A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton - Michael R. Phillips [49]
“Were you really a slave, Mayme?”
“Yes I was, Aleta.”
“Was it hard?”
“Real hard.”
“Why aren’t you a slave now?”
“ ’Cause some bad men killed my family, and I ran away and came here. Miss Katie … Miss Katie’s family,” I added, feeling a twinge of guilt as I said it, “they took me in and let me stay here and work for them. After that, I found out all the slaves had been set free.”
“What kind of men were the bad men?” she asked. “Were they white or colored?”
“They were white men.”
“My daddy says whites are better than coloreds.”
“He’ll find out someday that’s not true, Aleta,” I said. “All white folks have to find that out sometime. Where does your daddy live?”
She shrugged and didn’t answer.
“Is it far away from here?”
“Pretty far.”
“How long had you and your mama ridden before you fell?”
“I don’t know—maybe an hour.”
“Was your daddy chasing you?”
“I think so. Mama kept looking back.”
“Well, Aleta,” I said, “whites can be just as bad as coloreds. And coloreds can be just as bad as whites—if there’s not love in their heart. That’s what makes folks different, not the color of their skin. Some folks have love in their hearts, others don’t.”
She was still young, but I think she understood what I’d said. She seemed to be thinking about it anyhow.
“My daddy doesn’t have love in his heart,” she said.
I didn’t think I’d ever heard anything so sad for a girl to say about her father. It almost made me cry. I waited a minute, then spoke again.
“Do you want to hear about Mr. Rabbit now?” I asked.
“Yes … please!” said Aleta, her eyes gleaming with anticipation.
“How much did you hear before you fell asleep?”
“I don’t know, but tell it all, tell it to me from the beginning.”
From the kitchen porch, Katie had come outside, then paused as she saw us together. She was now watching us sitting at the woodpile talking. She didn’t know what we were talking about, but the softened expression on Aleta’s face brought tears to her eyes.
QUESTIONS IN TOWN
27
KATIE,” I SAID ONE DAY, “NOW THAT THERE’S FIVE of us to feed, I think we oughta start doing something to save the milk. And with summer coming and it getting hot, if there’s a drought, the cows could dry up. So we gotta make sure we’ve got plenty of cheese.”
“Do you know how to make cheese, Mayme?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said. “You just boil the milk, I think. I watched my mama and Josepha do it once, but I forget what they did.”
“I think you’ve got to put something in it to make the milk turn to cheese,” Katie said, then added, “I think my mama’s got a book about it.”
We went to the pantry and looked around.
“Here’s the book my mama was always using,” said Katie. She laid it open on the counter and started flipping through it. The book was called The American FrugalHousewife’s Guide to Food Preparation and Preservation.
“Does it tell about cheese?” I asked.
“I’m looking … here it is,” said Katie, turning the pages.
She bent down to read for a minute.
“It says, ‘Take the inner membrane of the fourth, or digestive stomach of a young mammal living on milk, preferably a young calf—’ ”
“Ugh!” I said. “How are we going to get a calf ’s stomach!”
Katie kept reading. “ ‘Dry the stomach lining in salt, then, when needed, soak in water. The resultant liquid will contain the fermented enzyme, rennet, which has the property of curdling milk. For basic cheese preparation, heat three gallons of fresh milk to approximately 140 degrees …’ ”
She stopped and looked over at me. “How can we make cheese if we don’t have this rennet thing and the calf ’s stomach?” she asked.
“Now that I think about it,” I said, “I think I remember something about using thistles or nettles too.”
“We could find plenty of those!” said Katie.
“But maybe your mama has a dried stomach skin around here someplace.”
“I don’t even like to think about it! And I haven’t seen anything like that.”
“I wonder if we could get anything to use at Mrs. Hammond’s store.”
“I