Speed read, “And it came to pass in the process of time that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of bondage….”
“That’s slavery,” Joycie interjected.
“And they cried and their cry came up to God by reason of the bondage,” Speed read and then trailed off so he could start to stagger toward the men in the stern and their conversation.
“Them niggers is no better than monkeys that can work. Best thing that happened to them is we brought them over here and they know it,” said Sid, snapping at a fly with a cupped hand.
“I don’t think we know what’s in people’s heads, “said Simmons. “I think some of them is just waiting. Look what that black man Turner did with slaves over in Virginia. Killed more than fifty men, women, and children before the militia caught up with them.”
Both men were silent for a while, and then Simmons said, “Birney’s right, Sid. People is people. They ain’t property. I know it’s legal all the way to Missouri, and who knows what will happen in the territories. But folks are getting pretty worked up. Seems like we got to take care of this before more people get hurt.”
Speed made one of his limping dives to the bow of the craft. On his return he lurched to the right side of the craft so that his weight and momentum nearly drove it under water. Simmons righted the craft by leaping to the left side of the flatboat while Sid gave the boy an angry scowl. After the boat resumed its steady progress, Speed asked in a quiet voice so that the men could not hear him, “Ma, you think people should own slaves?”
“Read me Galatians 3:28,” she replied.
He had to sift through the pages at the back of his volume, but eventually he read in a quiet voice, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Jesus Christ.” He paused and then asked, “What does that mean, Ma?
“It means we are all God’s children.”
“But is slavery wrong?”
“Your pa always said nobody could tell a man what to do with what was his. Guess you get to figure slavery out for yourself.”
Chapter 4––Autumn 1835––Liberty, Clay County
On that late October afternoon the thirty-year-old mother and the twelve-year-old son kept interrupting each other as the wagon that had brought them from the pier at Missouri City approached Liberty, Missouri. Some of the leaves on the trees were still green, some were yellow and crimson, but regardless of their color, a rain the night before had washed them clean. “Oh, Speed, ain’t it exciting? Just think,” said the mother. “We been gone since April and I can just tell. This is what we hoped for. This is Missouri where we are supposed to be.”
“Look, Ma, they got a post office in the general store,” the boy began the sentence, then Joycie interrupted to finish his thought, “They have two churches and both of them are painted white.” Obviously these two had spent virtually every moment together for some months, and the bond they shared had only strengthened through their journey. If the Whitley County farmer who had seen them that morning back in April could see them again, he would have observed Joycie’s bonnet now tattered and without a lace border, and the formerly stout lady now a woman almost skinny. The boy, on the other hand, brown from a summer on the water, was an inch and a half taller, with arms and shoulders broader from months of exertions on, off, and in the water.
Speed jumped down to help his mother from the hired wagon when the driver stopped in front of the general store. He looked up and down the dirt street and called, “There it is Ma, there’s the Disciples Church. What’s the preacher’s name? Where’s he live?” Joycie picked her overstuffed bag from the wagon and lifted her skirts as she set out across the street to locate the parsonage. Speed came behind with the now battered wooden box, which still contained Aunt Ruth’s Bible.
Joycie set down her carpetbag, smoothed her skirts, and tried to poke the loose strands of hair back into the bun on her head. Speed noticed for the first time lines around her eyes that he did not remember from their days in Kentucky. When Joycie knocked on the glass pane in the door, a balding man, glasses on forehead, slight of build and diminutive of stature, opened the door. “Yes, good afternoon to you, Ma’am. Can I be of assistance?”
Joycie looked down on him, stepped back and said, “Reverend Spencer, remember me? Joycie, Joycie Wilson, from Whitley County. You said when you left we was all to look you up if we was ever in Missouri, and here we are.” She held her hands at her waist, fingers intertwined, to conceal anxiety about her tenuous connection to this man on which she had based her entire trek to Missouri. The man brought his spectacles down from his forehead and studied her.
“Wilson, is it? Why yes, it is, Joycie Wilson. Look who’s here, Rebecca,” he called back into the house. “It’s a lady come all this way from Kentucky, Joycie Wilson. And look at her boy, practically grown up. What was your name, son? Something like Swift, wasn’t it?”
“It’s Speed, John Speed Smith Wilson,” said Joycie. Speed sensed that his mother’s petition needed any support he could provide, so he placed the box on the wide porch, smiled at the man, then took a long step forward to shake his hand, the way he had seen men do on the steamer from Cairo. The older man clasped Speed’s hand warmly and drew him into the house.
“Well, you look like you’ve traveled a bit today.” Now his smile was full and knowing. “Won’t you bring your things in?” he said to Joycie. “Rebecca,” he called again, “Rebecca, we have guests for dinner. I do hope they can stay the night.” He intended to both extend an invitation and alert his servant that she would have extended duties. A light-skinned Negro woman a foot taller and thirty pounds heavier than the man emerged from the kitchen wiping her hands on a floral apron that protected a plain gray dress.
“They can eat and they can stay if that’s what you say. You make the rules.” Her broad face was matter of fact. To Joycie she said, “You and the boy can wash up behind the kitchen and got to take what we having. I can’t do nothing special at this hour of the day.” Speed could feel her resentment but could not identify the cause. Was it that they were invited last minute? Perhaps she felt they were taking advantage of the pastor. He was quiet and let the adults do the talking.
“No, no, of course not,” said Rev. Spencer. The portions of the dinner of chicken, gravy, potatoes, and green beans were somewhat meager since what had been intended for one in the dining room and one in the kitchen was shared among three and one, but the pastor cut the freshly baked apple pie in sixths rather than the customary eighths so that Speed could have two large slices. After dinner they adjourned to the parlor where Rebecca served Joycie and the pastor coffee next to a fire, which cheered a room chilly in the mid-October evening. Speed took a cane-bottomed rocking chair but held it still after Joycie mouthed “No” toward him and made a downward motion with her hands. Though he tried, he could not fight off the sleep that overcame him. They were in western Missouri at last, they were fed, they were warm, and his mother seemed at ease. As he drifted in and out of sleep, he heard phrases like, “Liberty has advantages over Platte Purchase lands…,” “…perhaps a situation with Mayor Roundscape,” “…the ladies will certainly welcome,” and “schooling may even be possible.” And then there was another feeling that he couldn’t quite identify, the feeling that he was in the presence of two adults who had known each other well at some time in the past. They smiled and chuckled often as their conversation continued. Had his mother known this man more than she had said? He had some of the same feeling he got when he found his mother with Buford Crawford months before.
When he awoke to the sounds of a flock of sparrows outside in the October sunshine and the snores of his mother beside him, he vaguely remembered stumbling upstairs to bed the previous night. He pulled on his shoes, then descended the stairs quietly