A Perilous Proposal by Michael Phillips

Author:Michael Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865–1877)—Fiction, Women plantation owners—Fiction, Female friendship—Fiction, Plantation life—Fiction, Race relations—Fiction, North Carolina—Fiction, Young women—Fiction, Racism—Fiction
ISBN: 9781441211354
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

CHANGES

30

HENRY AND JEREMIAH WATCHED THE WAGON AS IT bounced down the road, the two girls sitting close together on the seat, heads close, talking.

“Sumfin mighty strange goin’ on,” Henry muttered.

Jake wasn’t sure what he meant, but something strange was going on inside him when he looked at that girl called Mayme. As the wagon disappeared from sight, Jake stared after it. But gradually his thoughts returned to the present.

He had located his father. But it wasn’t at all what he had expected.

Now he found himself having to do some serious soulsearching. He had thought one thing was true for so long that it was part of him. Could he really believe what his father had told him? Could everything he had always believed about him not have been right at all? After everything his pa told him, Jake was more confused than he’d ever been in his life.

His father’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Now dat I tol’ you sum ob what happened ter me,” Henry said, “I’d be right pleased ter hear ’bout you, Jeremiah, an’ what happened . . . an’ ’bout yo mama.”

The words brought Jake back to the present and reminded him of the conflict he was feeling inside. He was not quite ready to tell his father everything. But as they resumed walking along the street, he told Henry a sketchy version of events.

When Henry heard what his former owner Clarkson had done and what his overseer had said, he was both furious and heartbroken. A righteous indignation rose inside him at the cruelty of such men. How could they toy with a child’s feelings, and then tear his family apart?

“I’s so sorry, son,” he said in a soft and tender voice. “I wud neber hab said sumfin like dat.”

For the first time, Henry understood what had happened to him and his wife and his son. Suddenly it all made sense. Clarkson’s motives had only been to get back at him.

“I loved you and yo mama so much!” Henry blurted out after a minute.

His own words turned his thoughts again to the woman he had loved. A new stab of pain went through Henry’s heart at the reminder that she was dead.

“You wuz da apple ob dis father’s eye,” he added. “I’s so sorry you had ter hear a dreadful thing like dat man said. I can’t even imagine da pain ob how dat must hab hurt!”

Henry’s heart was twisted in knots. And for the son he never expected to see again to lash out in angry accusation as he had a few minutes earlier was almost more than Henry’s tender heart could bear.

“I tried ter fin’ you after I come back,” Henry went on, his eyes wet with tears. “But dey wudn’t tell me nuthin’. Dat Clarkson, he jes’ laughed at me an’ my tears. I tried everything ter fin’ what had happened ter you an’ yo mama. Den after I got my freedom an’ Beulah tol’ me what she tol’ yo mama, I spent a few years roun’ dere axin’ everywhere an’ travelin’ about, an’ den figgered to come here.

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