Oh, Freedom! by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781850772934
Publisher: Darf Publishers
Published: 2016-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

H arriet,’ said Peg Leg Joe. ‘You want me to tell you about Harriet.’

‘You promised,’ insisted Tommy.

Peg Leg Joe took another roasted corncob and swiftly ground it up in his great teeth.

They were camped on the bank of a stream, in an isolated place away from prying eyes. The sun shone bright, the air was fresh and clean, centuries-old oak trees marked out the line of the horizon. The sound was that of insects buzzing and birds singing.

They had rested and cleaned themselves up. They had washed their threadbare clothes, beating them for a long time against the flat, smooth stones of the shore. In the abandoned field around what had once been a farm, its roof fallen in and walls covered in ivy and creepers, they had found corncobs and apples which had not gone completely wild, and dug up sweet potatoes.

Tommy had demonstrated his skill as a fisherman, and the stream had been generous.

It was a good piece of land. And peaceful. A place where a man would want to stop and put down roots - be he black, or white. All he’d need was a hoe, a plough, an old nag.

But they could not stop, because they were Negroes, therefore slaves.

They could not stop because any bounty hunter would shoot them, hammer a chain around their ankles and drag them to the nearest sheriff to collect one hundred dollars in gold. That was their job.

Or it might be some clever, honest, pious white man who on seeing them would feel shaken to the core and be indignant. Negroes! Free! Such a thing ran against nature, the law and God’s will. And what if they’d taken a piece of land too?! Something like that could not possibly be allowed to happen. That evening he would look seriously at his honest and pious wife, would place his hands solemnly on the fine white linen tablecloth on each side of his plate and say to her, ‘It is my duty to denounce them.’ She would nod, trembling at the mere thought of how much her husband would be risking in denouncing Negro slaves. Thoughts and preoccupations.

A brave man, a just man. The next morning he would present himself at the sheriff ‘s office, best hat in hand, a gold chain across his waistcoat. ‘Sheriff . . .’

‘Harriet,’ Peg Leg Joe said again.

The runaways surrounded him. Some were stretched out, some with their feet soaking in the fresh water of the stream. They were full, at peace for once. It was the right time to listen to a story.

Harriet wasn’t always called Harriet, he began. ‘No sir. Before, she was called Aramitha.’

‘Before what?’

‘“ Before . . . Do you know who Aramitha was?’

‘No.’

‘She was a slave, a black bum, excuse my language, like me and like you Sammy, like Tommy and like all of you.

An object. An animal. She was the property of the Thompsons,down Maryland way.’

‘Where’s Maryland?’ Tommy wanted to know.

‘Stop interrupting me. Maryland’s somewhere over there,’ and he gestured.

‘Sure?’

‘No.

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