“Even in slavery times, there was plenty of niggers out of them three hundred slaves who had to break up old lard gourds and use them for meat.  They had to pick up bones off the dung hill and crack them open to cook with.  And then, of course, they’d steal.  Had to steal.  That the bes way to git what they wanted.

“They had a great big kitchen for the slaves.  They had what you call pot racks they could push them big pots in and out on.  They cooked hog slop there.  They had trays and bowls to eat out of that were made out of gum wood.  It was a long house used as a kitchen for the hands to go in and eat.  They et dinner there and for supper they would be there.  But breakfast, they would have to eat in the field.  The young niggers would bring it out to them.  They would bring it about an hour after the sun rose and the slave hands would eat it right out in the field; that was the breakfast.  You see the hands went to the field before sunup, and they didn’t get to eat breakfast in the kitchen and it had to be et in the field.  Little undergrowth of children—­they had plenty of them on the place—­had to carry their meals to them.

“They would usually give them collars [HW:  collards] in green times, potatoes in potato time.  Bread,—­they didn’t know what that was.  White folks hardly knew theirselves.  They didn’t have butter and they didn’t have no sugar.  Didn’t know much about what meat was yet.  They would give the little bits of children pot liquor.  That’s the most I ever seed them git.  Of course I was treated differently.  You couldn’t judge them by me.  I was the only half-white youngun round there, and they said I was half-brother to ol Marse’s chillun.  And the white chillen would git me up to the house to dance for them and all like, and they would give me biscuits or anything good they had.  I never seed the others eatin nothin but pot liquor.

“Most of the slaves lived in log cabins.  You know they never had but one door.  In general where they had large families, they would have two rooms with a chimney in the middle of the house.  The chimney was built out of mud and straw.  I can remember them sawin the timber.  Two pulled a big ol crosscut saw.  Didn’t have no saw mills then.  This world has come from a long ways.  They used to didn’t have no plows.  It was without form.  You made it at home.

“They had ol homemade bedsteads to sleep in.  They had a little rope that ran back and forth instead of slats.  That was called a corded bed.  Cheers were all made at home and were split bottoms.

“They didn’t many of the slaves have food in their homes.  But when they did, they would jus have a little wooden box and they would put their food in it.

“It seems like the white people got to burying their money during the time of the war.  That never come out till after the war.  Then they got to wantin that money and started looking for it.  There never was any talk of buried treasure before the war.