Jubilee

One night in spring, Vyry is sitting in the doorway of her cabin, formerly Aunt Sally’s, combing her hip-length hair and humming to herself. A “patter-roller” passes by her cabin, as part of his “rounds of the Quarters” (119). After he heads down the road and is nearly away from the plantation, Vyry hears the soft cry of a whip-poor-will three times. She walks into the darkness behind her cabin and finds Randall Ware. He tells her that he sent a white man to buy Vyry, but Marse John refused to sell her, arguing that he likes her cooking too much. Randall believes that Marse John is likely to reconsider, given the current sectional crisis over slavery. He urgently asks Vyry to marry him. She refuses, saying that he must first buy her freedom.

A week later, on a Sunday afternoon, Grimes and a slave patroller see her in the swamp, where she gathers medicinal herbs and roots. Recalling the two enslaved cooks who poisoned their master with mushrooms, Grimes suspects Vyry of picking poisonous weeds. She skillfully identifies each plant and tells him their benefits. She insists that she only “knows the good roots” (123).