Violet Fire by Brenda Joyce Page B

had been learning the alphabet from A to G. Patiently Grace stood up.
    â€œMiss Mary Louise. Will your husband pen your ball invitations?”
    Mary Louise blinked.
    â€œWill he pen invitations to a ladies’ tea for you? Will he write your letters to your sister when she is married and lives in Memphis and you are married and living in New Orleans?”
    â€œBut Mama never writes,” Mary Louise blustered.
    â€œYour mama does not strike me as the type to have teas,” Grace said recklessly. “Now, think on what I said.”
    â€œI guess you’re right,” Mary Louise replied, and picked up her quill. Margaret Anne followed suit.
    â€œD is for?” Grace prompted, sitting back down next to her youngest charge.
    â€œDog!”
    The triumphant voice came from the doorway, and all three looked up to see a grinning Geoffrey.
    â€œGeoffrey, do you know your alphabet?” Grace asked.
    He hung in the doorway. “No ma’am. Only what you been teachin’ Miz Margaret Anne today.”
    â€œWhy, he’s been spyin’!” Mary Louise cried.
    â€œCome here, Geoffrey,” Grace said with a smile.
    He came in, half eager and half bashful.
    â€œNow Margaret Anne, let’s start again. D is for?”
    â€œD is for dog.” Margaret Anne bit her lip.
    â€œAnd E?”
    It was no use. Margaret Anne had not retained anything, and she shrugged dramatically.
    By her side, Geoffrey was wriggling, barely able to restrain himself. Grace looked at him. “Geoffrey?”
    â€œEgg!” he shouted. “F is for fun! G is for good! A is for apple! B is for…” he broke off. Then his face brightened. “Bad! C is for cat!”
    â€œThat is very good,” Grace said, stunned that he had remembered the letters, when she and Margaret Anne had only drilled through them a half a dozen times. “Start from the beginning,” she cried, excited. “Try again.”
    Mary Louise gasped. “You can’t teach him! He’s a nigger!”
    â€œBe quiet, Mary Louise,” Grace said sharply. “Go on, Geoffrey, try again, this time from the beginning.”
    Proud and excited, Geoffrey flawlessly recited the sequence of the alphabet which Grace had been trying to teach Margaret Anne all afternoon.
    â€œVery, very good. A hundred percent. Do you know what that means?”
    He shook his head, grinning with pleasure.
    â€œThat means you’ve gotten every one correct.”
    â€œEvery one?”
    â€œEvery one. Do you want to learn to read and write, Geoffrey?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œDon’t you go to the public school?”
    He hung his head. “I got too many chores, ma’am.”
    Grace was exhilarated. She would teach Geoffrey to read and write! And she knew, in the precise instant, that there was such a thing as fate after all, and that the reason she had come South was far grander than she had thought—it was to educate, and thus liberate, at least this one little boy.
    She thought of all the runaway slaves who had passed through their home in New York on the Underground Railroad before the War, when she had been just a child. Grace had been told what her parents were doing as soon as she was old enough to understand. She had seen them all, even the ones she wasn’t supposed to, the ones who had been abused and beaten and starved. Grace didn’t think she had forgotten a single, desperate face.
    She had been shocked the first time she had realized that most colored people could not read—were not allowed to learn to read. She had been six, and to this day she could remember it so clearly. She had wanted to share her favorite story with a little boy of eight or so, who had picked up the book and opened it, upside down, curiously and uncomprehendingly. Her disappointment that she couldn’t share the story with him had been as vast as her shock that he was not allowed to even learn to