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mother in the kitchen, mostly. Folks say I was tied to mamma’s apron strings, but I never did much mind what folks say. Turned out to be one of them little decisions that don’t seem like much at the time, but ends up changing yo’ life.
    First day they puts me to work pluckin’ and dressin’ the chickens for that evenin’s dinner. It was summertime and the kitchen was pipin’ hot, what with bread bakin’ in the ovens all morning long. I had sweat rollin’ off me; but it was the kind of work I’s used to. I hadn’ been there two hours when in breezes a blonde headed white girl, all smilin’ and flushed. And she ask’ me, well, she tol’ me—like I’d been there all her life—to cut up some carrots for her pony. Didn’ ask me my name (white people never did), just said, “Little pieces; he likes little pieces.” I said, “Yes’m, I’ll bring ‘em to the stable for ya,” and she was out the door ‘fore I’d even finished my sentence.
    And that was the first time I ever laid eyes on Miz Ginny. Now, she was the prettiest girl, white or colored, you ever would see: so slim and graceful, with hair that didn’ seem to fall out of place no matter how fast she rode that pony; and always smilin’, or so I thought. Even though she acted all high and mighty about them carrots, I liked her right off. Course, I was gonna learn she could be a difficult lady to please.“Particular,” my mother called her. Reckon she come by that trait honest; both her folks had mighty particular ways.
    Her daddy, Gordon Ulysses (musta been a Yankee in that woodpile, some ways) Stuart, was one of the
cussedest
men ever drew breath—least that’s what my Mama said. I don’t know. He never had much to say to me. He sho did love yo mama. But my own Mama said that big boned, red-faced, beast of a man could turn sweet milk sour with a look. Mista Gus waited ‘til he was neigh in ta forty-five afore he married. His wife, Mary Bess Stuart, was good as two saints. She had to be to put up with his ornery self—least that’s how Mama seen it. My way of seein’ Miz Bess was that she liked to look like she was good. Lord knows she stood by her man, but come time for judgment day she’s gonna have to pay for leavin’ her children out to dry. Mama said it’s a shame a good woman like Miz Bess would be saddled with the likes of Mista Gus, bein’ that she was a lady through and through. I kept my thoughts to myself on that score. She didn’ drink a drop of alcohol and was kinder than three pews full of church ladies, so everybody thought. Mama would walk barefooted on broken glass for Miz Bess; but if there was a way she could avoid Mista Gus, she would take it even if she had to walk a mile outta her way. Mama could
not
abide that man.
    Mista Gus filled up a room with his voice, his laugh, even his silence, and when he was crossed, he had a face on him would stop water freezin’ in January. Miz Bess, on the other hand, was a little bird-like woman. She spoke soft and sweet, and hardly took up space atall ‘cept when a thing didn’t suit her. Then she could give even Mista Gus a run for his money. Mama said he burnt down the house he and Miz Bess was livin’ in before so after his parents done died they could move into in the big house where he growed up. Miz Bess didn’ want to live in the big house, but after he burnt the other house down, she didn’ have much of a choice, folks said.
    Appin was in Mista Gus’s family since his great-granddaddy’s time, and most folks that worked there was born on the place. The big house didn’t look as big as it was. There was a porch wrappin’ min’near ‘round the whole house, covered in jasmine, climbin’ roses, and honeysucklevines. I ‘spect it was the way you come on the porch that made the house look smaller than most the houses around. There weren’t no big columns. It sat up on a slope with a brick walk lined with box bushes. Behind them was lilacs and crape myrtles. With