The Ever-After Bird

By Ann Rinaldi

Now that her father is dead, CeCe McGill is left to wonder why he risked his life for the ragged slaves who came to their door in the dead of night. When her uncle, an ornithologist, insists she accompany him to Georgia on an expedition in search of the rare scarlet ibis, CeCe is surprised to learn there's a second reason for their journey: Along the way, Uncle Alex secretly points slaves north in the direction of the Underground Railroad.
    
Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous pre-Civil War South, The Ever-After Bird is the story of a young woman's education about the horrors of slavery and the realization about the kind of person she wants to become.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9780547417165

Ann Rinaldi

ANN RINALDI is an award-winning author best known for bringing history vividly to life. A self-made writer and newspaper columnist for twenty-one years, Ms. Rinaldi attributes her interest in history to her son, who enlisted her to take part in historical reenactments up and down the East Coast. She lives with her husband in central New Jersey. 

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Copyright © 2007 by Ann Rinaldi

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Rinaldi, Ann.

The Ever-After Bird/Ann Rinaldi.

p. cm.

Summary: In 1851, thirteen-year-old Cecelia has her eyes opened to the horrors of slavery when she accompanies her ornithologist uncle on an expedition in search of the rare scarlet ibis, and watches as he shows slaves the way to the Underground Railroad.

[1. Uncles—Fiction. 2. Scarlet ibis—Fiction. 3. Birds—Fiction. 4. Slavery—Fiction. 5. Underground Railroad—Fiction. 6. Georgia—History—1775–1865—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.R459Ev 2007

[Fic]—dc22 2006101592

ISBN 978-0-15-202620-2 hardcover

ISBN 978-0-547-25854-6 paperback

eISBN 978-0-547-41716-5

v2.0518

This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to lend a sense of realism to the story.

To our dear friends

Marcia and Dave

Chapter One

I TRY NOT to think of that morning in May of this year of 1851. It is muddled in my brain anyway, maybe because I choose to leave it muddled. I did not see it all, I tell myself. I was upstairs in my room in our rambling white farmhouse, sent upstairs by Papa because I sassed Aunt Susan Elizabeth. She was Papa’s aunt, getting on in years and in grouchiness.

She drove me to distraction and I would have given anything to be away from her, from that house, yes, even from Papa, who had few words of cheerfulness for me since the day I was born and fewer yet since he’d become involved with his abolitionist doings, which seemed like forever now.

He went about those doings with an obsession.

There was always a quilt on the front wooden fence to show we were a safe house for runaways. I know because I put them there for Aunt Susan Elizabeth.

We had five of those quilts, and the ones on the fence were constantly changed.

The quilts said things.

Each one had a different message. What, I don’t know because I could never quite learn the differences. It had to do with the square knots left visible on the front, which Aunt Susan Elizabeth said was usually the sign of shoddy workmanship.

But not with these quilts. These square knots were left on the front on purpose.

The quilts each had a set number of square knots. She must have explained to me a dozen times the many things those knots meant. But I never got it. Which made her call me dense.

I hated those quilts because I was always having to work on one. That morning I was working on a wagon wheel pattern, which Aunt Susan Elizabeth said signaled the slaves to pack everything that would go into a wagon or that could be used in transit.

Why can’t they just be told? I asked her. It wasn’t so much the words I said as how I said them.

That’s when Papa sent me to my room.

No soul, he said to me, you’ve got no soul. For this your mother gave her life when you were born. No soul.

He’d been saying a lot of things like that to me lately, because I refused to get involved with his abolitionist doings. I couldn’t understand him risking his life for all those negroes who came to our door in the middle of the night looking like something the cat dragged in.

Two nights before he’d taken in two runaways from the Harris plantation in Buckstown, Maryland, a state part slave and part free.

They’d had enough of old Mr. Josiah Harris’s cruelty.

We live in the small town of Christiana, Pennsylvania, on the Maryland border. My name is Cecelia McGill. Papa’s name is John. Runaway negroes know we’re a station on the Underground Railroad.

It was a bright morning, about ten o’clock. I was sitting on my bed, wondering how long I’d have to stay there, when I heard horses ride up. I went to look out the window.

It was Mr. Harris and he had his two mangy sons with him. I pushed the window open so I could hear. Harris was waving around a paper, which apparently was some kind of a writ. Signed under the new Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, McGill, I heard him yell. Gives me the right to cross over into another state and pursue and take back the runaways.

My father said something; I didn’t hear what. The Harrises got off their horses and headed for the house. I heard my father tell them to wait outside, then he must have come in and gone to the secret hiding place under the parlor and brought the slaves up, because he’s nothing if not a law-abiding man, my father. He brought them outside.

Then more men rode up. I recognized the Wallers, Quakers from the area. More trouble. I don’t know why people have to force their beliefs on everybody else, why they just can’t practice them and leave others alone.

Right off the Quakers started with the thees and thous, challenging the legality of the whole thing. An argument started. It got loud. Soon there was pushing and shoving. One of the Harrises fired his gun in the air. The horses jumped and got antsy. Then more guns went off.

It all happened very fast. And of a sudden I saw my papa fall on the ground and the Harrises mount their horses and gallop away and the Quakers mount their horses, and for all their thees and thous pay no attention to my father but take the slaves on the horses behind them and whisk them off. Likely in the direction of the next safe house and on to Canada.

And I, who have no soul, went downstairs to see if my father was alive or dead.

Chapter Two

I DON’T RECALL the next couple of days, except in a whirl of mixed-up activity. The Wallers sent over a container of chicken soup. Others sent roasted potatoes, preserves from their gardens all done up in their favorite recipes, cakes and pies, even syllabubs. Felicity York came from across the Two Horse Creek. She had her man drive her right to the front door, then sent him home again.

I’ve come to help, she announced to Aunt Susan Elizabeth. I could see Aunt wasn’t overly fond of the idea, but she acquiesced as if Felicity were some kind of long-lost relative. And had rights. There was something about Felicity York that was different, that commanded attention, if not always the good kind. She was like a woman with a past, only nobody spoke about what it was.

Besides, Aunt needed help. Somebody had to sort out all the food and oversee our maids, Constance and Ginny. Aunt seemed torn, beset by Felicity’s presence and yet relieved. In between all this she was making me a dress for the funeral. I recollect, vaguely, trying it on.

Short sleeves, black, full skirt. I didn’t care if I went in pants with suspenders. I still didn’t believe Papa was dead. I expected him to come in from the barn any minute and tell me I had no soul. I was finding out that you don’t have to love somebody to miss them.

Then before you know it, Aunt was having Ginny and Constance set the dining room table as it used to be set of a Sunday, when your mama was alive, she said. With her good china and silver and crystal that hadn’t been used since I came along.

You could almost see the line drawn in the dust on the plates.

Before I came along and after.

After your mama passed, your pa shut down, Felicity told me when we were alone in the kitchen. You should have known him before.

Her man came around again with two cooked turkeys.

Then came Uncle Alex and Aunt Elise. She came with a chair with wheels because of the accident. Another thing people spoke of in whispers. Something about her getting thrown out of the carriage Uncle Alex had been driving when it swerved because he’d been staring at a bird.

She got crippled. And their son had been killed.

I hadn’t seen them in years. He was Papa’s much-younger brother, and all I’d been told by Papa was that they didn’t much get on.

I had distant memories here. Of a young boy holding my hand, teaching me to walk, playing at marbles with me. And then, I was told, when I was three, he went away to school.

Too many things were shrouded in secrecy in my family. And I was now left with nothing but questions I dared not ask.

Uncle Alex was tall and well built. He lifted Aunt Elise right out of that carriage and put her in her chair with wheels and brought her in the house.

Hello, everybody, he said. Too cheerful for somebody who had made his wife a cripple and killed his son.

Too cheerful for this family. He would never fit here, I decided.

His hair was longish and curly in front. He had to push it aside. His eyes were sad and didn’t go with the rest of him. I’d heard that now he was a doctor and an expert on birds.

And an abolitionist. Like Papa.

There was nodding and hellos and kisses and shaking of hands, for more people had come. I noticed that Felicity did not come out of the dining room but stayed away. I hung back.

CeCe? Uncle Alex came away from the back of Aunt Elise’s chair. Is that you? I haven’t seen you in years. He put an arm around me and kissed me. How you’ve grown. He led me over to Aunt Elise. She was blond and wore her hair long and in a single braid down her back. She was beautiful. Her eyes smiled. Somebody had told me she worked all the time on those darned quilts that said things.

Want to talk to you later, after the funeral, Uncle Alex whispered in my ear.

At the small Presbyterian Church, Felicity was in tears. I was too numb for tears. I couldn’t have told anyone how I got into the black silk with the small white collar that Aunt Susan Elizabeth had sewn up for me over the last two days.

Afterward, at the church cemetery, when they put my father in the ground next to my mama and I couldn’t cry, I felt embarrassed. I caught Uncle Alex looking at me as he twirled his hat around in his hands.

He wasn’t looking so sad, either. What was it they’d told me? My father had brought him up since he was twelve when their parents were drowned on a trip to England when the boat sank. And now they didn’t get on so well.

What had happened?

After we ate, on tables set outside under the trees because it was a lovely July day, Aunt Susan Elizabeth told me it would behoove me to speak with Uncle Alex after everyone had gone home.

The guests left finally when the sun got low and the mosquitoes came out. Uncle Alex picked Aunt Elise right up in his arms and she said good night. I followed them in as he carried her upstairs to bed and fixed the mosquito netting around her.

Back downstairs Uncle Alex lit lamps that sent a pleasant glow. Aunt made more coffee and left me at the dining room table, which had been cleared.

Uncle Alex came over and sat down. We should talk, he said.

I nodded, getting more scared by the minute.

You see, CeCe, it’s like this. Your father left a simple will. He left this whole place to you, but since you are underage, he left it in my care, and we are always to make it a home for Aunt Susan Elizabeth as long as she lives.

Yes, sir, I said.

And he’s left you to my care, too.

Am I like the farm? I asked. Left to your care?

He didn’t get angry, though perhaps he should have. You’re more valuable than the farm to your aunt Elise and me. We’d very much like for you to come and live with us.

I felt ashamed. His eyes continued to look sad. Well now, and he lowered his voice, I hear you and your aunt don’t always get on.

I had the decency to blush. She’s your aunt, too.

Ah, a saucy little piece, is it? What is it then that attracts you so here, aside from the fact that it’s your home?

My dog, Skipper, I said. And my cat, Patches, and my horse, Pelican.

Well, you could certainly bring them with you if you came with us to Ohio.

I looked down, ashamed. I couldn’t cry at Papa’s funeral, I said.

He nodded. Sometimes people cry later.

I shook my head no. He said I had no soul. He hated me. He blamed me for Mama’s death.

He bit his lower lip. We can talk about that sometime.

I was afraid to say more. The reason I want to live here is so I can go to the Artsdale Female Seminary in another year when I’m old enough.

And for another year continue to argue with Aunt Susan Elizabeth? She’s getting on in years. I’m responsible for both of you. I can’t let you make her last years hell.

I’ll be good.

No you won’t. I know because I never was at your age. And I see a lot of me in you. Anyway, at that Artsdale Female Seminary all you’ll learn is how to pour tea and attract boys. I’d rather see you go to Oberlin College. I’m a trustee there. You’d get a real education. Listen, I’ve got a proposition to make to you.

He was going on a trip, he said. Next month. He was going on one of his bird expeditions. South. To Georgia.

I’m going to find and sketch birds that have never been sketched before. It’s what I do besides doctoring. I stay at Southern plantations. They open their homes to me and my assistant, and we go out into the fields and the woods and find birds and I paint them. I’m called an ornithologist.

I thought you were a doctor.

He smiled. "I’m both. Your father made me study to be a doctor. I always wanted to paint birds. He said I could do that in my spare time. So I do. Now I’m proposing

Reviews for The Ever-After Bird

[lms8esmith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Since I teach Georgia history, I had been searching for books to supplement my lessons about the Civil War in Georgia. I came across Rinaldi's "The Ever-After Bird" and quickly became captivated by the historical facts she easily weaves into her story. It is difficult sometimes to help 8th graders understand slavery and the events that led to the Civil War, but I feel as though this book will give them a better understanding of many aspects of this historic time period.

[59square · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

CeCe has just watched her abolitionist father shot in front of her, and she is now to go live with her Uncle Alex. He too is an abolitionist, but he is also an ornithologist, and he goes on a trip to the South, visiting plantations in search of the scarlet ibis, called the Ever-After bird by slaves. This book talks about slavery in a very upfront way. There is a lot of cruelty here, which in some ways makes the book more appropriate for a teen, although it is currently in youth fiction. There is mention of a freed black marrying a white man, and that he bedded her, but there is nothing else that would make it teen, so I'll probably leave it in youth. This would make a good read for a questioning middle schooler - someone who is learning about slavery and its terrible history.

[mzonderm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of Rinaldi's better recent efforts. A somewhat transparent look at the evils of slavery, but a convincing one. My biggest problem about this book was that the main character, CeCe, was said to be 13-going-on-14, but was treated throughout the book at much younger. Especially when dealing with a time period when childhood was much shorter than we're accustomed to, it seemed odd that a girl of that age would be treated as needing so much protection. Other than that, the book seemed realistic and would definitely be good for middle school-age children to learn about slavery. And, of course, I loved all the references to Oberlin!