Freedom Stone Read Free

his face and seeing that his eyes had indeed begun to well. She gave the boy a dipper of water and daubed at his eyes with her apron. “You come back here with your mama day after tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll have a proper loaf of bread for her, and see if I don’t have a sweet cake for you too.”
    The boy smiled at that, turned and bounded out of the cabin. Bett sighed and closed the door. She returned to her work, pressing and mixing the dough with the spoon. Yes, she thought, this sorry loaf would probably serve. It was well suited to what was sure to be an equally sorry day.

Chapter Three
    LILLIE RETURNED HOME at a brisk run, glancing all the while at the slowly rising sun and trying to guess whether Mama would be awake by now. When she drew near the large patch of pebbly dirt that surrounded the line of little slave cabins, she slowed. Here she would step lightly, the better to mask the sound of her feet crunching the soil. She tiptoed to the door of her cabin, opened it slowly—thankful that it didn’t squeak—and peeked in toward her bed. Plato was still deeply asleep and had not, near as Lillie could tell, even shifted his position since she left. She sighed in relief and opened the door further—then slumped. Mama was sitting at the little eating table, sipping a mug of sassafras tea and looking at her sharply.
    â€œMama—” Lillie began, but Mama silenced her with an even harder glare. Lillie’s brother stirred slightly, and Mama glanced toward him, then summoned Lillie to the eating table with a tick of her head. Lillie stepped quietly across the cabin, trying not to meet Mama’s gaze. She did glance up to see that there was a second mug on the table, and this gave her hope. It had always been Mama’s habit to make herself tea in the morning, but just in the last year, she had begun making some for Lillie as well. They had never spoken about this new practice; one day Mama was putting out a single mug, and the next day there were two. Lillie still smiled when she picked up her tea each morning. The fact that it was there waiting for her today might mean that Mama wasn’t as cross with her as she feared.
    â€œChild,” Mama now hissed, in a voice that said yes, she was surely mad, “where have you been?”
    Lillie sat at the table and wrapped her hands around her mug, feeling its warmth. She hesitated. “To see Bett,” she answered. She knew better than to fib now.
    Mama rolled her eyes. She’d surely reckoned as much, which explained why she didn’t look angrier. She liked Bett, and she had been sorry in the last year when Lillie seemed to have lost interest in the company of the old woman, but today was not the day to go out on adventures without asking first.
    â€œYou know what happens to slaves when the appraiser man comes?” Mama asked in a hard whisper.
    â€œThey gets sold off,” Lillie answered.
    â€œYou know what happens to the ones what misbehaves?”
    â€œThey gets sold first.” It was a lesson Lillie had been taught when she was small and had been made to repeat many times since.
    Mama nodded. “Bett ain’t no help on a day like today, child,” she said. “Mindin’ yourself—and mindin’ me—is all you gots to do.”
    Lillie said nothing and nodded, then picked up her mug and sipped the tea. It was hot and it was good, sweetened with a drop or two of the little bit of honey Mama kept and used only on days when she reckoned they all needed a treat. Lillie glanced up and smiled at Mama. From across the cabin came a small snort, and Lillie’s brother rolled over, breathed deeply and stretched. Lillie stifled a giggle.
    â€œPlato’s wakin’,” she said, and Mama looked toward the boy warmly.
    Mama had not been happy about giving her son an odd name like Plato, but Lillie’s papa had insisted upon it for reasons he held dear but