 This slave woman worked her master’s tobacco from Monday daylight until Saturday after midday dinner. Now she tends her garden and chickens. Field hands have Saturday afternoons off and all day Sunday. Sundays are for the Baptist meeting, a chance to worship and visit friends and family. Saturday afternoon is for business. The energetic and ambitious young woman will put her best chickens into a large basket, raise it to her shoulder, take her young son by the hand, and walk three miles into Williamsburg. In good weather, the trip should take a little more than an hour. It could take longer if little Cuffy cannot keep up, or if they meet acquaintances who want to know the news from their part of the county.
Rather than stand around gossiping, she prefers to make her rounds in town, door to door, selling her chickens. Cooks at the big houses, most of them enslaved women like herself, know she raises fat, good-tasting poultry. When she has made a sale and is waiting for her coins, she will gladly sit and visit. The money can buy a pretty piece of cloth to wrap her head or tea for a hot drink on a cold night. Will she get to town in good time and find ready customers? Will they buy her chickens at a fair price? What if her son is too troublesome or too tired to walk? How can she manage a six-year-old as well as a basket of live, squawking hens? What will she buy with this cash and when will she make her purchases? Perhaps next Saturday they will make another, more pleasant trip to Williamsburg to shop in the stores that line the streets.
 Your students will enjoy an illustrated version of this Character Scenario in the KIDS ZONE.
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Historic Triangle