Never Too Late Read online

  Finally everything went black.

  NEW SURROUNDINGS

  14

  SEFFIE AWOKE CONSCIOUS OF NOTHING BUT A terrific pain in her right ankle.

  It was still dark. She lay on her back on the ground and was nearly freezing to death.

  Coming to herself and remembering what had happened, she was filled with panic. She had to catch up with the others!

  She rolled over on her side and struggled to get up. Her whole body shouted out in pain from her fall. The moment she tried to stand she realized it was no use. Something was badly wrong. She knew she wouldn’t be able to walk a step.

  She lay back down and tried to think what to do. She didn’t even know where she was. She had either walked or been moved from where she had fallen. She could remember nothing. And where were the men who had been chasing them?

  She did not have time to think about it long.

  The sounds of a wagon clattering along the road intruded into her thoughts, then gradually grew louder. She realized she was lying on the side of the road they had crossed earlier. Frantically she tried to rise again. When she couldn’t, she tried to crawl into the undergrowth to the side of the road.

  But it was no use. The horses pulling the wagon galloped up and the driver pulled them to a stop almost beside her.

  “There she is,” he called. Two men jumped down from behind.

  “Wait for me,” said the driver, joining them. “It’ll take all three of us to lift her—she’s a big one.”

  Seffie struggled momentarily as she felt hands grabbing at her legs and shoulders and arms, but a slap in the face stopped her. They lifted her up and rolled her into the wagon bed as if she had been a sack of potatoes, then jumped back up themselves. Moments later the horses began to move, got turned around, then the wagon lurched into motion and went bounding along the road. The jostling about on the wagon’s wooden bed, without benefit of straw or any other cushioning, was almost more painful to her bruised legs and hips and shoulders than she could bear.

  Before they reached their destination, she had fainted again.

  Again she awoke, still in pain, now with even less idea where she was. She lay in semidarkness, but it was obviously morning. She heard cows and chickens not far away. She opened her eyes but did not move so as not to draw attention to herself. The rafters above her, the slanted shafts of light coming from the walls, and the smell of the place told her she was in a barn of some kind, still lying in the back of the wagon. Three men were talking nearby.

  “. . . think she’s hurt . . . moaned when we tried to move her . . .”

  “. . . couldn’t stand up . . . ankle or foot . . .”

  “She was with the runaways we heard about. What’ll we do with her?”

  “Put her down in Hazel’s cabin. She’ll look after her.”

  “. . . ought to look at her . . . see how badly she’s hurt . . .”

  “. . . notify the marshal?”

  “No need for that . . . see if anything develops . . . if there’s a fugitive warrant on her . . .”

  “. . . can’t be worth much . . . big thing like her.”

  “If not, she’s no good to us . . .”

  “. . . what use could she be?”

  “. . . get a few dollars for her in Charlotte.”

  “All right, then . . . couple of the boys to help you get her down . . . into a cart . . . haul her down to Wayne and Hazel’s till we decide what to do with her.”

  Seffie pretended to be asleep when several men came a few minutes later to get her out of the wagon. But a cry of pain when her lower leg bumped the floor gave her away, and only made the men treat her even rougher. She did not know it, but her ankle had swollen to twice its normal size and she would not be able to walk on it normally again for months.

  By the time they reached their destination and deposited her on the floor of what she took for one of the slave cabins, the pain had again become excruciating.

  “Soun’s ter me dat you’s hurtin’ mighty fearsome,” said a woman’s voice.

  “Yes’m,” moaned Seffie with tears in her eyes.

  “What’s yo name, chil’?”

  “Seffie.”

  “Where you come from?”

  “Don’t know exactly . . . Louisiana, I think, but I been travelin’ a long time.”

  “How you git here?”

  “On da railroad.”

  “Da freedom railroad!”

  “I reckon so—dat’s what dey sometimes called it.”

  “You’s a runaway?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Laws almighty—you’s lucky you’s still alive. Da way dey tell it, dey kill runaways when dey fin’ ’em.”

  “Dey wuz shootin’ las’ night,” said Seffie.

  “Who wuz?”

  “Da white men dat got me. Dey wuz shootin’ at da others. But dey got away downribber in a boat. But I fell an’ cudn’t keep up. So dey got me an’ brung me here.”

  “Laws, Laws,” muttered the woman, shaking her head. “Dem hired hands er da master—dey’s bad’ns all right. You’s lucky dey didn’t shoot you jes’ fo da fun ob it. We’s gotter take care er you, chil’. But one thing’s fo sho’—you ain’t gettin’ back on dat railroad no time soon.”

  “What’s gwine happen ter me?” asked Seffie.

  “Can’t say, chil’. Dey might sen’ you back, or dey might sell you, or dey might kill you, or dey might keep you.”

  Seffie shuddered at the prospects.

  “In da meantime, we’s better hab a look at dat foot ter see what’s ter be done.”

  SWEET BISCUITS AND WHAT BECAME OF THEM

  15

  SEFFIE SPENT THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS INSIDE THE one-room shanty of the old woman and her husband, called Wayne Jukes. Once she was able to get a good look at the wrinkled face of her nursemaid, Seffie thought she must be more than eighty years old. In fact, Hazel was only sixty-nine. But those years had taught her more than most people learn in three lifetimes, which was one of the reasons the master told his men to put the injured runaway in her charge.

  Hazel sent for nettles and mud. When her husband and the men came in from the fields for lunch, she told Wayne what wood she would need for a splint, how long and how thick. He and their son Hank, a childless man in his late thirties who had lost his wife to pneumonia several winters earlier, set about preparations at once. When Seffie’s foot had been thoroughly cooled and the swelling somewhat reduced, Hazel herself, with Hank’s help, set and bound the splints in place, from Seffie’s foot up to just below the knee, with tight wraps of clean cloth. A huge man’s old boot was slit apart so that both the bottom of the splint and her foot would fit into it. They bound her foot to the boot with more strips, enabling her, with the aid of crutches, to get around on it. Within a week the pain was considerably reduced and Seffie was able to slowly move about with relative ease. Neither the master nor his workers had come down to ask about her or give any instructions concerning her.

  Hank, who shared the little cabin with his mother and father, was attentive and kind to the invalid. Out of respect for Seffie’s condition and privacy, during her convalescence he moved into the slave house where most of the other single men stayed.

  Seffie could do nothing but stay every day in the cabin with Hazel, but before two weeks were out had begun to make herself useful with meals. She and the old woman gradually began to laugh and talk together like old friends. Seffie still did not know what would become of her. But there was no question of moving on or getting back on board the railroad anytime soon. That was the one thing she could not do. If she was going anyplace now, it would take a real railroad to get her there. But there was no actual railroad line within miles of this place, and she hadn’t a penny to her name. And she had no idea how to reconnect with the underground and invisible railroad that had brought her here. Hazel did not seem to know anything about it like the woman called Amaritta had.

  What would happen when her ankle was completely he
aled, she didn’t know.

  In the meantime she tried to help with the cooking as much as she could. Gradually she took over more and more of the cooking duties for the cabin’s small family, enabling Hazel, who was past field-working age, to spend more of her own time with the washing or cooking for the single men or helping out with the other women’s young children.

  Finally the day came they had all been expecting. The master appeared walking toward the slave village. Everyone knew he was coming about the newcomer. He didn’t usually come to their living quarters with good news. Usually his presence meant that somebody was about to get sold. Most expected him to take her away.

  He went straight to Wayne and Hazel’s little one-room house, then walked inside like he owned the place, which he did. Hazel and Seffie were occupied near the wood cook stove. Wayne sat seated at the one table in the room with a plate of warm biscuits in front of him.

  The three all stopped and turned their heads at the sound of feet coming up their steps and through the open door. The master nodded an expressionless greeting, then glanced toward Seffie’s leg. Wayne stood up.

  “Looks like you’re getting around all right now,” he said.

  “Yes, suh,” said Seffie, staring at him in fear for what was about to happen.

  “You fix up her leg, Hazel?”

  “Yes, suh . . . me an’ Wayne an’ Hank.”

  “Looks like a fine job.”

  The master pulled out one of the rickety chairs and nodded to Wayne to sit down.

  “What’s your name, girl?” he asked.

  “Seffie, suh.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Don’t know exactly, suh . . . Louisiana, I think.”

  “You’re a long way from home.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “You ran away?”

  “I reckon so, suh.”

  “Why’d you run away? Did your master mistreat you?”

  “Not too bad, suh.”

  “Why then?”

  “I didn’t hab no kin dere. I reckon I wanted ter be free, suh.”

  The master nodded his head, then scratched his chin thoughtfully. Whether unconsciously drawn by the smell, or whether he was actually hungry, he slowly reached out and took one of the biscuits from the plate. The silence continued another several seconds.

  “What do you think I should do with you, girl?” he asked as he bit off a corner of it.

  “Don’t know, suh,” replied Seffie.

  “It’s wrong to run away, you know—it’s breaking the law.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “I could send you back. They would probably whip you. They might even kill you.”

  Seffie’s eyes widened. She began to tremble.

  “Or I might take you into Charlotte and sell you.—You ever been married?”

  “No, suh.”

  “You want to be?” asked the master, chewing off another third of the biscuit.

  “No, suh.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t know, suh.”

  “I thought all girls wanted to be married.”

  Seffie stood staring but said nothing.

  “Hazel and Wayne here, they got a boy who needs another wife. You met Hank?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “He’s a nice boy.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “Most slave owners want their coloreds to make lots of babies.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  Suddenly he paused. An odd look spread over his face, as if he had just thought of something. He glanced down at the biscuit in his hand, slowly took another bite, and began to munch on it.

  He stopped.

  “Who made this?” he said, gesturing toward the two women with what was left of the piece of biscuit between his fingers. “You make this, Hazel?”

  “No, suh. She did. She been helpin’ me wiff da cookin’.”

  The master popped the remaining bite in his mouth, again nodding with thoughtful expression.

  “Has she now . . . hmm, that’s mighty interesting.”

  He rose, grabbed another biscuit from the plate on the table, and turned toward the door.

  “Get her bathed, Hazel,” he said, “then bring her up to the big house with her things by the middle of the afternoon.”

  “She don’t got no things, Master McSimmons. She come wiff nuthin’ but what she had on.”

  “Oh . . . right, of course. Well, get her bathed regardless, and then bring her along. Put her in a clean dress if you can find one to fit her. If not, we’ll get her something up there.”

  He walked out of the cabin, leaving the three black slaves staring after him.

  MORE BISCUITS AND A NEW JOB

  16

  WHETHER SEFFIE WAS BEING TESTED IN THE mistress’s kitchen later that day, or whether both master and mistress had become bored, if not outright dissatisfied, with their present cook’s offerings, she was immediately put to work that same afternoon.

  “I want you to,” began the mistress the moment she appeared, “—what is your name again?”

  “Seffie, missus,” replied Seffie, intimidated by being in the big house around people she had never seen before and still having no idea why she had been summoned.

  “That sounds like a nickname.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “I do not call my kitchen and house slaves by nicknames. What is your given name?”

  “Josepha, missus . . . Josepha Black.”

  “Very well, Josepha—I want you to make a batch of those biscuits my husband was raving about for our supper this evening.”

  “Yes’m,” said Seffie, so overjoyed with relief by the request that she almost broke into a smile.

  “Can you bake a pie?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “What kind?”

  “Anythin’ dat you got fruit fo, missus.”

  “Good. Then along with the biscuits, make two apple pies—we should have plenty of apples—and we will see how you get along with that.”

  “Yes’m.”

  It took Mrs. McSimmons no longer than it had her husband, after tasting Seffie’s biscuits that evening, to realize that the runaway with the broken ankle had been a cook somewhere before. The apple pies after supper, eggs and bacon and grits for the following morning’s breakfast along with the first truly delicious cup of coffee the master had tasted in months, fresh bread and a pot of beans with ham for dinner, and within twenty-four hours Seffie’s move to the big house was settled.

  She was provided new clothes, a place to sleep with the other house slaves, and in the weeks that followed, as her ankle gradually healed and gained strength, was given more and more duties about the place. Within a year the former cook had been sold and Seffie was in charge of the McSimmons kitchen. There was no more talk of marrying her off, or of making much of an attempt to learn where she might have come from. Louisiana was a long way from North Carolina, reasoned McSimmons. He would never be able to learn anything about her anyway, so why not make the best of it and give her a better home than she would probably have most other places? He would have to keep an eye on her, of course, to make sure the freedom bug didn’t bite again. But that shouldn’t be too difficult.

  As for Seffie, she was so happy just to be back in the familiar environment of a kitchen, especially where her efforts seemed to be appreciated, that the thought of running away again scarcely occurred to her. The long journey on the Underground Railroad, though she came to look back on it with a certain fondness as the great adventure of her life, had been more taxing than she thought she could ever endure again. Being captured and so badly hurt sobered her about the reality of the danger. She realized how lucky she had been to make it this far.

  And the fact was, she was happier in a kitchen than anywhere. Even if she made it to the North, where would she go, what would she do? Maybe she didn’t need to be free. Working in the kitchen of the big house wasn’t so bad. Maybe it was all someone like her ought to expect.

 
; Three years went by. Seffie, who now went by her given name, Josepha, turned thirty and was mostly content with her lot in life. Master and Mrs. McSimmons’ two sons grew into rambunctious youngsters with more energy than was good for them. They gave every appearance of becoming typical sons of the new South, with disgust for the race of blacks, which their parents, though slave owners, attempted to treat with at least some measure of courtesy. By the time the older boy, his father’s namesake, was six, he spoke to his father’s slaves with a contempt and rudeness that made some of the older slaves shudder to think what it would be like if he ever took over the plantation.

  A new slave girl arrived at the McSimmons plantation. She was uncommonly pretty and refined. No one knew where she had come from and she kept to herself. She was downcast and did not look altogether well. She seemed out of place and unaccustomed to the hard work. It was not until later that the other slaves learned she had never been a slave before, that she was an educated free black born in the North, who had secretly been sold without realizing what was happening to her. She found herself trapped, not even exactly sure where she was, with no way to escape.

  Not many weeks passed since her arrival before some of the women recognized another cause for her weakness and downcast spirits. Her midsection was growing and it was not from eating too much. She was obviously pregnant and had probably been forced to leave someone she was in love with. She never uttered a word about her past, and no one ever learned the circumstances of her being so strangely sold or of the man she had been forced to leave with only his child growing within her as a reminder of the love they had shared.

  She was brought to the big house two months after her arrival when her condition had become obvious. The mistress expressed surprise, though her husband seemed to take the news as if it was expected.

  Josepha recognized the look on the girl’s face. She had no doubt worn a similar look when she had first arrived as a runaway—an expression of aloneness, uncertainty, and fear. Her heart went out to the girl, who was probably nine or ten years younger than she was. She knew what it was like to be torn away from those you loved and suddenly to find yourself among strangers. She herself had been seven—not so long ago that she would have forgotten.