“Thee can surely put that from thee now,” Edmonds told her. “We’re safe.”
“We really is?” Her gaze searched his. She laid the knife on the counter.
“Thee should never have taken it up, thee knows,” Edmonds said.
A measure of strength had risen in the worn body. Pride rang: “Ah wasn’ goin’ back there nohow. Ah’d die fust. Hope Ah’d kill fust.”
“’Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’” Edmonds shook his head sadly. “I dread His punishment of this sinful land when it comes.” He stepped forward and took the swart hands in his. “But let’s not talk of such things. On second thought, we should eat right away and give thanks later, when we can feel properly joyful.”
“What then, massa?”
“Why, Jane and I will see to it thee get a hot bath. Later thee’d better sleep. We can’t risk keeping thee here. The hunters might be back tomorrow. As soon as it’s dark, tbee and I’ll be off to the next station. Have no fears, Flora. Thee ought to reach Canada in another month or less.”
“Yo’s mighty good, massa,” she breathed. Tears trembled on her lashes.
“We try our best here to do what the Lord wants, as well as we can understand it. And by the way, Fm nobody’s master. Now for pity’s sake, let’s eat before the food gets cold.”
Shyly, Flora took Jacob’s chair. “Ah don’ need much, thank yo’, ma—suh an’ ma’m. The lady done gimme some-thin’ awready.”
“Well, but we’ve a plenty of meat to get onto those bones of thine,” answered Jane, and heaped her plate for her— pork roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, beans, pickles, cornbread, butter, jam, tumbler on the side full of milk that had sat in the cool of the spnnghouse.
Edmonds kept up a drumfire of talk. “Here’s somebody who hasn’t heard my jokes and stories a score of times,” he said, and finally coaxed a few slight laughs from his guest.
After pie and coffee the grownups left William in charge of Nellie and retired to the parlor. Edmonds opened the family Bible and read aloud while they stood: “—And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land and unto a good land and a forge, unto a land overflowing with milk and honey—”
Flora shivered. The tears ran free down her cheeks. “Let mail people go,” she whispered. Jane hugged her and cried too.
When they had prayed together, Edmonds regarded the girl a while. She met his look, flinching no longer. A sunbeam through a window turned her darkly aglow. For the first time today he felt unsure of himself. He cleared his throat. “Flora,” he said, “thee needs rest before nightfall, but maybe thee would sleep better for having told us something about thyself. Thee doesn’t have to. It’s just, well, here we are, if thee would like to talk to friends.”
“’Tain’t much to tell, suh, an’ some of it’s too awful.”
“Do sit,” Jane urged. “Never mind me. My father is a doctor and I’m a farm wife. I don’t flinch easy.”
They took chairs. “Did thee have far to go?” Edmonds asked.
Flora nodded. “’Deed Ah did, suh. Don’ know how many miles, but Ah counted de days an’ nights. Sebenteen o’ dem. Often thought Ah was gonna die. Didn’ min’ dat too much, long’s dey didn’ catch me. Dey was gonna sell me down de ribber.”
Jane laid a hand over hers. “They were? What on earth for? What were you doing there? I mean, your duties—”
“Housemaid, ma’m. Nuss to Massa Mon’gom’ry’s chillun, like Ah was to hisself when he little.”
“What? But—”
“’Twasn’ too bad. But dey sell me, Ah knowed Ah’d be a field nan’ ag’in, or wuss. B’sides, Ah’d been thinkin’ ‘bout freedom a long time. We heahs things an’ passes dem on to each othah, us black folks.”