Washington and Caesar Read Online Free PDF Page A

smith?”
    “I don’t think that he did, sir, at that. But the whole lot were going off an estate sold for debt, all skilled men, an’ we took the lot.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “This one’s a bricklayer, answers to Jemmy.” The man nodded obsequiously.
    Bailey didn’t like the look of the man, but the good lord knew they needed bricklayers. “Welcome to Mount Vernon, Jemmy.”
    Jemmy bowed his head and smiled at the tone. Queeny fixed him with a stare. He was second or third generation, she could tell, and like as not had some white in him. She couldn’t see his tribe in anything obvious. Nothing for her to do here—he understood Bailey, was already seeking his approval.
    “Smith, answers to Tom.”
    “I hope he’s an improvement over the last Tom, eh, Queeny?” She shook her head and smiled. The last Tom had been a man. He was gone, sold to the Indies, and she missed him in her bed and in her thoughts.
    “Welcome to Mount Vernon, Tom.”
    “Yes, suh.” Tom was short and swarthy, with a red flush on top of pale brown skin, and curly, lank hair. He was eyeing Queeny appreciatively. She gave him no encouragement.
    “Huntsman, answers to Caesar.” The young one. He, too, was looking at her and he smiled, a young man’s smile.
    “Huntsman? We asked for a man good with animals.”
    “Yessir. That’s your man. He got the boat’s pigs and goats here in fine fettle. They say he’s good with dogs.”
    Bailey looked at Caesar, as this was the slave the colonel had ordered himself and the dogs boy would be close to the colonel many days in the field.
    “Can you run, boy?”
    He looked blank. It was an intelligent blankness; he didn’t squirm or babble.
    “What is your name, boy?” she asked in the lingua franca of the Ivory Coast. He looked at her, concentrating hard, squinting his eyes slightly, then smiled.
    “Cese, madam.”
    The honorific expressed age and successful child rearing, and if it was meant to flatter her, it failed completely. Old indeed.
    “Cese, the white man wants to know if you can run.”
    “I speak Benin. Please, ma’am, I do not understand this talk you make.” The last phrase rolled off his tongue smoothly, the product of frequent repetition.
    “My Benin not good.”
    “I understand you.”
    “White man ask you. Can run?”
    “Like the wind in the desert. Like an antelope with the lion behind.”
    Queeny rolled her eyes at the difficult words, the poetic suggestion.
    “Mista Bailey, this boy say he run plenty fast. He from Africa, though. Masta don’t like African boys, Mista Bailey.”
    “Right. Well, tell him he’s welcome to Mount Vernon.”
    “You from Benin, then?”
    “Yes. Obikoke. I am Yoruba!”
    “White man says you welcome here.”
    The boy looked surprised. “Why is he talking to us at all?”
    “They like to be polite, boy. It don’t mean you aren’t a slave.”
    Bailey looked interested. “What’s he saying?”
    “He jus’ on about how he run.”
    “The others seem to speak well enough, Queeny. You take the boy and teach him some English, and make sure he knows the rules before the colonel comes home.”
    “Yes, Mista Bailey.”
    “You others, come with me and I’ll show you your quarters. Captain Gibson, perhaps you could join me in a quarter hour for a glass.”
    “I’d be that pleased, Mr. Bailey. I’ll just see that this lot get the unloading started.”
    The two white men bowed slightly, and parted.
    Cese followed the Ebo woman up the long gravel path from the dock toward her hut. The slave quarters were like nothing he had ever seen: a long elegant brick building on one side, with dormitories for the unmarried house slaves, and a neat row of cabins on the other, larger and more open than he expected, set farther apart, the whole having more the air of a village than a prison. In Jamaica, his quarters, the “barracoon”, had been fenced and locked every night. At Mount Vernon, there wasn’t even a wall.
    Some of the blacks smiled