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FREEDOMWAYS          THIRD QUARTER 1969

enough tacks, the paper bulged in places.  The kitchen didn't have any wallpaper and the only furniture in it was a wood stove, an old table and a safe.

Mama and Daddy had two girls.  I was almost four and adline was a crying baby about six or seven months.  We rarely saw Mama and Daddy because they were in the field every day except Sunday.  They would get up early in the morning and leave the house just before daylight.  It was six o'clock in the evening when they re-turned, just before dark.

George Lee, Mama's eight-year-old brother, kept us during the day.  He loved to roam the woods and taking care of us prevented him from enjoying his favorite pastime.  He had to be at the house before Mama and Daddy left for the field, so he was still groggy when he got there.  As soon as Mama them left the house, he would sit up in the rocking chair and fall asleep.  Because of the solid wooden door and windows, it was dark in the house even though it was nearing daybreak.  After sleeping for a couple of hours, George Lee would jump up suddenly, as if he was awakened from a nightmare, run to the front door, and sling it open.  If the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day, he would get all excited and start slinging open all the big wooden windows, making them rock on their hinges.  Whenever he started banging the windows and looking out at the woods longingly, I got scared.

George Lee, the eight-year-old baby sitter, is a poet-like most black Americans.  He tries to find meaning in the things around him and, with his youth and the confusion that goes with it, he often does more harm than good.  To him, responsibilities came early and stayed late.  He cannot understand why black children on farms are often fed sweetened water instead of milk.  He sees food all around him and people starving.

In this two dimensional description of the plantation Miss Moody sometimes shows an aspect of the master and slave relationship be-tween blacks and whites that is still in existence.

That evening we sat on the porch waiting, as we did every evening, for Mama them to come up the hill.  The electric lights were coming on in Mr. Carter's big white house as all the Negro shacks down in the bottom began to fade with darkness.  Once it was completely dark, the lights in Mr. Carter's house looked even brighter, like a big lighted castle.  It seemed like the only house on the whole plantation.

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-15 12:45:08