A Perilous Proposal Read Free Page A

you’d have asked him, he’d have said that all he wanted to do was do what Jesus Christ’s Father told him to do. He’d have said he could do that just as well being a slave as if he was free. He’d have preferred to be free. Who wouldn’t? But he wasn’t the kind of man who would fight for it. He was content to let God see to his needs, and his freedom too. Hewanted to spend his energy just trying to obey the words of his Master.
    And by that he meant his spiritual master, not the white man who legally owned him. Even Jake could see that his father was a pretty unusual kind of man and most folks liked him for it.
    But Master Clarkson, whose plantation he worked on, came to hate soft-spoken Hank almost more than any of the rabble-rousers among his slaves. He was sure the quiet Negro would never lead a rebellion. For all he knew, if there was a rebellion he wouldn’t even go along with it. He might even try to stop it. But he also knew that Hank would never call any earthly man “master.”
    That simple fact gnawed away at the soul of Garfield Clarkson. Though every other black on his plantation dutifully referred to him as “Massa Clarkson,” every time he heard Jake’s father’s quiet “ Mister Clarkson,” the proud white man silently seethed with resentment. He hated it that he could not break the proud fool’s spirit. In time he came to hate Hank all the more that he was hardworking, diligent, and obedient. He hated him because he knew that his obedience was only secondarily to him as his white owner. He could never tell what the ridiculous fellow might say. One minute he might be quoting some Scripture or another—as if any black man could presume to preach to his betters—and the next be working harder than any three of Clarkson’s other slaves.
    It incensed Clarkson all the more whenever Hank took his side in any dispute. In time he even came to despise the way he encouraged his fellow slaves to obey respectfully and without complaint. As if he needed such a man’s help! He had his whip and his dogs. They would do fine without any of the slave’s idiotic preaching. Men like Clarkson, contrary as it seems, didn’t like people he thought were too good. Maybebecause he was mean himself, he was suspicious of anyone who wasn’t.
    If he could get rid of Hank, he would, thought Clarkson. But he was too valuable a man to lose. Clarkson knew that he would never get anything close to him to repay his value to the smooth functioning of his plantation. Though he hated him, he couldn’t deny, lanky though Hank was, that he was strong as an ox and had a calming influence on the other slaves. And his uncanny ability with horses was like nothing Clarkson had ever seen—from the devil, no doubt.
    But in spite of Hank’s value, his master was on the lookout for some way to punish the proud fellow. He had to teach him his place. Threats of his “nigger dog” may have worked on children, but not on a man like Hank.
    Jake was too young to grasp what any of this meant. He liked nothing better than to sit on his father’s lap and feel his long strong arms around him, or to feel his father’s kiss and his big rough hand holding his little one. To listen to his father’s laughter when he told stories was just about the best thing there was. When he was with his father, it seemed that nothing in the whole world could be wrong. But Jake also knew that sometimes his father was the cause of trouble and angry outbursts from Master Clarkson, though he didn’t know why. Why would anyone get angry at his papa?
    Then one day his father did something Jake couldn’t understand.
    Jake had always been friends with the master’s son John. They played together while Jake’s mama watched over both little boys. But as they grew older, John slowly began to change. He talked more and more like the white men, while