Come Juneteenth by Ann Rinaldi

Author:Ann Rinaldi [Rinaldi, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

As we aired our log house out, swept it clean, replaced bed tickings and mosquito netting, the Yankees demanded the same services. Slavery was over, but they made us their slaves. And our needs were put in the background.

We accepted that, were even ready for it. What we were not ready for was the Fourth of July.

A WEEK BEFORE, Colonel Heffernan called us together. We stood in front of him like the negroes used to stand in front of Pa to hear his pronouncements.

"The Fourth of July is next week," Heffernan told us. "You all might remember the Fourth? It's a little holiday we like to celebrate up North. From what I understand you people had a lovers' quarrel with the North and what it stands for, several years before the war, and so decided to do away with the Fourth.

"Well, I'll miss it if we don't celebrate it here. Now I want all of you to put together a good, old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration for yourselves and for me and my men. I mean ham, fowls, and a pig with an apple in its mouth. I want chicken pies, sugar cakes, and the whole yard here lighted with pine-knot torches. I want plenty of the best preserves and jellies and cake and rum and the whole kit and caboodle. Somebody told me that the negroes here sing spirituals. That true?"

"Yeah," came a negro voice from outside the circle of whites. "We sings 'em."

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