Catherine's Cross by Millie West

at me–tells me they taking they due.
    Ida Mae stuck her head in the door and asked, “Where are you in de journals?”
    â€œI’m to the part where the Federal Navy takes control of Beaufort. Ida Mae, how was your ancestor able to hide these journals and keep them secret?”
    â€œHe only work on dem by firelight and he have a hiding place behind some hearth stones. Mus’ have been a good hidin’ spot ’cause no one find dem.”
    She smiled as she left the room, closing the door behind her.
    Jenks opened the next book, and it began in 1862.
    Scipio has been down to the wharf at Port Royal and says that some of the Federal soldiers are looking for valets to assist them. We both small for our age and he say that we should go down and talk to them. One of them was nice to him. He an officer from New York. The next day we go down to Port Royal and Scipio point out this man and we go talk to him. He say that he and another officer want valets, but he can only pay a little. I get real excited at the thought of wages. The food is running out at Andrews Hall and I think I like this idea of working for pay.
    She thumbed through the journal until she came to another legible entry.
    Several days a week ships sail from Port Royal carrying cargo to the north. Scipio and me listen to some soldiers talking on the wharf and we hear one say. “I ship a sterling tea set and whole set of silver to my wife in Massatusets.” Then he start laughing. After this when I am not working for Leutenant Jeffrey I watch some of the items being put on ships bound for the north. I see one ship being loaded and I swear I see a fine rug that was in Missus Andrews parlor. I think she call it orental. I consider stealing a sin, but they just beat me or worse if I say sumthing.
    In the spring there was an emotional entry about the Andrews family.
    Scipio and I go to Andrews Hall one afternoon after work is finish for the soldiers. The big house is wide open and workers are living in the rooms. I look in the front door and there must be tweny folk inside two rooms. I don’t even know some of them. Then I see James. He had gone with Missus Andrews when she went to Columbia. I ask him what he doing back here and he say that news is everywhere bout the Federals being in Beaufort and he want freedom. He say he run away from Missus Andrews and he say most of the people here are run aways. Then he takes my hands in his. I see scars from all the work he has done in the fields and I feels his coarse skin.
    He say Joseph I got something to tell you and it goin make you real sad. He tell me that Master Preston and his father was killed in Virginia. I can hardly keep tears back but I thank him for telling me and then I go to my cabin to cry. There is a woman with two small children where my famly live and I tell her this is my home but we can share. She suckle the baby and go and sit in one corner. I fight the tears I feel for Master Preston.
    Jenks rose from her chair and stretched her muscles. The clock on the kitchen wall read three forty-five, and she knew that Ida Mae and Meta would be finishing their work soon. She walked to the kitchen sink and placed the empty plate and milk glass in the sink. Sitting back down at the table, she looked through the entries until she came to a recording in August.
    There been a gale blowing for the last day and I hear the soldiers say the winds been steady around twenty knots and out of the south. The storm come from the tropics. Scipio and me sleep on the wharf underneath a tarp. We in between pallets of cargo bound for the north and we stay real dry. Around mid afternoon we hear two soldiers talking. They don’t know we there so they at ease. I hear one of them say that Colonel Hubbard shipping some real nice jewelry to his wife in Boston. The other one says it come from one of the wealthiest plantations in the area on the May River.
    After a while they stop and we start to go