Chapter Twenty-One
Work on the farm was governed by the seasons.
By late March, it was time to plant peas and corn and begin tilling for root vegetables. The fields had to be turned, the
soil broken up with plows drawn by mules, then harrowed smooth. Onions and cabbages, lettuce and mustard greens were planted
in neat rows. In the orchard, peach and apple trees needed to be pruned, dead branches trimmed to make way for new growth.
Honeybees stirred from their hives. Cattle were let out to roam the woods and forage in the new grass. Fences were checked,
gaps mended. The first kids and calves were born, their thin legs wobbling as they took their first steps.
Spring rains soaked the fields, leaving the furrows heavy with mud. Creeks swelled with meltwater from the mountain, flooding
the lowlands and making travel difficult. But as days lengthened and sun warmed the earth, green shoots pushed through the
soil, the first sign of the harvest to come. Strawberry plants, set in rows the year before, sent out their first runners.
Eng and Chang had become obsessed with the idea of scientific farming. They read tracts and articles, sketched out ambitious
plans, and ordered farm equipment no one in our county had seen. As an experiment, they planted two acres of a new tobacco,
Bright Leaf, which they’d read was more flavorful and resistant to weevils. They invested in a cigarette press that produced
twice the amount in half the time. “It’s expensive, but it will pay for itself in less than two years,” Eng said.
To manage the expanding farm, they brought in day laborers for planting and harvesting, and borrowed or rented slaves from neighboring farmers for rail-splitting, swamp-clearing, and skilled work like masonry and carpentry. For the chimney, they hired local craftsmen.
Summer was a time of weeding and watering, of repairing and maintaining buildings, fences, and farm equipment. The fields
needed near-constant attention—corn and tobacco needed to be hoed, pests kept at bay. Wild plums, blackberries, and muscadine
grapes grew in the forest. Peaches ripened in the orchard, their skins deepening in the sun. Grace and Phoebe, with a few
hired hands, gathered them by the basketful, setting some aside for drying or preserving in crocks of sugar and brandy.
The days were long, the air heavy with heat. Field hands swung scythes in steady arcs, cutting hay to be stacked high in the
barn loft before the afternoon storms rolled in. Cows needed to be milked, and hogs slopped in the early morning before the
sun grew too high. Chickens scratched in the dirt, their eggs warm when we gathered them from the nests. Beans were strung
to dry; cucumbers and onions brined in crocks, set in the cool shade of the kitchen house. At night, moths gathered around
the oil lamps and katydids called from the tall grass.
Fall was butchering time. The smokehouse was readied with cartloads of split hickory, its fire requiring constant tending.
Nothing was wasted. Hooves were boiled for calves’ foot jelly, hides preserved for tanning, cuts of beef corned with sugar,
saltpeter, red pepper, and salt. Sausage was made from pork scraps, liver, and herbs, stuffed into washed intestines. Hickory
nuts and walnuts were plentiful. Corn was harvested, shucked, and milled for grits and bread. Fruit from the orchard became
jams and jellies.
Some mornings the brothers disappeared on hunting or fishing trips, ranging across hills and hollows, creeks and streams, from the Yadkin River to Stone Mountain.
Deer moved through the thinning woods; geese and ducks descended on the cornfields; wild turkeys emerged from the brush.
The brothers came home with possum and pheasant, speckled trout and smallmouth bass, sometimes even fox or bear.
They began competing in local shooting matches and amassed a slew of silver trophies.
Before long, the farm was self-sustaining. We raised milk cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and cattle. Made our own butter, canned
fruit from the orchard, and cultivated bees for wax and honey. Grew Indian corn, beans, potatoes both Irish and sweet, wheat,
rye, oats, and peas. Collard greens and turnips and eggplant, butter beans and squash, tomatoes and onions, okra and rutabagas.
The work never stopped. It was a living thing, and we moved with it. One task flowed into the next: fields turned, seeds sown,
crops tended, then harvested and stored before the cycle began again. Even in winter, when the land lay dormant, there was
wood to chop, tools to mend, animals to care for.
But not all backs bent the same. Oh, Addie and I were busy—raising our children, sewing, preserving, tending the kitchen garden.
But we fed the chickens when we felt like it and stitched tiny garments in the shade of the porch. I left beans half picked
in the row to watch Katie chase butterflies in the grass. Addie laid her mending down to gather blackberries with Josie. We
could rest when the heat bore down. We had the luxury to choose not only the work we did, but when to set it aside.
Addie and I had never been close to our older siblings.
Our mother bore six children over the span of a decade, with the two of us arriving last. By then, the eldest were already grown, busy building households of their own.
Ours was not a family given to demonstrative affection; Mama retreated into her ailments, Papa into his ledgers and formalities.
The ties between siblings—never tightly woven to begin with—loosened early, and our marriages to Eng and Chang merely widened the distance that had long been there.
Only our brother, Alston, kept in regular contact. A businessman of some standing in the region, he joined Eng and Chang for
cards every few weeks. They discussed tobacco prices and timber contracts, and occasionally Alston would pass along scraps
of news of our other siblings, as if reporting on distant acquaintances rather than our own flesh and blood.
Beyond that, there were letters now and then, a package at Christmas for our children—but visits were rare, blamed on weather,
poor roads, pressing business. Addie and I recognized these excuses for what they were: polite fictions that spared us all
from confronting the truth. Our parents and siblings did not openly condemn our choices, but neither did they wish to be closely
associated with them.
I felt their absence most keenly during the children’s milestones—birthdays, christenings, first steps. But over time, we
created our own traditions. Our life with Eng and Chang became its own world, complete and self-contained. When we spoke of
“our family,” we meant the four of us and our children, not the wider branches from which we had sprouted.
The distance was painful, yes, but it was also familiar. In many ways, it echoed a broader pattern. Though Eng and Chang were
wealthy and well connected, their place in society was tenuous, secured only by their willingness to embrace the habits of
Southern gentry. They inhabited the roles of plantation owners, churchgoers, and respectable citizens so fully you might’ve
thought they were born to them. The parts of themselves that marked them as outsiders, from their faith to their accents to
the silk tunics and high topknots of their youth, had long been buried. Still, many planters bristled at the notion of sharing
class and status with them. Poor whites seethed that these “colored” men had succeeded where they had not.
The good people of Wilkes County—and scandal-hungry journalists far beyond—continued to gossip.
Our neighbors no longer stared openly, but nor did they embrace us.
At church, at the harvest fair, running errands in town, we still heard murmurs when the four of us appeared together.
A stiffening of the shoulders, a too-careful politeness, the way conversation faded when we passed.
We weren’t shunned so much as held at a remove.
Even after we’d proven ourselves, in most ways, to be an ordinary family, we remained apart. We were like a word that sits
awkwardly on the tongue—not quite foreign, not quite familiar. A reminder that not everything in their world conformed to
their notions of decency and order.
Once, on a sidewalk in Wilkesboro, a red-faced man muttered something about “sin” and “perversion” until his wife hushed him
with a firm hand on his arm. But such moments were rare. Most people found polite ways of making their feelings known.
Six weeks after my second child, Julia Ann, was born, I ventured into Epps to buy cloth, the baby tucked beneath my shawl
in a wrap. She was still so small, her breath barely rising against my chest. I hadn’t wanted to leave her behind.
At the fabric counter, Mina Greenbow appeared beside me, running her fingers over a bolt of calico.
“This blue would suit you, Sallie,” she said. “It’s nice to see you out and about so soon. How is your little girl?”
“She was a bit sickly at first, but she’s gaining strength,” I said. “I probably ought to have left her at home, but I couldn’t
bring myself to.”
Mina leaned in, peering into the folds of the blanket. “What a sweetheart,” she murmured. Then, in a lowered voice: “I’ve
been meaning to ask. My niece is visiting from Richmond, and she’s heard all about your . . . unusual arrangement. She’s simply
burning with curiosity. Might the two of us come to call?”
I forced a smile. “I’m afraid I’ve got my hands full just now. With Katie and the baby, you know.”
“Oh, of course, of course.” She gave my arm a light pat. “Well. I admire your courage, Sallie. Truly. It can’t be easy, living
the life you’ve chosen.”
Just then, Eng and Chang stepped up behind me. I watched her eyes flick from one face to the other. “Good afternoon, Mr. Bunker.
And . . . Mr. Bunker.”
Chang looked past her. Eng gave a polite nod. “Afternoon, Miss Greenbow.”
She adjusted her shawl. “Take care, Sallie.”
“You as well.”
“Give dear Adelaide my best. She must be due?”