“You have other things. You think better than practically anyone else I know. Except Aunt Pea and Uncle Joshua.”

He laughed. By then he knew about her Aunt Pea and Uncle Joshua. She talked about her life in Savannah to him sometimes when she found herself missing it. “Better than your sister?”

“She doesn’t think at all. Poor dear would be better off if she did. Or maybe not. She likes not to know things, she says, until they happen.”

“Ask me a question.”

“What is nine times seven?”

“Sixty-three,” he said instantly.

“That was always one of the hardest for me to remember.”

“You’ve told me,” he said. “That’s why I never forget it.”

“What’s the population of Savannah?”

“Ten thousand.”

She shrugged. “That isn’t thinking, you know. That’s merely information.” They walked on. After a little time Sarah said, “Do you know that in addition to thinking well, you are also a handsome boy?”

He stopped, and his face registered denial, anger, and embarrassment. He turned away from her and ran. She ran after him and caught him. “Have I ever told you a lie?” she asked, her tone vexed.

“I was little when Mama first stood me in front of the mirror and said, ‘Look at ugly you!’”

“Your mama is wrong.” Sarah turned and walked away from him. When he followed, she stopped and waited, not smiling. He came up, and she put out her hand. He took it, and they walked back to the house.

Seeing a child with a grown person makes other children curious. Those at Beulah Land began to hang about when Sarah and Roman sat together on the back steps looking through old schoolbooks she’d had Aunt Pea send her from Savannah. The brighter ones picked up words and facts and figures, and began to chant them in imitation of Roman, both for the fun of it and to get Sarah’s attention.

Sarah invited them to come closer, and that is how her school evolved. It was never a school in a formal sense, with regular classes and schedule. Roman fell into the habit of waiting for Sarah on the back porch after breakfast, and when she was not required to be occupied otherwise, she joined him, and they walked about together, through the yards of the slave quarters, through the kitchen garden and orchard, along the edge of a field, into the woods. Soon, instead of their being just Sarah and Roman, they were more often a troop.