Come Juneteenth by Ann Rinaldi Read Free Book Online

I knew for what. For him to extend an arm and offer to enfold me to him. Sometimes he would do that. But not always. It depended on the mood he was in.
    I curtsied and he nodded his head in approval. Then I left him there with his books and his accounts and his newspapers. Maybe he'd come out for supper this night and maybe not. I hoped the sky would stay blue enough.

    W ITH M AMA, I know she loved all her children, and that included Sis Goose. But somehow I always got the feeling that she favored the boys. "My boys," she'd call them, and she doted on them, worried for them, and still scolded them when the occasion warranted it.
    The boys, so much taller than she was, took it all good-naturedly and teased and praised her on occasion. I know they loved her, but this isn't anything a man discusses with anyone: how he loves his mother.
    I do know that she had a great influence on their lives and that they would go to her before going to Pa to ask for something. Sometimes she sent them straight to Pa. Other times she granted their wishes herself, wanting to spare Pa from some insignificant concern. I know the boys told her about the black man in the barn and how they sent him on his way. I don't think Pa ever knew about that.

    After my audience with Pa, I was called to Ma. She had gestured that Sis Goose and I sit down at the kitchen table and have a cup of coffee before we left.
    Ma had her own supply of real coffee beans that Granville had brought home for her after one of his running-the-blockade trips. She never asked him how he got it. She didn't want to know. But she saved it for special occasions.
    Hot coffee! How good it smelled! "I think this is what we're really fighting the war for," I said jokingly. "And not the slaves."
    Quickly I knew I'd said the wrong thing. From where Ma stood in the corner of the kitchen, peering into a butter churn at the fresh cream Molly, the servant, was going to churn, Ma gave me a look that would turn the cream sour.
    She scowled and gestured with her head to Molly.
    Not to Sis Goose, I minded. But Molly.
    Mama didn't consider Sis Goose a slave. And she wouldn't stand for any claptrap from anybody who did.
    That look demanded an apology, I knew. But to whom? I just lowered my eyes. "Sorry, Mama," I said.
    "It's that kind of thoughtless talk that's going to get
you in trouble with Aunt Sophie," she said. "And then she'll accuse me of raising a little hoyden. And I do so want you girls to make a good impression on this visit. She's entertaining a very special guest."

    Aunt Sophie always had special guests. She had turned their plantation, Glen Eden, into a social mecca. "You'd think she was Mrs. Lincoln," Pa had once said.
    "Who's she entertaining this time?" I asked.
    "Rooney Lee." Mama came over to the table and sat down opposite us, and I poured her a cup of coffee.
    "General Lee's second son," she explained. "He rides with Major General Jeb Stuart. He's recovering from a leg wound he got at Brandy Station. Uncle Garland knows the Lee family and invited him to Glen Eden to recuperate."
    My eyes were wide with wonder. "What is his rank?"
    "Major general," Mama said. "Be kind to him, you two. He's lost two infants and his wife. And he's recently been a Federal prisoner. For nine months. He was just released eight months ago."
    "Don't you remember?" Sis Goose said. "Mr. Porter told us all about the Lee family."
    Mr. Porter was our tutor. He was away now for the winter break.
    "Still, a real live major general. We'll get to talk to him, Sis. And find out what the war is about."
    Mama sipped her coffee. "Why don't you just ask your brothers," she said dryly. Then she got up. Mama could
not suffer fools gladly, and when I acted like one she was disappointed in me. Like Pa, she wanted to make me a strong, right-thinking woman. She tolerated no nonsense about boys, no unnecessary infatuation with clothes. The last thing in the world that she wanted me to be was a southern belle.

    She herself