Chapter 3 THE SWIMMING HOLE
Chapter 3 THE SWIMMING HOLE Chapter 3 THE SWIMMING HOLE Papa purchased their land for five dollars down and three dollars a month till it was paid off. They parked the cart dead center, and Maisie set up housekeeping around it. "Mama always said, 'Home is where the heart is,'" Papa reminded her. "This will serve us fine until I find work and we can start building." After church on Sunday, Papa had good news. They were hiring men to tap the pines for turpentine, and once the weather turned co
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Chapter 3 THE SWIMMING HOLE
Chapter 3 THE SWIMMING HOLE
Papa purchased their land for five dollars down and three dollars a month till it was paid off.They parked the cart dead center, and Maisie set up housekeeping around it.
"Mama always said, 'Home is where the heart is,'" Papa reminded her."This will serve us fine until I find work and we can start building."
After church on Sunday, Papa had good news.They were hiring men to tap the pines for turpentine,and once the weather turned cold and the sap stopped running,the preacher had promised to hire him to help build the new parsonage.
Romeo stopped by and invited Maisie to the local swimming hole,where they found Tillie and Hattie already splashing each other in the shallows.Romeo set off running and leaped high, catching a rope dangling from a branchand swinging into the middle of the pond with a gleeful shout.
The three girls waded in up to their knees.Tillie and Hattie stopped a few feet from the bank, but Hattie grinned and waved Maisie on ahead.
"Wait!" Tillie shouted, but it was too late. The bottom dropped out and Maisie sank like a stone.She surfaced spluttering and fighting to prevent her dress from floating up to her ears.
"Wasn't that the funniest thing ever?" Hattie hooted, but when Tillie and Romeo splashed in to check on Maisie,she huffed like a black bear with a muzzle full of skunk spray.
Maisie spent half the walk back to town wringing water out of her skirtand the other half thinking about retaliation.
When they reached the general store, Romeo broke into her vengeful thoughts.
"You know, Mr. Clarke just about built this town singlehanded.If he hadn't talked that Mayor Eaton over in Maitland into selling off his family's land,there never would have been an Eatonville."
"And Mr. Lincoln?" Hattie put her hands on her hips."I think he might have had a thing or two to do with it.The Emancipation Proclamation says, 'All persons held as slaves within any statewhereabouts the people be in rebellion against the United States shall be thenceforth and forever after free.'"
"I wonder if President Lincoln ever imagined anything like Eatonville."Romeo opened his arms wide, taking in the stores, the church house, the cozy homes, and most of all,the black families strolling down the street, masters of all they surveyed.
