The Wilful Daughter Read online

  His home.

  He removed his shirt. He was fifty eight years old and still had the physique of a young man, his chest hairless and rippling of brown muscles. Local women would come by the shop in his younger years in the heat of the afternoon. They would stand on the hill under their parasols, breathing hard in their cinched dresses and wait for the moment when the young smithy could stand the heat no more and remove his shirt. More than one had stood and gawked. He liked it, had liked it when he was young and single in Alabama. What was not to like? The women fawned on him and many even said they wanted him, wife or no wife. But word got back to Bira, Bira whose touch to any muscle on his naked chest sent a fever through him reminiscent of the first time he realized what pleasure a woman could be. Bira did not say don’t take off your shirt, she made him undershirts that had very short sleeves and a “v” at the neck. She knew what the women of Atlanta were saying. That one day soon someone younger, someone not pregnant, with a spring body to rub against his would steal the Blacksmith away. Unless of course she had ‘hoodooed’ him and she laughed. There was nothing like that between them. There was just love.

  He had understood when she handed him the shirts with a kiss for he had been tempted then. But even now he knew that his body was still as strong as the first day he had picked up the hammer and swung it. Any woman he wanted? He had wanted some but Bira had once told him one thig that stayed with him: if you have them you can’t have me. That said he never touched another woman. Not even when a local Madame had come to his shop and wanted to trade the favors of her whores for his work. They touched him and rubbed him but he stood fast. It had nothing to do with church or the lord. It had only to do with Bira.

  And it was because of Bira now that he washed at the pump with the soap and towel that she always left on the post for him. Then he would proceed to the space under the back porch where he would put on a fresh shirt and a bow tie, change from his overalls into nice pressed pants and have dinner with his family. His wife, his daughters, his son.

  In the house Rosa played a light airy tune on the piano and Minnelsa sat at the parlor table pondering over a book as she made some notes.

  “She doesn’t talk much since John Wood died,” Jewel whispered to Rosa.

  “Why do you say that every night? We know that! Hush up or she’ll hear you,” Bira said as she passed them on her way to the kitchen.

  Once their mother was out of sight Rosa whispered back: “Papa should have let them marry. At least she would have something to hold onto with him being dead.”

  “Maybe a baby?” Jewel added and her sister nodded.

  Papa was first at the table, passing the flowers before he sat and smelling them. There was a nice breeze in the house that let the scent of all the cleaning that Bira and the girls did float through.

  June came pecking him on the cheek before she sat down. There was no telling where she had been. “Did you help with the food today, June? Or were you out being courted by some no count man.”

  “Papa, I was with Willie. You know I can’t cook and they don’t want me messing up in the kitchen.” She gave him her loveliest smile. “Besides Papa, if a boy came to call on me. . . .” She caught his eye. “Well, papa I know you feel that there has yet to be born in Atlanta the man that you think is good enough for any of your daughters.”

  June changed the subject quickly. “Did you have a good day, Papa?” Minnelsa strolled in quietly from the living room, and Rosa, Jewel and Fawn brought in the food.

  “As good as can be expected. At least it’s not as hot this week as last.” He watched as his crippled son held the chair for his mother and then bent down to kiss her. In his heart he meant the boy no harm but more often than not he wished he had had to courage to do what one old woman suggested: “Been my son and they told me he was going to suffer like that and grow up all twisted like a rotten tree stump I would have put a pillow over his tiny face. Just a few seconds and no one would have ever known. God takes care of little ones like that.” He had stood there when the screaming sick baby was less than two months old, staring down on his tiny body, on the legs that didn't kick and didn’t move. This was his son, named after him. He couldn’t do it.

  He smiled at his wife, her long hair tied tightly in the back in a bun. He still took pleasure in removing the pins and letting it fall to her waist, of removing her gown and laying the hair across her still attractive but not so firm breasts. There was a lock on their door because of the nights, not many nights but some, when they slept in each other’s nakedness. He smiled again. He felt that this would be one of those nights.

  Dinner that evening was festive. The house was cool and each of the children had something special that had happened that day. One thing seemed to be the talk of all the girls, save Minnelsa: the new music teacher who would be coming to Morris Brown when classes started in three weeks.

  “He’s studied in Europe.” Jewel said with a blush. “He’s played for many royal courts.”

  “He speaks French, Italian, and Spanish,” Rosa giggled.

  “And German. He grew up in Europe.” Fawn added. “His record of accomplishments is very impressive.”

  “What accomplishments?” Brother wanted to know.

  “Yes, you’re all so impressed with the man. What did he do that was so special besides survive the war?” The Blacksmith asked.

  They were all hesitant to speak except June. “For one, he took care of some French orphans during the war.” June said serving herself a small portion of yams and meat. She looked at the question in her father’s eyes. “No Papa, they weren’t his. It seems that he just took care of them and moved them from Paris to the countryside after their parents died. I think his human kindness is the most impressive thing that he’s done. More impressive than his studies.”

  “You would say that.” Fawn snapped as she cut her meat. “She’s supposed to be helping me with the bible study class at church but all she does with the children is play games. She never reads, never prepares a lesson. . .”

  “I don’t need to do that if you’re doing it. It’s a waste of two energies. Besides,” June smiled, “one of the reasons the children like our class is that they are allowed to play games. We give them a little freedom then they study your stiff lessons.”

  Fawn started to speak but the Blacksmith raised his hand. Quiet resumed at his table. “What does this man do to support himself at the present time?”

  The others shrugged as Willie looked at June. She didn’t speak. Working in a juke joint would not impress her father in the least.

  “I understand from the local gossips, most of which are at this table,” Minnelsa said as Bira and the Blacksmith smiled, “That he made enough money in Europe and New York to live comfortably for a while.”

  “Didn’t know you were interested, Minnelsa.” Fawn mimicked fake concern as she lifted the glass of iced tea to her rosy lips, her pinky extended as if she were holding a china cup.

  “When the four of you start talking about one thing and one thing only the whole day I can’t help but get interested. He’s going to replace the organist this Sunday. She’s gone to her brother’s funeral in Mississippi. I understand he also gives piano lessons.”

  June grinned and the other sisters blushed. As always Bira saw it all, but Bira said nothing.

  “Well, an enterprising young man. What’s for dessert?” Their father grunted and with that the subject came to a close.

  With dinner over, the Blacksmith took to the huge front porch to sit for a while, resting from a hard day and contemplating what he would do with his evening. With five grown daughters to clean up her kitchen Bira found this time of evening most pleasant. She would sit on the porch with her husband and listen to his thoughts.

  “What shall we talk about this evening, mother? I have some new ideas about land I want to try on you. But first tell me about your day. Did you have a chance to get out?”

  Bira sighed and gave him the same speech she gave him eve
ry night. “Now, William, let me remind you that it takes a lot to run a house this size, a house with seven bedrooms, and six children, even if the children are grown. You know I only go out when I have to.”

  “I know that, mother, but. . .”

  She kept talking. “I don’t always like what I see out there.”

  “That’s why I send off for things. Have them brought to you.” Tenderly he added as he touched her small hand with his larger one: “I never want anything to hurt you. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  She continued her sewing as she talked. “It’s our daughters who enjoy this new South. Did you know the hospital on Hunter Street right across from the High school is the focus of much excitement lately? New young doctors from Meharry College are practicing medicine, delivering colored babies, not at home but in the clean sterile confines of the hospital itself. That’s much of the talk of the town.”

  “I see.”

  “And a library is being built right down the street from the hospital as well as a post office across the street. Shops are springing up left and right.”

  The Blacksmith could only smile. He had a little something to do with this progress. “I sold them that land mother, not leased it or rented it. If they fail they’ll come back to me to sell it.”

  He had encouraged the school to allow the library to be built on its ground.

  “Didn’t they ask you to be on the hospital committee, William? After all you are the richest colored man in Atlanta.”

  He nodded looking out at the street he had built. “I’m not sure if I like the idea of once a month sitting down and meeting with those snobs who call themselves leaders.”

  “William,” his wife said in her best ‘as a matter of fact’ tone, “if you want to make sure things are done right you’re gonna have to. So once a month you will put on a suit and tie and sit in the largest room of the hospital and pretend that you are just as big a snob as the rest of them.” Bira daintily laughed at the prospect.

  “You used to like to go with me to those things, Bira. You always made sure I made them do things right.”

  She had been encouraged by her daughters to get out more. They made her feel like the first lady of colored Atlanta, as did the rest of the committee members. “I used to, but William you know what it does to my routine. I have to leave the gardens and flowers and knitting and sewing and then Brother will be . . .”

  “June wouldn’t mind staying with him. They’re always together anyway.”

  “I’d have to dress in clothes that are uncomfortable to me. And I am not a young woman.”

  “I understand, my dear. You do enough by going to the wards and seeing to it that the poor children have nice gowns and toys, that the unmarried mothers are treated with the same dignity as the married ones, that the poor are given the same help as the rich.”

  “William, stop it. I’m not a saint.” She blushed. “I just make sure the hospital has what it needs. It’s the one place I can really help.”

  He knew everyone loved her at the hospital.

  A car drove past. “Look at that, Bira. I bet they’re going twenty five miles an hour. Horses and people are not going to be safe.”

  “And mules, William. Don’t forget mules pulling wagons.”

  “Like Slow and Slower?” They both laughed.

  She hadn’t thought of those mules in years.

  While her husband went on and on about the city she suddenly longed for the country. She longed to be back where he found her in Tyson, Alabama so many years ago.

  * * *

  Mama had been brushing Bira’s hair for the monthly trip that she and her brother Troy were to take to town. “Mama, why do people tell me I should try to pass and marry a white man?”

  Her mother had brushed harder. Her mother hadn’t asked who had said that to her fifteen year old daughter. “Are they telling you to go north and have an easy life?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her mother brushed harder. “Are they saying if you stay out of the sun you’ll look like a white girl with long black hair? If not you’ll have to stay on a farm, work like a slave, and marry some farmhand and birth him baby after baby?”

  Bira only nodded that time.

  Her mother stopped brushing and turned her around. “You are a colored Indian maiden and of that you should be proud. You’ve seen the poor white trash. Your father always told the six of you, even the babies, to be kind and polite. That you are not niggers, you are people.”

  “I know that, Mama. I like it here. But sometimes they say that since I’m fifteen, I’m old enough to have a beau, and old enough to get married.”

  “Child,” her mother turned her back around and brushed her hair again, “people always gonna say something to try to get in your business. I’m your mama and I say the only thing you old enough to do is go into town with your brother and get supplies from the store. Troy is big for twelve and together you can load the wagon.” Bira knew this left her father more time to work the land and her mother to care for the house and the little ones who weren’t in the fields.

  “I don’t care what they say, you a baby and you ain’t white and you ain’t passing and you ain’t marrying no one now, you hear?” Her mother was smiling when she said it. Mama called them all her babies, all six of them.

  In the town there was a colored woman who worked in the store by the name of Miss Fannie. It was Miss Fannie’s job to wait on the coloreds and she took a liking to Bira and Troy. Gave them sweets and things when she wasn’t supposed to. They were always hungry after the two hour ride it took to get into town in an old wagon pulled by two of the slowest mules you ever met- Slow and Slower. The children called them that because no matter what you did they wouldn’t go fast at all.

  She recalled how one of them would jump out the wagon and go off the road behind a tree to do their business, get finished and they could still catch up with the wagon with a short run that didn’t leave them out of breath.

  Then came that day when she was fifteen, just fifteen and had never had a beau, and in town with her brother sucking on sweets in the back of the store where Miss Fannie worked.

  “Fannie, come up here a minute,” the white man had called to their friend. Bira had caught a glimpse of the man who called. She had never cared for him much but he smiled at her that day and sent a chill through her.

  “Come up front and close the door after you.”

  Bira and Troy had been in town for only a short time. They were drinking fresh lemonade and eating little sugar cakes. It was a treat being big enough to go into town without their parents.

  The adults, colored and white, were whispering on the other side of the door. Troy wasn’t interested in hearing what was being said. He was stuffing his face with Miss Fannie’s food. Bira thought she heard something about ‘robes’ and ‘babies’. She was almost knocked over when Miss Fannie opened the door. They were eye to eye, being the same height. But Bira felt small and childlike as the woman took her hand.

  The white man came back with her. Miss Fannie’s husband Leroy, the man who Troy helped load the wagons, came back too.

  Bira felt something was wrong for the woman never let go of her hand. Leroy, stood like an oak behind Troy.

  Miss Fannie spoke softly. “Something has happened children. Something happened while you two were coming to town.”

  Bira couldn’t speak and Troy was fidgeting nervously on the bags of flour that made his seat. “We can’t make them old mules move any faster, Miss Fannie. We try and. . .”

  “She knows that boy. Everybody in town knows bout Slow and Slower.” The white man frowned and his face was red as he spoke. “Just hear her out.”

  Troy turned to his sister who was still in the hands of Miss Fannie. Leroy grabbed the boy’s shoulder and Bira felt her heart sink.

  “The robes,” Miss Fannie almost whispered it. “The white robes came in the middle of the day. They burned your father’s fields. They shot your sister Mary and yo
ur brother Joseph while they were working in the fields and they hung your father from the big tree in the middle of his land.”

  Where we sat everyday to eat lunch and go over the things that he had taught them the night before, Bira thought and turned to look at brother who was struggling to pull away from Leroy.

  “Then they burned him hanging from that tree.”

  “No!” Troy screamed and Bira ran to him. He tried not to let her hold him. But with the grip that Leroy had put on him and the arms that Bira put around him all he could do was scream again and try to move.

  “Mama? The babies?” Bira asked tears streaming down her face.

  “Mister, I can’t. I can’t tell no more.” Miss Fannie was crying on her own. The white man finished what the kind colored woman could not say. His face growing more and more red.

  “By the time the robes got to the house your mother had gathered the babies inside. We heard they was playing outside. She wouldn’t let the robes in. She shot at them hoping they’d go away. So they sat fire to the place.”

  “My home!” Bira’s voice was so small in its pain.

  “And when your mother sent the babies out, so that they would not burn, the white robes showed no mercy and shot them one by one.”

  “No this couldn’t happen. We just got here and. . .”

  The white man moved impatiently. “Word got here before you did. Like you said those mules are so slow.”

  Troy pulled free of his sister. “What word? Who told you Mister? Seems you saying our family is all dead.” Leroy dropped his hold of the boy. “Did one of them robes come to brag?”

  Miss Fannie and Leroy looked at the white man. He pulled on his shirt. “I don’t take to killing children. Didn’t know that was part of the deal,” he sighed. “If your daddy had just sold them the land. . .”