home.”
“Oh stop being ornery, you and your ‘Miz Olivia.’ You know what I mean.
Would you know how to pick out a good pair and what you should pay for
them?”
“Spose so.”
“You listen to me, Mourning Free. You can be as cantankerous as you want,
but you know you can trust me. And I don’t mind telling you, I haven’t been able to think of anyone else that I would want to do this with. You’ve got to think about it. You’ll never have another chance like this. It’s true that you’ll be
the one doing most of the hard work, but I’ll help with whatever I can. You can
boss me. I surely know you’d like that.”
He grinned. “Boss you? That sound like the hardest part a your plan.”
“Seriously, Mourning, I’ll do the cooking and the laundry. Milk the cow when
we get one. Raise some chickens. Just like a regular farmer’s wife. Like I said,
you can use whatever money we make to buy your own land, until you’ve got
forty acres of your own. After that, if you want, I’ll pay you a fair wage to keep on working mine. Or at least to oversee whoever I hire.”
“Black man overseein’ a white one. That indeed be a pretty picture. You got
me bossin’ white folks ever which way,” Mourning said, but his easy grin turned
to a look of fierce concentration and he sat silently studying the grain of the wooden table.
Olivia waited a few minutes before speaking again. This time her tone of
voice assumed it was decided. “If all sorts of things do go wrong and we don’t
make any money … well, you work out what would be a fair wage for each
month you worked and I’ll pay it to you. There won’t be any way you can lose.”
She paused to let this idea sink in before continuing. “There’s all sorts of land out there, Mourning. Once you get your own place going, you can keep buying
more and more. They practically give it away. You’ll have your own quarter
section in no time.” This was another stretcher. In fact she hadn’t the slightest idea what the current price of land in Michigan was, nor how much of it there was for sale. But all those steamboats full of eager immigrants must mean
something.
Finally he spoke. “I always knowed you was strange, but that some crazy
idea, even for you. You best stay here in your daddy’s house and read your books.” But his tone of voice had changed and Olivia thought she had him.
“It’s not a crazy idea, Mourning. Who do you think goes to places like that,
anyway? People like us. People with nothing, looking for a chance to get
something. It’s not my daddy’s house any more. It belongs to Avis now and I need something of my own. Look at the people around here who’ve got money –
they’re the ones whose family came when there was nothing and made
something out of it. Just like all the people going to Michigan now.”
“You ain’t done a day’s hard work in your life. You got no idea what you
talkin’ about. You tryin’ to tell me you gonna chop firewood and haul water?
Sew your own clothes? Churn butter?”
“I can do those things, Mourning. I know I can. I’m young and healthy. I
know it’ll be hard, but when a person wants something badly enough, they can
do anything. I’ll get used to whatever I have to. And we aren’t going out into the
wilderness. There’s a town nearby, with stores. We’ll be able to buy most of those things.”
“What about your brothers? They gonna be comin’ after me with all the rope
