![]() ![]() Fourteen new cabins have been built since Ajarry’s time, but it seems like they have been there forever. Ajarry used to tend to it, before Randall plantation became as prosperous as it is now. With or without a feast, Cora spends every Sunday afternoon tending to her garden. Cora tells Lovey that you can’t pick your birthday, and Lovey replies that she better cheer up. Mabel used to tell Cora about her difficult delivery, in which Mabel almost bled to death. ![]() She replies that she has already told Lovey that she was born in winter, although she doesn’t know the exact date and can only guess that she is about 15. Lovey is a simple young woman who enjoys dancing at the celebration days-birthdays, harvests, and Christmas. Cora’s friend Lovey asks which day she would choose if she could pick her birthday. ![]() ![]() It would not be possible to use Jockey’s birthday as an excuse not to work because “everybody knew niggers didn’t have birthdays.” Normally, Cora contributes something from her garden for the birthday feasts, but there is nothing in the soil today. Everyone attends the feast except those who have taken extra work. The chapter begins with the narrator stating that Jockey (the oldest enslaved person on the plantation) is having a birthday, which comes once or twice a year and always on a Sunday, the slaves’ half-day. The chapter is preceded by a “runaway ad” from 1820 seeking the capture of an enslaved girl called Lizzie and warning people not to harbor her. ![]()
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