“Mr. Sitwell?”
He turned around and saw Frederick standing behind his chair.
“We’re running out of bicarbonate. And I heard Mrs. Lawson say something about needing more bluing for the wash. And it occurred to me that perhaps you might like some fertilizer. You want me to ask Miss Mamie if she don’t mind letting us go to the market to pick that up for you? I mean if you want it now. That way we can just go out and get it all at once.”
Mr. Sitwell squinted at the peculiar phrasing of the offer.
“I take it all three of you must go?”
“Yes, sir. Take three to carry all that,” Frederick said. “Also, it’s Colored Day at the fair. Don’t come but once a month and we already missed the last four. They keep changing the day, for some reason. Thought maybe we could stop by on our way to the market. I figured if I said you needed us to go, Miss Mamie’s bound to say it’s okay.”
Frederick smiled. The boy was just so clever. Mr. Sitwell couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“Alright. But I want all of you to come outside with me for a minute first. We need to talk.”
“We do something wrong?”
“No, I just want to talk.”
He walked out to the yard. The three boys came out to the back porch and sat in a row along the bottom step.
“I’m curious to find out how much thought you boys have given to what you will do when you reach maturity.”
“What do you mean ‘maturity’?” Mac asked.
“Well, when it’s time for you to leave here, of course. It must have occurred to you that Mr. Barclay couldn’t possibly afford to keep all three of you on indefinitely. Have you thought about what you will do then?”
The boys shook their heads. “No.”
“But it’s important.”
“We’re just happy to be here now,” Frederick said. “Try not to muck it up with thinking too much.”
They all nodded as if it were agreed: they must not muck it up with thinking.
Mr. Sitwell frowned. “Well, you have to think. Even if the Barclays did let you stay, eventually you’ll get too big for the room downstairs. What if one of you was to meet a nice girl?”
To his chagrin, the boys began to blush.
Bart giggled. “Well, sir, I guess the other two would just have to scooch over and make room. . . .”
“I’m serious. You’ll be adults one day, sooner than you think. What happens when you find yourself grown men, trying to make it out there on your own?”
The boys were still jostling and pinching one another, thinking about the imaginary woman coming to join them in the cellar. For a moment it actually made Mr. Sitwell angry. He could not, for the life of him, remember ever having been so young.
“Stop that now. I’m trying to help you. I’m telling you it will happen. And when it does, you’ll wish you’d thought about it, you’ll wish you’d been prepared. You can’t spend the rest of your lives sleeping on a cot in some white man’s cellar.”
“We know that, sir. But we just want to stay together,” Mac said. “Long as we stick together, figure we’ll be alright. . . .”
All three of them nodded in agreement. He could tell they were serious and something occurred to him that hadn’t before: the likelihood that, if one of them were sent away, the other two might very well go with him, in solidarity.
This thought so upset him that his hands were shaking as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few coins.
“Take this.” He nodded. “We’ll discuss this again later. Go ahead and tell Miss Mamie I need you to go. But don’t dawdle. You can stop by the fair if you want, but you can’t stay all day. I expect you back in three hours. Tonight’s dinner is very important.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sitwell. And don’t worry. We won’t be late.”
They ran off toward the driveway.
“You gave those boys good counsel, Sitwell.”
When he turned around, Jennie was sitting on a stump near the water pump, watching him.
“Imagine they do well to listen to you.”
Mr. Sitwell nodded and said nothing. He was still confused by what had happened the night before. He’d done something wrong, offended her, when that was the last thing he’d wanted to do.
“I mean that. You’re one of those decent men I’ve heard stories about, aren’t you? Walking ladies to their door. Passing out money to orphan children . . . Just all around decent.” She frowned. “I feel like I wasn’t half as decent to you last night. Made me nervous, is all, having you at my door like that. I don’t like things to get too mixed up.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I’ve got work and I’ve got my life at home. I try to keep the two separate. Because as strange as it might seem to you, I’ve never actually worked in a white man’s house before. Just trying to be careful is all. Can’t always tell when I’m about to offend somebody around here.”
“What did you do before?”
“Honestly? I was a cakewalk delineator.”
“What’s that?”
“A performer, Sitwell.” Jennie stretched her arms out in a sudden graceful movement and bowed her head. “Toured with Happy Hillman’s Baby Blackbirds for seven years. Came here to do The Creole Show. You see that?”
“No.”
“Well, that figures. Anyhow, when they left, I stayed.” She sighed. “Miss Mamie took a chance hiring me, I do realize that. I’m just trying to fit in.”
“Well, you seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what you’re fitting into.”
“That occurred to me last night as well.”
Mr. Sitwell shook his head. “I never would have thought something bad about you for having a child, Jennie. Hope you know that. Just surprised me is all.”
“I believe you. Truth is you have been nothing but nice to me since I got here. And that’s why I wanted to apologize. While I still have the chance.”
“What’s that mean? You going somewhere?”
“Maybe.” Jennie shrugged. “I don’t know. Honestly, I wasn’t planning on letting Mamie down quite so soon. But then she gives me this.” She held up a piece of paper.
“What’s that?”
“I do believe it’s a shopping list.”
“Can’t you read it?”
“Yes, I can read it. I just don’t understand half of what it says.” She looked down at the paper. “What on earth is a mirliton, Mr. Sitwell? You ever heard of that?”
“Of course I have. Must be something she’s got planned for when the Southerners come back for dinner on Friday,” Mr. Sitwell said. “Didn’t Mamie explain about the shopping to you?”
The shopping would have needed explaining. Mamie knew that. But maybe she was getting tired of trying to explain things.
“Would you like me to go with you to the market?”
“Would you do that? Could you do that?”
“I could.”
“And you won’t get in trouble for leaving?”
He smiled. “I’m the groundskeeper. Nobody knows what I do around here all day, unless something goes wrong. And it won’t. So let’s go.”