your mouf shut, ’cause Clay, that hellhound, got less patience than his daddy!” She grunted with distaste. “That boy got a thumpin’ gizzard for a heart!”
“Yes’m,” Polly mumbled.
“Gal, where you from? I done told you ’bout callin’ me ‘ma’am’ and ‘miss.’ Your mama done raised you right,” she said with a grin. Tidbit giggled from under the table.
“I’m from Beaufort, in the low country,” Polly explained. “Nothing much there but bugs and gators and a few folks scraping the dirt to make do. My mother is dead. My father as well.” She swallowed hard.
“Oh, chile, how they die?” Teenie’s face grew tender.
Polly looked at her and saw that Teenie really wanted to know. “My father was born in England, and he was a good-looking man,” she began. She smiled as she thought of his charming grin. “He told me ladies used to follow him home from the pubs every night. He would buy them fine wine and expensive gifts and tell them the lies they wanted to hear. He lived a grand life until he ran out of money.” She paused. “He was thrown in jail like a common criminal just because he couldn’t pay his debts.”
Teenie sucked in her breath but made no comment.
“He had friends in the court system, however, and he was given the chance to start over in the colonies as an indentured servant. He came here on a prison ship—a frightful experience, he said. Eventually, his indenture was sold to a man named Jeremy Carton in Beaufort, right here in Carolina Colony. That’s where he met my mother, who put an end to his fondness for other ladies, but not, however, his affection for ale and wine. I was born there.”
The slave girl gently petted the dog under the table, looking as if she was trying to follow the conversation.
Polly continued, “My father worked like an ordinary slave on a tobacco farm.” She looked up to see if Teenie had reacted to that, but Teenie simply continued to stir the food in the pot over the fire. She used a whisk that looked like it was made from the twig of a tree. “He worked hard, but he could never make enough to pay off his debt. My daddy was a good man but not real careful with what little money he got. He drank too much sometimes. . . .” Polly shifted on the bench a little.
“What about your mama?” Teenie asked gently.
“My mother came up rough—she was an orphan. She was shuffled from family to family most of her childhood. She learned to make do for herself most of her life. She worked as a maid when she could, as a beggar when she couldn’t.”
“Well, pick my peas! A white woman as a maid and a beggar! Must not be no slaves from where she come from,” Teenie commented.
“Not all white people are rich landowners,” Polly said, almost coldly. “Most white
folks I know scuffle for every scrap of food they get.”
“But they ain’t slaves,” Teenie reminded her quietly. “Go on, chile.”
Polly thought for a moment and continued. “My father kept getting in trouble, spending months in jail, and was unable to pay back his indenture. My mother tried her best to keep us together as a family, even signing on with Mr. Carton as an indenture herself, but there was never enough work or money or food, even though she offered to do other people’s laundry after her work was done for Carton. Nobody would hire a white woman because folks knew they could get slaves to do the work for free!” Polly tensed as she thought of the unfairness.
Teenie took that moment to cut each girl a large slice of pumpkin pie. She cut a tiny piece for Tidbit, who stuffed most of it into his mouth in one bite, then grinned a large orange smile. The rest he gave to the dog.
“Well, the sun don’t shine on the same dog’s tail all the time,” Teenie said philosophically. “Everybody got hard times at one time or t’other.”
“I suppose,” Polly began again, this time speaking very slowly. “But then, three months ago, my parents came down with smallpox.” Teenie stopped chopping the onions for a moment. “Daddy died first, then three days later, my mother. I nursed them both, and I never got as much as a pimple.” She paused, stood up, and walked outside of the hot cookhouse, taking deep breaths. “I am not going to cry!” she sternly told herself. When she felt she could continue, she went back into the kitchen.
“So how you end up here, gal?” Teenie rattled a stack of tin plates.
“Mr. Jeremy Carton decided that I must sign on to pay back what my parents owed him, and I had no choice but to do it. His is just a small dirt farm, so, I suppose to prevent me from running off—and I would have, too—he took me with him to Charles Town to get supplies yesterday. But then he met Mr. Derby in a tavern, and he somehow sold my indenture to him. I’m not sure how or why. So here I am.”