Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy Read Online Free PDF

off
like that!”
    The new slaves instantly hushed up and tried
to appear respectful to her, though they were trying desperately to
conceal their smiles and laughter.
    “Come on now, get along,” Grover ordered and
along they went around the mansion toward the row of cabins in the
back. Hamilton trailed behind. His enormous feet kept his pace slow
and steady like an ox. When he passed Mammy, he thanked her with a
timid nod and then bashfully swung his eyes away.
    By lunch time, Mammy had regained her
composure, but wasn’t able to hide a tear or two that couldn’t help
but escape her sad eyes.
    “Sure is a good lunch, Mammy. Thank you,” I
said and smiled. She always told me my smile could brighten the
stormiest day.
    “You has an inner light, my child. Your smile
lights up the room.”
    But on this day, my smile didn’t light up
Mammy’s day, and it pained me to see her hurt. The only one now who
could take her heartache away and give light to back her life was
my daddy. And he wasn’t there to do so.
     
    Later that Christmas evening, after Hattie
and I tried on the brand new store-bought dresses for one another,
we made our way to the cabins to have a celebration with the
slaves.
    Mammy was already there with her sisters, and
their husbands and children. Helen and Abraham had one daughter my
age, Winifred, and two older sons, Jackson and Simon, while
Cordelia and Louis had two older boys named Luke and Solomon.
    By twilight, everyone in the small colony was
outside, singing gospels and dancing merrily around a large
bonfire. Children were playing with their rolling hoops, which was
what Daddy bought for every one of the dozen or so slave
children.
    I noticed the new slave men had quickly made
themselves at home and joined in the festivities. All but the giant
man named Hamilton. Apparently fearing more ridicule, he peered out
from one of the small cabin windows, trying to remain unseen.
    Hattie had already run off with her cousins
after I told her I would catch up with them shortly.
    “Where you going?” Mammy asked when she
noticed me heading toward the dark cabin where Hamilton stayed
hidden.
    “We’re playing hide and seek,” I lied.
    Mammy looked past me and to the cabin. “You
can’t be playing in there. Come sit with me.”
    She placed me on her lap without noticing my
quick, inconspicuous wave to the man in the shadows. He waved back,
and through the darkness I could see his bright white teeth
smiling. I leaned back against my mammy, though it was somewhat
awkward, since the baby she carried inside was so large. Mammy was
always soft and warm, comforting and full of love for me. She would
always be the closest thing to a real mother I could ever have. And
while she rocked me as they all sang in harmony, I looked up at the
star-filled night and wished that when Daddy did come home, he
wouldn’t bring Mrs. Norton back with him. I wished that while he
was over in England he would miss my mammy so terribly and realize
that he should marry her instead, and that Mammy was the only woman
who should be my mother. It was the one wish I wrote in my journal,
and I made that wish upon a star, night after night, until the day
Daddy was due to return to Sutton Hall.
    * * *
    The holiday sped by, and much to Hattie’s
dismay, we were soon heading back to school. I was excited because
every day after school a piano instructor was coming to Sutton Hall
to teach me how to play the piano Daddy had given me as my
Christmas gift. In school, as always, Hattie and I sat side by
side, and during recess we sat up on a grassy knoll and ate from
our lunch pails.
    Because none of the other children liked
Hattie, we tried to stay far from their ridicule and teasing, but
John Mason continually harassed us. And if it wasn’t John taunting
Hattie for the color of her skin, her coarse hair, or any of her
other features that were different from the rest of the class, he
sent his nasty girlfriend, Susannah Hansen, to do his