Strong Horse Tea

American author Alice Walker’s short story "Strong Horse Tea" was included in Walker's 1973 short story collection, In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women. The story relates a young woman's attempts to save her son who is dying of double pneumonia and whooping cough.

At the beginning of the story, Rannie Toomer waits anxiously for a doctor to arrive at her home. Her infant son, Snooks, lies under a pile of quilts, suffering horribly from both whooping cough and double pneumonia. In the room with them is Sarah, an older woman struggling to warm herself by the fire. Sarah, a woman said to possess the power of magic, expresses deep skepticism of the white doctor's abilities to cure Snooks. More to the point, she doubts that the doctor will ever come at all. Rannie, meanwhile, cannot believe that a person of medicine would allow an innocent boy to die if he could help it.

Instead of waiting for a doctor who may never come, Sarah repeatedly insists that Rannie try some kind of magical home remedy, like "arrowsroot or sassyfrass and cloves, or sugar tit soaked in cat’s blood.” However, Rannie wants no part in her "witch's remedies," continuing to profess her faith in traditional medicine. She presses her face to the window and looks out into the rain, hoping to see the doctor or at least the mailman she sent to fetch the doctor. Sarah warns Rannie not to expect much from either. "White mailman, white doctor," Sarah says, rhythmically.



Rannie recalls an earlier conversation with the mailman about the nature of direct advertising. An illiterate woman, Rannie is mystified by the circulars she receives in the mail. She asks the "red-faced" mailman if the pictures of home goods on the circulars signify that an individual is on the way to deliver these items to her. The mailman explains that no, the products she sees in the circulars are only available to people who visit the stores in town and pay for them. Why then, Rannie responds, would they deliver circulars to her when everybody knows she has no money? The mailman knows not what to say except to blame it on "the laws of advertising." From that point on, Rannie uses the circulars as a makeshift form of insulation to keep out the wind.

The perspective shifts dramatically to that of the mailman, specifically his conversation that day about Snooks's need of a doctor. While Rannie assumes that her earnest pleas for a doctor would be heeded, the mailman views Rannie's request as an annoyance. His chief worry is he will catch a cold from her, due to the rain dripping from her head that is stuck through his window. The mailman then makes the mistake of suggesting Sarah's home remedies himself, a suggestion Rannie emphatically refuses. Despite offering to "do what he can," the mailman speeds off happy to be far away from Rannie's bad breath and "nasty black hands."

When Sarah arrives unbidden an hour after the mailman, Rannie makes her leave her "bag of tricks" on the porch. From Sarah's perspective, she is saddened by Rannie's refusal to embrace less traditional remedies. Yet, there was something heartening about how "the young always grow up hoping. It did take a long time to finally realize that you could only depend on those who would come." Finally, Sarah reveals the truth of the matter: When the mailman said he would fetch the doctor, all he meant was that he would fetch Sarah. She explains to Rannie that she heard the mailman call for her when he passed her house. At this point, Rannie finally comes to the terrible realization that the doctor isn't coming.



As Sarah examines the baby, Rannie is suddenly tormented by guilt. She feels deeply ashamed and unwise to have trusted anybody but Sarah to help Snooks. Her calm, hopeful confidence in white medicine is replaced entirely by a zealot's faith in the very "witchcraft" she had dismissed only moments earlier. Meanwhile, Sarah's prognosis is grim. There is one remedy she might try, but it requires a "strong stomach," she says. It is not Snooks, however, who requires the strong stomach, for he won't know what he's drinking. It is Rannie who needs it in order to procure the remedy in question: "strong horse tea."

Upon hearing the words, Rannie immediately walks out into the rain into the field where she finds a "lone grey mare." Rannie waits for an hour in the rain, fearful of being struck by lightning, until finally, the mare begins to urinate. Realizing she forgot to bring a jar, Rannie takes off her shoe and tries to collect the urine in it. Unfortunately, lightning strikes nearby, setting the mare off running. Rannie chases the mare, holding out her shoe and hoping to catch as much of the "tea" as she can. Meanwhile, back at the house, Sarah observes that Snooks is no longer breathing.

Back in the field, the horse finishes and then kicks Rannie to the ground. She manages to keep the tea, now mixed with rainwater, from splashing out of the shoe, but unfortunately, the shoe now has a leak. Rannie sees no other option than to let the tea drip into her mouth, where she will hold it and eventually deliver it to her son, whom she doesn't realize is already dead.



"Strong Horse Tea" is a tale of monumental tragedy, made even more upsetting by the story's absurd climax.