The Invention of Wings: A Novel by Sue Monk Kidd Read Free Book Online Page B

today’s scripture and elaborate on its meaning, but when I finally succeeded in getting the children perched on the cushions and saw their faces, the whole thing seemed a travesty. If everyone was so keen to Christianize the slaves, why weren’t they taught to read the Bible for themselves?
    I began to sing the alphabet, a new little learning-ditty. A B C D E F G … Mary looked up surprised, then sighed and returned to her state of apathy. H I J K L M N O P … There had never been hesitation in my voice when I sang. The children’s eyes glittered with attention, Q R S … T U V … W X … Y and Z.
    I cajoled them to sing it in sections after me. Their pronunciations were lacking. Q came out
coo,
L M as
ellem
. Oh, but their faces! Such grins. I told myself when I returned next time, I would bring a slate board and write out the letters so they could see them as they sang. I thought then of Hetty. I’d seen the disarrangement of books on my desk and knew she explored them in my absence. How she would love to learn these twenty-six letters!
    After half a dozen rounds, the children sang with gusto, half-shouting. Mary plugged her ears with her fingers, but I sang full-pitch, using my arms like conductor sticks, waving the children on. I did not see Reverend Hall in the doorway.
    “What appalling mischief is going on here?” he said.
    We halted abruptly, leaving me with the dizzy sense the letters still danced chaotically in the air over our heads. My face turned its usual flamboyant colors.
    “… … … We were singing, Reverend Sir.”
    “Which Grimké child are you?” He’d baptized me as a baby, just as he had all my siblings, but one could hardly expect him to keep us straight.
    “She’s Sarah,” Mary said, leaping to her feet. “I had no part in the song.”
    “… … I’m sorry we were boisterous,” I told him.
    He frowned. “We do not
sing
in Colored Sunday School, and we most assuredly do not sing the alphabet. Are you aware it is against the law to teach a slave to read?”
    I knew of this law, though vaguely, as if it had been stored in a root cellar in my head and suddenly dug up like some moldy yam. All right, it was the law, but it struck me as shameful. Surely he wouldn’t claim this was God’s will, too.
    He waited for me to answer, and when I didn’t, he said, “Would you put the church in contradiction of the law?”
    The memory of Hetty that day when Mother caned her flashed through my mind, and I raised my chin and glared at him, without answering.

Handful
    W hat came next was a fast, bitter wind.
    Monday, after we got done with devotions, Aunt-Sister took mauma aside. She said missus had a friend who didn’t like floggings and had come up with the one-legged punishment. Aunt-Sister went to a lot of trouble to draw us a picture of it. She said they wind a leather tie round the slave’s ankle, then pull that foot up behind him and hitch the tie round his neck. If he lets his ankle drop, the tie chokes his throat.
    We knew what she was telling us. Mauma sat down on the kitchen house steps and laid her head flat against her knees.
    Tomfry was the one who came to strap her up. I could see he didn’t want any part of it, but he wasn’t saying so. Missus said, “One hour, Tomfry. That will do.” Then she went inside to her window perch.
    He led mauma to the middle of the yard near the garden where tiny shoots had just broke through the dirt. All us were out there huddled under the spreading tree, except Snow who was off with the carriage. Rosetta started wailing. Eli patted her arm, trying to ease her. Lucy and Phoebe were arguing over a piece of cold ham left from breakfast, and Aunt-Sister went over there and smacked them both cross their faces.
    Tomfry turned mauma so she was facing the tree with her back to the house. She didn’t fight. She stood there limp as the moss on the branches. The scent of low tide coming from the harbor was everywhere, a rotted smell.
    Tomfry told