12.  Did you use an open well or pump to get the water?

No, we went to the spring to get the water.  We toted it in cedar buckets.  The spring was boxed into a well shaped hole, deep enough to dip the water out of it.  It was the best water.  They had a town pump at Macon.

13.  Do you remember when you first saw ice in regular form?

Yes.  They had icicles in Georgia.

14.  Did your family work in the rice fields or in the cotton fields on the farm, or what sort of work did they do?

My father was a blacksmith.  He did all kinds of blacksmithing.  He even made plows.

15.  If they worked in the house or about the place, what sort of work did they do?

My mother was one of the best seamstresses; she sewed all day long with her fingers.  She made the finest silk dresses and even made tailored suits.

16.  Do you remember ever helping tan and cure hides and pig hides?

They did those things on the plantation.  They cured goat skins and sheep skins, too.  The sheep skins would dry so slowly that they would let the slaves lie on them at night to keep them warm and hasten the drying.

17.  As a young person what sort of work did you do?  If you helped your mother around the house or cut firewood or swept the yard, say so.

I cleaned and dusted and waited on the table, made beds and put everything in order, washed dishes, polished silverware and did the most trusty work.

18.  When you were a child do you remember how people wove cloth, or spun thread, or picked out cotton seed, or weighed cotton, or what sort of bag was used on the cotton bales?

I did not need to spin but I used to play with the spinning wheels.  They ginned the cotton on the plantation.  They used a horse to pull the gin.

They weighed the cotton with a beam and weight.  A good slave picked 200 lbs of cotton in a day.  Nancy could pick 300 or 400 lbs in a day.  She’d go out early in the day and run in ahead of the sun and no one would know she had been out.  That’s how she would get ahead of the rest.

19.  Do you remember what sort of soap they used?  How did they get the lye for making the soap?

They made soft soap boiled in a big kettle.  They made the lye out of ashes packed in an old barrel that had a hole in the bottom.  They would make a hollow in the top of the barrel and pour rain water in it.  This would gradually soak through the ashes and seep out of the bottom of the barrel which they tipped up so that it would drain the lye out into a vessel.  Then they would take the lye and boil it in the kettle with old grease and meat rinds.  The lye was very strong.  They had to be careful not to get any of it on their hands or it would take the skin off.  As they would stir the grease and lye it would foam and cook like a jelly and when it cooled we had soft soap.  It would sure chase the dirt, but it was hard on the hands.