“Mother said they had cornshuckings, quiltings, and cotton pickings on the plantation.  She told me a good deal about the cornshuckings:  about how they selected a general, whose job was to get up on top of the corn pile and holler at the top of his voice, leading the cornshucking song, while the others all shucked the corn and sang.  After the corn was all shucked there were always fine eats.  I can remember the quiltings myself.  The women went from one house to another and quilted as many as 12 quilts in one night sometimes.  After the quilts were all finished they had a big spread of good food too.  Now it takes a whole month to quilt one quilt and nothing to eat.

“What games did we play?  Let me see.  Oh! yes, one of them was played to the rhyme: 

  ’Chickimy, chickimy, Craney Crow
   I went to the well to wash my toe,
   When I got back my chicken was gone
   What time, Old Witch?’

“Then we would run and chase each other.  Another game was played to the counting-out by the rhyme that started: 

  ‘Mollie, Mollie Bright, three-score and ten.’

“Honey, there is no use to ask me about Raw Head and Bloody Bones.  When folks started talking about that, I always left the room.  It is a shame how folks do frighten children trying to make them get quiet and go to sleep.  I don’t believe in ha’nts and ghosts.  Since I have been grown, I have been around so many dead folks I have learned that the dead can’t harm you; its the living that make the trouble.

“When his slaves were taken sick, Marse John always called in a doctor.  An old woman, who was known as ‘Aunt Fannie,’ was set aside to nurse sick slaves.  Dr. Joe Carlton was Marse John’s doctor.  What I am going to tell you is no fairy tale.  Once I was so sick that Marse John called in Dr. Carlton, Dr. Richard M. Smith, Dr. Crawford Long, and Dr. James Long, before they found out what was wrong with me.  I had inflammatory rheumatism and I wore out two and a half pairs of crutches before I could walk good again.  Now, Dr. Crawford Long is a great and famous man in history, but it is sure true that he doctored on this old Negro many years ago.

“Honey, don’t flatter me.  Don’t you know a little girl 10 years old can’t remember everything that went on that far back.  A few things they dosed the slaves with when they were sick was horehound tea, garlic mixed with whiskey, and the worm-few (vermifuge?) tea that they gave to Negro children for worms.  That worm-few dose was given in April.  Asafetida was used on us at all times and sage tea was considered a splendid medicine.

“When news came that Negroes had been freed there was a happy jubilee time.  Marse John explained the new freedom to his slaves and we were glad and sorry too.  My mother stayed with Marse John until he died.  I was still a child and had never had to do anything more than play dolls, and keep the children in the yard.  Lord, Honey!  I had a fine time those days.