John Ciprich House

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It felt like being exposed, whenever a white woman asked Hattie what she was doing. Tone didn’t matter—this, like many other lessons, Hattie had learned the hard way. Those words always yanked her back to Master Greene’s plantation, to those infrequent trips to the Big House and to Missus watching her every move. Even now, three years after her flight north, Hattie found herself on edge yet again as this white woman reporter smiled big and stared right at her, blinking her eyes at Hattie, imploring and encouraging. The way you might do a child, Hattie thought. She paused a few seconds longer, managing to hold the white woman’s gaze for far longer than either was comfortable with before reluctantly opening her palm to the reporter, revealing two frayed fabric squares revealing the top of a moonlit mountain scene. Hattie didn’t have to look up to know that the sigh of relief she heard came from Miz Margaret. The reporter exclaimed, “Oh how quaint! Are these quilting squares? I’ve heard that some of you all do learn the craft! Did your Missus teach you? And look at this needlework, my heavens! Those patterns seem to match Mrs. Ciprich’s mantel over there!” The reporter reached to grab the aged fabric but Hattie was too quick for her, sharply retracting her arm and gingerly refolding the squares before tucking them into the bosom of her dress. The reporter gasped loudly and clutched her gloved hand at her chest. “Oh my goodness! Hattie, I didn’t mean to alarm you… I just, that’s remarkable how closely your fabric matches the mantel, and I…well, I would normally ask if you started working on a quilt once you arrived here in Burdett, but the fabric seemed so old…” The reporter let her words trail off, signaling a bit too earnestly to Hattie that she wanted Hattie to fill in the details. Hattie didn’t answer, instead letting her gaze wander to the fireplace, mapping the crude carvings at the base of the mantel, the wood worn smooth with age and years of curious fingers probing each nook of this local stop on the so-called Underground Railroad. Folks came from as far east as Syracuse to see the Ciprich House, to hear Miz Margaret give her interpretations of what them markings meant. Hattie knew she must have been thrilled when this reporter came around, wanting to talk to any nigger she could rustle up from one of the free communities just outside of Burdett. Especially now that Massa Ciprich was gone, Miz Margaret didn’t have to get his approval first. Her husband’s wish for anonymity died with him, and so Margaret called on Hattie right after church the previous Sunday, repeating words like gratitude and debt until Hattie agreed to return to Burdett. It wasn’t until Hattie arrived at the house that Miz Margaret mentioned the reporter.

“No,” Hattie finally replied. “I had it from before. T’was jus’ some scraps of quilt that belong to….well, to somebody else.” The reporter’s eyes widened expectantly. Hattie rhythmically fingered the squares between her thumbs and forefingers, resolute to keep Lizzie for herself, only for herself. The reporter seemed to realize she wouldn’t get an answer to this question. “Well, dear, that’s perfectly fine if you don’t want to talk about it just yet. I know you’ve been through so much. And Margaret told me you were worried about being identified.” The reporter gestured to the scar running the length of Hattie’s left cheek and tapering off near the corner of her mouth. “But we can use a pen name. Do you know what that is? A pen name?” She didn’t wait for an answer, nor was one coming. “We’ll give you and all the other ‘passengers’ code names, so that way you might speak a bit more freely. What people are most curious to hear is more information about the railroad, and about your life during slavery. They want to know how you live now that you’re free. We don’t have to mention the scar, dear…. unless, of course, you want to mention it?” The reporter took a breath before speaking again, more slowly this time. “Hattie, sugar, I know this must be hard to imagine, but your story is exactly what people need to hear! This evil demon slavery will surely send us to war soon! I can’t hardly stand to think of it, but we know it’s true. And northern white folks just can’t see how the plight of the nigger woman—” the reporter caught herself, cupping Hattie’s chin in her gloved hand, allowing the thumb to swipe over the tip of Hattie’s scar as she spoke again, much softer, “they don’t see what it has to do with them is all.” The reporter gently tilted Hattie’s face toward the light. “That’s why you’ve got to make them see.” Hattie stretched her lips tight, leaning back slightly to free her face from the reporter’s hand and to try and catch Miz Margaret’s eye. The reporter sighed impatiently and reached for Hattie’s face, less gently this time. “A negro woman walking around with a scar like this has a story. Don’t you want the world to know? Surely you need some money. This book could help you to have something of your own.” The reporter’s gaze swung over to Margaret. “Margaret, please. This is very important. Didn’t you read that Stowe woman’s book? Surely there is an opportunity here for us, too. Why, if your girl won’t tell us about the scar,” the reporter glanced quickly at Hattie before turning back to Margaret, “might you convince her to decipher the mantel, at least?” Margaret sighed, knowingly. “Believe me, I’ve tried. When she came to me she looked an absolute fright, near frozen to death and sick with fever. She kept repeating something about ‘seeing her soon on the other side.’ After she healed up she stopped talking, about whoever she wanted to see at least.” Hattie felt the white womens’ eyes taking her in, noting the less obvious scars marking her neck and hands. Once again Hattie felt exposed, cursed her body for being a traitorous map, betraying her desire for privacy or a secret something she could keep to herself, and revealing each attempt her Master had made to try and break her.

The white women continued their silent staring, and Hattie thought to herself that they didn’t even need her to write the story they so badly wanted. Hattie glanced at the quilted squares in her hand, tracing from memory the raised contours of the squares, her gaze set on the quilt’s mirror imagery: Miz Margaret’s wooden mantel painted with the letters B, T, and C, a pointing hand, a free man, a cross, two shovels, and a bird in flight.

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Lizzie always used to tell her that it was okay to find some joy in the work you do, said that’s why she stayed with quilting. Young Miss Greene had tried to teach them both but gave up on Hattie once she saw how intent she was to only remember those things she wanted, and quilting wasn’t one of them. Lizzie had told her she did that too. That Hattie was fearless because she never committed her fears, her doubts—or her mistakes—to memory. Hattie could still hear Lizzie laughing through her frustration. “You only remember the times things go yo way, so’s you can keep on getting’ yo way!” Hattie would always laugh before trying to steal a kiss. Each day Hattie would replay this memory, one almost as weathered as the few scraps of Lizzie’s quilt she’d managed to carry with her. Hattie didn’t have much of anything—material or otherwise—from the time before Lizzie was gone, save a few precious memories, the last remnants of the quilt, and the scar that marked those last few seconds before Lizzie died. It had only been a few days before her death that Lizzie finished the quilt, stitching the last few squares with the letters B, T, and C alongside a pointing hand, a free man, a cross, two shovels, and a bird in flight. “This right here is my Uncle Solomon,” Lizzie pointed to the free man. He got word down to us a little while back that he settled in New York somewhere. He drew all these lil’ figures in his letter, told me and Ma to get up to New York City, and from there head up to Burdett, and find the house with these here markings on the fireplace.” Lizzie held Hattie’s hand in hers and positioned her index finger to trace the shapes. “Over here,” Lizzie moved their interwoven hands over the stitched landscape, “beyond the clouds, this our place, Hattie. Uncle Solomon said ain’t hardly any folks up there. We gon’ build us a house for just us two.” Hattie kissed Lizzie, soft and quick. “Just us two,” she repeated, pulling the quilt over their torsos, securing their plan in its warmth and secrecy, guarding the sacredness of the time they stole.

The day Lizzie died, if you’d have asked Hattie she would’ve said Master couldn’t have known about her and Lizzie. If she was being honest, she thought he was too dumb to notice. But when he snuck into Lizzie’s cabin from around the back that night, she saw it all over his face that he had known for some time now, that he probably had been outside listening to their hushed giggles, their soft moans, all those sounds of early love. The look of disgust on Master Greene’s face scared Hattie for the first time since she could remember. He stood there in the low doorway, lit by the weakening fire and breathing so hard it seemed to Hattie she could see the air coming out in puffs of smoke. Staring at Hattie all the while, Master Greene pulled a knife from behind him and in a flash he had whipped around, turning his back on Hattie and turning the knife on Lizzie. Stuck it right in her side. The blood flowed everywhere and fast, staining the soil around Lizzie as she crumpled down to the ground. Master hesitated before pivoting to slice Hattie’s face, dragging the blade clean through her cheek. Hattie could hardly feel the extent of her injury; she was scrambling around the cabin, digging for the needle and thread Lizzie gifted her, already knowing her attempt to suture Lizzie’s wound would be in vain.

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“Hattie.” The reporter dropped any attempt at softness, her voice and her expression now unmistakably stern. “Hattie, do you plan on cooperating with this interview at all? You’ve given me far less than I came for, but I do think I have more than enough of a story for my column.” She paused impatiently; Hattie remained silent. The reporter broke the silence. “Well? Is there anything you’re willing to tell me?” Miz Margaret chimed in. “Hattie, please. For me, dear. This book is an opportunity for all of us, dear.” Hattie eyed the two white women, now sitting side by side across from her. She thought of how much of her story was already discernible from her scars, how Miz Margaret had alread received Hattie’s gratitude and her service, after she stayed on to work for her when Mr. Ciprich passed. Hattie reached instinctively for the quilt squares. That’s when she knew—they couldn’t have Lizzie. Hattie steeled herself to do what she’d never done before—refusing not one, but two white women. At last she spoke. “No.”

Everyone paused, letting the single world hover in the air. Hattie realized they expected her to say more, that she expected herself to say more. But really, what else was there? And with that Hattie stood, the two speechless white women staring upward and then away as Hattie gave a light curtsy, wished them good day, and walked out the front door.