A Slave Tale

15 Pages 3674 Words

I would walk, they would slide back and forth, rubbing the outer sides causing blisters from little toe to heel. At night, my ma would tend to those blisters with a thick, foul smelling ointment. She took take care of washing my feet tenderly, then adding the ointment, and then wrapping them with love and care. The very act of her love for me would make me forget those painful afflictions.
As I grew, I had the luxury of getting hand me downs from the older children who had outgrown theirs.
As far as I can remember, I was working. When I was to little to work the fields or the other jobs that some worked, I had to fetch water at the nearby stream. The water that I carried was not only for my family, but also for several families. We all took care of each other. I also would pick berries, nuts, and apples. I tended to my three younger brothers and sister.

I recall that even if we were slaves, there was a lot of love. We were shown that there was hope that this was not an endless crime, that one day we would be free.
Working the cotton fields.

I started working in the cotton fields around the age of ten. The cotton fields were one's life. There was nothing else in the world that held more importance than tending to them. The cotton occupied all time. A never-ending chain. We talked, ate, dreamed, and worked cotton. We would start working in the fields long before hearing the crow of the roosters in the distance. We would be in the fields way into the night tending to our masters' precious crop. My first experience of being in the fields was being shown how to plow a straight line called a furrow. I was given a mule named Mack. Mack was a reliable animal who knew how to go slow and steady. He had been used as this task for many years. I got the feeling that all I had to do was keep the plow straight for Mack and he would do the rest. He would work tirelessly for hours, going back and forth, plowing row a...