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O UR P LAN TO W ORK
8

    A FTER A WEEK OF KEEPING FIRES GOING ALL THE time in the main house and in one of the slave cabins, Katie said to me, “This is too much work. We’re going to run out of wood and kindling and matches. Why do we have to keep doing this and putting clothes out on the line if nobody’s watching?”
    “ ’Cause we don’t know when somebody might be,” I said.
    “Why don’t we just get it ready, then, and do it when we need to?”
    “Because by the time they come, it’d be too late. We couldn’t do it after they were already here.”
    Then suddenly it dawned on me that we had a big problem—what if anyone caught sight of Emma and William in the main house? Then we’d be in a fix for sure! The crazy way Emma carried on, no one would ever believe her for a house slave.
    “Miss Katie,” I said, “what are we gonna do about Emma if someone comes?”
    “Why can’t she just hide in the house?” said Katie.
    “What if William starts fussing or crying? Or what if Emma gets scared and starts yelling and babbling like she sometimes does and we can’t shut her up?”
    Katie thought a minute.
    “I don’t know, Mayme,” she said finally. “But you’re right—we’ll have to do something with her if anyone comes.”
    Our talk put an idea into my head a little while later. We could set a fire all ready to go in one of the slave cabins and maybe in the blacksmith’s shop. Then if anyone came, I’d run down and light it and then come back pretending to be coming from the colored village. If and when Emma got her strength back, she’d be a big help too.
    “And we can do the same with a basket of laundry,” said Katie. “And let’s hitch up a horse and buggy outside so it’ll look like my mama’s fixing to go someplace.”
    For the next several days we thought of more things like that, making plans and practicing what we would do the next time we had a visitor. We planned and practiced other stuff too, thinking of what we would do when somebody came, how we’d explain ourselves.
    “But, Mayme,” said Katie after a while, “we’re going to wear ourselves out.”
    “Emma will be able to help us directly,” I said.
    “Not very directly. She’s still so scrawny and weak and needs all her energy just to keep William alive with her mother’s milk.”
    “I reckon you’re right,” I said. “She ain’t likely gonna be much help till we manage to get some meat on her bones, and who knows how long she’ll be here anyway with those men she says are after her.”
    It was a good thing that we’d come up with a few plans, though we still didn’t know what we’d do with Emma and William.
    One morning I was coming back from the barn and heard a bee buzzing around up in the rafters. Probably a bee’s nest, I thought, looking up wondering where it was. Then the words came back into my mind from the old poem I used to hear the men singing. Pretty soon I was singing it myself as I walked toward the house.
    “De ole bee make de honeycomb,
    De young bee make de honey,
    De niggers make de cotton en’ co’n,
    En’ de w’ite folks gits de money.”
    I smiled to myself. I sure wasn’t making any cotton or corn, and Katie wasn’t getting any money!
    “De raccoon totes a bushy tail,
    De ’possum totes no ha’r,
    Mr. Rabbit, he comes skippin’ by,
    He ain’t got none ter spar’.”
    But I didn’t have time for any more of the verses.
    Because just like we knew would happen, all of a sudden I heard a sound. I looked behind me and saw a covered wagon with painted writing on the side coming slowly, rattling along the road from the direction of town.
    Two people were sitting in front. The minute I saw them I forgot all about bees and cotton. I ran straight for the house.
    “Who’s that?” I said as I ran inside, then turned and looked out the window. Katie ran to my side.
    “It’s the ice delivery man, I think,” she said, squinting to look.
    “Will he come to the back