The women who had young babies were assigned to what was considered “light work,” such as hoeing potatoes, cutting weeds from the fence corners, and any other work of like character.  About nine o’clock in the forenoon, at noon, and three o’clock in the afternoon, these women, known on the farms as “the sucklers,” could be seen going from work to nurse their babies.  Many were the heart-sighs of these sorrowing mothers as they went to minister to their infants.  Sometimes the little things would seem starved, for the mothers could only stop their toil three times a day to care for them.  When old enough to receive it, the babies had milk, the liquor from boiled cabbage, and bread and milk together.  A woman who was too old to do much of anything was assigned to the charge of these babies in the absence of their mothers.  It was rare that she had any one to help her.  The cries of these little ones, who were cut off almost entirely from motherly care and protection, were heart-rending.

The cabin used for the infants during the day was a double one, that is, double the usual size, and was located near the great house.  The cradles used were made of boards, and were not more than two by three feet in size.  The women carried their babies in the cradles to the baby cabin in the morning, taking them to their own cabins at night.  The children ranging in age from one to seven years were numerous, and the old woman had them to look after as well as the babies.  This was indeed a task, and might well have taxed the strength of a younger woman.  They were always from eight to a dozen infants in the cabin.  The summer season was trying on the babies and young children.  Often they would drink too much liquor from cabbage, or too much buttermilk, and would be taken with a severe colic.  I was always called on these occasions to go with Boss to administer medicine.  I remember on one occasion a little boy had eaten too much cabbage, and was taken with cramp colic.  In a few minutes his stomach was swollen as tight and hard as a balloon, and his teeth clenched.  He was given an emetic, put in a mustard bath and was soon relieved.  The food was too heavy for these children, and they were nearly always in need of some medical attendance.  Excessive heat, with improper food, often brought on cholera infantum, from which the infants sometimes died rapidly and in considerable numbers.

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Methods of punishment.

The methods of punishment were barbarous in the extreme, and so numerous that I will not attempt to describe them all.  One method was to tie the slave to a tree, strip off his clothes, and then whip him with a rawhide, or long, limber switches, or the terrible bull whip.  Another was to put the slave in stocks, or to buck him, that is, fasten his feet together, draw up his knees to his chin, tie his hands together, draw them down over the knees, and put a stick under