Chapter 3
THREE
ZINNIE
“Zinnie, have this kitchen packed and cleaned before we leave. Is the meat cured? Do I have cushions for sitting? I want my needlepoint and notions basket at the front of the wagon to keep me company.”
Miss Norene fluttered in and out the kitchen, issuing orders like I didn’t run that homestead, daily. She was annoying as a rash. Still, I assured her all was in its proper place.
The Tollivers were tenant farmers who couldn’t afford land and rented someone else’s. Consequently, they didn’t possess as much as some. Their little didn’t prevent our relentless toiling these past few months.
We’d long ago readied the farm by harvesting vegetables.
Dried and cured meat. Canned and preserved the earth’s offerings.
Flour was tightly sacked, safe from weevils.
Jars of fruit lay in crates. Lovie, Ella—our fellow bondswoman—and I had mended clothing for the Tollivers and their brood of six.
Buck—the only enslaved man on the homestead—had tirelessly applied his blacksmithing skills to wagon wheels and axles, ensuring a safe passage.
Lord, don’t let her come in here with not one more directive.
I was tired of rushing about like a headless hen finalizing for this pilgrimage. Bone weary, I did the forbidden. I gave myself permission to rest. I plopped onto a crate, and nursed my Hattie until her tummy was tight with satisfaction.
“Hush, my baby. Sleep so sweetly. Hush, my little one, close here with me…”
I sang my made-up lullaby while burping her gently.
I pressed my nose in her neck, delighting in the milky sweetness of her newborn scent.
Despite a day of drudgery and being treated like I didn’t have common sense, I swayed gently for Hattie’s contentment, nearly rocking myself to sleep in the process.
“Lord, let me get up from here…”
I switched from singing to humming while easing my newborn into her sling about my chest. She stretched before burrowing against me, safe and snug against my heartbeat.
“The kitchen’s mostly ready.” I pushed myself up and moved to a box hidden in the corner on weary feet. “Might as well do my inventory.” I bent over and did so reverently.
Horehound for coughs and throat afflictions.
Asafetida for clear breathing, an expectorant to ward off all manner of sickness.
Coneflower for everything from internal discombobulations to fevers and toothaches.
Elderberry for sores. Greenbriar leaves for burns. Lavender and dried rhubarb for constipation and anxiety.
“Zinnie, Miss Norene’s gonna need those herbs with all her fainting and frenzies.” Lovie startled me as she and Ella re-entered the kitchen, finished with whatever chore the mistress had devised for them. “You betta pray she don’t conjure up some new mystery ailment on this trip.”
We were all overly familiar with Norene Tolliver’s infirmities, real and imagined.
I chuckled lightly at my sister’s observation, too tired for full out laughing despite her accuracy. I glanced at her, marveling how our shared features were soft in the cinnamon brown of her pretty face. She was petite and delicate. I was sturdy. “Lovie, hush so I can finish.”
“Please hush, Lovie! You know Zinnie’s particular ‘bout them roots.” Ella, our fellow bondswoman, yawned dramatically. “She’ll have us up all night with her sorting and arranging if you keep interrupting. I’m already half-past drop-dead weary so refrain from talking.”
“What did her highness want?” I watched Ella retie the kerchief concealing her long, sandy plaits.
The mistress detested them as much as what she called Ella’s “high yella” skin that wasn’t but a drop or two darker than her own.
Those “fair” attributes, Ella’s hazel eyes, and raw beauty contributed to the woman’s contempt of my dear friend.
Ella mimicked Miss Norene’s thin voice—fragile as lace—and fluttered her hands.
“We need chamber pots. And pillows, bedding, and quilts. Mealtimes may alter, but they are not to be missed. I won’t tolerate anyone shirking duties while we’re traveling.
” She clutched her chest and added a string of dry, weak coughs at the end.
“Ella, you a mess.” I snickered at her perfect mimicry.
The mistress wasn’t a frail woman when marrying Master Ryland back when I was eighteen and given to the Tollivers along with Buck, Lovie, and Ella as wedding gifts.
Birthing six children and two stillborn drained her health.
Now, she was mostly sickly, too often requiring my assistance.
“Yeah, well, I’ll be glad when this journey’s over and it ain’t even started yet. Everybody ready? Got whatever you need?”
I glanced at my box in the corner and nodded. I had my water sacs.
Having unearthed them yesterday, they were safely hidden deep within the bundle of my few possessions. They emboldened me for the frightening, uncertain journey we were about to undertake. I smiled at their hidden presence.
“None of us got much. We’re traveling light this pilgrimage.
” The little clothing my daughters possessed was laundered, packed.
Including Hattie’s nappies. And tallow for soothing if the nappies ever irritated her derrière.
I had fabric scraps to stuff Annabelle and Abigail’s shoes in cold weather.
Their hair was freshly washed and plaited.
I even had a jar of strawberry preserves hidden as a special treat, and the cornhusk dolls I’d made for their entertainment.
I’d prepared as best I could, even while anxious about this nomadic voyage with my three little bits.
How to keep my children safe while traveling through all manner of terrain exposed to elements and God knew what had my teeth on edge. Even if the weather cooperated there were other considerations. Predators. Foxes. Coyotes. Bears. Keeping my babies close while on that wagon was my highest aim.
Be with us every mile of the way.
My heartfelt prayer was brief. I turned my attention to helping Ella and Lovie pack the last few kitchen goods as my tired mind swirled to Miss Norene.
Wasn’t nothing fair about blaming a wife for her husband’s moral failures.
Still, I faulted her frailties for her husband’s doings, his coming for Lovie and me constantly.
Ella, for whatever his demented reasons, infrequently.
He was no-count evil even in his wife’s healthy days, and every man was responsible for himself.
Sickness aside, Norene Tolliver was in good company with other plantation mistresses who knew of such violations and did nothing to curtail them as if powerless.
Ain’t none of ’em helpless!
Hattie arched her back, redirecting my wayward attention.
I was tired and my thoughts were all over God’s creation.
I kissed her chubby cheek and inhaled her sweet baby scent, praying she didn’t get colicky on this trip, amazed how love for my children inhabited my heart despite how they’d come into existence.
Wonder if that’s what keeps these plantation women so silent?
Were they as put upon as us enslaved women? Perhaps what little power they possessed, they saved for themselves, their children?
I snorted, dismissively. We shared no sisterhood of oppression. Sometimes plantation women were the sellers and traders of human flesh. Whatever their trials they woke up and went to bed as free women. “Naw, ain’t no comparison…”
“Zinnie, when’d you take to talking to yourself and keeping your own company?”
I looked at Lovie, wanting to suck my teeth, but spoke through a yawn instead. “Just thinking aloud.”
“At least you ain’t chatting with Mama Ruth. Yet.”
I dismissed my sister’s teasing and passed her a handful of dented tin cups she tossed into a box in a none too gentle fashion. “Mama Ruth might be gone to glory, but I’d rather her company over these Mississippi Mormons.”
“I second that even if Mama Ruth and I never met.”
My sister snickered at Ella’s remark while rubbing her belly and stretching the kinks from her back. “These Mississippi Mormons ain’t got good sense. Ain’t no need for traveling to the other side of nowhere in the name of worship.”
I grunted in agreement. “I ain’t keen on being uprooted.” I didn’t want to be taken from the soil that grew me no matter how oppressive that growing might have been. “The south ain’t been good to none of us, but the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t.”
The sound of heavy footfalls neared as if evil had been summoned by my spoken opinion.
Our reaction was immediate. We fell silent and filled our hands with busy work, heads lowered, eyes downcast as the space filled with maleness. His roaming about so late meant only one thing, and that didn’t bode well.
“Evening, ladies.”
“Buck!” Our collective sigh filled the kitchen as the blacksmith entered. I stroked Hattie’s hair, relieved he wasn’t Ryland Tolliver. “You’re rambling so late for what reason?”
“Ain’t rambling, Miss Zinnie. Just checking on progress. Wagons are packed. Same as the oxcarts. Except the last.” Our fellow bondsman took stock of the items that had yet to be loaded. “I’m holding space for you on it.”
I looked away, hoping Lovie and Ella didn’t turn Buck’s words into a double meaning. They’d gotten it into their heads that the two of us oughta be more than friends. I didn’t need them instigating and insinuating his holding space was about his heart not some cart.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind much if it was.
Buck was a steady man. Kind. Quiet. He was more than the homestead’s blacksmith.
He was a jack of all trades managing whatever the Tollivers demanded.
He worked the fields alongside me when I wasn’t cooking, gardening, or handling laundry.
Occasionally he was summoned indoors to repair whatever needed fixing.
Sometimes we broke bread together with the entire workforce. Not as a pair.