Sparrow

The sun was setting high in the molasses sky, and I caressed the curve of my belly. The scar on my arm from the beating by Hogeboom burned like an insignia; the pain pulsating through my body. She kicked right then. Hard in the stomach. In that moment, I understood that she felt it too. Lord, long before her eyes could see, she was already blinded. I don’t know if it was the kick or the pain that made me do it, but it struck me hard like a hammer, “Her life ain’t be made for no manacles.”

The Ashleys were a little softer on me on account of my condition, so in the evenings I was afforded resting time. But there weren’t no resting. Seemed to me that if you understood what them symbols meant, you had half a shot at something. And my girl was gonna damn well have half a shot at something. Best I got to give her in this world.

Years later, Little Bett was in the kitchen, doing nothing of nothing that I could see, and Miss Ashley took a swipe at her with a hot iron. She got me instead. But the thing is, at the same time, the paper fell off the table.

“The Sheffield Declaration,” it read.

I snuck back later when things had calmed some:

Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty, and property.

I scoffed. What a pile of hooey. Got me to thinking, though.

Theodore Sedgwick, they mentioned in the paper. I knew right there and then in the candlelight of that hellhole kitchen what I was gonna do. And I was damn sure hell taking Brom and Little Bett with me. I stole the pen and paper right out of Master Ashley’s bureau.

Master Sedgwick, bless his soul, ripped them right apart in that courthouse. I’d never seen nothing like it in my life. All eyes on me and Brom as he spoke. Test case, he said we were. But I didn’t care. I knew as well as I knew the setting sun. We was on the right side of the law.

I walked in there that day, Mum Bett, and I walked right on out Elizabeth Freeman. Free as the swallows singin’ in the mornin’.

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Based on a true story. You can read more about Elizabeth Freeman here: