Book Description

The women in Mae's family were as fierce as a lioness and ferocious as a leopardess, when it comes to caring of their families and the men who loved them. These women were strong and a little flirty at times, but held strong to their convictions. Teaser: The year was 1898, Bella and Gappy, were my great-great grandparents. They were slaves on Master Barkley's Plantation, in the Southern part of Texas. The slaves had just finished a long hard day in the fields and tending the livestock. They went home for the evening, because the weather seem to be changing quickly. The slaves were feeling uneasy about the way the sky looked, so they hurried home quickly. Once they got home, Bella started to make supper in the kitchen. Gappy was walking back and forth, across the hardwood floor, looking out the windows, at the sky. He was getting a little nervous, because the sky started getting real dark and it started to rain. The wind started blowing so loud and hard, he thought it was going to blow them away. We were all getting real scared and started huddling together. I told Bella, feeling concerned, "a storm is blowing up, and we got to hurry up and get down in the storm cellar, before it gets worse!" The weather started to change outside. Bella and Gappy took their child Nerve, and gathered things to go down in the storm cellar. Bella was pregnant with their second child and had been having stomach pains all day. The pains didn't bother her too much, because she knew the baby wasn't due for another month. We went down in the storm cellar, to ride out the storm with other slaves that lived nearby. Bella always kept it filled with supplies to last us awhile, just for these times. Everyone start getting scared and nervous, so we huddle up real close together. Bella's pains got worse and they started coming closer and closer. The storm outside was getting worse and the wind was blowing with a vengeance. Bella, panting, said to Gappy, "I hope this baby wait till this storm is over, before it gets here." Breathless! She sat in the corner, putting her feet up, holding her stomach and yelling in pain. The women folks put a sheet up with a rope, to close that portion of the cellar off. Gappy and the other men pace the floor, listening for the baby to cry. Some of the men were peeking out the cellar door, every now and then, looking to see what was going on with the weather outside. It was stormy, the rain was coming down hard and the wind was blowing so had, the men folks had to hold the storm door, the keep it closed, while looking out. One of the slave said, shackling said, "It's got to be a tornado coming, wind don't blow that hard for nothing!" Bella, cried out to the other women, "I thought we had more time before this baby got here." Panting. It seems her pains were getting closer and the pains were getting harder. Gappy said sadly. "Guess it's time for that baby to make its way into this troubled world, we was living in." After a long time of waiting. Bella started hollering real loud and gave one last push, then finally, she gave birth to my Great-grand momma, 'Red'. (Red will be known as Momma from now on, more on that later). She started crying and all the men started hoping and hollering with joy. She had big brown eyes and black curly hair. Everyone forgot about what was going on outside for a minute. Before you know it, the storm had finally died down. We went back to our houses.