A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

When I open my eyes again, I’m not sure where I am at first, until I remember I’m with Addy and hear her steady breathing beside me. I’m squeezed so tightly into the narrow bed with Addy and Mrs. Walker that I can barely move, and the room that felt only chilly last night is downright cold this morning. The fire in the stove must have burned out long ago. I reach for the dress I used as a pillow and find Grandpa’s coin still wrapped safely in its scrap of fabric.

Addy stirs and asks if I’m awake, and Mrs. Walker calls from the far side of the bed that we’d best get up and start the day. Addy laughs and throws back the covers, nudging me out of bed, and my stocking feet sting the moment they hit the wooden floor. Addy asks her mother if they can light the stove since it’s so cold, but Mrs. Walker shakes her head gently as she buttons her dress. Their coal has to last the whole week, and they need to use it for cooking dinner.

My fingers are numb, and I’m tempted to crawl back under the quilt, but Addy is already smoothing the covers into place. Our own house is never cold in the winter, and I can’t imagine how the Walkers manage without heat as I glance at their small, lonely-looking stove. I unfold my wrinkled dress, having forgotten I’d have to wear it again today. I almost ask Addy if I can borrow one of her dresses until I notice Addy putting on the same blue dress she wore yesterday. She doesn’t own a spare dress for herself, let alone one to lend me, so my wrinkled one will simply have to do.

Worried about my hair without a mirror in sight, I’m relieved when Addy offers to fix it. In a few minutes, she’s braided it into two neat plaits, each tied off with a black-and-white ribbon that matches the ones in her own hair, cut from the end of a fabric roll her momma got from a woman named Mrs. Ford. I point out that we practically look like twins now.

Addy’s mother tells us to go use the privy and fill up the water bucket while she gets breakfast. We run down a steep staircase and out into a cold, dim alley to find the privy, and the smell hits me before anything else does. Ten families share this single wooden outhouse, so we wait our turn until a boy a little older than us finishes. The inside of the privy smells horrible. I hold my breath and hurry through.

Afterward, Addy pumps water onto the ground until it runs from brown to clear. Then, she nudges the bucket under the spigot, and we carry it back up to the garret, which already feels warmer even with the stove unlit. She pours water into a porcelain pitcher so I can splash it over her cupped hands, and when it’s my turn, the cold water makes me gasp and fumble for the towel.

Addy hurries me along, reminding me we can’t be late for school, and Mrs. Walker sets out cornbread for breakfast in two small bowls. It disappears fast, and I’m still hungry afterward, thinking of Grandpa’s stacks of banana pancakes back home, where we eat until we’re full instead of until the food runs out. Mrs. Walker hands Addy a tin lunch pail tied with a scrap of cloth, insisting there’s enough inside for both of us. I’ve noticed even though the Walkers don’t have much to spare, they willingly share what they do have.

We pull on our hats and shawls, and Addy grabs her school bag while I carry the lunch pail. She tugs on my arm, urging me to hurry, and I’ve never seen anyone so excited to go to school. The moment we’re out the door, Addy tells me how wonderful school is and how much she thinks I’ll love it too. Her poppa wanted the whole family to reach freedom so she could learn to read and write. That’s why she works so hard in her lessons, because she wants him to be proud of her.

I think about Dad and how he always helps me with my homework, telling me how proud he is whenever I do my best. Then I imagine how disappointed he’ll be once he hears about my social studies test, and all I can tell Addy is that I hope I’ll be just as happy at school as she is. We pass a storefront window on the way, its hand-painted sign reading “Delmonte’s Secondhand Shop,” crowded with odds and ends.

Addy points out that this is where Mrs. Walker bought their dishes, then gestures toward a small, odd-looking lamp with a green base and a tall glass top instead of a shade. She says she and her momma are saving up to buy that lamp. When I ask why it doesn’t have a plug, Addy explains that it burns oil instead, giving her more light for homework or helping her momma see while sewing at night. Addy admits it’s taking a long time to save the three dollars it costs, and I realize my allowance for just one week is more than that, which explains why Addy only owns the one dress.

I’m still wondering how much money Mrs. Walker earns at the dress shop when I spot two boys about our age hurrying out of a building nearby, carrying brooms and clanking buckets, their clothes and faces streaked with dark smudges. I ask Addy what kind of school those children attend, and she shakes her head and tells me they aren’t going to school at all. They’re headed off to clean chimneys instead, since their families need the money and children have to work to help out however they can.

I gasp and ask if they don’t have to go to school like everyone else, and Addy just shrugs. Before she and her momma ran away, Uncle Solomon warned her that freedom has a cost, and she didn’t understand what he meant back then, but she does now. Everything in Philadelphia costs money, from food and clothes to coal for the stove, and plenty of kids work so their families can afford it all. I reach into my pocket and touch Grandpa’s coin. I think of Gran always reminding me how lucky I am to go to school at all. For the first time, I finally understand what she means.

Addy squeezes my hand and picks up her pace, telling me the Sixth Street School is just a few more blocks ahead. I follow her the rest of the way, still thinking about lamps that cost three dollars and boys my own age covered in soot, wondering how much more I still have to learn today.