ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND: The Untold Story of History’s First Flight. By Richard Kigel. Part 32.

AS SOON AS I TRIED TO MOVE I FELT A STINGING PAIN IN MY BELLY. I WAS FULL OF WATER AND THE PRESSURE MADE ME FEEL I WAS ABOUT TO BURST. “PEEEEEE-O, PEEEEE-O, PEEEE,” RANDALL SANG. I KNEW WHAT HE WAS GOING THROUGH. I HAD TO PEE TOO.



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SUMMARY: THE STORY SO FAR…


Josiah, a young slave 12 years of age, lives in a cabin in the slave quarters of a Virginia tobacco plantation with Auntie Bee, Mose, the plantation handyman, two young children, Randall and Emily. He notices Mose leaving the cabin in the middle of the night and follows him to his secret workshop in the woods where Mose is building some sort of strange contraption. Mose tells him it is a machine that will fly him to freedom. Now that he knows Mose’s secret, he stays to help build the flier. After mishaps, false starts and setbacks—the flier tumbles down the mountain and is seriously damaged—they are attacked by snakes—mountain lions lurk all around them—they realize someone has been spying on them and they think their escape plan has been discovered. Finally, their time has come. Now they are in the air, riding on the wings of the wind.


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Slavery is an outrage in God’s eyes. I always believed that when a slave-owning man got religion, the first thing he would do is free his slaves. And if he can’t do that much, at least he might treat his fellow creatures more kindly.


This hope of mine was sorely disappointed every time. When massa’s two sons were baptized, I thought things would be different. But the very next day and every day after that, those boys treated us as cruelly as they ever did.


I have never seen religion change anyone’s mind about slavery. Some slave owners might call themselves men of God—but I never saw God’s love in them.


Sometimes the shameful behavior I witnessed made me angry at God.
When I remembered the words Auntie Bee spoke softly in my ear, I was cheered by the inspiration of hope. Her simple reply to everything was: “Trust in the Lord.”


Once when I was dispirited I said to her, “What can I do? I am a slave and a slave for life! How can I do anything?”


She answered quietly, “The Lord can make you free, my dear. All things are possible with Him. Only have faith.”


That gave me hope. I was able to work and pray with a light heart,
believing that my life was under the guidance of a wisdom higher than my own.


Auntie Bee was the strongest person I knew. Her faith in God gave her strength. Considering all the terrible suffering she saw and endured, few people were as charitable to the slaveholders as Auntie Bee.


“They don’t know any better,” she would say to me. “It’s the way they were brought up.”


I can still hear her words. Her sweet lilting voice is always ringing inside me, even now, saying, “Remember, we are ALL God’s children.”


We slept well that night. Next thing I knew the sun was peeking through the eastern sky, birds were chirping merrily and the morning air was cool and fresh. We were riding high, gliding above the trees, sailing over grassy meadows still shiny with dew.


Randall sat up and yawned. The first thing he did was open the basket to check on his firefly. He poked it gently with his finger. I guess the little bugger was fine because Randall seemed satisfied.


As soon as I tried to move I felt a stinging pain in my belly. I was full of water and the pressure made me feel I was about to burst.


“Peeeeeee-o, peeee-o, peeee,” Randall sang. His body wobbled. His feet were shaking. He looked like he was about to break out in a wild dance. His contorted face told me everything I had to know. The boy was in extreme discomfort.


I knew what he was going through. I had to pee too.


“Alright,” I said. “We’ll go right here.”


I had to make sure we didn’t make any hasty moves that would upset the balance and upend the flier like last time.


I woke Emily. She stirred and sat up, still half asleep.


I told Randall to move to the opposite side of the flier. “Slow, real slow,” I said. I directed Emily to sit on the edge between us. We spread ourselves evenly across the flier, sitting along the edge, our legs swinging in the air.


A moment later, three yellow streams came raining down in three long flowing arcs reaching all the way to the ground. Gushing waterfalls poured out of us and kept running until we were empty. When we were done we sat back, each of us letting out a loud, satisfying groan, expressing great relief at getting rid of something we didn’t need. Man, it sure felt good.


One thing about flying—you see all the land you will ever want. Miles and miles of hills, fields, forests, streams, mountains, rivers, valleys. What you don’t see are names of any places. You don’t see signs. There is nothing to tell you where you are. You don’t know what town you’re in or
what county or even what state. There are no markings. There are no borders.


You see more land than you’ve ever seen before—but you have no idea where you are.


What we did not know was sometime before sunset last night, our flier drifted over one of those invisible boundary lines. We had crossed from Virginia into Maryland, the northernmost slave state. And we did not know that now, after flying all night, we were approaching Maryland’s northern border.


We were leaving the land where our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers and their mothers and fathers, all sons and daughters of Africa, poured out their lives in noble sweat and bitter tears. The anguish of a people, spurted out in the blood of wounded flesh and murdered spirits, soaked deeply into the earth. The land, poisoned by that toxic brew, will remain contaminated until such time as The Good Redeemer should appear to wash it clean with the blood of martyrs and freedom fighters who would give their lives to protect liberty for all.


We had no way of knowing at the time, but when we relieved ourselves on slave-owning ground it was the last thing we ever did as legal slaves. As soon as we were finished, we sailed over one of those invisible borders to a place where the soil was natural, fertile and clean and slavery was against the law. We were in the free state of Pennsylvania.