The Providence of Books

When you move from a place, you go through things. And I was going through something - as I was going through the memories that lazy day down at the property on Cherry Hill.

I was going through all the life that had accumulated over the years, getting it ready to sell – just like that. After years of pain and joy, hard work and sorrow, love and birth and death – I was just going to get rid of it. It seemed sinful somehow, especially since I’m one to need old things around me to give me a sense of continuity, so I feel like I belong in the world.

I didn’t know the people who lived on Cherry Hill even though it was my grandfather’s property – everyone was gone now. The house had been the family home for my mama and her mama and all the 6 kids and a few uncles back in the days coming up to the Depression. I remember many of the stories Mama told me, but I especially remember the mystery of the place and the stories of Mr. Roth and the people who sharecropped his land. Mr. Roth was my grandfather and he owned Cherry Hill. He was a brilliant and complicated man and looked after the people who helped him. He rented small plots of land to the “Colored People” in the area – that’s what White people called African American people back in that day in the South. They worked for him and tilled the rich soil for a share of the harvest, a few dollars, and a place to live as free men.

Before the Depression, a free man could put away some of those dollars – not in a bank or safe, but hidden out of sight where no one would suspect. Jacob was one of those men who worked for my grandfather fixing things. Jacob was like a foreman - in charge of running the property and keeping everything working, but it was his wife, Charity, who was smart with the money. Charity saved those coins and dollars that Jacob earned for the 23 years that she and Jacob worked for my grandfather. Sad to say, but Jacob and Charity made their transition just 11 days apart before they could ever take their savings and get a place of their own.

Here it is – 110 years later and I’m going through things. The property was vacant for many years before we decided to sell it, but many of the original outbuildings were still there, including the broken down shack that Jacob and Charity lived in. As I stepped into the shack, I was filled with memories I hadn’t even been part of - memories of Jacob, a dark-skinned, quiet man with rough hands and a kind spirt. He had the kind of hands that worked for hundreds of years before they got to rest. A man full of hopes and dreams who accepted the reality of his life for now. And I had memories of Charity – a woman who embodied her namesake. Charity worked as hard as any man – cleaning, cooking, harvesting and birthing 4 children. A woman who would give you grace if you had grief in your heart or hope if you had lost your faith.

I’ve always been a sensitive soul and the memories that came upon me that day told me a story like it was mine all along. Somehow I knew where to go and I walked right over to the old firewood box in their shack, which still had wood in it from years ago. I dumped the wood out, along with the rocks and spiders and debris, and I could see a small dent on the bottom panel in one corner, like from a screw driver. I pulled out my pocket knife and pried the bottom board up. There under the board was a hidden space, and in the space was a small, old black leather-bound book, tied with a piece of twine and weathered from the years of living and the oils of working hands. I sat down on what was left of the porch and began to look through the book. Most of the pages were full of hash marks – thousands of hash marks, but in the back there was a page with dashes and circles and star shapes and squares, and finally a big “X” with a circle around it. There were no words but the book was full.

As I sat and pondered the old book, I felt the memories of Jacob and Charity talking to me. When you connect with the past like that, you begin to see life as if you were a great bird soaring up above the earth, seeing the patterns and shapes of the world. You see the relationships and complications and you see the whole of things. While I was up in the sky looking down, I saw the circles and squares, and dashes and stars – a diagram of the property, of course. I came back to earth and pieced it all together and saw that providence led to the old shed where Jacob had worked everyday for all those years.

The shed was built when the house was built back in 1896. Back then people built most all of the things they needed and fixed anything that was broken. It was difficult to buy new things so most everything was repaired in the shed where the workshop was. The shed was wood and practically falling down and the roof had caved in over the worktable which had been Jacob’s domain. You could see that it had been reinforced and patched up over the years but there were still a few places where you could see the original boards here and there. Jacob and Charity had hidden something in the shed.

As I stood there in the shed, I smelled the years of sawdust, machine oil, rust and effort. I saw Jacob in his world of tools and nails and lumber and sweat. I imagined his rough, worn hands and saw him squat down underneath the worktable. I pulled out my flashlight and crawled underneath, careful to not disturb the pieces of roof collapsed on top of it. Just like with the firewood box, I went right to the spot Jacob had chosen. I pried open a loose board way back in the corner and saw it - stuffed down between the posts, wrapped in leather – a small tin box. I pulled the box out and saw what the years of sweat and labor concealed. I saw the hopes and dreams of a people who had to have a faith. I saw the salvation and the deliverance, the escape and liberation of spirit. And I saw the names of Jacob and Charity’s 4 children on a note stuffed in among the fortune. And I set out to find them.