Now I'm grown, I wonder what Lady saw. She was just the oldest child on the porch, seventeen, with a three-year-old daughter. Never certain of feeding, I did not welcome hunger. I looked and wanted to suck; Lady looked and wanted to suckle-feed. We were both envious.
Later, when it looked like the four o'clock flowers opened their faces to the sun, but really when they smiled their relief to the arriving shade, when the baby of the house, Other, slept on a cool soft pallet and I tried to sleep on a hot rug in the kitchen, Lady called for a basin of water and a glass of sweet milk, and I was roused to serve it.
Or was it when Other was napping on a pallet in her room and I was one of the children fanning the flies away from little Miss while she slept, that Lady called from the next room, "Mammy, send Cindy up with some cool water and a glass of sweet milk. I'm thirsty and I want a sponge bath." I walked in with what she wanted. Lady made herself comfortable in her rocking chair. "Are you hungry?" I nodded. She handed me the glass of milk. I hesitated. "You can drink it." I took the glass and drank. She took the glass from my hand and drank right after me. I was surprised. Really I was astounded. I didn't know the word then, but that's what I was.
"Help me unbutton my dress; I want to wash." I helped her take off her dress. Her bared breast was just a little thing with a dented nipple almost as big as the circle it stood in. The circle was that tiny. "Are you still hungry?" I nodded again.
She pulled me onto her lap and I suckled at her breast till her warm milk filled me. As always, it was a cheering surprise for both of us. We had been sharing these little spurred-by-envy suppers all my memory, but each time the milk came and how long it came without running out was a mystery to us both. Later, when I slept beside her, she said, "You're my little girl, aren't you?"