“I am happy they are not here, then,” she said with a frown.

“Don’t worry it so, Puss.” He cupped the back of her head with his hand and bending, kissed her on the brow.

“You smell of fur,” she said. “What did you kill?”

“Only a very old stag—half blind, and a crippled turkey gobbler. I assure you it was a favor to them to be helped out of this life.”

“You’re teasing me because I don’t like your killing things.”

“There’ll be roast venison for supper. Ezra is dressing the stag now.”

“Papa, I worry about you.”

“Do you, Pussy?”

Leon came flying down the stairs, stopping abruptly when he saw his father. After greeting him, he turned to Selma. “We’d best go, we’re late.”

“I’m ready. Plumboy brought the cart around quite some time ago.”

“Go on, both of you,” Arnold said. “And behave yourselves. Try to learn something. I want to hear each of you recite a new poem tonight.”

A week or so later Flossie performed the disservice to the household of marrying a man named Monday Kendrick who belonged to Oaks. Monday’s father had been a slave of Arnold’s father and therefore taken his last name, being sold to Oaks when he married one of their kitchen workers. The slaves of the two plantations sometimes married each other, and when this happened, Arnold and Benjamin arranged an exchange, so that a married couple would not be separated.

The marriage took place in the dining room of Beulah Land, and Arnold Kendrick read the marriage service as he had done before when any of the house servants or other favored slaves were married. Because Monday Kendrick was a man Benjamin did not want to lose, it had been decided that Flossie would go to Oaks in exchange for a seamstress whose skills Deborah had long coveted.

Flossie was married in a new dress bought and sewn for her by Deborah, who had trained her and had a special regard for her. They both cried when Flossie rode away with Monday in the wagon he had brought from Oaks. She carried ten dollars Deborah had given her as a present, a coop of twelve chickens Arnold had presented to the couple, her clothes, pots, pans, and quilts and an uncut wedding cake, one of the dozen that had been baked to celebrate the event. The others had been eaten with fresh sugar-cane juice, the main quantity of which was even now cooking into syrup, giving the crisp air a sweet smell. There had been much joking and laughter before the tears as the couple rode off to Oaks in the wagon.

18