The author Langston Hughes provides an emotional story about African-American Ma Jenkins and her eldest daughter Cora worked as servants for the Studevants family who were a wealthy family living in a small town in Melton, Iowa in the 1930s. Cora and Ma were also the only African Americans there in the town; they had to deal with being disrespected by whites and the emotional conflicts they had to endure. Years Later Cora had a child who had died of an illness at a very young age. Cora continued to do her work for the Studevants and not hold back on what she needed to be done to provide for her family even though she was pretending the lost of her child wasn’t hitting her when it really was on the inside her heart was broken. As Lizbeth Studevant, the lady of the household had a daughter named Jessie, felt jealous of Cora because of the fact that Jessie had more of a close bond relationship with the maid Cora instead of having a relationship with her own daughter. Cora accepted Jessie as if she was her own daughter. Cora felt in her heart that she adopted Jessie as her own; the fact that she provided for Jessie and always helped Jessie with her school and all she felt as if she was Jessie’s mother more than Lizbeth was ever a mother to Jessie.