A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton (9 page)
F
ROM WHERE I WAS SITTING, I LOOKED UP AT THE
horse standing there patiently waiting for me.
Finally I got up. But instead of getting back on the horse, I stepped back up on the boardwalk and started walking along it and looking into some of the other shops. My mind was still full, and I just wanted to know what it felt like to walk through town along a boardwalk like white people did, just taking my time and seeing what was in the store windows.
I passed a linen store. Two ladies were just coming out. Not knowing what to do, I half smiled at them as I walked by. They seemed surprised to see me and moved away to the other side of the walkway, as if they didn’t want to get too close to me. I reckon I had been riding all morning. Maybe I smelled bad, though I couldn’t tell myself. They said a few unkind things as they walked away. But I didn’t mind. They couldn’t hurt me and I was free, so what did I care what they said?
There were other people about as I walked too, and most of them acted the same, either saying something like, “Get off the walk, girl!” or “This ain’t no place for you!” or else just moving to the other side to avoid getting too close to me. I pretended not to notice and just kept going, but after a while it kinda stung to hear what they were saying. Even when I was a slave, nobody said those kinds of things to me. Maybe the white folks were mad to think that I was now free just like they were and could walk anywhere I wanted, even right through a town full of white folks.
I passed a baker’s shop, and for the first time almost wished I hadn’t spent the nine cents on the handkerchief. There were some mighty good smells coming from inside!
But I kept going and came to a store with some equipment in it, then walked past some offices, and then a bank. Across the street was a saloon with music and loud voices coming from the open swinging doors. I had no interest in getting too close to it, so I turned at the bank and went along the walk in the other direction from it.
People kept staring at me and sometimes saying rude things. I still hadn’t seen any other coloreds. Maybe I was the only black person in this town. Maybe that’s why none of them seemed to like me being there.
Up ahead I saw a hotel and restaurant. There were people walking in and out of it. I started to turn around, but then I saw a notice in the window and for some reason it drew my attention. I walked toward it, curious to see if I could read it. I stopped in front of the window and slowly tried to make sense of the words. I was surprised at how easy it was. It only took me a few minutes before I knew what the whole thing said:
Wanted: white maid, 25 cents a day plus room and board.
Wanted: colored girl for cleaning, 10 cents a day plus r & b
.
I turned and slowly started walking away on the boardwalk back in the direction of the bank. But the words from the sign kept repeating themselves over and over in my mind.
Wanted … colored girl … ten cents a day …
What if—my brain was spinning around and around with the thought of it!—what if I was to … could someone like me really get a job? One that actually paid money? That was more than Josepha got in a day. If I took a job that paid ten cents a day, would
that
be what I was worth?
All of a sudden I found myself turning around and walking back, and then I was walking into the hotel, walking right past the white ladies in fancy dresses and hats, and past the white men in black suits. I walked up to the counter and stood waiting there till the man behind it noticed me. I reckon the work dress I was wearing wasn’t none too pretty, and maybe I did smell, for all I knew. But I didn’t care. They weren’t asking for somebody who smelled nice and was dressed pretty, but for someone who knew how to work. And that’s something I knew how to do all right.
Finally the man looked over the counter at me. He just stood there and stared.
“I … I want to ask about that sign you got in the window,” I said, “saying you’re wanting a colored girl.”
“I’ll get the manager,” he said, then turned and left.
My heart was pounding, but I stood there and waited and tried to calm my insides down.
A minute or two later the same man appeared again from through the door where he’d gone. He was followed by another man, a little older and half bald and kinda fat, though nowhere near as large as Josepha. He was wearing a shiny black vest and a funny-looking thin string tie around his neck and down the front.
“What’s your name, girl?” he said when he got to me. He was just like all the white people in this town—he didn’t seem to know how to smile.
“Mary Ann,” I said.
“Mary Ann what?”
“Jukes.”
“Where you from? Who was your master?”
“Master McSimmons, sir.”
The man nodded.
“You still living there?” he said.
“No, sir.”
“Where, then?”
“Uh … somewhere else … where I went after I left Master McSimmons,” I said.
The man looked at me a little suspicious. “Well, I don’t suppose that matters. You know how to work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know how to keep your mouth shut and mind your betters?”
“Uh … yes, sir.”
“And do what you’re told?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come along, then, I’ll show you the room.”
He came out from behind the counter and walked through the hotel. I followed him. We walked through a long hallway and pretty soon came out at the back of the building and outside. I kept following until we came to a little building out at the back. We went through a door into another dark hallway, walked almost all the way to the other end, turned a corner, went up a narrow stairway, and then stopped. He opened a door and walked in.
“This is where you’ll stay,” he said. “You got any things with you, put them in here. Then come to the front desk and I’ll put you to work.”
I glanced around. The room was so tiny, there was only room for the bed against the small wall and a tiny table and chair. It didn’t look too clean, and from where I was standing I thought the mattress on the bed was stuffed with straw, like my old one had been at the McSimmons colored town. The place didn’t particularly strike me as where I wanted to live for the next few years, even for ten cents a day.
“I don’t know if I want to take the job yet, sir,” I said.
“What! An uppity one, are you? I should’ve seen it in that ugly face of yours. What are you wasting my time for!”
“I’m sorry, sir. I just wanted to know about it.”
“Get out of here, and don’t show your face around this hotel again unless you’re ready to go to work.”
He huffed out of the room and down the stairs, leaving me to find my own way back out to the street in front.
I
WALKED OUT OF THE HOTEL, FEELING THE SCOWL
of the manager’s eyes on my back from the counter, where I knew he was watching me.
I came out onto the boardwalk and started back the way I had come. As I retraced my steps from earlier, all kinds of new things to think about were swirling in my brain.
A job!
A real job, a room of my very own … and real money! It wasn’t much of a room, and maybe the ten cents a day wasn’t even half what the white person’s job got. But it would be mine … my own room, my own money.
I could buy things, clothes for myself, a pair of shoes …
I looked down at the white handkerchief I still had clutched in one hand. If I took that job I could buy all the lace handkerchiefs I could ever want. I could buy a dozen of them if I wanted to! With every kind of colored ribbon I could think of!
All at once my future was full of so many possibilities and opportunities. Not only wasn’t I a runaway slave … why, I could be and do anything I wanted to!
I was walking slow, thinking about so many things.
Did I … did I really want to take that job? Even with the gruff hotel manager and lumpy straw mattress and dinky little room.
What a change it would be!
Once I started getting paid, maybe I’d even have to open an account in that bank, just for me, in my own name—a bank account that said
Mary Ann Jukes
on it.
But then the question came to my mind—did they let black folks have bank accounts? I didn’t know the answer to that. And I was still just a girl, I wasn’t even a grown-up black yet.
Well, if they didn’t … then I’d keep my ten cents a day someplace else. If I worked long enough at that hotel, I could get rich!
My steps slowed, then came to a stop. I had come to the corner again by the bank where the saloon was across the street.
I stopped right at the corner. Down the street past the baker’s and offices and linen store, there was the horse still standing in front of the general store waiting for me.
Still thinking about the money, I looked inside the bank. Just thinking about having a bank account with my own money in it was so exciting a thought!
Then I glanced back down the street behind me at the hotel.
I just stood there for a whole minute or two. I knew I had to decide. It was nobody’s decision but mine. I was free. I could do whatever I wanted. I could take that job if I wanted. Or—
A sound disturbed me out of my daze as I stood there on the corner of the boardwalk next to the Oakwood bank. I don’t know why I noticed, ’cause there were people about and horses and a few buggies clomping and rattling along the street. But in the midst of all the noise and movement and activity, I heard the sound of a man’s voice calling out to a team of horses from the middle of the street coming behind me from the direction of the general store.
I knew instantly that it was a black man’s voice, ’cause there’s a difference and you can always tell. And instinctively I turned around to look.
There was a wagon loaded with hay and some other supplies being pulled by two horses rumbling along the street toward where I was standing. And sitting up on the buckboard lashing the reins and calling out to the horses was Katie’s friend Henry from Greens Crossing!
I don’t know why I didn’t want him to see me. Seeing a familiar face suddenly filled me with the feeling that I shouldn’t be there.
I started to turn away and duck behind the corner wall of the bank building.
But it was too late. He had seen me too.
Our eyes met briefly as he came even with me in the street. I had the feeling he might be about to rein in or say something.
But before he had the chance, I looked away and started walking. I hurried along the boardwalk past the door of the bank and on toward the general store.
I got to where I’d tied the horse. I stopped and looked back. Henry was gone. I could see the roof of the hotel beyond the bank.
I thought again about the job and realized I still hadn’t made my decision.
Money … a room of my own … a bank account with my name on it … and maybe even ten dollars in it someday …
But what did any of that matter?
I had a friend waiting for me. And a friend was worth even more than a hundred dollars!
What had I been thinking? My home was with Katie now! She didn’t care if I was black or white or ugly or smelly. She needed me and looked up to me. So maybe that’s what I was worth—I was somebody’s friend.
I smiled, gave the street one last look, then untied the horse, got up into the saddle, and rode out of town without wasting any more time.
I still didn’t want Henry to see me again, and I didn’t slow down until the houses and buildings had completely disappeared behind me.