In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

34 Eutedra must have grown tired of Cee’s lying and bullying. She must have resented the way in which Cee brought his three children into her dwelling as if he had brought three gifts. For her purposes, the only way they could be gifts was if she could have worked his children like the pickney gang of slavery days. This proved to be difficult because Trevor and Sonia rebelled in every way that they could. Trevor exacted pay for milking the cows and transporting the milk pans to the roadside before the crack of dawn. He did so by pointing the cow’s nipple into his mouth while he squeezed each of the four teats in turn. Only when he had his belly full of raw cow’s milk did he point the teats into the bucket. It was so early in the morning that I would say that we were sleepwalking in the cold and dew as we untied and herded at least three cows to the cowshed to milk them. The first cock would crow at approximately three o’clock and the second cock would crow at about five in the morning.As a reward for keeping him company on those early mornings, when we were awakened between the first and second cock-crow, Trevor would feed me my share of milk. But he also fed me so that I would keep his secret. Since the cowshed was located close to the drinking water spring, he would use the water, which he scooped up using the gourd that he was suppose to use to transfer the milk from the bucket to the milk pan, to pour into the milk and replace what we had drank. I, of course, had to swear to secrecy. This was difficult to do since I had been sent to watch over him. The Bybrook Milk Condensery had been paying Eutedra Williams less than she expected. The reason that they gave her was that there was a high percentage of water in the milk. She accepted this explanation because, after all, she had been watering the milk before Cee’s children arrived, and she continued to water her milk after Trevor started doing the milking. She must have gotten wise to the fact that Trevor was following her example because she began to test the milk for water by looking at how blue the milk was. Trevor and Miss Eu sometimes had loud arguChapter 2 Louisiana Blues, circa 1950–54 Chapter 2 Louisiana Blues, circa 1950–54 35 ments about the weak blue milk that he was bringing home in the milk pans. Trevor also had to make adjustments to accommodate Eutedra’s need to water the milk, so he drank less and put less water in the milk. In a situation such as this one, the folk would say:“Tief from tief God laff” (a thief steals from a thief and God laughs). Eutedra was clearly not benefitting from our pickney labour. Sonia was too sickly to carry a load of dirty clothes to the river to scrub and bleach on the river rocks. She did not even have the strength to carry the produce on her head from the provision grounds. With any exertion at all, her heart would begin to palpitate. When this happened, she would shake all over until she was exhausted and turn white as if her heart had pumped all her blood out of her body. My brother and I were always afraid that her heart would stop beating and she would die. Since she was so frail, she often got away with beating up my brother and me. My father said she was born with a weak heart. All of the bush medicine that my father had the obeah man concoct did not help her condition . Years later, with the benefit of education, I often wondered how much poison was being fed into the poor child’s body. In those days, doctors were few, and folk medicines were the only cures for some illnesses. In addition to being sickly, Sonia was full of “backchat” (to answer back daringly) and “lie and story” (tell a barefaced lie and tell a story that is untrue). There were times when Miss Eu swore at Sonia saying:“One day, de obeah man ah go tun yu mout back a yu.” I was too young to be of much use beyond sweeping the yard and carrying small pans of water.As...

Share