The Book of Lost Friends(61)

She lifts her skinny shoulders, keeps lacing up her shoes. “If you were to purchase your land, for instance, and there would, of course, be a paper requiring signature, how would one, unable to read the paper, avoid being hoodwinked?”

She’s a smart-mouth little thing. Full up with herself. I think I liked her better when she was sickly. Quiet.

“Well, now that is the dumbest question. I’d just ask somebody to read it for me. Somebody I know’s truthful. Save taking the time to learn reading, just for one little paper.”

“But in what way would you be assured of the faithfulness of this person?”

“Well, ain’t you a suspicious little thing? There’s people that can be trustable for reading. Colored folks, even. More all the time, with them teachers from up north coming down and setting up the colored schools. Why, you can’t turn over a rock these days, but you find somebody who can read.” Truth is, though, Old Missus don’t tolerate her people having to do with carpetbaggers or northerner teachers.

“And one might read for pleasure, as well. Enjoy stories.”

“Ffff! I’d as soon somebody tell me a good tale. I know plenty of them kind. Tales from my mama, tales from Tati and the old folk. Some of them tales been told to me over clothes that was being sewed for you. I could sit right here and speak a dozen, just out of my head.”

For the first time, she looks at me interested, but we ain’t going to be together long enough for stories. I want no more to do with this business or her and Missy Lavinia, once we get back to Goswood Grove.

I finish up with my shoes. “Now, what’s the words in our shoes say that’s gonna keep a conjure off us? Explain me that.”

“Not the words.” She tries her shoes out. Seems happy enough with them now. “The letters. Before a conjurer can throw a conjure beneath your feet, all the letters in your shoe must be counted by him. In that amount of time, you are long gone away from the place, yes?”

I stand up and hear the crinkle under my feet. Feels funny. “Guess I should’ve counted the letters before I put them in there. That way, I’d know how long I got to run away if a conjurer wanders along by and says, ‘Hold up, there, and let me count them letters a minute.’?”

She gives me a smart face, braces up her skinny arms, elbows out. “And yet, you have added them in your shoes.”

“To get you to hush up and start moving, only.” I look at the rest of the papers on the wall. I hope they wasn’t important. “You at least plan to tell me what them papers say, before we go? I’d like to know we didn’t take something matterful.”

She wiggles round, grabs the butt of her knee britches and tries pulling it down, then yanks the whole thing up higher. This girl ain’t ever had a pair of britches on in her life, I bet. “They are seeking lost friends.”

“The papers?”

“Those by whom the advertisements were placed in the newspaper.” She moves to the wall, points to the top corner of one of the pages. It’s all in little squares, like the Bible Old Marse would bring when somebody was to be put under the sod in the burial ground. There in the front pages, he’d make a square and write the grave number in it.

Juneau Jane’s hand ain’t much darker than the water-stained newspaper, as she runs a finger along the top block. “Lost Friends,” she reads. “We receive many letters asking for information about lost friends. All such letters will be published in this column. We make no charge for publishing these letters to subscribers of the Southwestern. All others will please enclose fifty cents….”

“Fifty cents!” I puff out. “For marks in a newspaper?” I think of all the things fifty cents will do.

She turns over her shoulder, frowns at me. “Perhaps we should be on our way.”

“Tell me the rest.” There’s an itch in my mind, but I can’t guess why that is.

Standing at the wall in her droopy britches, she looks up again. “Pastors will please read the requests published below from the pulpits and report any cases where friends are brought together by means of letters in the Southwestern.” She moves down the wall a bit. “It’s a newspaper for churches. Colored churches.”

“Colored churches got a newspaper? Down here in the state of Louisiana?”

“Many states,” she answers. “This newspaper is delivered to many states. The Southwestern Christian Advocate. It’s a paper for the pastors.”

“And they read it to the people? All over everywhere?”

“I would assume so…if it has found its way to this place.”

“Well, I never. What’s it say? In all them squares?”

Juneau Jane points to one. It’s a small block compared to some others. “Dear Editor,” she reads out loud. “I wish to inquire about my people. They left me at a trader’s yard in Alexandria, with a Mr. Franklin. They were to be sent to New Orleans. Their names were Jarvis, George, and Maria Gains. Any information of them will be thankfully received. Address me at Aberdeen, Mississippi. Cecelia Rhodes.”

“My Lord,” I whisper. “Read me another.”

She tells the story of a little boy named Si, five years old when a Mister Swan Thompson passed and all his worldly goods, including the folks he owned, were divided up by his son and daughter. “It was in eighteen…” Juneau Jane stands on tiptoes to read the paper. “Eighteen thirty-four. Miss Lureasy Cuff was standing in the house and talking to my mother and saying, ‘I think Pa should give Si to me because I raised him to what he is.’ Uncle Thomas drove the wagon when Mother left. She had two children then, Si and Orange. Address me at Midway, Texas. Si Johnson.”