Chapter One
A CRUELLY COLD but bright sunshiny New Year’s Day was when her mam was sold
south to satisfy a debt incurred by the master. She and her mam had shared some
honeyed cakes during the slack days at Christmastime. Both had enjoyed laughter
and some resting. And then on New Year’s Day young Annie’s pallet was placed
alongside that of Knitting Annie.
“Slaves ain’t ‘lowed to have shares of nothin’-no chick nor child,” the woman
said to the blubbering girl by way of consolation. “Master own it all.”
Female slaves on Ridley Plantation in this time were generally called by a
variation of the name Ann. The young girl apprenticed to the older woman who
knitted was known as Annie-that-sews or Sewing Annie. She was thus called to
distinguish her from the slave women they called Cookananny and from her mentor,
Knitting Annie. There was as well the one known as Field Annie, lovingly called
Fela, who led the gang of women that cleared brush for planting and harvesting
crops.
As Sewing Annie grew, her reputation was gained mostly upon her legendary skills
at knitting rather than pure out-and-out sewing. But she kept the name Sewing
Annie to thwart confusion.
Knitting Annie was the all-time leader on Ridley Plantation in production of
knitted work. She far outstripped lengths accomplished by the eight other slaves
who did knitting work and also Mrs. Clementine Stern Ridley, sister-in-law of
the master and a needlewoman of repute. She also exceeded the production of Mrs.
Mary Elizabeth Brackley Ridley, the master’s wife, whose embroidery and tatting
were considered of the finest quality in southern Maryland and whose hands
seemed always to be occupied with threads or yarn. The closets in the main house
were full of quilts, coverlets, counterpanes, and antimacassars, for the two
Mrs. Ridleys assuaged their isolation with work on these favorite pastimes.
Knitting Annie’s expert needlework put her around the table at quilting bee
time, working elbow to elbow with the mistresses. They greatly esteemed her
skills. And it was surely the consideration of this that lightened her travails.
Knitting Annie and Sewing Annie were installed in the ground-floor room of a
plank cabin they shared with a changing group of two or three other female
hands. There the needlewoman and her charge slept upon a plain bedstead fitted
with a straw mattress and a feather mattress. Knitting Annie guarded their
mattresses and commanded complete charge of them. The morning after Sewing Annie
lost control of herself and made water on the bedclothes, Knitting Annie only
grunted and soaked the clothes in a bath of her own concoction. The sheets and
covers were pummeled to sweet cleanness and the girl was cajoled not to soil
them.
Knitting Annie covered their bed with a sweet old quilt. This quilt was as plain
as any other used by the slaves at Ridley, but its fineness was nevertheless
indisputable. The back was made from feed sacks, as were all the others, but the
top had a myriad of patterned pieces and bright solids of every kind. This was
where scraps from whatever came to them as cloth ended up. Worn places were
constantly, relentlessly patched, and it could perhaps be said the bedcloth-from
patching-had metamorphosed from one thing to another. It was nearly a completely
different coverlet than when it had begun, though it remained of one piece. It
was old, old-had been done long before Knitting Annie was born.
The fineness of the old bed quilt was the underside, which was so flawlessly
stitched and so intricate that to follow the spiraling stitches would hypnotize
the eyes staring at it. Knitting Annie traced the intricacies, the whorls, with
her finger. Sewing Annie fell asleep upon ruminations about where exactly the
thread had begun its journey in this cloth, for each tiny nip and tuck of it
appeared identical. However, this quilt cover did shun the straight. Its
stitches were intermittently, deliberately broken to spoil the perfect. A
needleworker of Knitting Annie’s skill could come close to making it just so,
but the devil would like that too much, the old people said. Thus the quilt had
proper irregularity so that the devil would not grab up the two needleworkers in
their sleep.
Knitting Annie often repeated, “The favored top for sleeping under, girl, is the
Drunkard’s Path. The devil will be sure to spurn it.”
One such perfect quilt-not the Drunkard, but a complex beauty-was made at Ridley
and caused no end of trouble in the night. It was said to entwine the legs of
any who slept with it. Despite its beauty, Mistress disposed of the perfect
quilt as a wedding gift to a young girl of middling favor in the county who was
to go westward with her husband.
“Them threads was worked too sweet and even,” Knitting Annie maintained as
cautionary.
Knitting Annie was kind to her charge and looked after the girl as well as one
who is a slave can look after another one who is a slave. It was her duty to
pass to this young Annie all of what she knew about knitting and piecing
together the knitted garments and the quilting, the spinning and dyeing, and
what all else. She passed on all, as well as a few choice secrets having to do
with which plants were best for dyes.
As part of the mushrooming prosperity of Ridley Plantation in those years, the
needlewoman and her young assistant worked inside the loom house that Master
built some few feet from the big house. Mistress Ridley prized hands that knew
the needlework skills and the needlewomen were under her direct supervision. She
checked output and recorded in her logbook detailed information regarding the
projects the needleworkers undertook and completed.
The joint-aching chill of working in low-lying marshy areas on Ridley Plantation
in January and February and oftentimes in cold, cold March was assuaged by
stockings, blankets, socks, gloves, tunics, shawls, shirts, and pantaloons
produced by Knitting Annie and her shadow, Sewing Annie. Knitting Annie had been
born to the tasks in production of garments for the Ridley slaves. Her mam, a
vague figure at the back of her thoughts, had labored upon a spinning loom. None
in their line had ever known work other than the needlework.
“Hunt and peck and Ginny crack corn, and hunt and peck and two and three and
four and …,” Knitting Annie sing-songed to pass the time and set the tone.
There was always the threat of fieldwork to keep them hard at their duties.
Knitting Annie carried needles and yarn in the deep pocket slit of her skirt and
worked upon these consistently when her hands were not otherwise engaged. Sewing
Annie adjusted the tempo of her needlework to that of her mentor. When Knitting
Annie worked calmly and contemplatively she set a similar pace for the girl. The
girl learned to speed her click-clacking when Mistress hovered, as Knitting
Annie was wont to do. Sewing Annie learned her figuring-a series of tallies with
her fingers-from Knitting Annie. Skilled tallying was the hallmark of Knitting
Annie’s work-nay, of any needleworker. So it could be said that she who had no
aptitude for tallying could never rise as a needleworker.
At noon, Mistress Ridley retired to her boudoir for rest. The two Annies worked
throughout the afternoon, though they allowed their fingers to move slowly
during this time. This was the time of day for which the Annies earned their
legend as the lucky ones who sat upon their duffs. Wary of being caught at a
nap, though, the older woman stayed alert as the child was allowed to drowse.
Knitting Annie dipped into the youngster’s lap from time to time and worked some
rows on the child’s assignments. And if the youngster’s work became knotted or
plagued by runners, the older woman picked up her slack for fear they would both
suffer. She had soft feelings for the little pup and nerves that craved after
calm.
Mistress did not rest for long of an afternoon. She would emerge after precisely
two hours’ doze and begin a supervisory circuit of the loom room. She measured
and counted the slave women’s output to certify that time had not been wasted.
“She’ll be watering the stock!” Mistress threatened when aging Knitting Annie’s
count fell. She said she’d put old Knitting Annie out in the barn to tote water
for the animals were she to get so old she couldn’t keep up. As the years
passed, the maturing Sewing Annie picked up her mentor’s slack when it came to
it. She carried along the old woman’s work that fell into her lap when the old
precious slumped forward and snored. Some nights the bone-tired girl advanced
Knitting Annie’s work while she slept just as the old woman had done for her.
She who had grown moderately tall and solid in the upper body and graceful and
dexterous in the hands let the older one rest in a chair and blow gas. Sewing
Annie worked ten more rows with her own eyes completely closed. The trick was
easily done. It became her habit to go some little bit more after she had said,
“Now is the time to stop.” It strengthened her to push on – to leave the work
well advanced for the next day before lying down to rest.
“My lap is bloody. I’m not expecting it. But my lap is got bloody. When I stan’
up I see the stain a big, pear-shape, red-brown mess on the front ma’ dress. A
funny kind o’ thing.” Knitting Annie had never been a chatterer, but she was a
dreamer and a dream interpreter. She had the habit of telling her dreams to
Sewing Annie. She woke up one morning talking and unable to stay still. “Name
ain’t no Annie. Ma’ name’s Abiba – Ah-beebaa,” she said. Knitting Annie showed
her gums, and her loose teeth clacked. She continued telling. “I was scared.
Good right to be. I look down in ma’ lap and I seen a white man’s head. That
what make the bloody stain and I thought it was the moon blood. I woked up
then.”
Sewing Annie thought that she ought not let the old woman sit upright and sleep.
She ought to be sure to lay her flat at night. They were tempting spirits to
invade an old woman’s dreams by leaving her upright through the dark night like
she was a sentry. The old one was becoming chatty, slow, and unproductive, and
she needed the night’s whole rest.
Some months after the dream visited Knitting Annie, a blacksmith helper was
brought to Ridley Plantation. Purchased to help the regular blacksmith, who had
taken ill, he was a man of medium build with large shoulders and arms, at the
end of which were hands shaped like mallets. These mallet hands were the main
reason Ridley purchased him: “A nigger with hands like that will be useful to a
blacksmith,” he had said upon first seeing the slave in the Charleston market.
Knitting Annie died-wound down like a clock-on a stuffy afternoon in the loom
room. The knitting she worked fell from her hands and her needles ceased sound.
Sewing Annie felt all the air leave her body at the realization that Knitting
Annie had gone. She sat and knitted a full five more rows before rising to call
others to account for the old precious.
The old woman had in her prime been an expert gang leader for sewing and
knitting, soap-making and yarn-dyeing. Her long suit was setting forth the steps
to a task and pressing the workers to it. Over her lifetime she had forgotten
more than the others had yet learned. Grief-stricken and shorthanded, Sewing
Annie faltered and production fell off. Two girls, yet too small for fieldwork,
became her assistants for toting and fetching. Neither of these children had
aptitude for needlework. Thus the workload for Sewing Annie was punishing after
the old woman’s death.
Added to this was numbness and confusion. The old woman had been her constant
and she felt like a stool that had lost a leg. She was impatient with sitting at
the weaving loom and walked back and forth making a circuit of the room that
she’d shared with the old woman-a room that now seemed shrunken. She stood at
the doorway and worked upon her knitting. As it grew, Annie wrapped the length
around her shoulders. She wore it as if it were her own shawl. Onlookers were
disturbed. They all believed it was bad luck for a needlewoman to wrap herself
in her own knitting while working on it.
Annie stood in the doorway and listened to the cadence of the blacksmith’s
blows. She recognized a love of regularity in the man who’d taken the place of
the deceased blacksmith. Two deaths-another one to come! The new head blacksmith
had a contemplative demeanor like hers. She heard it in the tone of his strokes.
He gained momentum on the regular and rising movements just as she was used to
doing. This was the technique that the old woman had taught her. He, too, could
endure for the long term, for he credited rest and recovery deep in his work. He
was productive as she was.
Old Knitting Annie had giggled when the young woman told her about dreaming of a
snake pit.
“You’re wanting a man. ‘Tis a plain dream of woman’s longing,” she’d said when
the tale came out. With the old woman gone, the yearning became keener.
“Your wrap is pretty, good woman,” the blacksmith said, surprising her. She
started, then came to herself and saw that she was standing in the doorway of
the blacksmith’s barn. He did not halt his strikes, but only looked at her when
he spoke.
When she came again to stand in the barn door and knit, he was alarmed for her
and also drawn to her. To protect her, he made a show of interest. He knew she’d
only come to listen to the doleful hammer strikes. But Mistress was liable to
think her gone from grief and sell her off. Bell grinned at her, though mostly
her head was hung down. It was an unusual courtship-this first feigned interest.
“You’re a pretty woman,” he said after some days of looking at her. “Prettier
than that shawl you’re doin’ up,” he said, laughing. Indeed he brought out the
bloom in her all at once with these words.
Permission was granted that the two could set up housekeeping in the cabin that
Sewing Annie had shared with Knitting Annie. Until they joined Field Annie’s
gang, the two little girls who worked with Sewing Annie had to stay with them.
It didn’t please Master Ridley for Bell and Annie to take up together. Some of
his slaves he didn’t want becoming permanent with anyone particular. It made it
messier when the time came for a sale.
When baby Gabriel was born, fears began to fidget in Sewing Annie. As hard as
she felt for Bell and feared a separation, she was ten times more bound to the
babe. When Ellen came three years later, there was an increase in nervousness
offset by a lulling into further happiness. The run of luck seemed to hold for
Sewing Annie.
There were evenings of Gabriel as a bandy-legged toddler sucking on a sugar tit
in the middle of the cabin floor. There were evenings of Ellen dandled on Bell’s
knee. There were hushed nights of Bell and Annie holding each other for dear
life and true pleasure. There were stolen moments at first light or deep dark
when Annie kneaded Bell’s shoulders. There were secret suppers of corn pone and
hog entrails and stolen delectables.
Bell yearned to formalize his relations with Annie. He wanted a marrying
ceremony. He wished to stand up in front of the folks and proclaim that Sewing
Annie was his woman and none other. He wanted to put a claim on his children.
Much of this feeling was on account of being the blacksmith on the place.
Working with the hammer was a point of distinction and it did raise Bell above
other hands. He appealed directly to Master Ridley, who respected the man’s
abilities but was leery. Bell pointed out to Master that he and Annie had stayed
together for a time and that they considered themselves to be good Christian
folks. Bell would have gone on to mention the children, but he cut his appeal
when he glimpsed the expression on Ridley’s face. Days after, it worried Bell
that he might have said too much to Master Ridley-that his reach had exceeded
his grasp.
Sewing Annie had seen the face, too. She’d stood at Bell’s left shoulder with
her head inclined tight to the floor. She would not presume to enter the
exchange between her man and her master. She turned herself to salt to remain
there to listen and know. Her eyeballs swept from one side to the other without
moving the lids, straining to interpret the faces of Bell and Master Ridley. She
saw Ridley’s displeasure and felt fearful.
Bell, expert at talking with the hammer, anvil, and bellows, was smart enough to
know to clamp down and be dumb around the top folks. He said no more about
marrying.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Stand the Storm
by Breena Clarke
Copyright © 2008 by Breena Clarke.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Little, Brown
Copyright © 2008
Breena Clarke
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-316-00704-7
