the casterton family , who had owned the plantation , were impressed by her cooking and house skills , but mrs. casterton found the withered arm unsettling , and so she was sold to the lavere family , who were out for a year from louisiana : m. lavere was a fat , cheerful man who was in need of a cook and a maid of all work , and who was not in the slightest repulsed by the slave daisy 's withered arm .