A Most Precious Pearl Read online

  Ridiculous just thinking it. A man of twenty-eight years, going back to his mother’s house. It was even worse for him, because he was not a regular twenty-eight year old.

  “If you are going to work in the mill, you got to pay close attention, Mr. Thomas. The mill’s a dangerous place, easy to mangle a hand here.” The sparkling black eyes of Mags snapped with fury.

  “I appreciate the warning, Miss Bledsoe, but I’m used to working in dangerous circumstances.”

  She seemed to take notice of his leg and had the good grace to be embarrassed. Then she looked back up at him and her direct tone stirred something pleasant in him. “I never told you my last name, Mr. Thomas.”

  “No, you didn’t.” He smiled at her. She was quick. He liked her combination, a delicate beauty with a steely disposition and a quick mind. She would be a treasure for some man.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Asa Thomas, like Paul Winslow told you.” It wasn’t a lie. Those were his first two names. He left off the Caldwell. Many people, especially those of the Negro race knew who he was from his journalistic endeavors. He wanted to remain circumspect until he found out what he needed to. Also, he had a sneaking feeling that this quick wit of a woman would not respect him as a mill manager if she knew he was a journalist. Still, his experience in the military in lining up food supplies and deliveries for soldiers was bound to come in handy here. That was the experience he had told to Paul Winslow and he had hired him on the spot.

  “And?” Her black eyes narrowed.

  “Your sister Ruby sent me down here. She thought you might need looking after.”

  Mags clapped her hand on her skirt. “I knew it. I knew it. That girl can’t keep her nose in her own business for two seconds. If she were here in front of me, I would strangle her!”

  Despite himself, he smiled at her. “There’s no need for your reaction. She’s your sister and she loves you. She wants you to be well taken care of.”

  “Typical big sister reaction. I can take care of myself and the family by myself, thank you.”

  “It must be a heavy burden, to take care of a family.”

  “I do what I have to. Did Ruby know you came to take my job? Wait, she probably did. She never approved of my promotion, even though it meant more money for us.”

  “Mrs. Morson is smart. And caring.”

  Her eyes softened. “How is she?”

  “She looked fine last week.”

  “She better be taking care of herself. I’ll go up there personally and strangle her.”

  “Hmm. The second time you bring up committing a crime. You don’t sound as law-abiding as you appear, Miss Bledsoe. Besides, your sister would like nothing better. She directed me to bring you to Pittsburgh when I’m finished with my assignment here.”

  Her eyes brightened. “You don’t plan to be here forever?”

  He could have shot himself in the leg all over again. What was it about this woman who made him open himself to her in such an increasingly vulnerable way? He stepped back, leaning a little more heavily on his cane. “No. I’ll get the mill to be more productive and profitable over this summer. Just three months.”

  Her brow furrowed. “I had been doing my job for a whole year before you ever stepped foot in here.” Then she was embarrassed again at her reference to his foot. “I apologize. I’m usually better behaved than this, but it’s not every day some strange man comes in here to take my job from me and tell me my sister wants me to come to her in the cold north.”

  “As I said, I won’t be here forever.”

  “My family needs the money, despite what Winslow thinks.”

  “Don’t you want to see your sister and help her with the new baby?”

  Her beautiful jewel-like eyes softened again. “Yes, I would. But I have always said to Ruby, I would come on my own terms. I cannot be spared here.”

  Despite himself, he stepped closer to her. “She believes you are in danger here.”

  Her fringed eyelashes swept down her cheeks rapidly. “It’s like Ruby to make more of things. I’m fine.”

  “Maybe Paul Winslow is dangerous to work for?” He was on the verge of getting more information.

  Mags waved her hand. “He would never touch me. I’m his line to information about his grandson. He wants to know about Solomon as much as possible, but he doesn’t want to ask Ruby or Adam. Having me run his mill is cheaper and he has access to it all, along with any little update about his family he needs.”

  Solomon was Paul Winslow’s grandson? The best behaved four-year-old he had ever seen? Asa cleared his throat, holding back on the heart pounds he felt when there was something exciting involved. The story. There was much, much more here than Ruby had let on. Now he understood. Mags’s proximity to the mill owner made her a potential target, as her sister had been. Still, he could not resist helping a damsel in distress, especially when she didn’t see the danger herself. It was how he had gotten into trouble once before, but he was willing to risk himself to help, even though he had paid a heavy price.

  Besides, he could tell Mags Bledsoe was worth it.

  Chapter Two

  Asa Thomas attended well to her explanations of how the machines worked. Too well. He was coming in to take over, she just knew it. She avoided his gaze as he spoke to her.

  “You’ve made a good show of things here. What’s your background?”

  Mags colored a little. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Where were you educated?”

  Now she met his gaze. “Winslow is a mill town with a beautiful little school on one side of the train tracks for white children. For the Negro children there is the little schoolhouse that doubles as First Water Church for Negroes. That’s where I went to school for eight grades. When Adam Morson came and Ruby started to go to high school by correspondence, I took up her studies too. It took me longer after they moved up north, but I finished last year.”

  “There’s no high school here for Negro children?”

  She wanted to laugh at his question. “The Negro children here are lucky to get the eight grades that the law says they are entitled to between the cotton and the mill.” She grew serious. “There are many here who think that educating a black woman is a waste of time. My parents never felt that way.”

  “That’s remarkable.” Asa kept writing in his little book. “And their efforts paid off. What you have done here is very singular without a formal high school education or college.”

  “Thank you?” How could she sound so questioning? This man wasn’t anyone special.

  Asa closed his book. “There are some things that can be done here, but I can start on Monday.”

  “We are at work now. We work at the mill from six to six during the week. Today, Saturday, we work from six to two. If you want time off already, then that is fine.”

  His chiseled features, covered in a rich smooth brown, hardened when she mentioned the hours they worked. He corrected her. “I wasn’t looking for time off, only a fair according. It’s incredible that you work that hard. Hasn’t Paul Winslow heard about Teddy Roosevelt?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Who hasn’t?”

  “I mean, in other places, like Pittsburgh, they are working eight hours a day during the week only.”

  “Not on Saturdays?”

  “No.” She focused on a portrait of George Washington on the wall as he made more notes in his book.

  She swallowed hard. Ruby lived in a fantasy world up in the cold North. How could she think of sending someone down here who wanted to change things so drastically? Two whole days to themselves? To do what? Mags shook her head. Most of the Negroes would be drinking or getting into trouble.

  But what if she could do whatever she wanted? To go shopping or on a walk with a man? Mags straightened her back, and her corset helped her in the endeavor.
There would be no more of that for her, not since Travis died.

  She cleared her throat. “What would someone do with all of that time? And less money. We have to make a living.”

  “Whatever you wanted. Spend time with your family. Spend time with a special someone on a walk. Things a young woman like yourself would like.” How had he read her mind? Warmth spread through her as he fixed her with his sharp gaze, black eyes on her. She made an effort to stop warming up as he stared at her. How rude. He had no business coming in here and reading her thoughts in that way.

  “There’s money to be made.”

  “You sound like Paul Winslow.” He showed his splendid white teeth while nodding his head.

  She straightened out her skirt, trying to warm her legs and avoid the cold chill that swept through her as she remembered poor Travis’s fate. “I hope that you aren’t coming here to make trouble. My sister is someone who could have told you about what happens to those of us around here who get into trouble.”

  “I’ve heard. It was just last month, wasn’t it, where there was a terrible race riot and lynching in the next county over. Three men burned to death. Yes, I know.”

  Thank you, God, he’s not foolish.

  How sad it would have been if this mustachioed man was as naïve as her brother-in-law when he first came to Winslow.

  Still, why was she thinking of his black moustache that was so neatly trimmed? He needed to know a thing or two about the way things worked around here. “Good. Then you’ll do what needs to be done and not try to reduce our hours down here. Paul Winslow won’t like it.”

  Asa closed the book again. “What if you were paid a living wage to work a forty hour week? How would that be?”

  “Idle hands make light work for the devil,” Mags quipped. “We have better things to do here in Winslow by making the mill more profitable.”

  “We’ll see.” He immediately sat down in a chair and spread a hand. “I think that there is still some inefficiency here that would make it possible for Paul Winslow to still be profitable and treat his workers better.”

  Mags burned. Her job as manager meant any inefficiency was her fault. “We live fine here. We have a nice store and a bandshell in town where they play music. Since he left, Dr. Morson has been looking for a doctor to help treat us.”

  “Negro doctors aren’t easy to come by.”

  “No, they aren’t.” Mags remembered Adam’s brief sojourn in their small town before he was forced to move on. “But he tried. It isn’t for strangers to come in and judge.”

  Now there he was, staring at her again. So impolite. So Northern. A Negro from the South would not stare at anyone in such a direct way. Thomas stood before as proof of what she had heard all of her life. “So, given that it’s Saturday, what will you do when you get off work?”

  “Off work?” Did such a state exist? She realized that she sounded like a mockingbird out in the Georgia piney woods. How embarrassing.

  “Yes. At two.” His teeth showed again, mocking her. Lord a mercy.

  “I have to help my family. They rely very heavily on me. We keep a boarding room. When Negroes come to town, they stay with us. Usually. We heard nothing of you coming.”

  “Mr. Winslow is giving me a mill house. It’s not very big, but it’s good enough for me. I have a car to get around in.”

  “You can drive a car?” By the injured look on his features, she had questioned his ability. Men didn’t like that. “I mean, when Adam left, none of us learned. We parked it in the barn.”

  “Yes, I drive. It makes better sense for a man with my condition.”

  “I see. Well. I better return to work.”

  “You’re working as you are talking to me. You didn’t tell me what you do to help your family.”

  “Since you are from the city, I’ll explain. We live on a farm. There are lots of chores on a farm to keep busy, especially now. The peaches are due to come in soon and it’s a high season for my father. He needs help. My younger sisters are trying to move forward in their own education. I help them. Then I go to sleep. There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day sometimes.”

  “I can imagine.” Asa stroked his chin. “I can help out if you need it.”

  What would some Northern Negro know about farming? She inclined her head at him to see if he would like the question back at him. “What’s your background? You never said.”

  “Besides the military? I have a degree in engineering from Lincoln University. That’s in Pennsylvania, but on the other side of the state from Pittsburgh.”

  “Adam went to Michigan for his college.”

  “I’m acquainted with Dr. Morson’s education. He and his family are a fine addition to our church family at Freedom.”

  Mags brightened. “Is that how you know them?”

  “Yes. Your nephew is a delight. Everyone loves him.”

  Her eyes softened. “I can imagine. He was our baby when he was here for the first months of his life. It’s too bad they can’t come here. None of us have gone up there yet.”

  “And why not?”

  “Too cold. We’ve too much to do down here. Ruby understands.”

  Asa shook his head. “I’m not so sure of that. Why else would Ruby insist that you come back with me?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Thomas. For one thing, I’m a spinster. I wouldn’t travel with a man unescorted. I couldn’t give up my job. I have to help the family. That’s the way that it is.”

  Now he regarded her. Again. Almost as if he were searching her face for something. “I think that she’s waiting for you to use your fine mind to understand that there is a better way. You deserve better.”

  Mentioning Ruby again, he was doubtless wondering what everyone else did. How could such a tall, ungainly, dark-skinned woman be a sister to the short, petite, light-skinned Ruby? She had enough of being compared to her sister—she had been dealing with it all of her life. Enough.

  “Thank you. Now, I must be going. Please know that you are welcome to come to First Water tomorrow. It’s the only Negro church in town.”

  “Thank you very much.” Asa stood and leaned on his cane. “However, I’ll be seeing you much sooner than that, Miss Bledsoe.”

  She had done her Christian duty in inviting him and now, she wasn’t sure how to respond. Educated people, besides Adam, made her feel very uncomfortable. Maybe it was because he had a real college degree in what she was trying to do there at the plant, and she was pretending.

  She nodded and walked away from him, trying not to be consumed by his last comment.

  When the whistle blew later that afternoon, Mags gathered up her lunch pail and shifted her thoughts to the next task ahead—getting dinner ready at home. There were ham steaks that were in the icebox, ready to be fried up for dinner. They would be quick and filling. She could make a peach sauce for the ham, in case the ham was dry, slice up some potatoes for frying and they had jars of green pole beans from their garden she had preserved. A peach shortcake would be a fast dessert, once she made biscuits. There, the menu was set. Now to get herself home to actually prepare the food.

  When she left the mill, much to her displeasure, Asa Thomas sat outside in his running car. He honked his horn and waved at her, pulling alongside of her as she tried to edge herself as far as she could from the road. One of her mill worker friends came over to her.

  “What he want?” Katie Taylor asked her.

  Katie and the other workers knew that he was the new supervisor, and a number of the workers didn’t like that she had been set down for a strange, better educated Northern man. “I don’t know.” She wished he would leave her alone.

  “Wish I could tell him to go on,” Katie said, echoing her own thoughts. She could see the girl’s conflict. Poor Katie couldn’t say anything to him because he was their new supervisor.

  Mags b
ristled. It was enough they were under the thumb of Paul Winslow. Must they endure being under the thumb of this strange Negro man as well? She stepped up to the open side window of the car. “What do you want?”

  “Wondered if you wanted a ride home. You can invite your friend if you want.”

  “No, sir.” Katie spoke out from behind her. “We can’t be traveling with no strange man, even if you is our boss. We just walk.” Katie tugged on her sleeve and Mags went down the side of the road with Katie.

  “Thanks.” Mags had to say it behind her, even though a ride would have been nice.

  “I didn’t want him blaming you if you had said no. I hope you didn’t mind.”

  She didn’t mind. She and her sisters had been under an undeserved cloud of suspicion for their reputations ever since her eldest sister, Ruby, had been attacked in the fields almost five years ago, an event that had resulted in the birth of Solomon. “It’s fine. Thanks.” The two of them started out for home and spoke to one another of church matters, even as they both knew Asa’s car followed them. Slowly. She kept her voice low. “I don’t like him.”

  “He ain’t going to grab us and drive off, is he?” Katie sounded excited. She could be very impressionable. Katie was five years younger than her twenty, but Mags did not like the notion of something exciting happening to them.

  “No. He’s got to work with us at the plant.”

  “He look at you as if he is mighty interested. He married?”

  Was he? “I don’t know, Kate. He’s just a stranger in town talking to who he knows. So far that’s just me and Paul Winslow.”

  “Where he living?”

  “Probably over by you all,” Mags informed her. “He said that Paul Winslow gave him a mill house.” The mill house neighborhood, built about three years before, was on the way to the Bledsoe house, which was a little farther out and closer to the Winslow mansion itself.

  “There’s an empty house.” Katie put in. “When the Jones folk left for up north. Mama was in there cleaning yesterday. I wondered what she was doing, but she don’t ever ask no questions when old man Winslow come up with some extra pocket money.”