in the stocks, and is gone over sea.
New York Weekly Journal (May 26, 1735)
This intriguing sentence was preserved by Carol Berkin and Leslie Horowitz in their Women’s Voices, Women’s Lives: Documents in Early American History (1998). Huddlestone and Mrs. Gomez are fictional members of two real New York families, bottom-drawer lawyers and Sephardic merchants respectively.
TEXAS
1864
LAST SUPPER AT BROWN’S
B efore the War there’s two women in the house but last year Marse done took them to auction. Now’s just me, the cook and all-round boy. My name Nigger Brown, I don’t got no other, I was born here. Missus done came in the kitchen this morning, unlock the butter barrel. Law, she say, that’ll be gone in a week.
She don’t call me boy, like Marse do. She don’t call me nothing. She only marry Brown a couple years back, too late for chillun. Some say hims took her for the money from her laundry but she ain’t ugly, I done seen worse. I say, Maybe I make you some ash cakes?
Ash cakes, are they colored fixings?
I tells her, Taste real fine. All’s I need is meal, water, pinch of lard.
Missus smile, almost. Very good. How much flour’s left?
Less ‘n a barrel.
She jangling her keys like a rattle. She know she ain’t quality, she still got laundress hands. She come down to lock and unlock her stores before most every meal, sometime I reckon she come to the kitchen just so’s not to be upstairs with Marse. Same thing, she work the garden with her Indiarubber gloves on, I’s a-digging and a-toting and a-watering, days pass. We’uns don’t talk much, we’uns know what we doing.
She open the sugar cupboard, now, there ain’t so much as a hogshead full.
Can’t you order some more, ma’am? I says.
Her breath hiss. I’m afraid the store won’t allow us another thing, with times as they are.
Since the blockade, no cotton’s getting shipped out, port’s quiet like a cemetery. I hear Marse at dinner sometime boasting the damn Yankees ain’t got into none of Texas yet and never will. He sing out, This here’s the last frontier. Planters coming down from Georgia and Virginia with all thems darkies to make a stand.
How much coffee’s left? ask Missus now.
Half a sack.
She give a long sigh.
In these parts four out of five is colored. The buckras, they’s always sniffing out plots among their blacks but there ain’t no trouble in this part of Texas. We’uns just waiting the War out. Passing on what stories we hear tell, sitting tight.
For dinner I roast the last of the gobblers, with ash cakes and corn and the end of the catsup.
Afterwards I’s eating leftovers in the kitchen. Missus come in and start counting the preserves. He means to ride to town with you tomorrow.
That so?
You know why?
No, Ma’am.
Guess, she say, like playing with a chile. I can see her teeth but she ain’t smiling. I shake my head. Guess, she say again.
My collar feel real tight. I been in this house since I was born. Marse won’t do that.
Some might call that back talk but Missus like a straight answer. She come up close, her fingers all tangled. I tell you, I’ve been married to Brown five years come June, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do.
He mean to sell me?
The man said to me just now, That nigger buck’s worth a thousand dollars. She lean on the table. Don’t you see? You’re all he’s got left.
I think I might fall down.
He intends to leave you with a dealer in town tomorrow, buy some calves instead.
That ain’t gone happen. I says it real quiet but I know she hear me.
Missus nod.
Mary? That’s Marse a-shouting for her. She shoot off like a rabbit.
I got a lot to do. I find some old bags in the larder, start filling them. Cornmeal, flour, salt pork mostly. A couple handful of coffee for when I need to stay wake. The littlest pot for boiling.
Missus come back in so quiet I don’t hear her till she touch my elbow, and I jump. She don’t wear no clickety-clackety
New York Weekly Journal (May 26, 1735)
This intriguing sentence was preserved by Carol Berkin and Leslie Horowitz in their Women’s Voices, Women’s Lives: Documents in Early American History (1998). Huddlestone and Mrs. Gomez are fictional members of two real New York families, bottom-drawer lawyers and Sephardic merchants respectively.
TEXAS
1864
LAST SUPPER AT BROWN’S
B efore the War there’s two women in the house but last year Marse done took them to auction. Now’s just me, the cook and all-round boy. My name Nigger Brown, I don’t got no other, I was born here. Missus done came in the kitchen this morning, unlock the butter barrel. Law, she say, that’ll be gone in a week.
She don’t call me boy, like Marse do. She don’t call me nothing. She only marry Brown a couple years back, too late for chillun. Some say hims took her for the money from her laundry but she ain’t ugly, I done seen worse. I say, Maybe I make you some ash cakes?
Ash cakes, are they colored fixings?
I tells her, Taste real fine. All’s I need is meal, water, pinch of lard.
Missus smile, almost. Very good. How much flour’s left?
Less ‘n a barrel.
She jangling her keys like a rattle. She know she ain’t quality, she still got laundress hands. She come down to lock and unlock her stores before most every meal, sometime I reckon she come to the kitchen just so’s not to be upstairs with Marse. Same thing, she work the garden with her Indiarubber gloves on, I’s a-digging and a-toting and a-watering, days pass. We’uns don’t talk much, we’uns know what we doing.
She open the sugar cupboard, now, there ain’t so much as a hogshead full.
Can’t you order some more, ma’am? I says.
Her breath hiss. I’m afraid the store won’t allow us another thing, with times as they are.
Since the blockade, no cotton’s getting shipped out, port’s quiet like a cemetery. I hear Marse at dinner sometime boasting the damn Yankees ain’t got into none of Texas yet and never will. He sing out, This here’s the last frontier. Planters coming down from Georgia and Virginia with all thems darkies to make a stand.
How much coffee’s left? ask Missus now.
Half a sack.
She give a long sigh.
In these parts four out of five is colored. The buckras, they’s always sniffing out plots among their blacks but there ain’t no trouble in this part of Texas. We’uns just waiting the War out. Passing on what stories we hear tell, sitting tight.
For dinner I roast the last of the gobblers, with ash cakes and corn and the end of the catsup.
Afterwards I’s eating leftovers in the kitchen. Missus come in and start counting the preserves. He means to ride to town with you tomorrow.
That so?
You know why?
No, Ma’am.
Guess, she say, like playing with a chile. I can see her teeth but she ain’t smiling. I shake my head. Guess, she say again.
My collar feel real tight. I been in this house since I was born. Marse won’t do that.
Some might call that back talk but Missus like a straight answer. She come up close, her fingers all tangled. I tell you, I’ve been married to Brown five years come June, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do.
He mean to sell me?
The man said to me just now, That nigger buck’s worth a thousand dollars. She lean on the table. Don’t you see? You’re all he’s got left.
I think I might fall down.
He intends to leave you with a dealer in town tomorrow, buy some calves instead.
That ain’t gone happen. I says it real quiet but I know she hear me.
Missus nod.
Mary? That’s Marse a-shouting for her. She shoot off like a rabbit.
I got a lot to do. I find some old bags in the larder, start filling them. Cornmeal, flour, salt pork mostly. A couple handful of coffee for when I need to stay wake. The littlest pot for boiling.
Missus come back in so quiet I don’t hear her till she touch my elbow, and I jump. She don’t wear no clickety-clackety
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