at the desk and opened it up.
After I got caught for the crime of reading, Miss Sarah stopped teaching me, but she set out books of poems—that was all she got to read now—and she’d say, “It doesn’t take long to read a poem. Just close the door, and if there’s a word you can’t make out, point to it, and I’ll whisper it to you.” I’d learned a legion of words this way, legion being one of them. Some words I learned couldn’t be worked into a conversation: heigh-ho; O hither; alas; blithe and bonny; Jove’s nectar. But I held on to them just the same.
The words inside the leather book weren’t fit for poems. The man’s writing looked like scribble. I had to crack every word one by one and pick out the sound the way we cracked blue crabs in the fall and picked out the meat till our fingers bled. The words came lumps at a time.
City of Charleston, to wit . . . We the undersigned . . . To the best of our judgment, . . . the personal inventory . . . Goods and chattels . . .
2 Mahogany card tables . . . 20.50.
General Washington picture and address . . . 30.
2 Brussels carpets & cover . . . 180.
Harpsichord . . . 29.
I heard footsteps in the passage. Mauma said she’d sing if I needed to hit out for cover, but I didn’t hear anything and went back to running my finger down the list. It went for thirty-six pages. Silk this and ivory that. Gold this, silver that. But no Hetty and no Charlotte Grimké.
Then I turned the last page and there were all us slaves, right after the water trough, the wheelbarrow, the claw hammer, and the bushel of flint corn.
Tomfry, 51 yrs. Butler, Gentleman’s Servant . . . 600.
Aunt-Sister, 48 yrs. Cook . . . 450.
Charlotte, 36 yrs. Seamstress. . . 550.
I read it two times—Charlotte, my mauma, her age, what she did, what she sells for—and I felt the pride of a confused girl, pride mauma was worth so much, more than Aunt-Sister.
Binah, 41 yrs. Nursery Servant . . . 425.
Cindie, 45 yrs. Lady’s Maid . . . 400.
Sabe, 29 yrs. Coachman, House Servant . . . 600.
Eli, 50 yrs. House Servant . . . 550.
Mariah, 34 yrs. Plain Washer, Ironer, Clear Starcher . . . 400.
Lucy, 20 yrs. Lady’s Maid . . . 400.
Hetty, 16 yrs. Lady’s Maid, Seamstress . . . 500.
My breath hung high in my chest. Five hundred dollars! I ran my finger over the figure, over the dregs of dried ink. I marveled how they’d left off apprentice, how it said seamstress full and clear, how I was worth more than every female slave they had, beside mauma. Five hundred dollars. I was good on figures and I added me and mauma together. We were a thousand fifty dollars’ worth of slaves. I was blinkered like a horse and I smiled like this made us somebody and read on to see what the rest were valued.
Phoebe, 17 yrs. Kitchen Servant . . . 400.
Prince, 26 yrs. Yard Servant . . . 500.
Goodis, 21 yrs. Footman, Stable Mucker, Yard Servant. . . 500.
Rosetta, 73 yrs. Useless . . . 1.
I put the book back, then went out and told mauma what I found out. A thousand fifty dollars. She sank on the bottom step of the stairs and held on to the bannister. She said, “How I gon raise all that much money?”
It would take ten years to come up with that much. “I don’t know,” I told her. “Some things can’t be done—that’s all.”
She got up and headed for the basement, talking with her back to me. “Don’t be telling me—can’t be done. That’s some god damney white talk, that’s what that is.”
I lugged myself up the stairs and went straight for the alcove. Next to the tree out back, this was my chosen spot, up here where I could see the water. With the house empty, I was the only one upstairs, and I stayed by the window till all the light bled from the sky and the water turned black. Cross the water, cross the sea, let them fishes carry me. The songs I used to sing back when I first belonged to Miss Sarah still came to me, but I didn’t feel like the water would take me much of anywhere.
I said under my breath, Five hundred dollars.
Goods and