My Jim by Nancy Rawles

the next day.
    Day after that my Lizbeth born. She come screaming into the world.
    When the harvest finish Mas give us a supper. He gonna marry whoever he say can marry. Jim ask him bout us but Mas say he got another gal in mind for Jim. Jim say he aint gonna marry nobody but me. Mas say he gonna marry who Mas want him to.
    Jim come to me in the cabin. He powerful mad. He throw his hat on the ground. Say he aint gonna work for Mas no more. Say he aint gonna work for no white.
    I says dont matter what Mas say. He let you jump the broom but he aint giving you no papers. You can marry yourself good as Mas can marry you.
    So thats what we done. We marries ourself the next Saturday in the yard. Cora say some words over us and we as much marry as if Mas done it hisself. We jumps the broom under the black walnut tree.
    The baby the one marry us Jim say. He change after Lizbeth come. He cant keep his mind on his sorting work. Putting the leaf in the wrong piles. Every day he come home beat. I puts the witch hazel grease on his back. He cry like a baby and let me hold him.
    He all the time talk bout running off. I thinks on what Emma say. I aint gonna run with no baby I tells him. And I aint leaving her behind. You promise you aint gonna run without us.
    He promise. But he all the way change now. He worry day and night over that baby. More he worry the stronger he get.
    While we turning the soil he humming to hisself a little freedom song. Deep river he sing. My home rest over Jordan. It catch in his throat and he aint want to sing nothing else. We all picks it up. We works sowing the bed till our fingers like icicles. We rubs them to bring the feeling back. I rubs Jims in front the fire. Smoke fill the cabin and the baby coughing. She breathing heavy. That winter heavy on all of us.
    Spring come like always and the baby live. She hungry all the time. She feed at Cora and feed at me both.
    Mas Watson hire me out to a doctor in town. I says why you gonna make me leave my baby Mas. He say he need the money.
    Doc Renard use quinine for everything. He say I aint knows nothing bout healing. My job to clean the place. I gots to boil all the sheets and tools and clean all the blood away. He say medicine too clever for niggers. Say us niggers believes in ghosts and thats why we aint knows nothing. We scared of our own shadows.
    He send me to the college to warm up a body. Go first thing in the morning he say. Make it nice and soft so I can cuts it open. He laugh when he say it. He make his eyes big.
    I seen lots of dead bodies so I aint scared to do it. But I scared of the college and them young mens. So I goes in the night.
    I takes a lantern and walks up the hill to the college. I carries a kettle and some wood for a fire. On my back I gots a bundle of tobacco leaf. I gonna get me some water at the college well and build me a fire to boil the sheets. Then I plans to lay them sheets over that hard cold body till morning come. I gonna keep on boiling them sheets all night long and when Doc get there in the morning his body be warm and waiting.
    I does just like I plans with the sheets. I wrings them out with the fire tongs and carries them on a platter. In my pipe I gots some bark from the sassafras root. I smokes it to quiet the smell.
    When I gets to the room with the body I puts down my lantern and opens the door real slow. I sees a black man laying on the table. He a old man and black like a African. It make me sick to think bout Doc cutting on him. He got scars all over his body. He already been cut too much. I cant tells how he die or where he from or how come Doc got him here. But I feels for him. And I aint minds being the last one to see him fore Doc cut him up. I gonna wash his body gentle. I gonna wash his old tired feet and sing a mourning song.
    I does all that and keeps boiling more water and bringing more sheets. I lays some tobacco leaf on his chest and covers his manhood. Gives him the respect of a elder. I aint never knows my