"Yessir," Bayard says. "I live on a plantation. Only we don't got many slaves so we have to do the handiwork ourselves, and Father says it's good to know how to do it anyway. We work the land and raise livestock. I even built a stock pen for the mules and the sows but a few weeks ago."

The pride when he talks about that stock pen is palpable, so much so that one could believe he assembled it himself with no help at all.