Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition) by Francine Thomas Howard

quickness.
    “He strong like a mule, suh, and my girl will fetch and carry the sticks. I’ll do the spearin’ myself.” The eyes met his for the whisper of a second before he watched her drop them to the fourth button on his shirt.
    “Woman, are you tellin’ me that you and your three picka…” he remembered her admonition of two weeks earlier “…children are going to bring in an acre of tobacco by nightfall? What about tomorrow? Where is your man, anyway?” It was his turn to give her the hard look.
    Quick as a flighty bird, she brushed past him and stepped out into the breaking day. Alex walked to catch up with her.
    “No, suh. I don’t reckon I can get an acre in by nightfall, but I can surely do it befo’ midnight.” This time the eyes met his and lingered long enough for him to look into their velvety bronze soft ness.
    This woman had pools in her deeper than well water. What would it feel like to dip into those depths?
    “My children and I will work from sunup to sundown spearin’ the tobacco. After I put them to bed, I will sharpen the sticks ’til my oldest boy can do the job in two or three days.” The eyes were up again, searching his.
    He stared back at her until a look of remembrance crossed her face and she quickly dropped her eyes to his boot tops.
    Alex moved away from her to survey the fields a third time. When he turned back, the woman had stepped inside the smoke house. He followed.
    “How do you expect to work your children like grown-up field hands if you ain’t feedin’ them?”
    The woman bent over the open oven door, a tin pan of four hot biscuits in her cloth-shielded hand. Surprised at the speed with which she straightened to her full height, Alex paused.
    “I will get yo’ tobacco in for you, Mr. McNaughton, suh.” She drew out his name.
    This woman had more sass in her than was good for any female, black or white. A good slap would remind her of her place, but he hesitated. Holding the hot tin in front of her, she moved to the door of the smoke house. Alex stopped her.
    “I don’t believe you can bring in my tobacco for me.”
    The right side of his body brushed her left shoulder. His left arm stretched across the door frame directly in front of her chest, his long shirtsleeve no more than inches away from her shirtwaist with its open top button.
    “I’ve put on a hired man to help you,” Alex made the decision as he spoke, “but the cost will be high.”
    She looked up at him, the cooling tin of biscuits in her hand, puzzlement on her face. “What can you give me to pay for the extra help?” He watched the woman’s slow shake of her head as her eyes blinked the dawning understanding of what he was asking.
    Her mouth, with those full kissable lips, opened and closed twice.
    “Sir, please forgive my forgetfulness.” The words came out slow. “You asked about my husband. He has been delayed in Kentucky—his auntie and all—but he left me a message for you.” Each word came out as exact as a tobacco-weighing scale.
    Did she think that sounding like a proper-talking Nashville colored schoolteacher was going to keep him away? He didn’t appreciate uppity-talkin’ niggers.
    “My husband, John Welles…” she let the name linger on her lips, “wants to beg yo’ pardon about the delay. He knows I can bring in twenty acres all by myself in the next two weeks. He also know he owe you forty and would like to make up for it in the winter.”
    No nigger, male or female, had ever gathered the nerve to try and bargain with him or any other white man. He should take a stick to this woman and beat her back to remembering her place. Instead, he let his hand slip down the front of her dress, stopping at the second buttonhole just at the rise of her breast. He listened to her soft intake of breath and waited while she failed to let it out. Her eyes remained on his face. He knew she dare not push his hand away.
    “Suh, my husban’ may not be home for a few days but he