The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Read online

“What y’all want?” she asked me.

  “We going to Ohio,” I said. “This Ohio?”

  “This Luzana,” she said.

  “Luzana?” I said. “We been doing all that walking and we still in Luzana? You sure, Misses?”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “And if I was you I’d head right straight on back where I come from.”

  “No, ma’am, we ain’t going back there,” I said.

  Then a nigger stepped up and said: “Don’t be telling my Misses what you ain’t go’n do. She say y’all go back, you high-tail it on back there.”

  Ned stepped in front of me to hit him in the belly, but I made him get back.

  The white lady said: “What you want go to Ohio for?”

  “To freedom,” I said.

  “You free here,” she said. “Ain’t you heard about the Proclamation?”

  “I done heard it,” I said. “Don’t mean I believe it.”

  Then I looked up at that nigger again. He was rolling his eyes at me like he wanted to slap me cross the face. He had a round greasy face and big white eyes, and he looked just like the driver we had left on the place. That kind was used to beating on poor black people who couldn’t hit back.

  “That’s your child?” the white lady asked me.

  “No, Misses, I’m just ’leven or twelve,” I said. “He’s for another lady the Secesh killed yesterday.”

  “There ain’t no more Secesh,” she said.

  “They had some there yesterday,” I said. “And they sure enough killed his mama and his little baby sister.”

  When I said that the rest of the niggers started looking a little scared.

  “Y’all going North?” I asked the white lady.

  “We coming in from Texas,” the white lady said. “We going South.”

  “South?” I said. “Don’t niggers know they don’t have to go South no more?”

  “We goes where us Misses tell us to go, little dried-up,” the driver said. “She knows what she doing. Not you.”

  “Quiet, Nicodemus,” the white lady told him. “We going back to our plantation,” she said. “We left it when we heard the Yankees was coming through.”

  “My old master and them didn’t go nowhere,” I said. “Just hid out in the swamps with the goods till the Yankees packed up and left.”

  “Yankees do much ravishing to y’all place?” she asked me.

  “Not much,” I said. “Nothing the first time. Too busy running after Secesh. Next time, took stocks, something to eat, that’s all.”

  “I hate to think what they did to Rogers Grove,” she said. “It’s been five long years, and I hate to think what I’m go’n find when I get home.”

  “Maybe they didn’t touch a thing,” I said.

  “Oh, if I know Yankees I know they touched something,” she said. “I just hope they left the house standing. Y’all children hungry?”

  “We got food, Misses,” I said.

  “What y’all got?”

  “Potatoes and corn, Misses,” I said.

  “Y’all want some cornbread and meat?” she asked.

  I was hungry, but I made pretend I had to ask Ned if he wanted to eat. He said yes, and the white lady told somebody to bring us some food. Her and her two girls sat down on the ground in front of us.

  “Lord, I ain’t seen nothing but ravishing and more ravishing,” she said. “Everywhere you look, nothing but ravishing. Ravishing, ravishing, ravishing. I been trying to cry, but I done already cried myself dry. Not another drop in me nowhere.”

  “No need to cry,” I said. “Just got to keep going, that’s all.”

  “Misses, just give me the word,” the driver said.

  The white lady didn’t even look at him this time. I looked up at him, and he was standing there rubbing his fist. If that white lady had just nodded her head that nigger would have knocked mine off.

  “Your mama in Ohio?” the white lady asked me.

  “My mama been dead,” I told her. “The overseer we had said he was go’n whip my mama because the driver said she wasn’t hoeing right. My mama told the overseer, ‘You might try and whip me, but nobody say you go’n succeed.’ The overseer ’lowed, ‘I ain’t go’n just try, I’m go’n do it. Pull up that dress.’ My mama said, ‘You the big man, you pull it up.’ And he hit her with the stick. She went on him to choke him, and he hit her again. She fell on the ground and he hit her and hit her and hit her. And they didn’t get rid of him till he had killed two more people. They brought me to the house to see after the children because I didn’t have nobody to stay with. But they used to beat me all the time for nothing.”

  “I never beat my people,” the white lady said.

  “Some people don’t beat their niggers, but they sure used to beat us,” I told her. “Old Master used to beat us with the cat-o’-nine-tails; Old Mistress beat us with the first thing her hands fell on. And had the nerve to cry when they said freedom had come. I ain’t studying about her.”

  “You mind how you talk about white folks,” the driver said.

  “Quiet, Nicodemus,” the white lady said. “You going to your daddy in Ohio?” she asked me.

  “No, Misses, I ain’t never seen my daddy,” I said. “He didn’t live on our place.”

  “Who you know in Ohio then?” she said.

  “Just Mr. Brown,” I said.

  “Mr. Brown?” the white lady said. “Mr. Brown who?”

  “A Yankee soldier,” I said. “He said look him up when I get free.”

  “Oh, Lord, child,” the white lady said. “A Yankee soldier? You going to Ohio looking for a Yankee soldier called Brown? A Yankee soldier who might ’a’ been killed the day after he spoke to you?”

  “No Secesh bullet can kill Mr. Brown,” I said.

  The driver cracked his knuckles when I said that. I didn’t look up at him this time, but I heard his knuckles crack like dry wood.

  The white lady said, “Oh, child, child.”

  “How far that river out there go?” I asked her. “Me and this little boy got to cross it before we head on.”

  The white lady said, “Oh, child, child, there ain’t no Ohio. If there is, it ain’t what you done made up in your mind. Y’all come back with me. Y’all come back. I’ll treat you right.”

  “Me and this little boy started out for Ohio, and we going to Ohio,” I said.

  When we got through eating, I thanked her kindly, then I put my bundle on my head and stood up. Ned picked up his flint and iron, and we was ready to move on.

  “They got a bridge for that river out there?” I asked her.

  “A ferry,” she said.

  “What’s a ferry?” I asked her.

  The white lady said, “Oh, child, child, come back with me. There ain’t no Ohio.”

  “ ‘What’s a ferry?” I asked again.

  “A boat,” she said. “A boat that carry people and wagons. And you go’n need money to ride.”

  “We ain’t got no money,” I said. “Where we getting money from?”

  “Come back with me,” the white lady said.

  “Thank you for the food, Misses, but we going,” I said.

  Just before we left I saw one of the girls patting her mama on the shoulder, and I knowed she was crying.

  Shelter for a Night

  We walked and walked; shadows getting longer and longer. I didn’t ask the white lady how far up the river the ferry was, so we had to keep going till we saw it. The Secesh and the Yankees had been fighting on this side of the river. I could see how the big cannon balls had knocked limbs out of trees. I could see how they had knocked small trees completely out of the ground. I saw strips of cloth, buttons, sometimes a cap half buried under dry leaves and dirt. But we kept on going. We stayed in the bushes all the time, just enough in the open to keep the river in sight.

  Late that evening I saw something like a big house floating on the river. I saw people and wagons on the other bank waiting for it to pick them up. I told Ned that’s what w
e was go’n ride on. Ned didn’t say a thing. Just following me with that flint and iron in his hands.

  By the time we had reached the landing place on this side, the ferry was heading back. I felt so funny and weak standing there, I thought these little dried up legs was go’n buckle under me. Walking through the swamps all time of night didn’t scare me nearly much as seeing this big old thing coming toward me now. I asked Ned if he was scared, too, but he shook his head. He wasn’t much for talking. The ferry landed and the people and wagons got off. The people on this side got on, and we got on with them.

  “And where y’all think y’all going?” the captain asked. Right off I could see he was nothing but white trash.

  “Me and this little boy going to Ohio,” I said.

  “Ohio?” he said.

  He didn’t know no more about Ohio than I did. I told him Ohio was in the North.

  “Who y’all for?” he said.

  “We ain’t for nobody,” I said. “We free as you.”

  “All right, little free nigger, y’all got money?” he said. “It take a nickel to ride on here. Y’all got a nickel each?”

  “No sir.”

  “Then get right straight off,” he said.

  “We got potatoes and corn,” I said.

  “And I got potatoes and corn at my house, too,” he said. “None of them Beero people go’n come round here ’cusing me of stealing free niggers.”

  “We’ll tell him you didn’t steal us,” I said.

  “You ain’t go’n tell him nothing, because you ain’t going nowhere,” he said. “Get off before I have one of my niggers throw you off. Oh, Lucas?”

  A big nigger showed up. Me and Ned got off and sat down on the bank. After everybody else had got on, the ferry left for the other side. I could see it drifting cross the river like a great big house. Looked like everything was go’n end right here on this side the river.

  I looked back at Ned. He was just sitting there with that iron and flint in his hands. Watching the ferry, but not saying a word. I wondered if he was thinking about his mama and his little sister. I was doing everything to keep from thinking about anything but going to Ohio.

  “You all right?” I asked Ned.

  He nodded his head a little.

  Almost sundown the ferry came back. The captain hollered at me and Ned to get moving. We moved back two or three steps and sat down again. The captain and that nigger he called Lucas was still watching us. I thought he was go’n make Lucas come out there and beat us up, but Lucas kept his distance.

  The ferry stayed on this side till dark. They had hung lanterns on it now. Just as it was getting ready to leave for the other side, I heard somebody hollering, “Hold her up. Hold her up.” I saw a man all in black riding toward the landing on a black horse. The man hopped off the horse and handed the reins to one of the niggers on the boat. Then he looked and saw us sitting there.

  “Hoa there?” He said. He said it like he couldn’t make us out too good.

  I stood up so he could see I was a little girl. “Yes sir?” I said.

  “What y’all doing there?” he said.

  “We want cross over,” I said.

  “Come along then,” he said. “Pick it up, pick it up.”

  I already had my bundle in my hand, and Ned followed me with the flint and the iron. When I got on board I felt scared and funny. I thought these two little old legs was go’n buckle under me now for sure.

  The ferry pushed away from the landing out on the river, and it looked like none of it was real, like I was dreaming all this. I felt all funny and giddy and tired as I was I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t.

  “Where y’all headed?” the man in the black suit asked me. He didn’t sound like a Secesh at all. I had never heard nobody talk like him before.

  “Ohio,” I said.

  He was smoking a pipe. He jecked it out his mouth quick. I could hear when it hit against his teeth.

  “Ohio?” he said. “Y’all got people there? Ain’t that a bit far for just two children? That one over there, that’s you little bitty brother?”

  “Just a little boy I know,” I said. “We ain’t got no people. My mama been dead. Overseer killed her. Secesh killed his mama yesterday.”

  “Oh, that gang,” he said.

  “You know them?” I asked him.

  “Know of them,” he said. “Well, you don’t have to go to Ohio. I’ll find you a place to stay till you find somebody’ll take care you. Where you from?”

  I told him. I told him about Old Master reading the Proclamation to us and us starting out. Told him about the Secesh or patrollers who had killed the people. Even told him about Mr. Brown.

  “Well, you don’t have to go to Ohio, now,” he said. “And your friend Brown might not even be there. I’ll find you a place to stay till you find yourself a home. I still think the best thing for both of you is going back, though.”

  “We ain’t going back there, Master,” I said.

  “Well, I’ll find you a place to stay tonight,” he said. He looked at Ned holding the flint and the piece of iron. “I say, Little Man, what them rocks for?” he asked.

  “Fiyer,” Ned said.

  “I say,” the man said, and smoked on the pipe.

  It was pitch black on the river, but I could see lights on the other bank. Looked like even before we got on the ferry good it had landed again. The man in the black suit took my bundle and got on his horse and told me and Ned to come along. Now, I was on the ground again, and it looked like I had never been on a ferry.

  “Ohio far from here, Master?” I asked.

  “Afraid so,” he said. “This Luzana you in.”

  “What?” I said. I stopped and looked up at him there in the dark. He held back on the reins and the horse stopped. “All the walking me and this little boy been doing, crossing a river on a ferry, you trying to say we still in Luzana?” I asked.

  “Afraid so,” he said.

  “Luzana must be the whole wide world,” I said.

  “No, not exactly,” he said.

  “Then how come we still in it?”

  “Nature more likely,” he said.

  I could hear him smoking the pipe. We started walking again.

  “I want go to Ohio,” I said.

  “Afraid you’ll have to change your mind,” he said. “Ever hear-d tell the Freedom Beero?”

  “No, Master.”

  “Well, ’cording to the Fedjal Gov’ment, they sending Yankees down here to help y’all out. See that y’all have something to eat, clothes, school. Everything Brown promised you, you go’n have right here in Luzana.”

  “You a Yankee?” I asked him.

  “Afraid so,” he said. “Call me a gov’ment investsagator. Hail from New York.”

  “That’s farther than Ohio?” I asked.

  “ ’Pending on where you standing when you ask that question,” he said. “Maine, no; Luzana, yes.”

  “I’m standing right here,” I said. “Right here in Luzana where it look like I ain’t go’n ever leave from.”

  He smoked on the pipe. I could hear it there in the dark. “Afraid so,” he said.

  We came up to a big house where children was playing in the yard. The invessagator got off the horse and told us to follow him. Another white man met us at the door. The two of them talked awhile, then the other white man called over his shoulder for somebody named Sarah. Sarah came in. She was a big black woman who looked after the children. The white man nodded toward us, and she told me and Ned to follow her. She took us upstairs to another big room. They had pallets spread out all over the floor. Sarah told me that’s where the girls slept, and she pointed out a pallet for me. Then we went to another room where the boys slept, and she pointed out a pallet for Ned. She asked us if we was hungry. I said yes but we had food. She told me we didn’t have to eat that no more, I could leave my bundle side my pallet, or, better yet, dump it in the trash. She told Ned he could leave that flint and iron by the pallet or he could
dump that in the trash, too. She had good food in the kitchen for both of us, she said; and she would find something else for Ned to play with. I told her we would eat her food, but we wanted to keep what we had. Where we went, they went. She looked at me a little while like she thought I was getting sassy with her, then she said suit yourself, follow me. We went downstairs to the kitchen and ate, then she told us we had to take a bath. I said I didn’t want one. She said I had to take it if I wanted it or not, and she stuck me in a tub of soapy water and tried to wash my skin off. She even ducked my head under two or three times—and I’m sure she did it just because she thought I had sassed her upstairs. After she had wiped me off, she stuck me in a little white gown made like a sack—it wasn’t nothing but a sack—and she told me to go upstairs to my pallet. Little while later Ned came back upstairs in his little gown. He still had that flint and iron in his hands.

  “Feel better?” I asked him.

  He nodded his head.

  “Get yourself a good night sleep,” I told him. “Tomorrow morning when nobody looking, we getting out of here.”

  All Kinds of People

  Little while after I had laid down, the rest of the girls came in, making more noise than a pack of jay birds in a chinaball tree. But when the white man came in the room everything got quiet. “All right—knees,” he said. Everybody knelt down side their pallet; I was the only one still laying there. “That go for you, too,” he said. After I knelt down he said prayers, then he blowed out the lamp and went to the other room. “All right—knees,” I could hear him saying. Then little bit later—“You with them rocks, that go for you, too.” He prayed over them, then he blowed out the lamp and went back downstairs.

  I was sleepy, but I felt too good to go to sleep. I just wanted to lay there and feel how good freedom was. I kept thinking to myself, “So this is freedom? This is freedom? Well, if this all I got to do, I don’t mind putting up with that bathing a few more days.”

  While I was laying there thinking how quiet and peaceful everything was, somebody round the other side started hollering. I thought it was Ned and I jumped up and made it for the door. The white man got to the door same time I did and went in and lit the lamp. It wasn’t Ned, it was the boy on the pallet next to Ned. Ned was laying on his pallet with the flint and iron in his hands.