Trouble Don't Last
TROUBLE
Truth is, trouble follows me like a shadow.
To begin with, I was born a slave when other folks is born white. My momma was a slave and her momma a slave before that, so you can see we are nothing but a family of trouble. Master sold Momma before I was even old enough to remember her, and two old slaves named Harrison and Lilly had to raise me up like I was one of their own, even though I wasn't. Then, when I was in my eleventh year, the old slave Harrison decided to jump into trouble himself, and he tried to run away.
Problem was, I had to go with him.
THE BROKEN PLATE
It all started on a just-so day in the month of September 1859, when I broke my master's plate while clearing the supper table. I tried to tell Lilly that if Master Hackler hadn't taken a piece of bread and sopped pork fat all over his old plate, I wouldn't have dropped it.
But Lilly kept her lips pressed tight together, saying nothing as she scraped the vegetable scraps into the hog pails.
"And Young Mas Seth was sticking his foot this-away and that-away, tryin to trip me up," I added.
Lilly didn't even look at me, just kept scrapin ...
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