When I do go to school two days from now, I won't be allowed to wear my outfit no more. Makes me look too much like a real pale Negro, Missy says. 'Cept she, like her daddy, uses the real mean word for 'em sometimes. 'Least Sarah says it's mean, after she caught me sayin' it to someone else. I'm of my opinion that just 'cuz whites are supposed to take care of 'em and make 'em work for us, don't mean we gotta be mean and call 'em names.
My outfit as it stands now is a gauzy thin white shirt and blue pants that was too long when I first got 'em but now go to my knees. It's the only thing I got to my own name, and even if I can't wear it, I'm gonna pack it in my bag. That's the other thing I got. An old saddlebag to put my stuff in. And my knife that Mister gave to me on Christmas last year. I guess whiteboys get things like knives on Christmas and coloredboys only get to not have to work. That ain't too fair, but I ain't gonna say nothin', 'cuz my complainin' won't ever do nothin' but get ever'one down, Sarah says. The knife's long as my arm from my wrist to my elbow and real jagged on one end. Missy says it's a huntin' knife and the jagged edge is to carve things with.
Today I'm going with Mister to get fitted into a fine uniform.
I've never been off of Big Farm and I ask if Sarah might come with us, since she hasn't neither. Mister looks at her, then at me, and I give my best "lil' boy who's about to leave his only home forever makes one request, sir" look. He says if Sarah can find someone to take her workload she may come. We already asked Anna, one of the housegirls and Missy's nursemaid, and she said alright 'cuz she likes goin' outside and don't got much to do since Missy ain't much of a little girl no more anyway. So with Sarah sittin' quietly in the back of the wagon and me in the seat by Mister, we go to the town of Allan.
As the wagon rattles 'long past other big farms in the area, I can hear the slaves in the fields singin':
"Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me hoooome
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me hoome"
Mister looks at me and tells me to cut it out when I go to join in 'cuz whiteboys don't sing slave songs and that's the way of it. I ask him what I'm to sing, if not what I been taught, and he ain't got nothin' to say to that, so I look back at Sarah and make a face by scrunchin' my nose and crossin' my eyes and she smiles and then puts her hands over her mouth to keep from gigglin' as I make a real stern face with my eyes still crossed and pretend to wave a switch at her. Mister tells me to stop foolin' around and face forward or he'll show me just what his crop on my backside feels like and Sarah too, by God. I stop and sit straight up and look serious while Sarah keeps her hands over her mouth to keep from laughin'.
Mister rolls his eyes and after a bit asks me if I know how to drive a wagon. I don't, 'cuz I never was big enough to during haymaking times. Mister shows me how you click your tongue at the horses to make 'em go and how you pull back the reins to make 'em stop, and pull 'em one way or another to make 'em turn. He lets me drive for a bit, which in spite of us only headin' down a straight road, I find to be a lotta fun. I tell him how much I like doin' this and ask if I'll get to drive wagons at school. Mister smiles and tells me,
"You just might, boy. One thing I know for sure is you'll get to learn horse ridin' and numbers and such."
School don't sound half bad right now and I turn around to look at Sarah and I tell her I'll teach her horse ridin' when I come back to Big Farm after my schoolin', which I'm fully gonna do, and I'll teach everyone numbers, too, and I'll read books and newspapers and crop-price papers to 'em, since slaves ain't allowed to learn readin' but they sure like knowin' stuff and there ain't nothin' bad about readin' to those that can't, and then Mister tells me 'J.G, turn around for Pete's sake' and we're gettin' into the town so I sit up straight and try to look less like a farmerboy and more like a townboy.
The lady in the clothes shop is kinda snippy to her poor slave girl who is runnin' back and forth tryin' to keep up with the flood of requests. It ain't my place to say nothin' and it ain't Sarah's neither but we give the poor thing pitying looks as her mistress puts measuring tapes on me and puts needles in the blue coat that's way too big but gettin' better. I ask the shop-lady what her girl's name is and she says she don't know and don't much care, it's just "you there" or "girl" to her. It still ain't my place to say nothin' but Mister knows all of his slaves' names and he got two-hundred-fifty plus one whiteboy raised with 'em, so I am of my opinion that this lady ain't a very likable person, if she ain't even bothered to know her one girl's name.
Mister surveys me in my finished uniform of a blue coat with red ribbon tie and blue pants goin' down to just above my knees and Sarah says if Mister don't mind her sayin', sir, I look pretty fine in my new outfit. Mister nods and agrees that yes, I do look a whole lot more civilized in it. Then Mister sees my bare tanned feet and I'm told we are going to the shoes shop because I sure can't go to school in Indy-pen-dance with no shoes or stockings. I wonder why we can't get shoes in the clothes shop, but I follow Mister anyway. I ain't never had shoes before, and while Sarah's got her feet bound in leather since she got blisters and don't want 'em to get infected, those sure ain't no shoes. We're both excited to see the shoe shop.
I come out of the shoes shop with shiny black shoes and white stockings that stop right below my knees, leaving 'em stickin' out between my pants and stockings. While I was gettin' my feet measured over and over again, Mister asked of Sarah why she had leather on her feet and when she said, "'S blisters, Mas'r." he asked the shoemaker if he had any worn cheap shoes to put on her feet so as to get his leather strips back. So Sarah's got shoes now too, and I know when she ain't in the field, maybe when she's tendin' for a baby or the chickens, or too old to do nothin' but watch those that are too little to do nothin', some of the other girls'll wear her shoes and wear 'em 'til they're worn out for good.
We come back through the gates with Sarah in the back of the wagon and me in the seat by Mister. Everyone who ain't workin, and some that had stopped to watch the wagon, all wave at me and Sarah and cheer for me. I wish that night, in a big pile of the other boys n' me, that the next days don't ever come. But they do, and soon I'm bein' dressed by candlelight to get put on an early coach to Indy-pen-dance. Everyone stops and waves me off as the wagon goes through the gate with me in it for the last time in my whole life. I know boys ain't s'posed to cry, but there's a lump in my throat that's makin' my eyes tear up and if that's cryin' then I'm cryin' as all of those that was my family cheer and call out goo'bye, goo'luck J.G to me.
I don't wanna leave the only home I ever got...
