Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

slipped the shoes onto her toddler’s feet, Lottie and Doug bounded up the top rung of the ladder.
    “Did you get them cows milked, Doug?” She sat a now-pacified Henry back on the floor as Cleveland headed down the ladder.
    “Ain’t much milk, Momma.” Doug held out the half-full pail of still foamy white liquid. Henry grabbed a cracked cup from the table and banged its side.
    “Why’d old man McNaughton take that calf last month, Momma?” Doug asked.
    “Ain’t nobody know the ways of white folks. I heard tell he sold it.” She guided Henry’s hand into the pail and helped him fill his mug to brimming.
    Lottie, grabbing the only other cup the family owned, dipped it into the bucket, splashing a few drops of milk onto Henry’s face. Doug stood staring with unseeing eyes at the two young ones. Annalaura scowled. Her Doug was not a patient child.
    “Lottie, let Doug have a sip of yo’ milk,” she commanded a protesting Lottie.
    Her second son looked up at her, one bare foot behind the opposite knee.
    “Momma, you think I can go to school after harvest?” Doug looked back at her with the face she thought looked most like her own.
    They shared the same copper-shaded brown skin and the same wide-set amber-colored eyes. She didn’t know how to answer this brightest of her children.
    “You said I could go to school when the tobacco got in.”
    “Lord, boy. Why are you botherin’ me with school? We got us nothin’ but work aplenty to get that tobacco in.” She put an extra sharp edge to her words to hide her own growing misery. She’d find a way to fix this mess. She always had.
    “I got to go to school after last harvest. Didn’t have to quit ’til spring plowin’ neither.” Defiance crept into her boy’s voice, and she knew what was coming next. “Papa would let me go.”
    Annalaura dug her nails into her palms to keep from screaming out the truth to this child. “Get yo’ boots on and get on out to the field. If we can get this tobacco sticked by September, I’ll make sure yo’ papa lets you go to school.”
    The smile on her boy’s face was worth the lie.

CHAPTER TWO
     
    Alexander McNaughton looked over the food wife Eula Mae spread before him. It was the same breakfast she had prepared nearly every day of their twenty-year marriage. His eyes swept over the green, flower-printed oilcloth covering the kitchen table. Everything looked like it was there. A mess of eggs—she usually scrambled four for him—the four thick slices of bacon cut from the slab kept in the smoke house, the porridge bowl brimming to the top with grits, the potatoes cut into chunks and cooked in lard, the basket of fresh-baked biscuits in the center of the table, his big mug of black coffee were all there. Yet, something was missing. He glanced over at Eula standing at the stove tossing the tops of the green onions into the grease sizzling in the big cast-iron skillet. He watched her finish off the second helping of potatoes she knows he will want. Without a look in his direction that he could detect, Alex watched his wife pick up the crock of butter, turn, and walk toward him. She set the butter down on the table within easy reach. He gave her a barely perceptible nod as he picked up his fork.
    Eula was good that way. Alex didn’t have to waste time telling her the same things over and over. She just knew what had to be done around the place and got right to it. Unlike most women, Eula didn’t spend her time yammering over nothing. If it hadn’t been for the rare, late delivery of the butter this morning, Alexander wouldn’t have given his wife even this much considering. Sometimes, a thought entered his head that he should tell Eula how much she meant to him, but loving words had never come easy for him. Besides, speeches full of sugar could turn a good woman’s head and spoil her. He shot a second quick glance at his wife. What Eula lacked in looks, she more than made up for in hard work. With her tall, sturdy frame and arms almost as big around as his own, Alex never doubted that he had chosen the right woman all those years ago.
    Not that he had much choice, mind you. Lawnover never did have a belle in all the forty-three years of his life. The closest claim to a beauty came from the neighboring Thornton place—Eula’s younger sister, Bessie. Now, that girl had potential. Much smaller-framed than Eula, with high, pointed tits, and hair the color of corn tassels, Alex had thought about sparking