of fare was for dinner or the mid-day meal.  For supper each slave received two pieces of meat and two slices of bread, but these slices were very large, as the loaves were about six inches thick and baked in an old fashioned oven.  This bread was made from corn meal for, as I have said, only on holidays and special occasions did the slaves have white bread of any kind.  Part of the meat and bread received at supper time was saved for the “morning bite.”  The slaves never had any breakfast, but went to the field at daylight and after working till the sun was well up, all would stop for their morning bite.  Very often some young fellow ate his morning bite the evening before at supper and would have nothing for the morning, going without eating until noon.  The stop for morning bite was very short; then all would plunge into work until mid-day, when all hands were summoned to their principal meal.

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Carding and spinning.

Through the winter and on rainy days in summer, the women of the field had to card the wool and spin it into yarn.  They generally worked in pairs, a spinning wheel and cards being assigned to each pair, and while one carded the wool into rolls, the other spun it into yarn suitable for weaving into cloth, or a coarse, heavy thread used in making bridles and lines for the mules that were used in the fields.  This work was done in the cabins, and the women working together alternated in the carding and spinning.  Four cuts were considered a task or day’s work, and if any one failed to complete her task she received a whipping from the madam.  At night when the spinners brought their work to the big house I would have it to reel.  The reel was a contrivance consisting of a sort of wheel, turned on an axis, used to transfer the yarn from the spools or spindles of the spinning wheels into cuts or hunks.  It was turned by hand and when enough yarn had been reeled to make a cut the reel signaled it with a snap.  This process was continued until four cuts were reeled which made a hunk, and this was taken off and was ready for use.  So the work went on until all was reeled.  I often got very weary of this work and would almost fall asleep at it, as it was generally done at night after I had had a long day’s toil at something else.

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Weaving—­clothes of the slaves.

One woman did the weaving and it was her task to weave from nine to ten yards a day.  Aunt Liza was our weaver and she was taught the work by the madam.  At first she did not get on so well with it and many times I have seen the madam jump at her, pinch and choke her because she was dull in understanding how to do it.  The madam made the unreasonable demand that she should do the full task at first, and because she failed she was punished, as was the custom in all cases of failure, no matter how unreasonable the