Read The Emancipation of Robert Sadler for Free Online

floor.
    I heard her say in a trembling voice to Father, “They look half dead, Jim, half dead shor ’nuff.”

4
    Our happiness at being free and home again didn’t last. Rosie did not let us rest for a minute. She was glad to have Pearl back so she had someone to do her work for her, and Pearl set to work immediately cleaning, cooking, washing, and tending the garden. I was so happy to be home that I did my chores eagerly and without complaining. Father seldom spoke to us. Then, not even a week after we had been home, Rosie started telling him lies about us again.
    â€œThey’s stealin food!”
    â€œThey be underfoot!”
    â€œThem chillrens is lazy, no-good, that’s the God hepp me truth!”
    â€œThey’s just plain devilment!”
    Pearl and I were hurt and angry that Rosie would lie about us that way, especially when we worked so hard for her.
    Mealtime was once again cornmeal mush, which we ate with our fingers while Rosie and her boys ate at the table. Pearl and I would take our bowls and sit on the steps outside and eat. Pearl would talk about Mama, Ella, and Margie, so’s I wouldn’t forget. She comforted me, telling me we would see Margie again, and we would talk about our other brothers and sisters who were now gone and far away. Then she would talk about heaven, where Mama and Ella were right now dancing with Jesus. Tears would roll down my face as Pearl would tell me stories about how Mama was singing to Ella and how happy they were with Jesus.
    â€œThey is no slaves in heaven, chile,” she would explain, “and they is always plenty to eat.”
    When she saw my questioning face, she answered as though she knew what I wanted to ask.
    â€œOh, Robert, it be in the Bible, that’s what I heard!”
    The Bible. The Bible. I remembered Mama telling me in the field that day long ago that I must learn how to read so I could read to her from the Bible. Pearl couldn’t read or write, and I had never even seen a book. I had no idea what the Bible was, but I nodded to Pearl so she wouldn’t worry about me being ignorant.
    Father stayed away most of the nights and when he came home, he was always drunk and he fought with Rosie.
    We were home about two weeks when Father called me to run an errand.
    â€œTake this here sack and buy some cornmeal from Zeke, boy.”
    Zeke Miller’s cabin was about a mile away across the creek and over the field.
    I took the small cloth bag and headed through the garden down a footpath in the direction of the creek. Pearl was gathering sticks in the wooded area behind our shanty. When I went past her, she jumped at me playfully, whirling me around to tickle me. We tumbled together, laughing and getting dirty in the red dust of the earth. Lying together under the blue sky all out of breath, I looked at her face and kissed her dusty cheek and said my first words in almost six months. “Pearl, yoll shure be pretty.”
    Pearl sat upright in the dirt.
    â€œYou talked! You talked! Jesus, mah Robert done talked!” A joy filled her face that I had not seen since before Mama died.
    I was so happy as I ran down to the creek’s edge, I felt like flying. I could talk! I didn’t dare try it again for fear of sounding like mush, but I couldn’t forget the look on Pearl’s face. I had made her happy, genuinely happy, and I believed in my heart that everything was going to be all right after all.
    The creek was lonely and still. The water moved lazily along in the heat of the midmorning, the sun dancing off its surface making patterns and shiny shapes. After a few minutes of wading, I climbed the far bank and headed through the field toward Zeke’s shanty. When I arrived I knocked on the wooden door frame. Zeke’s wife called, “Yoll come in!” I entered the room and held out the little sack and grunted. I was afraid to try to talk, afraid it wouldn’t work.
    â€œWhat you want,