I keep me distance, but is close enough to hear what they talk bout. Mister Buchanan is what Massa call a master stone-builder. Him live in Falmouth, one of the big towns in the north, and many plantations have need of him services. Specially after a hurricane hit the island. It happened one year back. Most times them storms blow over before them reach us, not this time. This time it hit us and it was a big one.

Before it reach us, we collected water, candles, filled the lanterns, put aside food. Locked the shutters tight, on all the window them in the Great House, batten everything down. Busha Davis and Winston rounded up all the field slave them, locked them in the sick house and the mill. Our little family was safe enough inside the Great House kitchen. Two days and nights we huddled together. Listened as the rain pounded, the shutters rattled even though they been boarded up. The wind screaming like it wounded. When the eye passed over, everything turned to calm and stillness and Massa told Eliza to run fetch Sydney, so she can come calm down Mistress Margaret, hold her hand, put lavender oil on her temples. As to Massa and Busha, them wiped away worry by playing cards and drinking rum.

When the hurricane moved on and we went outside, all you saw was a world of destruction. And no matter where you walked, every where was mud and more mud. Massa just kept shaking him head, him face getting tighter and paler as him saw how the river rose so high it mashed down the bridge. The garden torn to pieces. Even the side wall of the Great House damaged, had a big crack. And that wall is six inches thick. When we make it to the canefield them, every one of the plants torn up, flattened, and I saw tears trickling down Massa face.

Finally we made it to the slave village. The damage even worse. Provision grounds uprooted, broken, washed away covered in a river of sludge. Most huts destroyed with all the slave possessions gone, blown to parts unknown. Was bad, that hurricane. Old woman and a pickney dead because of it. I never heard so much wailing.

Took a whole year to fix up the plantation, replant the canefield them, build new village huts, before Massa start looking to repair the Great House. Is why him hire Mister Buchanan and, if I learn good, I going gain a skill, working with stone.