The Hale Plantation, Tulsa, Oklahoma
July 19th, 1852. Noah Hopkins's experiences
The Hale plantation? the most beautiful place. Filled with the most beautiful people, mostly Noah watched the boy, she'd sit back in the kitchen after her chores and talk with Nell the cook and the boy would be in the dining room, she could seehim through the little window in the hard wood door that the other house servants walked through when they served dinner to the family. He would sit and stare at the wall, the boy was sicker than Nell got in the winter, all the time he was sick. He'd cough up blood sometimes during dinner and Missus Hale would cover her mouth with a dainty white-gloved hand, gather all her daughters, and excuse herself. Noah would have to clean it up, mostly, because the other house servants got queasy from the sight of it. The boy was named Jasper. He would smile apologetically, which is why she watched him. Why would a rich white boy care that a little black house servant had to get her hands a little dirty? she watched him too because slaves, who lived in little huts near the back of the Big House, who wanted to be sold off the Hale plantation would accuse him of raping the slave children. Noah knew he wasn't. The slave women would bring a dark baby to Mister Hale shouting "Look, this baby's, heres, prit near yella!" or they would bring their daughters " She done bled, Mista Hale, and their ain't no nigga out there tah do that tah her!" and then that daughter would never give birth. To keep it from spreading Mister Hale would beat Jasper senseless and then sell any babies that were born. Then the slave women would bawl that Mister Hale kept selling all of their children. Slave women weren't the smartest.
House servants were smart, they behaved well and got moved into a real house and got to keep the babies they had. Except for the gardener Old Salli Jones who had more than eight children and had to sell three of her girls. Salli Jones knew Jasper wasn't hurting any of the slave girls either, because she saw him every night, sitting in the dining room, when she brought in the eggs for the next morning's breakfast. Noah would sometimes hear him coughing after she went to bed, the women blamed him because he went outside at night at least twice, but Noah could hear the water pump. Hell, the slave girls could hear him pumping the water but he was the one they could blame. At night he cleaned up whatever he coughed out. The Hale daughters would wake Noah up without a second thought. But Jasper was kind, he was so kind it rubbed off on you when you were in the room with him.
Sometimes she got up in the night if he was coughing real hard and bring him ginger ale to help soothe his raw throat. He would shake his head in disbelief and order her to go back to bed. She had her mother in her so she would put her fists on her hips "Not 'till you go on and drink that down!" then she'd make him go wash out his mouth while she cleaned up. On this particular night there was a woman in the house screaming and screaming, but Noah couldn't hear any accusations or even Jasper's name. Suddenly she sat bolt upright, Missus Hale was screaming. It didn't sound like a fight with Mister Hale either, Noah counted the pros and cons of going to Missus Hale's room on her fingers. She got five cons and couldn't count any higher. She couldn't think of any pros. Then Salli Jones's urgent voice was coming through the door. " Noah get into your petti coat, it's that goddamn boy!"
The Cullen home, Forks, Washington
December 21st, 2006. Jasper Hale's point of view
I was thinking again of where I came from. The South, obviously, but I was trying to remember one girl, actually. When I first woke up and was told about what I was and how I'd been sick I'd remembered everything so clearly, there was a little girl, maybe a year younger than me, I remember she was sick and dying. I remember that she'd taken care of me, so I changed her too. But I can never remember where she went after that, or her name, or where we were in the South. Sometimes I think it was a rouse and Jack only told me those lies because he wanted that girl for himself. I think maybe I died in the Civil war. Maybe I got bit by a snake working in the fields. Alice keeps wandering in and staring at me but I ignore her because I really can't stop thinking about a little African American girl who stared at me through hazy eyes while I bit her, as gently as I could, and who suddenly offered me advice I've never understood "Don't cough anymore! Stop coughing!" She'd become hysterical after that and Jack had taken her away from me. After that I can't remember. I try so hard. Alice taps me on the head, and smiles weakly, she's worried I slide over in bed and she settles in beside me.
"Jasper, I had a little vision." Uh-oh, was that anger? "Who is this girl?" Yep anger. Alice whips out a hand drawn picture of a girl wrapped in my arms and another of the same girl curled up on our couch with her head on my lap. I almost say "I don't know." because I don't and then I jump up and yell "Noah!" the name is odd at first because as a vampire I'd never said it. Then something hits me. A girl bringing me ginger ale, and running into my mother's room with her petticoat half open and jumping to catch me as I fell. " Noah" I repeat the name just for myself and turn to Alice " How do we find her?"
The Hale Plantation, Tulsa, Oklahoma
July 7th, 1852. Noah Hopkins's experiences
Jasper Hale was in the fields, his shirt thrown aside with the slave's. Right there, in a sweaty pile, touching the slave's clothing. Jonathon Curtis the overseer looked disgusted. A white man working out in the fields with his father's slaves? "This was Oklahoma, goddamn that boy!" Curtis kept saying to himself "This is Tulsa county! This is the South!" he would drawl the word 'south' proudly. Jasper would never raise his head from his work and even ate the gruelled down beef stew and honey covered corn bred that Old Salli Jones brought the field hands at noontime. Jasper Hale ate beef stew while his father ate brisket. It was just as well, you almost expected it from him. He was so different from the Hales they were beautiful and pale and he was scarred and dark from the sun. He had tough hands while everyone else was dainty.
Noah leaned back in the grass, she was suposed to be dusting the library but kind Missus Hale had come in and taken the dust cloth."Go and see if Salli Jones or Nell need your help." Noah had come back to report that neither did but Missus Hale smiled, "Leslie has the day to herself, go keep her company." Leslie was another house servant and Noah's best friend and everyone on the plantation was well aware of it. Everyone reacted differently, Jasper had brought them candies when they were small and Mae the oldest Hale daughter tried once or twice to teach them how to properly button a petticoat without a button hook. But Missus Hale loved to let the girls into the garden to gossip with Old Salli Jones, or to cook with Nell in the kitchen.
Leslie was talking whispering about Jasper " I hear he works out in the fields with them negroes so the fathers of all the slave girls he raped won't take Mister Hale to the judge and spoil the real good name they got made for themselves." Noah shook her head. " Who'd you hear that from?" Noah asked pulling herself up and reaching for a peach on the branch that shaded them from the relentless noon sun, most women stayed inside at noontime but Noah prefered the breeze to the stuffiness of the back hallways in the Big House. "Morine, that old school teachers daughter." Morine had never spent a ay on the Hale plantation in her life, she was white and lived on the very other end of Tulsa she only heard the rumors because Jasper was the governers son. " Morine ain't got the sense of a dog. He's out there because he is kind and he cares about them feild slaves." Leslie snorted "He cares about not getting beat."
Noah was running towards the big house suddenly. Back to the library. "Leslie doesn't need company, ma'am." she told Missus Hale and then she began dusting again.