The Big House

By: Peggy Poe Stern

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

From Chapter 2:
... “Did you see those folks from off while you were up there?” Gramps asked, but I didn’t answer, nor did I think Granny had seen me at all, but Gramps was good at guessing what I’d been up to.
“What folks?” I asked as innocently as possible.
Gramps grinned ever so slightly as he nodded toward my feet.
“You got that red clay dirt on the bottom of your feet. That mountain is the only place where you can find that kind of red dirt.”
I looked down and sure enough my feet were stained slightly orange by the red dirt I’d walked through instead of plain old black dirt that was everywhere else. Gramps was good at pointing out things I needed to learn. I had a long way to go before I could outsmart Gramps.
“I wanted to get a look at that magnolia woman,” I confessed.
“Did you see her?” Granny asked.
“I did.”
“What did she look like?” Granny wanted to know.
“Little, frail. She was right pretty in a delicate sort of way. She squalled her head off when she saw a little ole granddaddy long legs.”
“Did she see you?” Gramps asked.
“Nope. I hid in the woods. I only wanted to see what they looked like. I didn’t bother them none.”
“They?” Gramps questioned.”
“There was a man and a boy too.”
“They see you?” Gramps asked again.
“Nope.”
“What were they doing?” Granny was always curious about what people were doing.
“He was mowing the grass with a scythe. He didn’t know how to use that scythe any more than Granny’s old cow does. Gramps ought to go up there and show him how. It was plain pitiful to watch him hacking at that grass instead of swinging the blade the right way. He was sweating like a puny man at a weightlifting contest,” I repeated what I’d heard Gramps say.
“And their boy?” Gramps asked, ignoring my remark about the mowing.
“He’s prissy. Can’t go nowhere without his momma holding his hand.”
“How do you know that?” Granny asked.
“The woman said she hated this place and the only reason she was here was to watch after her little boy. She said he was privileged like her. What does privileged mean?”
“It means folks who don’t have lift a finger to do anything other than eat,” Granny said.
Gramps grinned in a sad sort of way and Granny shook her head.
“You best stay off that mountain. It hain’t no place for a girl. No telling what kind of people they are. Folks from off have peculiar ways about them. I’ve heard stories . . .” Granny was saying, but Gramps butted in.
“You can’t believe all you hear about folks,” Gramps was quick to say. “But your Granny is right in that you ought to stay off that mountain. No need to go sticking your nose where it don’t belong. Most always turns out bad when you do.”
“I don’t plan on going back. I just wanted to see what rich folks from off looked like. I saw their light and got curious. That’s all,” I tried to explain my curiosity until they would understand instead of fussing at me.
...

Virtual voice

This was my first time listening to a virtual voice and it was terrible in every single way. It was not a “performance,” it was computer output which can never match the voice of a human.