in your proper place, and break you good.” At this the grumbles grew into taunts, shouts, and threats.
There is a moment in the stormy lives of a few blessed colored people, a moment of revelation, when the sky opens up, the clouds part, and a streak of sun cuts through, conveying some infinite wisdom from above, and this moment comes not from Christian religion, but from the sight of a colored man addressing a white one as Raymond White now did as he turned to the white man.
“But you are not home.”
Then he looked back at the crowd, and the man following with his eyes began to understand his predicament. Rage and determination fled from him. Fear and panic closed in. The thin white man seemed to grow paler and thinner by the second. The crowd, agitated by the man’s threats, now murmured to each other as to what they ought to do next.
* * *
—
After we watched the boat shove off, Otha and I sat with Mary Bronson and her son back at the Ninth Street house. Raymond had gone off to begin the business of having Mary housed and, hopefully soon, employed. It was the custom in Philadelphia to take an account of the ordeal of all who passed through the Philadelphia station. It was yet another notion that was utterly unimaginable in Virginia, where such accounts might implicate a fugitive. But Raymond believed himself in the midst of history and felt strongly that all pertaining events should be well recorded.
Otha made coffee and gave Mary’s son a collection of toys—cows, horses, and other farm animals rendered from wood. I took the moment to walk over to Mars’s bakery, where he introduced me to his wife, Hannah. I managed a smile upon meeting her and did my best to apologize for my demeanor the day before. He handed me two loaves of warm bread and said, “Nothing to apologize for. Like I said, family.”
Back in the house, Mary was on the floor of the parlor playing with her son. I went to the kitchen with the bread, searched for a knife, a platter, and plates. There was a jar of preserves on the counter along with a wedge of cheese. With all of this I fashioned a spread and placed it upon the dining room table. Otha served up the coffee for everyone and brought Mary and her son to the table. There was a gentle air of relief and even celebration in the meal.
After the meal, Mary helped us clean up. Then we repaired to the living room for the interview. I watched as Mary’s son took a wooden soldier in each hand, made a threatening face, and then crashed the two horses into each other with a loud “Pssshhh!”
“What is his name?” I asked.
“Octavius,” she said. “Don’t ask me why, I ain’t name him. Ol massa decided that like he decided everything else.”
Otha offered Mary a seat on the sofa. I went up to my room and retrieved paper and two pencils. Then I sat down at the table. Otha was to ask the questions. I would record.
“My name is Mary Bronson,” she told Otha. “And I was born a slave.”
“No more, though,” Otha said.
“No more,” Mary repeated. “And I want to thank y’all for that. You got no idea what I been through down there, what we all been through. I’d have done anything to get out from under that man, I just wasn’t sure how. You know this ain’t even the first time I been to the city, and it ain’t even the first time I had the notion to run. I don’t know why I ain’t done it before.”
“Where you from, Mary?” Otha asked.
“Hell,” she said. “I am straight out of hell, Mr. Otha.”
“And why you say that?” Otha asked.
“I had two other boys, beside Octavius here, two other boys and a husband. He was a cook just like me. Everybody around the house loved the work I did.”
“Did you love your own work?”
“Was never my work to love. But I was different, you see. Fact of it is, I had an understanding with my old master. I did the cooking, but I wasn’t the only one in the kitchen. So time to time, my old master would hire me out and split whatever I made with me. Plan was to gather up enough to buy me and mine out. I would go first, so as not to have to split