[u][b]Tackett Farmstead [/b][/u]

[b]Date: [/b]09/23/24

[b]Location:[/b] Stables/Coloured Barn 

Stumps briefly ran the dried pads of his fingers through the thin, trickling stream of water that dripped out from the pump into the pail, sighing in relaxation as the liquid cooled his fading blisters.  He stopped the pump, the level of water in the bucket near the edge of the brim. He ran his damp hand through his sun-singed hair, eyeing his blurry brown reflection on the water’s surface before grabbing the thin handle of the bucket, a brief grunt as he pulled it upwards. He found himself missing the benefit of having two hands as he struggled to lift the pail by its handle, his muscles taut and tense and his knees almost buckling at the sheer weight. The pail became heavy as a sack of bricks, yet, he could still take it. As he walked back to the inside of the stable, the glowering sun was in the middle of its long journey westwards, the long shadows of the building stretching further by the all-seeing light that the sun casted overhead. 

His right hand was aching hard once he’d made it back to the horses, the steeds not paying him any  notice whatsoever. MJ Tackett was waiting for him to fufill her request, a nasty expression on her sun-tanned face as she regarded him with contempt. The scars on his back began to throb again as he noticed her fingers slowly inching towards her personal riding crop. Well, that was an improvement if he ever saw one. The old man’s daughter was usually more foul-mouthed with negroes like him.  He placed the heavy pail of water down besides MJ, ignoring the withering gaze she sent his way. He’d given up on hoping for a simple thank you from people like her already.            
  [color=800000]“ You’re welcome,” [/color] grunted Stumps before he retired himself to the relative sanctity of his bunk. 

He continued to walk into the inside of the dilapidated barn, rags of cobwebs hanging in the rafters of the wooden ceiling. It was more sparse than usual. Most of the other Negro farmhands were outside behind the coloured barn, the aromatic scent of spice and shrimp the only clue to the nature of what they were exactly doing.  It was designed to be efficiently crammed as possible, the bedframes placed next to each other in an orderly fashion. The walls had seen better days, flakes of white-wash beginning to peel off like a scab, revealing the moth-eaten wood behind. Sunlight sneaked through the slits between the walls, small pinpricks of dappled yellow visible in the gloom of the barn. His own bed was at the bottom of the bunk bed. The blankets were folded haphazardly on top of the linen sheet with a canvas bag filled with sand poking out from underneath the bed frame and a small box-shelf to the right of his mattress. The rickety wooden supports creaked dangerously underneath his weight as he considered what to do next. It was a lazy Sunday. There was no barley-bucking, cotton-picking or work that needed to be done out in the fields today. He sat silent for a while on his bunk before leaning down under to the bottom of his bed and procuring a roll of white gauze, tossing it up and down in his single hand. 

He needed to relieve a little stress anyway. 

Stumps bit on the end of the gauze wrap with his teeth as he began to wind it around his right palm in an awkward motion that was practiced after months of fervent frustration. The band looped around the palm of his hand several times before he began working tightening each knuckle. He then lightly tapped the back of his right hand against the stilted frame of his bed before dragging out the canvas bag from underneath his bed. He hoisted it up on his shoulders along with a coil of rope as he climbed up onto the top bunk. The door to the colored barnhouse creaked open as Stumps was hooking the canvas bag onto one of the many wooden support beams that criss-crossed across the ceiling with the help of a hemp rope. Stumps squinted his eyes to see who it was, the gloomy darkness of the bunkhouse making it hard to discern the appearance of whoever entered. 

It was Alice Hallark. She was a recent arrival onto the barn, relative to Stump’s time spent working in the Tackett farmstead. He didn’t know much about her except that she worked with the doctors and that she didn’t say nigger every time she saw a black skinned person. Stumps absentmindedly answered her question as he managed to secure one of the ropes around the beam, leaving the canvas bag aimlessly swaying a few feet above the ground. 

 [color=800000]“Last I heard, most of the guys in here were cooking sumthin’ good outside at the back for grub. Can’t say about the rest though. ” [/color]