River to Redemption Page 3

  “I know.” Ruth’s throat felt tight, but how could she cry in front of this child who was staring at her with dry eyes?

  “Louis, he buried my parents and little brother all together. So they could stay a family. I was part of their family too, but I didn’t go to glory. I got better.”

  “That’s good.” Ruth didn’t know whether that was the best thing to say or not. Peter would have known. Peter said children appreciated honesty and knew if an adult was speaking down to them.

  “Louis and Aunt Tilda, they helped me.” The child looked out at the graves. “Which one belongs to Mr. Harmon?”

  Ruth blinked away tears. “I don’t know. There aren’t any markers.”

  Louis had moved up behind the girl. “I’m some sorry about that, mistress, but I done the best I could to give folks a proper burial. I did say words over each and ev’ry one. I knowed the Lord heard me when I asked for him to comfort the hearts of them that were left behind.”

  “I understand, Louis. How many did you bury?”

  “Fifty-seven, best I recall.” He looked out over the hill.

  “Do you remember Peter? My husband, Peter Harmon.” Ruth couldn’t keep the quaver out of her voice.

  “I do. I remember each poor soul I laid to rest here. Let me think. The schoolteacher. He was tall, a fine-looking man in his prime. It was a sorrow havin’ to put him in the ground.” Louis shook his head. “He wasn’t one of the first ones, but somewhere toward the middle.”

  Louis walked a little way down the row of graves and pointed. “That one there in the second row. See how it’s some longer than them beside it. That’s where your fine husband lies.”

  Ruth stepped between the graves to kneel in the grass beside the mound and couldn’t stop the tears that slipped down her cheeks. The little girl followed her and put her hand on Ruth’s shoulder.

  “Aunt Tilda says it’s good to cry, but sometimes I can’t.” Then she walked away with Louis.

  They were talking, comfortable with one another now that they thought she wasn’t paying any attention. The girl once more held the man’s hand. Adria, Louis had called her. An unusual name. Maybe that was why Ruth remembered Peter talking about the child once or twice. The last name was different too. Starr. That was it. Adria Starr. Peter had said she was a bright child with a gift for words. When Ruth asked if that meant she was a chatterbox, Peter had laughed.

  More tears flooded her eyes. Oh, how she was going to miss that laugh. To keep from falling completely apart, Ruth thought about the girl again. She remembered Adria’s mother, a pretty woman with an easy smile. Now she was dead just like Peter. And her sweet little boy too. Just like all these others under her feet.

  It would take someone with the faith of Job not to wonder why there was a disease like cholera. To rob her of her husband. To whisk that child’s whole family away and leave her an orphan. Ruth pushed up off the ground and looked around. Every mound of dirt somebody’s sorrow.

  The child was standing in front of one of the mounds. Not crying. Just staring down at the dirt while Louis stood back, his hat in his hands and his head bowed. His mouth was moving, perhaps muttering a prayer. The girl didn’t seem to hear him.

  Ruth eased closer to hear what Louis was saying. She needed a prayer in her ears and had no words of her own for the Lord. Peter would have been able to pray. If it had been her in the ground and him standing here, he would have prayed for her soul. He would have looked to the Lord to somehow work things for good in spite of the bad. But how could any of this be good? Orphans and widows. Why? That was her only word.

  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I ain’t gonna be fearful. The good Lord’s rod and staff, they guide me and knock away the evil. Blessed are the meek. Bless also them that mourn and those what stand in the need of your sweet blessings.”

  The man’s words were a mishmash of Scripture strung together, but somehow the words sounded right when he spoke them. A man who loved the Lord. A man who had buried all these people and said words over their graves when their families couldn’t. Slave or not, she owed him thanks for that.

  When she stepped over behind him, he stopped praying and bent his head to stare at the ground again. He twisted his hat in his hands. “Me and the girl, we’ll be leavin’ now. Give you some alone time here. Come along, missy.”

  “That’s all right, Louis. I’m leaving now myself. I simply wanted to thank you for what you’ve done here. For burying my husband.” Her voice caught and she had to swallow down tears. “And all the others.”

  “’Tweren’t nothin’ you have to thank ol’ Louis for, ma’am. The Lord, he give me the strength to do what needed doin’. That’s all.”

  The girl turned away from the grave. “Aunt Tilda says Louis could have gone across the river and found freedom, but he didn’t. ’Cause he had a job here to do.”

  “What you talkin’ about, child? Aunt Tilda shouldn’t a ought to tol’ you that.” Louis frowned.

  “She didn’t. I heard you talking when I was sick.”

  “Best you didn’t talk about things you maybe dreamed up whilst you was feverish. Get me and Aunt Tilda in some trouble.” His eyes flashed up to Ruth’s face and quickly away. “I ain’t never thought about goin’ across the river.”

  “Louis is right.” Ruth looked down at the child. She was so small. Ruth forced a smile. “Some things are better kept under our hats.”

  “I don’t have on a hat.” The girl touched her curly, dark brown hair. Her eyes were a lighter brown.

  Ruth’s smile came easier now. “No. No, you don’t.”

  “But I can keep it under my hair.” The girl looked over at the man. “Will that be good, Louis?”

  “That be fine, missy. Come on now. We’d best go see what Aunt Tilda is fixin’ us for supper.” He didn’t take the girl’s hand as he turned toward the gate, but she ran up beside him and slipped her hand in his anyway.

  He cast a nervous look back toward Ruth. “She be needin’ somebody right now, you understand. What with losin’ her folks and all.”

  “Yes.”

  She watched the two leave and wondered what would become of the girl. She wouldn’t be able to stay with Louis. Perhaps she had relatives, or if not, some family would take her in as a servant. That seemed a hard road for such a small child. Ruth shook her head. She couldn’t worry about the little girl. She had troubles enough without adding the poor child’s to her own.

  When she looked back at Peter’s grave, he seemed to nudge her. She surely could say a prayer for the child even if she couldn’t pray properly for herself.

  She bent her head and whispered, “Lord, send someone to help Adria Starr. Thank you for Louis and what he did for her.” She swallowed hard and went on. “And for my Peter.”

  Four

  Adria cried when Aunt Tilda told her she’d have to start sleeping in one of the hotel rooms up the stairs instead of the little room beside the kitchen. She liked being close where she could get up and help Aunt Tilda fix things to eat. Not only that, but Aunt Tilda let her wash dishes in the big sink. They didn’t have a sink like that at her house. Just pans of water. But Aunt Tilda’s sink had a drain hole where the water swooshed away with a few gurgles and nobody had to carry it out the back door to sling it away.

  In the dark of the morning, she could lie in her bed and hug Callie close while she listened to Louis and Aunt Tilda talking before anybody else was moving around. Adria’s heart still hurt when she thought about her mother and father and little Eddie. It hurt so bad she tried not to think about them. That was easier to do when she was helping Aunt Tilda break green beans or chop up potatoes for soup.

  Aunt Tilda had a way of putting her hand on Adria’s curls that made her believe somehow everything was going to be all right. She combed her hair for her too and never fussed once about all the curls. Sometimes Aunt Tilda braided it up quick as anything to keep it out of Adria’s eyes while she was helping cook.


  Best of all, if she ever noticed Adria looking sad, she stopped whatever she was doing and pulled Adria right into her apron to hug her tight. She wasn’t Adria’s mama. Aunt Tilda’s hugs didn’t feel anything like her mother’s. Her mama was soft and smelled like purple flowers. Adria forgot which kind, but her mother always put that smell in their soap. But even if Aunt Tilda was bony and old and smelled like onions sometimes, Adria still liked being folded in tight to her middle.

  But when people started coming back to town, Louis carried her few clothes up the stairs to where the white people stayed. Adria told him she wanted to stay in the room by the kitchen, but Louis said that was Florella’s room and things would be better if everybody stayed in their proper places.

  “I don’t have a proper place,” Adria said.

  “Now don’t you think like that, missy. The Lord is gonna help us figure out all that in his good time.”

  Adria couldn’t figure out anything. Not since she’d gone to the cemetery where Louis put her family. That had been too hard to think about—them under the ground together. A family. And her up above ground with no family. Only Louis and Aunt Tilda.

  Louis said her parents weren’t really there in the ground. Leastways not their spirits. She had to remember how they were in glory. That day as they stood by the grave, he’d asked her what she thought glory might be like.

  “I don’t know,” she answered.

  He looked down at her as they walked away from the cemetery. “You ain’t never thought about glory?”

  “Not till you said Mama and Eddie went there.” She dragged her feet a little as she walked. She felt like she shouldn’t leave them. “I did think about going to heaven and wondered if it would be noisy up there when, well, before you came and got me. Do you think it’s noisy in glory?”

  “In my mind glory is full of ev’ry good sound a body can imagine. Angels singing. Folks shoutin’ hallelujah. And it’s bright all the time with Jesus’ light a-shinin’ off those golden sidewalks and walls of jasper.”

  “What is jasper?”

  “I don’t rightly know, but I’m thinkin’ it must be something mighty pretty. Maybe like the sparkly jewels rich ladies wear pinned to their dresses. Did your mama have any of those kinds of things?”

  “We weren’t rich. Mama said we weren’t.”

  “Well then, missy, there’s all kinds of ways to be rich, and I’m thinkin’ afore your folks passed up to glory, you was plenty rich.”

  Adria wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she asked, “Are you rich, Louis?”

  “Not by this old world’s standards. Not at all. I ain’t got nothing. Don’t even belong to myself what with how Massa George, he owns me. But I got them other kind of riches. Them kind the Lord hands out. You can have those too. Every livin’ soul can just for the askin’.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will when you’re older, missy. Till then, just you don’t worry your head about it and let the good Lord take care of you.”

  “Will he? Will he take care of me?”

  “Yes, indeed, he will. Don’t you never wonder about that.”

  But Adria did wonder about that. Especially after she had to start sleeping in the room upstairs. It was lonesome up there. And scary when she heard steps in the hallway outside the door that she knew weren’t Aunt Tilda or Louis. At times like that, she hugged her doll close and hid under the covers, even if it did make her sweat in the summer heat.

  Then Mr. George came back to the hotel. The man Louis called master. He wasn’t anything like Louis. Or Adria’s father. He looked bothered when he came in the kitchen. Louis was different with him in the room. Kept his eyes down the way he had that day at the cemetery when they saw the schoolteacher’s wife.

  Aunt Tilda didn’t act any different than she always did. At least not that Adria could tell. She kept on stirring the pots hung over the fire. But then she did give Adria a look. She didn’t say a word, but Adria knew to sit still and not say anything. In fact, she wished she could just crawl under the big table and hide out till the master man went away. But she didn’t do that either. She sat in her chair quiet as a spider in a web up next to the ceiling and hoped she’d be too little to notice.

  For a while the man didn’t seem to see her while he talked to Louis.

  “You’ll be rewarded for what you did here in Springfield, Louis. Keeping the hotel going and watching over the other businesses too while people were away. Everybody in town is talking about how you buried all those people. It was a fine thing and one we won’t forget.”

  Aunt Tilda dropped a pan lid with a clatter and then murmured how she was sorry for the noise. But her back looked stiff like something was hurting her. She did say she had rheumatism, so maybe that was what had her looking sort of twisted, but something about how Aunt Tilda was standing made Adria wish she had Callie to hold on to. Instead she twisted her hands up in the apron Aunt Tilda had fixed for her to wear in the kitchen and tried to breathe quiet like Aunt Tilda’s cat when it was ready to pounce on a mouse. Trouble was, Adria felt more like the mouse than the cat while she listened to Mr. George talk.

  “And I understand completely how you had to let some of the sick people stay here at my hotel and why no rooms were rented. Nobody was going to come through here once they heard about the cholera.” Mr. George looked even more bothered than he had when he first came in the kitchen as he blew out a long breath. “I’ve talked with those still here and they’re willing enough to pay for the rooms they used. At least a portion of what they would owe. I guess that’s the best I can hope to get. A portion.”

  Louis spoke then. “I didn’t feel right turnin’ anybody in need away, what with how things were.”

  “Completely right of you. What you should have done. People will long remember that and thank me for my generosity.”

  Aunt Tilda flashed a look around so quick Adria barely caught it. Then the old woman stirred the beans with a hard jerky motion that flipped some out on the hearth. She cleaned them up with her apron tail before they started smoking.

  The man went on talking. “But now that the cholera has moved on, things will have to get back to normal with people paying full price for their rooms. Business will pick up. So we can’t be giving rooms away.”

  That’s when the man’s eyes landed on Adria. He hadn’t not seen her at all. He was simply waiting. “We’ll have to find somewhere for the girl. She can’t stay here without a proper guardian.”

  Adria wasn’t sure what a guardian was. She sort of hoped it had something to do with a garden, but she didn’t think it did. From the man’s face, she feared it might have more to do with her not having any family after the cholera. She opened her mouth to say something, but Louis gave her a quick look. Not a mean look. Just one that said she’d best keep quiet.

  “Her folks died and we hasn’t been able to find out if she has more kinfolk around here.” Louis kept his eyes low. “You wouldn’t happen to know, would you, Massa? Her name is Adria Starr.”

  “Starr.” The man rubbed his chin as he looked at Adria. “Seems I remember Edward Starr. Worked at the sawmill, didn’t he?”

  “Yessir, he did. They had a nice little house over on Elm Street.”

  “And he died?”

  “Him and his wife and little boy. Missy Adria here is the only one to make it through the cholera, and she was sick awhile. Matilda took care of her, like as how she did some of the others.”

  “We thank you for that, Matilda.”

  “Weren’t nothin’ but what the Lord intended, Mr. George.” Aunt Tilda looked around with something like a smile on her face, but it wasn’t one Adria had seen before. She turned back to stir the beans again, but this time she didn’t spill out any.

  “True.” The man let out another long breath.

  Adria kept her head down and her gaze on the table, but she could feel the man’s stare. The kitchen got too quiet except for Aunt Tilda’s spoon stirring. The silence settled
down on Adria the same as it had back at her house when the clock stopped ticking and her mother went to glory.

  Finally the man started talking again. “I’ll check around and see if I can find anybody kin to her. Maybe the preacher will know. They went to the Baptist church, I’m thinking.”

  “The Reverend Watkins, the cholera got him, but could be others in the church might know.”

  “If they don’t, maybe one of them will have enough Christian charity to take her in. She’s a little thing, but I’m sure even at her age, she could find ways to make herself useful.”

  Aunt Tilda spoke up then, her voice soft but determined somehow. “We’d want to make sure they were kindly.”

  “They’ll be kindly if they take her in.” The man sounded cross. “She can talk, can’t she? She’s not deaf and dumb. Might make things harder if she is.”

  “Oh, no sir, she’s a fine girl.” Louis smiled over at Adria. “Tell Massa George how you ’preciate him tryin’ to help you.”

  She didn’t want to, but since Louis looked like it was important, she did. “I’m glad I could come here and get well. Thank you.” She hoped that sounded good enough.

  He smiled at her then and put his hand on her head. She ducked away from his touch. She couldn’t help herself, but she did smile at him. A smile something like Aunt Tilda’s a little while ago. She didn’t want to be handed off to just anybody. She wanted family. Like she’d had. Or like Louis and Aunt Tilda, but Aunt Tilda had already told her she couldn’t stay with them. They were slaves. That meant they didn’t have any freedom. She wouldn’t have any freedom either if that man gave her to some family who took her in to do chores. She’d be an orphan slave until she got big enough to be on her own. How old would that be? Maybe she was old enough already. She had a house.

  Nobody said anything for a good spell after the man left the kitchen. Aunt Tilda kept stirring the beans and Louis kept staring at the floor. Finally Adria said, “I want to go back to my house and stay there.”