Mawu adjusted her melody, stringing together short rhythmic phrases here and there, the way the conjuring man had taught her. The mustard seeds plunked into the tin cups like drumbeats beneath her voice. When the seeds were all spent, she ended with a flourish. An appreciative silence followed.
“How long y’all gone be up here this summer?” Reenie asked, resuming their lazy conversation.
“Drayle says he wants to stay four weeks,” Lizzie answered for her and Philip. “The missus says she wants Philip back so he can train this new hand they’re buying.”
“Us too,” Reenie said. “Four weeks.”
This was the second summer at the vacation resort for the six slaves. Three of the Southern men brought their slave women with them, first on ships and then riding in separate train cars after they entered free territory and boarded the Little Miami Railroad in Cincinnati. None of the Southern men brought their wives. Reenie’s master had brought his wife up close to the end of the previous summer, and Sweet’s mistress was dead. Lizzie’s master, Drayle, had never mentioned the possibility of bringing his wife.
It was no secret many of the northern whites who stayed at the resort disliked slavery. Even more, they disapproved of the slave women staying in the cottages with the white men. The resort was set in an area populated by Quakers and Methodists who declared themselves antislavery. East of columbus, west of Dayton, sixty-four miles north of cincinnati, the resort cast together an unlikely association of white Southern planters, white northerners, free coloreds, and slaves. So the six slaves stuck close together, even avoiding the free black servants who worked in the hotel.
Now there would be one more, upsetting the easy balance of six. Lizzie guessed that Mawu was staying in a cottage like the rest of them. Surely Mawu’s man wouldn’t put her in the hot hotel attic with the rest of the servants and male slaves. She wanted Mawu to be in a cottage near hers. Even with Reenie and Sweet, Lizzie sometimes got lonely at this place. Reenie was always working, and Sweet was always tired. They all speculated on whether the woman was pregnant with twins, big as she was.
The twin named George switched positions so that Reenie could finish the other side of his head. “I hear tell of this place nearby. Colored folk. Free and fancy colored folk.”
“What you talking about, George?” Philip faced him.
“I heard them talking. It’s a place on the other side of them woods. It’s where the free folk go to have summertime. Just like this place, excepting it’s for us’n. All you got to do is walk right through them there woods.”
“Well, I ain’t never heard of such,” Lizzie said. “Free colored folk having summertime!”
Mawu edged so close Lizzie could smell her. “Well, Miss…what you say your name was?”
“Lizzie.”
“Miss Lizzie, you must not ever been off your place before. It’s plenty of free colored folk. Rich, too.”
“I know it’s free colored folk,” Lizzie snapped. “I am just saying I ain’t never heard of them having summer in the country the way the white folks do.”
“George is right,” Reenie said. “I hear the white folks talking, too. Say they can’t understand why they build this place so close to that one.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment. They knew that Reenie, the oldest of the women, didn’t lie. If she said she heard it, there wasn’t a truer fact.
“Just how far is it?” Philip asked as Lizzie braided the next to last plait.
“Close enough to walk. Yessir it is.” George rocked back and forth.
“Shh…” Reenie said. “Calm yourself. You know these trees got ears.”
They all looked around as if Reenie had actually seen the trees lean forward. Except for Mawu. She looked right at George.
“So when us going?” Mawu asked.
Sweet stopped plaiting. “Us? Go? Ain’t no womenfolks going nowhere.”
“Well, you sho ain’t going seeing as to your condition and all. But I want to see these rich colored folks.” Mawu challenged them all with her voice. Lizzie tried to picture this Mawu’s master, what kind of man Tip might be, what kind of place she lived on down in Louisiana.
“All right,” Lizzie said and patted Philip on the shoulder.
“Your hair look real nice,” Sweet said. “That ought to keep for as long as you here.”
“It’ll help with the heat. This sun is hot for sho,” Philip said. He stood and stretched his legs and caught Mawu admiring his body as he did so. He knew he