The bearded man’s ragged uniform and battered army boots told Alvah most of what he wanted to know. He kneeled down beside the child.

‘Mama makes a baked potata – mama bakes—’

‘Quiet,’ Alvah said, laying his head against the bib of the child’s overall. The little boy held still. Alvah thumped him on the chest and then on the back.

‘Kinda small,’ Alvah said. He pressed open the child’s mouth and peered at his teeth. ‘Ain’t no six years old. Four at most.’

The veteran said nothing.

Alvah got to his feet. ‘Fifteen dollars,’ he said.

The veteran looked down at the child, up at Alvah and back to the child again. Then he nodded.

Benbow drew a sheet of paper out from under his till and bent down to write. The veteran watched without moving. The little boy danced around, peeking into sacks, squeezing himself between barrels, chattering as before. Then Benbow said, ‘What this document says is this: “For a payment of $15 to Daniel Carrick, Private, US Army, the boy Jonathan Carrick is bound out to Alvah Stoke until the boy is age 21 years.”’ Benbow glanced at each of the men in turn. ‘“When 21 years, he gets $25 and a saddle. Signed Alvah Stoke and Daniel Carrick.” Acceptable?’

Both men nodded.

‘Well then, that’s official. Sign here, Alvah.’ Alvah lettered his name. ‘And here, Daniel Carrick.’ The soldier drew a cross.

So it was that my grandfather was sold and bought as a slave, and so it is that I, who am as white as they come, can lay claim to kinship with most American blacks. There are many others like me: bounding out – although comfortably forgotten these days – was a common practice in its time. There’s more than just the fact of slavery, too: my family tree stops short at this deed of purchase. Nobody ever located the bearded man again. Nobody even knows for sure that Daniel Carrick was his name.

Alvah took his new acquisition out to the wagon. As he drove away he found doubts forming. Why had the veteran been so willing? The more he thought the more it seemed to him that the veteran might have taken ten dollars, maybe even less. He certainly needn’t have committed himself to that saddle. He began to feel he’d been cheated.

Jonathan sat in the back of the wagon, arranging and rearranging a few bits of stray hay in front of him. ‘Clip, clop, wagon hop,’ he sang. ‘Hip, hop—’

‘Shut up,’ Alvah said.

Jonathan fell silent, but a few minutes later he began again softly. ‘Never stop. Never, never – never, never—’

Alvah’s children didn’t chatter that way. Not Alyoshus or Cathern or George. Suppose the boy was unhinged. Weak-minded. Alvah had read stories about boys who set fire to haystacks and did no work.

‘Shut up,’ he shouted, turning from his reins to clout the child across the ear. He slipped as he turned, and the blow was harder than he’d intended. Jonathan let out a yelp and began to bleed from the mouth.