When she woke up the next morning, Rose’s first thought was: Daniel kissed me. She wriggled down under the quilts as she reviewed the previous evening in her mind: the cake walk and the dancing and the walk home in the bright moonlight. The kiss, and the good-natured teasing from the family when she and Daniel came in the house.
“Ahh, ahh choo!”
“Bless you, Queen! You don’t sound so good.”
“Oh, Rose, I feel so bad. I caught a cold I guess, I’m all stuffed up. You tell Grandmama for me, all right? I’m going to sleep a while more,” Queen groaned as she rolled over.
Rose felt Queen’s forehead, it was very warm. As she dressed, Rose watched Queen roll over with another moan and wondered how she came down sick so quickly.
Rose could hear people talking in the kitchen as she went down the stairs. By the time she swung open the door to the kitchen she already knew Sylvester was in one of his moods. His voice, louder than usual, had a tone only heard from him when he was angry or out of sorts. Crossing to the stove, she poured herself coffee and stood aside as Sarah and the others in the kitchen continued their heated discussion.
“Said it right in the paper, son, and I don’t want you anywhere near that crowd,” Sarah said. “They get all worked up every New Year’s thinking I don’t know what, worried about us getting out of hand. I don’t believe it’s a good day to be in Gainesville.”
“The march isn’t until tonight, Mama, and I’m not sending my wife alone into that mess, especially when there’s an easy way to go with her,” Sylvester argued. “You yourself asked me to check on Amelia Goins while I’m there.”
“And I can’t believe you’d even think of taking your sister with you,” Sarah continued. “I’m against the whole idea.”
John Hall was in the kitchen, still wearing his driving coat, looking uncomfortable. Happy was beside him, holding her coat and purse.
“Mama, I’m a grown woman. I think I can make my own mind up about going to Gainesville,” she said.
“Amelia can wait until tomorrow. There’s a Klan meeting in Gainesville tonight, and it’s Emancipation Day. I think you all better stay right here until tomorrow. Gertrude included. No need to leave today, anyway, is there?” Sarah asked.
Gertrude was sitting with her back to the group as she looked out the window. She turned to Sarah but didn’t speak; after a moment she turned back away without answering.
“She’s told me she’s leaving and she doesn’t mind if I go or not,” Sylvester replied, looking ready to explode. “Mr. Hall here is going to Gainesville in his automobile, we all can ride with him. Sister and I can come back on the afternoon train. There’s no reason to fret about this Mama, that march is tonight. We’re just going to John’s house, have a visit with his family. We’ll check on Miss Goins, and leave off Gertrude for her train. We’ll be long gone before evening.
“All of us,” he added, speaking to his wife in an angry tone.
“Sounds like your mind’s made up, no matter,” Sarah answered, shaking her head.
Happy and John Hall went out to the car as Gertrude and Sylvester went upstairs for her things. Sylvester called out goodbye as they went out the front door. The sound of the automobile’s engine started up and slowly faded away as the vehicle moved east down the road.
Rose crossed to the table and sat down with Beauty and Marlene as Sarah brought her a plate of food.
“If Happy’s going to be gone, I’ll need you and Queen to do wash today, Rose,” Sarah said.
“Yes Ma’am, but Auntie, Queen’s sick. She woke up with a cold. Maybe you better check her, she’s awfully warm.”
“This day is just getting more and more backwards. Aaron was sick last night, probably passed it on. Well then, I guess you better go on over to Sumner now, Beauty, so you get back as quick as you can. First though go up please and check on Queen, bring her some tea and make sure she’s all right. Marlene, you go wake up A.T., we’ll take him to keep the fire for us. Then you and Rose will have to come help today. Now don’t you fight me,” Sarah said as Marlene groaned and started to complain. “The little ones will have to go to Emma’s and stay with Scrappy. Backwards day, lucky if we get anything done at all,” she muttered, shaking her head.
While Rose was finishing her breakfast, Beauty returned to the kitchen to report that Queen was indeed feverish but she had her settled in with some tea and a warm brick at her feet. She reminded Rose to reheat the brick when she returned home, then left for her job at Mrs. Pillsbury’s.
Rose and Marlene went up stairs to wake the younger children. Once they were all dressed and fed and sent with Mary on their way to Emma’s, Sarah and her group of helpers finally left for Sumner.
Frost crunched under their feet and glittered on the grass in the early morning light. A.T. stumbled along behind the women, still not very awake. The sun was just up over the trees by the time they reached the first row of houses in the small town.
“We’ll start at Mrs. Taylor’s house,” Sarah decided.
The four of them turned in at the first house on the edge of town, a small home surrounded by a white washed fence. On the porch around the back of the house there were two baskets of wash.
“Pull those pots around to the side of the house, in the sun,” Sarah told the girls. “A.T., get some wood gathered up, bring it on around.”
The young women set up the wash pots on the east side of the house and A.T. started the fires as Sarah sorted through the clothing and linens. The young women and A.T. hauled enough water from the well to fill the three iron cauldrons. Once the wash water was hot, Rose and Marlene began scrubbing and rinsing as Sarah strung up the clothesline.
Rose could see that the cold weather was making the work harder for Sarah. She groaned whenever she bent or straightened back up and slowly moved from the wringer to the clothesline as she hung washed sheets.
“Here, Auntie, you trade with me,” she told Sarah.
Her aunt smiled.
“Just come help hang these, you’re the tallest,” Sarah told her, and moved to the porch steps to rest.
“This is a job for you young gals,” she said.
“I’m not too fond of it either,” Marlene complained, and they all laughed.
A.T. was cutting up some of the wood he had gathered when the man arrived. Tall, fair skinned and dark haired, he came from behind the Taylor house and went through the grass onto the back porch without glancing at the group at work in the side yard. The man went straight in the house without knocking and shut the door behind him.
Sarah didn’t even look up as the man came up the walk, but Marlene glanced at Rose and winked.
“That her husband?” Rose whispered to Marlene.
“Not exactly,” Marlene muttered, smiling.
“You mind your work, girls. And your business,” Sarah told them.
In another two hours most of the wash was finished and half of it was hung up to dry. A.T. had been sent to Aunt Emma’s with a load of ironing and instructions to help Mary with the children and bring them home at dinnertime. The two younger women were hanging the last of the sheets when they heard the crash. It was quite loud and followed by screaming, then several loud thuds.
Rose and Marlene looked at each other.
Sarah, in an urgent low voice, told the young women “Get behind that sheet, get out of sight.”
Rose and Marlene turned around to face away from the house and started pinning up the sheet held between them. Sarah handed them another sheet and they hung it on the line behind them, listening to the commotion coming from the inside of the house.
“Nothing good’s going to come of that,” Sarah said, frowning. “Mind your business here,” she told the girls, and held the sheet higher to block them all from view.
Rose and Marlene peeked around the side of the sheet and saw the man come out, heard him shout something back in the house and slam the door. He passed down the walk and leapt over the low fence instead of opening the gate and moved north towards Rosewood, dust whipping up from the dirt road as he passed.
“Should we check on Mrs. Taylor?” Marlene asked her grandmother, but Sarah shook her head.
“Looks like they’re fighting. This is a real good time to hang these sheets and come back to finish later. Let’s go on to the Pillsbury’s house and get started there.”
They were hanging the last load of wash when a young woman came out of the Taylor house. Her face was bruised on one side and her lip was bloodied. Her dress was torn at the neck. She startled at the sight of the women in the side yard and stopped for a moment, but then continued around the porch and down the front steps. She began screaming and wailing as she opened the gate and stumbled the few steps to the house next door, where an older woman was already coming out the front door. She hurried towards the injured young woman who was screaming and crying as she tried to talk.
The young woman collapsed in a faint and slid down to the ground as her neighbor called for help. Several women from the surrounding houses came out on their porches and hurried over when they saw the two women in the grass.
“Fanny’s been hurt!” the older woman cried. “Mrs. Taylor’s been hurt!”
Sarah and the girls hurried over to the two women. The neighbor woman told Marlene to run down to the Sumner train station for help, and Rose to go to the Taylor house for some water for the still unconscious woman.
In the kitchen Rose found a big mess, coffee grounds strewn over the floor and dishes of food overturned. One chair was tipped over and a drainer full of dishes had been smashed. Rose filled a glass and hurried back outside, where a small group of women were clustered around the women on the ground.
Fanny Taylor was sitting up and talking to Sarah when Rose returned. Sarah was holding Fanny’s hand and saying something; Fanny Taylor pulled her hand away and started crying again as Rose handed the glass to Sarah.
“I think I know what happened to me!” Fanny told Sarah, shaking.
“The kitchen’s all smashed up,” Rose murmured to Sarah, who nodded her head and turned back to Fanny Taylor.
“You drink this, now,” Sarah told the young woman.
“Take it away, my lip’s all swollen,” she sobbed.
“Don’t you hurt her,” the neighbor told Sarah, who put the glass down next to Fanny and stood up, sighing.
Sarah pulled Rose back away from the crowd as more and more people came to the scene. A group of men from the sawmill arrived and began questioning Mrs. Taylor.
Marlene returned from the depot and told Sarah that the sheriff had been sent for.
“Let’s go, then,” Sarah told her and Rose.
The three turned to leave but one of the men in the group stopped Sarah.
“Did you know the nigger what attacked her?” He asked Sarah.
“No sir, I didn’t know the man,” she told him, looking down at the ground.
“You sure Auntie? You know everybody,” he asked her again.
“I didn’t see any colored man, sir. We were in the side yard, away from the door.”
The next-door neighbor woman interrupted. “They weren’t here, they just arrived,” she told the man, and he turned away from Sarah towards the group clustered around the injured woman. The neighbor woman turned to Sarah and started to scold her.
“Where were you this morning, you’re late, and look what happened!” she cried.
“We weren’t late, we were in the side yard, trying to stay in the sun,” Sarah began to explain.
“I didn’t see you, I was wondering if you were even going to show up today. You always wash in the back, why’d you change today? He would have gone right by you out back. You sure you don’t know who that man was?”
“No Ma’am, we were in the side yard, hanging the wash out.”
“You go on back to work then.”
Sarah hurried away from the crowd with Rose and Marlene close behind. Quickly they pulled the wash off the lines at Sarah’s direction and went around the back of the house, Sarah gesturing to the girls to follow.
“Come this way, we’ll go out through the woods. Let’s stay off the road for now,” she told them.
Shouldn’t we wait for the sheriff?” Rose asked.
“He knows where I live, he can come talk to me there. Nothing good going to come of this,” Sarah muttered, shaking her head.
The three women went around the back fence and into the trees at the edge of the woods. They walked quickly as Sarah led the way along a narrow track. The trees blocked out most of the sunlight and it quickly grew colder as they walked deeper into the thick forest.
The wash in the baskets they carried was heavy and cold. Rose had to shift her load several times to try and warm her hands. Soon they were numb and it became more and more difficult to lug the basket of wet clothes. Rose shifted her basket up to her shoulder, balancing it with one hand and trying to thaw her cold fingers by tucking the other hand in her pocket. She could see Marlene ahead of her shaking with the cold.
Finally the trees thinned and Rose could see cleared fields along the edge of the woods. The women emerged from the trees right at the back edge of the Carrier property. As they crossed the yard they could see Daniel and Roy crossing the east field along the fence line and A.T. heading up the road from the west with Mary and the other children.
“Thank you, Lord, they’re all here,” Sarah exclaimed and hurried up the porch with Marlene and Rose close behind.