My Name is Henry Bibb by Afua Cooper

Author:Afua Cooper [Cooper, Afua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Children's Fiction
ISBN: 9781525308260
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Published: 2009-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

I Rebelled

I became angry and rebellious in my heart. I detested both my master and mistress and White people in general for how they treated the slave people. The abuse we endured in the house and the ill-treatment Captain Barker meted out in the fields galled me. The injustice rankled, especially as I keenly missed my brothers and I saw my mother’s face lined with unhappiness.

All that Elliot had taught me about not looking White people in the eye dissolved as my true condition dawned on me. I began to glower at both master and mistress with hatred in my eyes. When I took tea to my mistress and she said it was “too cold,” I would tell her it was not, because I had just seen Suzette pour the water from a kettle hanging over the kitchen fire. As for my master, I no longer polished his boots to shine. Sometimes I did not polish them at all. Though my mother told me to desist, I could no longer pretend that I did not feel what I was feeling. I could no longer smile when I felt like crying.

I got back at my owners the only way I could think of — by destroying their property. One day while it rained and thundered, and lightning streaked across the sky, I broke my mistress’s hand mirror. When she discovered it, she shrieked my name.

“You broke this,” she said with confidence.

“No, ma’am, I did not.”

Right then, my master entered and saw the broken mirror. “The lightning did,” he said. “The large mirror in my study also broke, and I was there when it happened. A flash of lightning shattered the glass. I saw it with my own eyes.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I was lucky that time. But even such a close call did not stop me. I cut up some of my master’s shirts, and once, as I walked down to the creek, I saw some bales of hay drying in the sun. Seeing no one, I pushed the hay into the water. Still I was not caught. At every opportunity, I did something that would displease my master and mistress. If Suzette was not in the kitchen, I’d eat from the plates and drink from the cups that my owners used. I dined with their knives and forks. As it was against custom for slave people to eat from the same dishes as their owners, I took great delight in doing so. Sometimes, when my master was away, I would go into his study and cut the pages of his books with a scissor. I cannot remember if I ever considered that my owners might find out what I was doing. I remember only that I wanted revenge and to fight against my powerlessness.

So there I was one day, cutting up the pages of my master’s law books, when I sensed a presence behind me. I turned and beheld my master, staring at me with a look of utmost surprise on his face.

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