“Ma’s house was right on de edge of Marse Billie’s yard, ’cause she was de cook.  Grandma lived in de same house wid ma and us chillun, and she worked in de loom house and wove cloth all de time.  She wove de checkidy cloth for de slaves clo’es, and she made flannel cloth too, leaseways, it wuz part flannel.  She made heaps of kinds of cloth.

“Our beds had big home-made posties and frames, and us used ropes for springs.  Grandma brought her feather bed wid her from Virginny, and she used to piece up a heap of quilts outen our ole clo’es and any kind of scraps she could get a holt of.  I don’t know what de others had in dey cabins ’cause ma didn’t ’low her chillun to visit ’round de other folkses none.

“Ma’s chillun all had vittals from de white folkses kitchen.  After Marse Billie’s fambly done et and left de table, de cook wuz s’posed to take what wuz left to feed de house niggers and her own chillun, and us did have sho’ ’nuff good vittals.  All de other slave folks had day rations weighed out to ’em every week and dey cooked in dey own cabins.  When de wheat wuz ground at de mill it made white flour, and shorts, and seconds.  Most of de shorts wuz weighed out in rations for de slave folks.  Now and den at Christmas and special times dey got a little white flour.  Dey liked cornbread for reg’lar eatin’.  Dey wuz always lots of hogs on Marse Billie’s plantation, and his colored folkses had plenty of side meat.  Slaves never had no time to hunt in de day time, but dey sho’ could catch lots of ’possums at night, and dey knowed how to git catfish at night too.

“’Cross de road from de Big ’Ouse, Marse Billie had a big gyarden, and he seed dat his help had plenty of somethin’ good to bile.  Dey won’t no separate gyardens.  Dey didn’t have no time to work no gyardens of dey own.

“In summertime us chillun wore just one piece of clo’es.  It wuz a sack apron.  In winter grandma made us yarn underskirts and yarn drawers buttoned down over our knees.  Ma made our home-knit stockings.  Dey called our brass toed shoes ‘brogans.’  I don’t speck you ever seed a brass toed shoe!

“Our Big ‘Ouse sho’ wuz one grand fine place.  Why, it must have been as big as de Mill Stone Baptist Church!  It wuz all painted white wid green blinds and had a big old high porch dat went nigh all ’round de house.

“If I ever did hear what Marse Billie’s wife wuz named, I done plum clear forgot.  Us called her ‘Mist’ess’ long as she lived and I don’t recollect hearin’ her called nothin’ else.  Marster and Mist’ess never had no little chillun whilst I was dar.  Miss Lizzie wuz dey youngest child and she wuz most grown when I wuz born.

“Marse Billie’s overseer lived in a four-room house up de road a piece from the Big ’Ouse.  Nobody thought ’bout none of Marse Billie’s overseers as pore white folkses.  Every overseer he ever had wuz decent and ’spectable.  Course dey won’t in de same class wid Marse Billie’s fambly, but dey was all right.  Dey wuz four or five homes nigh our plantation, but all of ’em b’longed to rich white folkses.  If dey wuz any pore white folkses ‘round dar, us chillun never heared nothin’ of ’em.