Out From This Place by Joyce Hansen Read Free Book Online Page B

plantation!” Rose said.
    â€œThese people are renting us land and paying us to work. We could be like real men and women now. Have our own land, house, and family.” Rayford’s dark eyes seemed to peer inside of her. She turned away from him.
    â€œI don’t care about no house and land. You mean thiskind of house?” She stretched her arm toward the wall, with its big chinks between the logs. “And pickin’ cotton in a burning field? I want a house like Missy Phillips have. I never see Missy pickin’ no cotton, and she be free.”
    Rayford spun her around. “You’re a child, or else you’d understand. You can leave if you want. I ain’t your father or your master, so I can’t stop you. But I ain’t helping you do something stupid.” He put his hand on Rose’s arm. “We meeting tonight with the other people who live here so we can all get to know one another.”
    Rayford walked out, and Rose and Easter faced each other. Easter didn’t want Rose to be angry with her. She loved Rose. But Rose couldn’t seem to understand how she felt. All Easter could say was, “I help you clean,” as she picked up the bundles from the floor and placed them on the bench so that she could sweep thoroughly.
    That evening, when Rose, Melissa, and Sarah left for the meeting, Easter lay down on the pallet. For the first time she did something that she hadn’t done for many years. She tried to imagine her mother. Someone holding her and playing with her, the way she’d watched Isabel play with Miriam. But the only image that came to her was her former mistress, who had never played with her.
    And now she had nobody but herself. But did she own herself? She recalled Mariah’s last words to her, and she talked to God.
Do I own myself?
she asked. She felt like nobody. Maybe she should have stayed with Mariah and Gabriel. Jason had been happy with his Missy and his fancy clothes; maybe she should never have gone back to the plantation for him.
    The next morning the sound of the wake-up horn startled her. She rubbed her eyes and shook Jason. He rose with his usual whine. Rose was already up and ready for work. She wore a straw hat and a rough apron over her dress.
    â€œRose, you a cook. How you goin’ to work in the field?”
    â€œI learn. I gettin’ pay for this. Better fix yourself some grits ’fore you leave,” she said curtly and left the room.
    When Jason and Easter got outside, they saw men and women walking to the fields. Some of them nodded in their direction, but Easter ignored them. She saw Rayford leaving his hut, but she made believe that she didn’t see him. She walked toward the big house, away from the fields. She would ask one of the soldiers directions to other plantations and other islands so that she could begin her search.
    â€œNow where we goin’, Easter?” Jason limped like an old man with bad feet.
    â€œTo Obi.” She wasn’t in the mood for a lot of talk this morning.
    When she walked up to the man in the long coat, the same dignified white woman she had seen among the refugees the day before stood next to Mr. Reynolds. The woman fanned herself quickly as she talked in that fast, funny Yankee way. Several black children in shirttails stood quietly by her side. Jason’s attention was drawn to the other children.
    â€œOh, good.” The woman smiled. “Here are two more.” She stared at Jason’s torn ruffles and ruined velvet britches.
    â€œAre you orphans?”
    Easter was bewildered. “What, Mistress?”
    The woman questioned Mr. Reynolds. “Are they orphans? We have room for a few more.”
    Easter addressed the man, since she had no idea what the woman was talking about. “Excuse me, suh, but where is—”
    The woman interrupted her. “Do you have a mother and a father?” the woman asked, bending slightly in Easter’s