“Thank you Lawd for my new baby girl” implored Odessa, a fellow worshiper. Her bandanna was draped about her head and tightly knotted in the front. She, like Sarah, was amassed among a small gathering of slaves; some from Jack’s plantation, others from neighboring plantations that bordered the bank of Possum Run Creek. In the tuck of her headdress, Odessa kept burdock root. Burdock, the medicinal root from a common field green, was used to hush a many a child astraddle its mama’s hip as she toiled in the fields.
“Oh Lawd cover my chil’ betweenth’ the wings of yo’ angels” Odessa appealed. “You’s a merciful God; sen’a dem angels down. Sen’a Dem Angels Down,” she sung, “oh sen’a dem angels down. O, bretheren, my way, my way’s cloudy, Go sen’a dem angels down.”
The angles were indeed in position that night beneath the crescent moon at Possum Run. They stood around the wine-dark creek to tend those toil worn souls that prayed along its shore.
“Amen” Odessa resigned. Satisfied that God had heard her prayer, she withdraw beneath a windswept tree and Elijah stood to his feet so as to petition his “Lawd”.
Elijah, Massa’ Dick Fenney’s driver, was a portly fellow who stood head and shoulders above the other worshipers at Possum Run Creek. His extra-large stovepipe hat, hunker down against his sturdy head. “You’s a good God,” he testified “but You know how hard it is to drive that fool as he cuss and spit” Elijah defended. “Give me strength, Oh Lawd.” Dick Fenny, a brutally vulgar slaveholder, hadn’t a clue that he and others like him were no more than a prayer away, from a fatal end. “Hol’ me back Oh Lawd” Elijah appealed, least I run them horses to and fro ‘cross Massa’ dead limp body ‘till satan himself reach up to claim his own.” “Hallelujah” shout the worshippers one scarcely louder then the other.
Beyond the blend of their systematic hallelujahs, the loudest came from the rear of the congregates. It was Mae Ella, Jackass’ personal maid, who stood head bowed and spirit broken with three children; two, who were ultimately sold to appease the mistress’s wrath, as they bore a strong resemblance to Jack and one as black as Sarah. Her black boy Nathan, was bent from the load of frequent lickings too numerous to tally. Mae Ella held Nathan’s hand a little firmer than the others, not that she loved him more, he just needed her more.
Mae Ella was thirty-three, perhaps thirty-four years old. It was difficult to say with slaves. Many births were documented months, even years after the fact and oftentimes misrepresented for the benefit of trade. Still, Mae Ella was a pretty woman. Her skin was dark chocolate brown, velvety and without flaw. She, herself was the child of a slave woman visited by her master. Whereas Mae Ella’s pigmentation was inherited from her mother, her slender lips and chiseled nose were her father’s family traits. Mae Ella’s melancholic eyes were emerald green devoid of twinkle, empty like her own existence.
