stones on the river the way you do.”
He nodded and grinned, then turned to frown at her. “And you ain’t gonna tell
nobody ’bout me bein’ here?”
“No. I won’t tell. Cross my heart.” She made a large X over her chest with her right hand. “I have to go home now.” She picked up the basket.
“See you later,” he said.
“Bye.”
She started walking away, then stopped and turned around. “Mourning?”
“What?”
“How come you didn’t hide from me?”
He stared at her for a few moments. “Don’t know. Just dint think I had to.”
She hadn’t planned on going back. She couldn’t take things from home
without asking permission; that would be stealing. But back in her room she
couldn’t stop thinking about how cold it had been last night. Finally she got the
gray blanket, threw it out her window, and ran downstairs and outside to hide it
in the bushes at the back of the house. She felt terribly guilty until she remembered the time she had heard the grown-ups talking. They said the slave-catchers called the abolitionists thieves because they helped slaves get away. But
Mrs. Brewster said that wasn’t stealing at all, that was a very good deed; they were helping poor black souls who were escaping from vile evil-doers. So
somehow Olivia mixed it up in her mind and exonerated herself. Mourning was,
after all, poor, black, and running away. So taking things to help him wouldn’t really be stealing.
Once she began her spree of crime, she was surprised by how easy it was. She
simply waited until Mrs. Hardaway was hanging laundry out back and filled her
basket with apples, bread, and small amounts of smoked fish and venison. When
she thought of Mourning all alone in the dark she added some candles and
matches. Then she stood by the front door, waiting to hear Mrs. Hardaway come
back in. When the back door banged Olivia fled with her picnic basket, ran
behind the house to retrieve the blanket, and set off to find Mourning.
Since it was still light she didn’t think he would have gone to the barn yet, so
she returned to the river. The breeze had picked up and a ribbon of gold
shimmered across the water. She gave a loud whistle and then began singing
“Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,” in case Mourning might be afraid to come out
and see who was whistling.
He emerged from behind a stand of bushes. She handed him the blanket and
held up one of the wooden flaps of the basket to show him the food. Then she pulled out her slate, which she had added at the last minute.
“What that for?” He nodded at it.
“Well, I got to thinking, about how you’ve never gone to school,” Olivia said.
“You know, a person can’t do much in life without knowing how to read.” She
quoted Miss Evans. “So I’d better teach you your letters. One every day. We’ll
start with ‘L’ because it’s a real easy one. In return you’ve got to teach me how
to skip stones like you promised. Five whole skips.”
Mourning survived on Olivia’s pilfered offerings for four days. Then he
finally showed himself on Main Street. In a town like Five Rocks, in which
