After three days of strong wind and heavy rain, Reverend and Rachael Johansen’s roof fell apart. The Haskens were first at their door to help, and they left Birgitta watching Lonnie so that I could be of better use. I took up a broom beside Christine who was well enough to sweep then, and helped Rachael sweep up fallen thatch.
I swept much the same as I had cleaned brass on the ship, moving with every stroke closer to the far corner of the house until at last I stood beside a trunk. Upon it was Ma’s gold-cornered casket. When the sisters were outside I lifted the lid. I drew in a deep breath. My coins were no more than a finger’s width from my reach. I no longer wore my pocket, for there was nothing to put within it. I picked up the coins, knowing I could slip out with them and hide them better this time, so they might never be found. This was no harder than stealing stockings, and these coins belonged to me. Would they know it was I took them? I put them back in the casket, intending to take it, too. A new thought stopped my hand. What if rather than stealing them I could get them to give it all back? What if I could prevail upon the reverend to do it?
I heard voices. I dropped the money, shut the lid, and pushed the box back into place so that it looked as if I had not touched it. If Reverend Johansen would give me my coins, all the better. If not, I would steal them another time. I pinched my lips together, and swept straw from the corner behind the trunk. The sisters returned to the house and I moved toward the doorway, pushing a foot-high pile of thatch and straw with my broom, passing them.
“Mary, mind you,” Rachael said. “You’re sweeping too fast and making dust.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said. I felt her eyes on my back as I worked.
The next Sunday Reverend Johansen opened his battered book and said, “Psalm Forty-two. As the deer panteth for the water-brooks…” Thus began a talk about how like a lost deer our lives can be. I knew the words well, but it was grand the way he explained it. That day women brought food to the church house, for the roof was on and all was dry inside. When all sat, eating, I went to the well and brought up a fresh bucket of cold water, carrying it straight to Reverend Johansen.
“I shall cool your cup, Reverend,” I said, “with a fresh pull of water.”
He smiled and said, “Mary, you thought of my wish before I said it.”
I poured water from the dipper into his cup and waited for him to speak.
“Very well, Mary. Was there something more?” He eyed my face.
“No, Reverend. I meant only to be of good service.”
Three days later, Mistress Hasken sent me with a pail of milk for Rachael to use in her cooking. Rachael was in the garden and Reverend Johansen sat at their table, poring over his Bible. I waited at the open door for him to notice me. When a length of time passed and he did not, I tapped on the side of the pail, being sure to stare upward as if my attention had been caught by some sound or fluttering bird. Reverend Johansen looked in my direction, and upon seeing me his face softened. “Mary. It’s you. Come in, child.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. Mistress sends you this milk.”
“Well, put it, ah”—he glanced over the room and its spare furnishings, without even a pail of their own—“set it on that chest. That will keep it off the ground at least.”
I put the bucket next to my casket. “Here, sir?”
“That will do. Come sit by me, child. Let me rest my eyes from reading.”
I did as he asked, sitting on the stool that I supposed was Rachael’s place at table. I bowed my head, practicing both the humility I felt from his sermons and the forced broken spirit that becomes a slave in the presence of others.
“Raise your face, child. Ah. You look like, someone. Your face is dirty but your eyes are keen as a dagger’s edge and I suppose your mind yet more sharp.”
I had thought the same of his eyes. I faced him as I would my own pa. “I should like to ask you a question, sir.” I felt my face assume an air of contrition yet I had come with a mission and I was not to be deterred. I was, however, going to be careful how I proceeded.
“There,” he said. “Now you look even more like my child. I had a wife and family once. And a daughter about your size. Fever took them all. Put your lip back in and be pleasant. A petulant child is no honor to her parents. How do you come to know the Psalms, little one?”
“My mother taught me. We learned of everything in our study on the top floor of the plantation.”
“Knowing it is wrong for slaves to be instructed to read and write?”