Cather, Willa. Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940). New York: Vintage, 1975.

Cather's last novel is set in antebellum Virginia. She was born there, as I was, and then moved to Nebraska, as I did. Then she moved to Pittsburgh, but I had the good sense to hit it on the way out West.

Here's a quote:

Anatomically, she was remarkable, for an African negress: tall, straight, muscular, long in the legs. The skipper had a kind of respect for a well-shaped creature; horse, cow, or woman. And he respected anyone who could take a flogging like that without buckling (93-4).

And another:

She served each man a strong toddy in one of the big glass tumblers that had been her father's. When Tap, the mill boy, smacked his lips and said: "Miss Sapphy, if my mammy's titty had a-tasted like that, I never would a-got weaned," she laughed as if she had never heard the old joke before (220).

These quotes don't do a good job of showing you how well she captures the Virginia summer, but man does she capture it well. I think it's the paragraph about locusts?