Names in a Hat
Inspired by teenager Maria Lewis’s Civil War escape from enslavement
The white stallion’s muscles moved rhythmically under her. His rumbling hooves stirred up the only breeze blowing across the harvested ground. As the fieldstone wall loomed up, sweat dripped down and burned Lydia’s eyes. She knew the danger of jumping the stone wall but trusted the horse. There was freedom in being airborne, no matter how short lived. Pegasus, neglected since the Colonel’s death two days earlier, hankered for the jump as much as she did. Neither the other enslaved people, busy at work, nor the master’s family crying over the Colonel’s open grave would know. She and Pegasus craved this. They jumped.
As Lydia neck-reined the white stallion back for another go at the wall, a distant hunting horn rasped its warning blare. While waiting back at the stable, Caesar must have seen the funeral party cresting the hill.
“Just once more, Pegasus,” she whispered, her bare feet goading him forward for their final flight.
As Lydia and Pegasus reached the stable door, bandy-legged Caesar ran up, his legs see-sawing with the effort. Caesar snatched Pegasus’ halter.
“You best git them britches off and git back into your dress, girl. You know Miz Thornton don’t ’prove of you wearin’ pants. And now the Colonel’s passed…”
Lydia scurried off to an empty stall where a cotton dress hung from the hay rack. Fifteen now, a few months earlier she’d switched from the short shifts of girlhood to long dresses. Her passage to womanhood signaled by the change in clothing, she soon would be expected to start bearing children. Lydia peeled off the homespun britches she’d found in the ragbag, stuffing them behind some buckets. Hoping she didn’t smell too “horsey” and tying a yellow head cloth over her coppery ringlets, she strode off to the summer kitchen to help.
Set back from Chestnut Grove’s main house, the small summer kitchen buzzed with activity.
“Here, Lydia, take this platter in and put it on the sideboard… and where have you been?” sputtered Aunty Beebee.
Aunty pulled a perfectly browned apple pie out of the oven. Golden juice bubbled up from the vent holes cut in the crust. Wartime shortages could not dampen the Colonel’s funeral meal.
