Ma Lil

      " Mae ! Mae wake up !  Get up girl. You know you have to feed the chicks.  I'm not going to tell you again. "     Reluctantly, Mae awoke. 
"Yes mam.  I'm coming."
      Mae quickly poured some water on her lean dark body.  At twelve, she was beginning to  "fill out".  Yet she still had the slender frame of a young girl just reaching puberty.  It was Saturday morning  and Ma Lil had fixed molasses and biscuits.  Mae ate her molasses and biscuits and ran to feed the chickens.
      Ma Lil was the mother of twelve children.  Eight years ago in 1919 her husband had abandoned her and settled in a small town in Virginia.  Stoicly with the pride and courage that one can only achieve at the depth of oppression and brink of disaster, Ma Lil raised her seven sons and five daughters.  They were  well trained obedient children.  The boys worked the farm, Ma Lil had struggled so desperately to maintain.  The girls assisted Ma Lil as a seamstress for "white folk".  Ma Lil was a survivor, and  her family had survived in rural Georgia.  It had been rough on Ma Lil but she managed.

(This is an excerpt from a story written by Gabriella Robinson)