I said, “She’s got him!” and Pa finally looked over and waved.
The man didn’t return Pa’s wave or nothing. One of his hands was holding on to Emma and the other one was behind his back. He was looking side to side and all ’round, seeming like he was ’bout to bolt if someone said, “Boo.”
When he was ’bout twenty paces from us the man turned Emma’s hand a-loose, pulled off his hat, and called to Pa, “Pardon me, sir. The child right? This here really Buxton?”
“Morning. Yes, sir, it is, and y’all’s really free!”
The man brung his hand from behind his back. He was clutching on to a long, shiny knife!
He looked at it then back at Pa and it seemed like he was fixing to cry.
He turned the knife so’s he was hanging on to the blade and said, “I’s terrible sorry ’bout this here dagger, sir, but …” He wiped at his eyes. “… but we’s so tired of running, we’s come so …” He couldn’t talk no more.
Pa walked right up on him and wrapped his arms ’round the man and said, “Don’t say nothing more, brother. I know. I know it ain’t been easy but you found where you’re supposed to be. You’re home. You alone?”
The man said, “No, sir,” turned back toward the maple and whistled, then waved both his arms over his head.
A woman, a boy, and a girl, hanging on to one the ’nother’s hands, stepped out of the woods and started heading slow toward us. They were walking low and their heads were ducking and shooting from side to side just like the man’s had been. ’Stead of taking the di-rect way to us they skirted ’long the woods and the part of Mrs. Holton’s land that Mr. Leroy’d already cleared.
The woman was toting a bundle tied to her back. I knowed it was a baby ’cause it was tied the same way all the Settlement women do when they’re working and want to keep their children with ’em.
’Bout halfway ’cross they broke ’way from the tree line and started moving faster and faster through the clearing toward us. Their mouths were pulled wide open like they were fixing to scream, but didn’t no sounds come from ’em. After a second they started running all out, acting like the Devil hisself was on their tail. Then they commenced making a sound that made my skin all twitch-ity with gooseflesh. It waren’t like no human sound atall, it was a kinda wail and a moan and a yell all stirred up together. It was something terrible to hear.
The man throwed the knife down and ran out at ’em. They crashed one into the ’nother so hard you’d think they’d’ve knocked each other over, but they didn’t. They stood all knotted together keeping up those horrible noises and holding on like there waren’t no tomorrow. They acted like they hadn’t seen one the ’nother in a hundred years ’stead of just a minute or two.
The little boy, who ’peared to be ’bout five years old, was blubbering and churning his legs up and down like he was still on the run but he waren’t moving nowhere. He was running in one spot clutching on to his mother’s and father’s legs. It must have shooked him up bad to see his ma and pa crying and looking wild and carrying on like this ’cause all the sudden the front of his britches started getting covered with a dark stain. I had to turn my head so’s not to shame him.
I looked over at Emma and, doggone-it-all, she was squeezing that awful doll and starting to pull her lip down and cloud her eyes up, getting ready to bawl right along with the new-free folks.
I’ll be blanged if bawling ain’t something akin to the measles or the chicken pox or the plague, once it grabs ahold of one fra-gile person, seems like it snatches on to every other fra-gile person that’s anywhere near. I’d been working hard to fight it, but I didn’t have no choice but to commence crying right along with Emma and n’em.
Pa and Cooter didn’t try to shame me or nothing. Cooter looked at his shoes and Pa looked at me. His shoulders dropped some, and he allowed a long slow breath to come out of him. It looked a lot like disappointment, but at least he didn’t say nothing.
The woman broke away from the others and ran hard at Pa, unwrapping the baby off her back and holding it out front of her.
She said, “Sir, my baby! My baby girl sick!”
She showed the baby to Pa and he said, “We got some nurses what’ll tend your child, ma’am. How long she been ailing?”
The woman said, “She ain’t woke up since yesterday morn. Two nights ago they was some paddy-rollers right on top of us. She always been a quiet child but since we been running she been likely to bawl, so I had to give her some of this else they’d’ve caught us for sure. I ain’t had no choice, but I’s ’fraid I give her too much!”
She pulled a brown tonic bottle out of her dress pocket.
Pa said, “She drawing breath strong. We gets lotsa young uns what’s had too much sleep medicine, and all ’em done good after ’while.”
The man and the two children bunched up ’round the woman and the sleepy baby. Pa unharnessed the chains off of Old Flapjack and tied him to the stump we’d been pulling on.
Pa walked back over to the family and said the same thing we say to all the new-free folks when they first get to Buxton. It’s the way we greet ’em into being free.
Pa pointed up and said, “Looky there! Look at that sky!”
I’d heard Pa and other growned folks say this plenty of times, but I couldn’t help but follow where Pa’s finger was pointing. Everybody did, we all looked up at the blue sky that didn’t have cloud the first in it.
“Ain’t that the grandest sky y’all ever seen?”
Pa smiled and pointed out ’cross the field. “Look at that land! Look at them trees! Has y’all ever seen anything that precious? It’s the land of the free!”
The family kept following where Pa was pointing.
“Now look at you’selves! Look at ’em babies! Has y’all ever looked this beautiful? Today be the first day don’t no one own y’all but y’all. Today be the first day that don’t no one own them babies. Today be the first day you ain’t got cause to blame no one for what gunn happen to you tomorrow. Today y’all’s truly set you’selves free!”
Then he opened both his arms and said to the people, “And y’all choosed the most beautifullest, most perfectest day for doing it! Only thing I’s got to ask is, what kept you?”
It was peculiar ’cause it didn’t matter if it was raining or snowing or even if the sky was being ripped by lightning and thunder, we always would tell the new folks that it was the most beautifullest, most perfectest day to get free. Far as I can tell, the weather didn’t have a whole lot to do with it.
Pa said, “Come on, we gunn go into the Settlement and let everyone know y’all made it. Cooter, Emma, Elijah, y’all come too. Leave the mule, we ain’t gunn be long gone.”
Pa and Cooter and the new people started out toward the road.
Fra-gile-ness is mighty embarrassing, even if you’re a girl, so me and Emma both hanged back a little to get the sniffling out of us. Emma set her doll and the little yellow flower on the stump and pulled out a ’kerchief to wipe her eyes and nose.
I’ve had it explained to me plenty of times, but I ain’t never gonna understand the purpose of having a piece of cloth made just for blowing your nose into. Seems real dirty and nasty to me. Makes a whole lot more sense to me to plug up one of your nose holes and just blow what you gotta blow out of the other one onto the ground. Least that way you ain’t constantly toting no dried-up things from your nose ’round in your pockets. But Ma’s always telling me not to do that, ’specially ’round respectable folks.
Far as I can tell, Emma ain’t the least bit respectable, but for Ma’s sake, ’stead of blowing my nose onto the ground, I blowed it into my shirtsleeve.
Emma gave me a dirty look and I gave her one right back.
I remembered the knife that the man dropped and left in the field. I picked it up and ran to catch up with Pa and n’em.
I said, “Sir, you forgot this.”
I reached the knife at him. Him and the woman looked at one the ’nother and soured
up their faces. He said, “Thank you, boy, but we’s free now. I don’t want to see that dagger never no more.”
I couldn’t help but be surprised.
The man said to Pa, “Sir, I swored wasn’t no one gunn take us back ’less it be over my dead body. I swored it and I proofed it wasn’t no bluff, but now ain’t no more need for that dagger, ain’t no more need to be thinking ’bout the dirt what all over it. It sullied, it ain’t clean.”
I looked at the knife. It looked like the blacksmith had just got done making it. I said, “But, sir, it looks like it’s new, it ain’t dirty atall, it looks like …”
Pa told me, “Elijah, put the knife in your tote sack, and be still.”
He said to the man, “Don’t worry, sir, I’m-a take care of the knife.”
I hoped Pa was gonna tell me what this meant later, but I knowed by the way he’d done everything quick-like that I shouldn’t say nothing more ’bout it for now. I took a rag out of my tote sack and wrapped the knife in it so’s it wouldn’t bang up ’gainst none of my chunking stones.
We started back up walking and Emma zigged and zagged her way up to the new-free girl. The little girl acted like Emma was a haint and hugged in closer to the boy with the wet trousers.
Emma smiled at the girl and tried to hand her the yellow flower she’d picked. The girl looked at the flower then at Emma but still held on to her brother. Then Emma stuck the flower down in that terrorific doll’s apron and reached the two of ’em out to the new-free girl.
The girl kept gripping her brother with one hand but raised the other one slow to take the doll. Once she got ahold of it she hugged it into herself hard, staring at Emma.
Emma said, “Her name’s Birdy. I suppose you can call her anything you want to, but she’s always liked the name Birdy best. She’s kind of shy so she wants me to ask if you’d mind being her new ma.”
The girl looked long and hard into the doll’s brown eyes then smiled like she saw something there ’sides a couple of buttons and some thread. She shooked her head up and down and moved her mouth like she was saying, “Thank you, ma’am.”
Emma smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”
I might’ve said something welcoming to the boy, but I’d learnt from it happening to me personal that if you wet your pants in front of a bunch of strangers, you don’t really want no one talking to you. You don’t want no one asking why you’re walking stiff-legged or doing nothing that will draw no attention to yourself. My keeping quiet waren’t from being ignorant and unwelcoming, it was done so’s not to shame him. ’Sides, after he got done walking all the way to the Settlement with that pee chafing ’round in his pants rubbing him raw, he waren’t gonna want to talk atall!
Cooter said to me, “They’s the first new-free in four months, Eli! You done the last ones, so it’s my go to ring these here folk in.”
Cooter was right. I had runged in the last new-free people so it was his turn now.
I said, “Pa?”
He said, “Y’all run on ahead.”
Me and Cooter both said, “Yes, sir!” and tored off toward the Settlement.
Near everyone in Buxton who could would come a-running once we started tolling the Liberty Bell!
Me and Cooter ran all the way back to the schoolhouse using the best shortcuts so we’d get there long afore Pa and Emma and the new folks. Pa would walk ’em slow along the road, talking to ’em gentle and starting to get ’em use to the way we do things in Buxton.
Waren’t no one in the schoolhouse on a Saturday so me and Cooter opened the door and headed to the steeple to ring the Liberty Bell.
The Liberty Bell ain’t no regular schoolhouse bell. It’s a five-hundred-pound bell that came all the way from America. Not nowhere as close as Michigan, America, neither. It’s from a city called Pittsburgh, far, far down in the United States. And we didn’t have to pay nothing for it, it was gave to us by other folks that use to be slaves.
It took ’em a whole bunch of years, but they saved up every penny they could and had the Liberty Bell made then sent all the way to Canada. And these were poor folks too, but they were so proud of us that they didn’t mind doing without some things so’s we could have the bell. They wanted it to be something that we’d always hear and see to remind folks in Buxton that prayers from America were always riding ’longside us.
They even had words writ onto the bell so’s we’d never forget who gave it to us. It said, PRESENTED TO REVEREND KING BY THE COLOURED INHABITANTS OF PITTSBURGH FOR THE ACADEMY AT RALEIGH CANADA WEST. LET FREEDOM RING!
“Raleigh” is what some people who don’t live here call the Settlement.
Whenever new-free folks come to live in Buxton, we ring the bell twenty times for each one of ’em. Ten times to ring out their old lives and ten more to ring in their new ones, their free lives. Then, we ask the new-free folks to, one by one, climb the ladder of the steeple and rub the bell with their left hand. Most times when you’re doing something important you’re supposed to use your right hand, but we ask ’em to use their left hand ’cause it’s closest to their hearts.
Mr. Frederick Douglass said he hopes so many people get freed and mash their hands onto the Liberty Bell that a shiny spot, bright as gold, gets worned into the brass. But so far that hasn’t happened.
Anyone in the Settlement that hears the ringing quits doing whatever they’re doing and comes to the schoolhouse to welcome the new people. Then, if the new-free folks say they want to live in the Settlement, everyone decides where they’ll stay till they get their own place and get comforted ’bout being ’mongst us.
There’s always a box full of cotton in the school’s steeple so’s you can stuff your ears whilst you’re ringing the bell. It’s loud enough that you’d be hearing it and nothing else for the longest if you didn’t shove something in your ears. Me and Cooter jammed our ears up tight.
Cooter said, “So how many times I gotta ring it?”
I said, “What?”
Cooter yelled, “How many times I gotta ring it?”
Multiplying something by twenty’s easy, you just double it then add on a zero. I said, “Five doubled equals ten, then adding a zero to ten equals a hundred.”
Cooter said, “Eh?”
I told him louder.
Cooter said, “You sure? Don’t seem like it should be that much.”
I said, “What?”
Cooter said, “A hundred sound like way too much rings.”
I spread and closed my fingers ten times and said, “Nope. Look. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred.”
Cooter said, “I guess that’s right, but it sure do seem like a lot.”
“Eh?”
Cooter yelled, “You’s better ’n me at sums so I’m-a listen to you.”
He jumped up to pull the rope and get the bell ringing. Since he was the one who was doing the ringing, I had to do the counting so whoever was listening would know how many people got free.
Dong!
I yelled, “One!”
The first ring was always the weakest. It waren’t till about five or six rings that the bell got tolling real good.
DONG!DONG!DONG!
“Two, three, four …”
It waren’t long afore we got to ninety-six.
DONG!DONG!DONG!DONG!
“… ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!”
By the time me and Cooter were done, there were already some people standing outside the schoolhouse waiting to welcome the people that Pa was walking in.
Miss Carolina, Mr. Waller, Miss Duncan-the-first and her sister, Miss Duncan-the-second, and Mr. Polite all said, “Morning, Cooter. Morning Eli.”
Cooter said, “Pardon me?”
Mr. Polite said, “I told you, ‘Morning.’”
I said, “’Scuse me, sir?”
Mr. Polite yelled, “If you two cabbage-heads don’t take that cotton out your ears, I don’t know what I’m-a do to y’all!”<
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Me and Cooter pulled the cotton out.
Miss Carolina said, “How many folks was that, Elijah? Nine? Ten?”
“No, ma’am, there’s just five of ’em, a man, a woman, a girl, a boy, and a sick baby.”
Mr. Polite said, “Only five? You sure you done your counting right, boy? Much as y’all runged that bell, I’s expecting to come down here and see that half of Tennessee done got away.”
“No, sir, that was only a hundred times for five people.”
Cooter said, “I told him that, I told him it seemed like a hundred was too much for just five people.”
I said, “But it ain’t! Five times twenty equals one hundred.”
I started spreading my fingers to count it off again but afore I could even get to forty, Pa and the new-free folks turned up the road heading toward the schoolhouse. Emma Collins and the little girl were each holding on to one of the arms of that blanged Birdy doll swinging it twixt ’em to and fro.
Pa said, “Morning, y’all. This here’s the Taylors, just come up from Arkansas. Been hearing ’bout us for the longest. The baby gunn need some tending.”
It was okay to rush up on ’em now that Pa and Emma had settled ’em down some. Everybody quit fussing with me and went right up to where Pa and the new people were standing.
Folks that had been farther out whilst we runged the bell started showing up. Ma and Mrs. Guest came in too.
The new people were looking lost and confused and shy, so many of us came up on ’em and patted ’em on the back and shooked their hands and welcomed ’em to Buxton. Mrs. Guest took the woman and her baby to the infirmary. Ma looked at the boy and pulled him away. I knowed the next time I saw him he’d be smelling like powder and wearing a old pair of my britches. I knowed that even with that it was gonna be a while afore he waren’t walking stiff-legged.
Then things got real confusing ’cause ’stead of greeting the people and making ’em feel comforted the way it happens most times, Miss Duncan-the-first started up asking questions.
She held Emma’s new friend’s face in her hand and said to her sister, Miss Duncan-the-second, “Dot, I know you waren’t but eight and it been fifteen years, but who this child bring to mind?”