Introducing: Br’er Rabbit’s Boy
Over at the Big House, Missus Allen was having herself a conniption fit, screeching and carrying on something fierce. The kitchen door banged, and Master shouted. Even the dog yelped.
Toby sighed and shook his head as he hauled up the well bucket to wash the dust of the field from his face. That woman was always worked up about something. The dog rounded the house and leaped at him, and Toby held out the dipper to him. “What’s the matter Sunnyboy? Missus in one o’ her moods?” He stroked the mutt’s smooth yellow back. But Sunnyboy knocked the water away and bit at Toby’s pant leg. Toby paused, frowning. Then he dropped the dipper and took off running toward the front of the house.
Out on the veranda, Missus Allen was stomping her foot and pulling at the Master’s coat sleeve. “I tole’ you no, not Adah. I need her.”
Master shook her off, but she snatched up her ruffled skirt and followed him down the stairs. “She’s my girl, and you have no right to sell her.” Little Missy Anna, who’d been hanging on her Mama’s skirt, toppled over and started screaming too.
And then Toby saw Mama, struggling to get herself free from the overseer, who was holding her arms behind her back. “Mastah, I’m beggin’ you. Send me ‘stead. My Adah, she kin cook ’n sew—wait on the Missus, too.”
Adah herself was down on the ground over by a green wagon, squealing like a pig bleeding out, while two men sat on her. One of them was stuffing a rag into her mouth, while the other one wrapped a rope around her feet.
Toby started towards her, but something struck him on the head, and he crumpled to the ground.
Click on the links for historical and literary notes, map, photos, and discussion questions for middle grades students.