Gracie Honeywalker: Cheese

Lord a'mighty this bellowin' cow here's gone to kick me in the face. Can't get no closer than two feet, trying to milk her. Eight cows on the farm and she's only one, no way to get any milk out of her. I'd take even sour, stinky milk. Percy, he done leaved me a big mess when he up and died back in '95, but nothing in the last fifteen years of being a widow compares to this here damned cow. I had to fight all my life for everything, ain't no man or woman done kept me down. But a blasted cow? Shoot, you'd a thought she was a slave owner like the one who laid a strap to my back in Kentucky before the war done freed me.

None of the children, they're not going to help. Eleven of them, all have minds of their own. Oldest four already done married, next five working their own jobs, just got the two youngest at home, and they're still practically babies. Six and eight. I got Percy Jr., that's the baby, he's inside sweeping the floors. And Molly, she's eight, she done wrung a chicken's neck for tomorrow's Sunday dinner. Old Man Lacey's coming over. He's been real sweet on me ever since his own wife died, but he's a white man. Can't have no traffic with a white man. Life's tough enough without the neighbors stringing me up and taking my farm away from me. What'll my young ones do if I gone?

Now if I can only get this darn cow to settle down. Ain't nothing I haven't survived since fleeing the plantation back in '62. Ten years old I was, been on my own the whole time. Can't even remember my mama's name. Or my papa's. Just running away from Kentucky fast as I could and not stopping 'til I got here -- upstate New York done found me. Life's hard for everybody.