Day to Pick Your Own Cotton (Shenandoah Sisters Book #2)

Michael Phillips

Description

Book 2 of Shenandoah Sisters. Mayme and Katie, from entirely different worlds, have been thrown together in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War. Just teenagers, they are left to survive only by their own wits and shared experiences. Gradually, they are learning to appreciate each other's strengths and to shore up each other's weaknesses. Out of their efforts to simply stay alive comes a growing awareness of the Lord's love and care for them, as well as the dim outlines of a plan to keep Rosewood Plantation operating. The book continues the story begun in Angels Watching Over Me, of two very appealing but contrasting characters and their secret mission to provide a sanctuary for others who have been left alone and adrift by a tragic war.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441208477
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

© 2003 by Michael Phillips
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2010
Ebook corrections 04.15.2016 (VBN), 03.30.2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-0847-7
Uncle Remus stories are the creation of Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908).
Cover photo of girls by David Bailey Cover design by The DesignWorks Group
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
1. C IVIL W AR S ISTERS
2. T HE F IRST T EST
3. M AKING P LANS
4. R OSEWOOD
5. E MMA’S S TORY
6. M AKING R OSEWOOD L OOK R IGHT
7. T HE O LD P AGES
8. P UTTING O UR P LAN T O W ORK
9. A T ALK A BOUT G OD
10. B ACK H OME
11. A REMEMBRANCE OF F REEDOM
12. S IGN IN A W INDOW
13. D ECISION
14. S URPRISE AT R OSEWOOD
15. A LONE AT R OSEWOOD
16. A LETA
17. H ARSH W ORDS
18. T REASURE H UNT
19. A WKWARD D AYS
20. C LEARING O FF A B ILL
21. T HE T EARDROP
22. R ESPECT
23. B EDTIME S TORIES
24. W ASHDAY
25. N EW W INDOWS
26. A R EQUEST
27. Q UESTIONS IN T OWN
28. M AKING C HEESE
29. I NTERRUPTION
30. T HE R EST OF THE W ORLD
31. A LONE W ITH M Y T HOUGHTS
32. A S PECIAL B IRTHDAY
33. S USPICIOUS C ALLER
34. O N THE H EELS OF D ANGER
35. C APTURED
36. I NTERROGATION
37. K ATIE AND A LETA
38. N IGHTMARE U PON N IGHTMARE
39. R ESOLVE
40. R ESCUE P ARTY
41. T HE B IG O AK
42. F OUR S ISTERS AND A F RIEND
43. A N EW C RISIS
44. I H AVE AN I DEA
45. M ORNING IN THE F IELD
46. K ING C OTTON
47. D IRE N OTICE
48. P AYOFF
49. H OME A GAIN
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by Michael Phillips
To share your thoughts with the author
Watch for volume three of SHENANDOAH SISTERS
Back Cover
C IVIL W AR S ISTERS 1

I RECKON IT’D BE ALMIGHTY PRESUMING OF ME TO guess what was going on inside the brain of the lady who ran the general store and post office in the town of Greens Crossing in Shenandoah County, North Carolina. But I do know what was going on inside mine. If we can’t fool Mrs. Hammond, we’ll go hungry. Or worse—they’ll come and take us away .
Elfrida Hammond wasn’t the kind of lady a body could draw a good bead on just from looking at her. Except for one thing, that is. She had a grum expression set permanent-like on her face. Suspicious, that’s what I’d call the lady, her eyes a little squinty. I’d only seen her once before, and that was from an upstairs window, where I hid when she came to the house. But just from listening I could tell that hers wasn’t a cheerful kind of voice.
It wasn’t my house. I’ll explain that later. But what I was about to say was that she wasn’t smiling then, so I doubted she was smiling today. Fact is, I don’t know if Elfrida Hammond ever smiled.
Who can say what she was thinking, or whether she saw the wagon pull up in front of her store, or what went through her mind when the door opened and the little bell above it tinkled to announce that she had a customer. But I do know that when she turned to greet the young lady who had just walked in, her eyes narrowed yet a little more.
“Kathleen . . . .” she said in a slow, worrisome tone that trailed off and then went up at the end like a question.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hammond,” said the girl. She was only fifteen, and had only turned that about a month before. But she had a special reason for trying to sound more grown up than her age.
“I see your mama’s not with you.”
“No, ma’am. She couldn’t come to town today. So I came instead. I want to get some supplies, Mrs. Hammond. Here’s the list of what we need.”
She handed a piece of paper over the counter. The lady took it and looked it over like a schoolmarm grading a test.
“There are a lot of things here, Kathleen,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you tell your mother what I told you about her account?”
“We talked about it, ma’am. She said to tell you she promised she’d get it taken care of real soon, and asked if you could just help her out a little longer.”
“I declare,” said the lady, “I don’t know what she expects me to do.”
Mrs. Hammond looked at the list again, then at Katie, then glanced outside her shop where the wagon sat. Her eyes narrowed a little more.
“Who’s that darkie you got with you?” she asked.
“She’s my—er, one of our house slaves.”
“I’ve never seen her before. Is she Beulah’s pickaninny?”
“No, ma’am.”
“She’s ugly as sin.”
“Not when you get to know her, ma’am. And she’s real smart.”
“Well, she doesn’t look any smarter than she does comely,” huffed Mrs. Hammond, who didn’t like anyone telling her anything, especially a young girl. She took any statement by someone else, especially if it expressed an opinion on just about any topic under the sun, as grounds for contradiction. “No, she doesn’t look like she has a single brain in that little black head of hers,” she added after a minute. “I’m not sure I like the sound of it one bit.”
“We’ll be back when we’ve done our other errands,” said Katie, “when you’ve got our order ready.” Then she turned and walked back outside.
The black girl they were talking about, sitting in the wagon outside, was me. ’Course I couldn’t hear everything from where I was sitting, but Katie told me all about it later. This is our story. Hers and mine together.
I’m Mary Ann Jukes. But folks call me Mayme, which I figure you might as well too. The girl inside the general store and post office was named Kathleen Clairborne. Folks called her Katie, at least her friends did. That’s what I called her, or Miss Katie.
Katie and me were in a pretty bad fix ’cause the war had left us all alone in the world. That’s what we were doing together.
I reckon I ought to tell you a little about it.
You see, Katie and me had found ourselves together about a month and a half before, when some real bad men called Bilsby’s Marauders had come through Shenandoah County after deserting from the army.
When the marauders came through, they killed people at both my master’s plantation and at Katie’s. I’d been fetching water and was away, and that’s why I didn’t get shot. And Katie’s mama had hidden her in the cellar of their house, so they didn’t find her either. But they killed both of our families.
I left as soon as I’d finished the burying. After wandering a spell, I found myself at Katie’s plantation. When we first saw each other, neither of us knew what to do. But gradually we started talking. I spent the rest of the day there, figuring at first that Katie needed someone to take care of her for a spell until she got used to what had happened. But she wanted me to keep staying. So I did, and gradually a week, then two, then finally three passed.
All that time the two of us just lived there in that great big plantation house all alone, milking the cows and making bread and taking care of ourselves. Katie showed me books and gave me one of her dolls and taught me how to read better. And I taught her how to do things like chop wood and sing slave revival songs. She read me stories from books, and I told her stories from memory.
But all the while I knew I needed to be getting away from Rosewood—that’s what Katie’s folks’ plantation was called. If anybody found me, a colored girl and a runaway, sleeping in a white man’s bed, I knew they’d skin my hide or hang me from a tree or something else pretty bad. I didn’t know what had happened to my own master. He might be alive or dead for all I knew. But mostly I was worried about what would happen to Katie. I tried to get her to think about her own future and what she oughta do. She had three uncles and an aunt. The aunt lived up north somewhere, but Katie had never seen her. One of her uncles lived not too far away, and after Katie told me about him, I was afraid he might try to get his hands on the plantation. Another of them had gone to California hoping to find gold, and Katie figured him for dead. The third was a ne’er-do-well that came around sometimes when he needed money from his sister—which was Katie’s ma. Katie didn’t seem to like any of them and didn’t cotton much to the notion of going to live with any of them either.
One day some rough men came looking for one of Katie’s uncles. We hid and managed to scare them away by shooting guns over their heads. After that, I knew Katie was in danger and that she had to do something. Eventually I figured it was the best thing for her if I left. And I did leave, too, but not for long, because Katie came after me and begged me to come back. She had just discovered a girl hiding in the barn! The girl was about to have a baby and Katie needed my help with the birthing.
That girl was Emma, a halfwit slave girl who was running away from some trouble we couldn’t get her to tell us about.
It was while we were trying to figure out what to do with Emma and the newborn baby, and when I was thinking about leaving again, that Katie came up with her crazy scheme.
Her scheme was just this—for us to keep living at Rosewood alone like we had been, but to pretend that we weren’t alone, to make like her father and brothers hadn’t come back from the war and that her mama and the slaves were still there.
And that’s why we were together that day, orphans and Civil War sisters you might say. This trip into town, leaving Emma and her little baby boy, William, alone at Katie’s house, was our first try to see if we could make people believe everything was normal and how it should be back at Rosewood.
T HE F IRST T EST 2

K ATIE CAME OUT OF THE STORE AND WALKED toward the wagon, glancing up at me with a little smile on her face. Behind her I saw the hawk eyes