Handful
Late in the afternoon, after the Grimkés had gone off to their plantation and
the few slaves left on the premise were in their quarters, mauma sent me
into master Grimké’s library to find out what me and her would sell for. She
stood lookout for Tomfry. I told her, don’t worry about Tomfry, the one you
have to watch for is Lucy, Miss Come-Look-at-the-Writing-Under-the-Tree.
A man had come last winter and written down everything master
Grimké owned and what it was worth. Mauma had been there while he
wrote down the lacquer sewing table, the quilt frame, and every one of her
sewing tools in a brown leather book he’d tied with a cord. She said, “If we
in that book, then it say what our price is. That book got to be in the library
somewhere.”
This seemed like a tolerable idea till I closed the door behind me, then it
seemed like a damn fool one. Master Grimké had books in there the likes
you wouldn’t believe, and half of them were brown leather. I opened
drawers and rummaged the shelves till I found one with a cord. I sat at the
desk and opened it up.
After I got caught for the crime of reading, Miss Sarah stopped teaching
me, but she set out books of poems—that was all she got to read now—and
she’d say, “It doesn’t take long to read a poem. Just close the door, and if
there’s a word you can’t make out, point to it, and I’ll whisper it to you.” I’d
learned a legion of words this way, legion being one of them. Some words I
learned couldn’t be worked into a conversation: heigh-ho; O hither; alas;
blithe and bonny; Jove’s nectar. But I held on to them just the same.
The words inside the leather book weren’t fit for poems. The man’s
writing looked like scribble. I had to crack every word one by one and pick
out the sound the way we cracked blue crabs in the fall and picked out the
meat till our fingers bled. The words came lumps at a time.
City of Charleston, to wit . . . We the undersigned . . . To the
best of our judgment, . . . the personal inventory . . . Goods
and chattels . . .
2 Mahogany card tables . . . 20.50.
General Washington picture and address . . . 30.
2 Brussels carpets & cover . . . 180.
Harpsichord . . . 29.
I heard footsteps in the passage. Mauma said she’d sing if I needed to
hit out for cover, but I didn’t hear anything and went back to running my
finger down the list. It went for thirty-six pages. Silk this and ivory that.
Gold this, silver that. But no Hetty and no Charlotte Grimké.
Then I turned the last page and there were all us slaves, right after the
water trough, the wheelbarrow, the claw hammer, and the bushel of flint
corn.
Tomfry, 51 yrs. Butler, Gentleman’s Servant . . . 600.
Aunt-Sister, 48 yrs. Cook . . . 450.
Charlotte, 36 yrs. Seamstress. . . 550.
I read it two times—Charlotte, my mauma, her age, what she did, what
she sells for—and I felt the pride of a confused girl, pride mauma was
worth so much, more than Aunt-Sister.
Binah, 41 yrs. Nursery Servant . . . 425.
Cindie, 45 yrs. Lady’s Maid . . . 400.
Sabe, 29 yrs. Coachman, House Servant . . . 600.
Eli, 50 yrs. House Servant . . . 550.
Mariah, 34 yrs. Plain Washer, Ironer, Clear Starcher . . .
400.
Lucy, 20 yrs. Lady’s Maid . . . 400.
Hetty, 16 yrs. Lady’s Maid, Seamstress . . . 500.
My breath hung high in my chest. Five hundred dollars! I ran my finger
over the figure, over the dregs of dried ink. I marveled how they’d left off
apprentice, how it said seamstress full and clear, how I was worth more
than every female slave they had, beside mauma. Five hundred dollars. I
was good on figures and I added me and mauma together. We were a
thousand fifty dollars’ worth of slaves. I was blinkered like a horse and I
smiled like this made us somebody and read on to see what the rest were
valued.
Phoebe, 17 yrs. Kitchen Servant . . . 400.
Prince, 26 yrs. Yard Servant . . . 500.
Goodis, 21 yrs. Footman, Stable Mucker, Yard
Servant. . . 500.
Rosetta, 73 yrs. Useless . . . 1.
I put the book back, then went out and told mauma what I found out. A
thousand fifty dollars. She sank on the bottom step of the stairs and held on
to the bannister. She said, “How I gon raise all that much money?”
It would take ten years to come up with that much. “I don’t know,” I
told her. “Some things can’t be done—that’s all.”
She got up and headed for the basement, talking with her back to me.
“Don’t be telling me—can’t be done. That’s some god damney white talk,
that’s what that is.”
I lugged myself up the stairs and went straight for the alcove. Next to
the tree out back, this was my chosen spot, up here where I could see the
water. With the house empty, I was the only one upstairs, and I stayed by
the window till all the light bled from the sky and the water turned black.
Cross the water, cross the sea, let them fishes carry me. The songs I used to
sing back when I first belonged to Miss Sarah still came to me, but I didn’t
feel like the water would take me much of anywhere.
I said under my breath, Five hundred dollars.
Goods and chattel. The words from the leather book came into my head.
We were like the gold leaf mirror and the horse saddle. Not full-fledge
people. I didn’t believe this, never had believed it a day of my life, but if
you listen to white folks long enough, some sad, beat-down part of you
starts to wonder. All that pride about what we were worth left me then. For
the first time, I felt the hurt and shame of just being who I was.
After a while, I went down to the cellar. When mauma saw my raw
eyes, she said, “Ain’t nobody can write down in a book what you worth.”
