Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet

Author:Harriette Gillem Robinet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 1998-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Keeping a road-front of April wildflowers for Gladness, the three men—Gideon, Mr. Freedman, and Pascal—set fire to the meadow. Pascal was amazed at how easy it was. The blackened earth smoldered for two days while they planed the fields.

“When I was with the army, I worked for my food and pay,” Gideon told Pascal. “Now that I be a boss man, it be my turn to hire others.”

“Y’all want to work?” he asked two people passing on the road.

“You paying?” the man asked.

“Three meals a day and a willow tree to sleep under,” said Gideon. “When my cotton crop comes in, I be paying in money.”

“Good enough for me,” the man called, and his wife joined him. Others also accepted the terms happily.

“First time ever I worked for a colored boss man,” said one woman. “First time, and I like it.”

For two weeks, with extra workers they marked rows, measured off spaces, planted cotton, and watered the seeds.

A Union soldier wearing a red bandanna stared when Gideon offered him work. “I be not much of a farmer,” the man said, “but I can cook. Y’all be needing a good cook.”

The soldier’s name was Emmanuel; medium tall, with dark brown skin, he had a beard and graying bushy hair. For meat in his meals he hunted quail and wild turkey, and he fished in streams. Gladness was freed from cooking so that she could farm.

Pascal noticed that on some days Mr. Freedman would disappear for hours, wading jauntily across the creek and trotting out the road they had come along. In the evening he would return smiling like a cat that’s been licking cow cream.

Three days a week Pascal, Nelly, and Gladness left in early morning to walk to school, taking shortcuts through farmland. Pascal expected to see Judith Bibb and her brothers, but they never came. After walking back, Pascal and the others worked chopping cotton, tending the field.

Pascal thought, now that I be a landowner, I be somebody! But was that true? What had really changed? He felt different, but was it the forty acres that made the difference? If not, what was it?

Besides working on the farm, and disappearing sometimes, Mr. Freedman repaired porch steps, nailed window frames, and replaced wagon sides in River Stop to earn money. With it he bought flour and sugar and coffee for their meals.

Gladness and Nelly bought ribbons with his pennies. They loved to tie pretty colors around their necks and to braid colorful ribbons in their hair. Nelly told Pascal, “I be so happy Miss Gladness came with us. Now, I not the only girl in the family.”

Emmanuel baked biscuits every morning, true to Gideon’s promise. For an oven he used a stone pit he had built. They all enjoyed Emmanuel’s soft biscuits for breakfast; his meat stews or fish frys for dinner at noon; and another stew or quail for supper in the evening.

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