and give it to the sick pusson.  We didn’t need many doctors then fur we didn’t have so much sickness in them days, and nachelly they didn’t die so fast; folks lived a long time then.  They used a lot of peachtree leaves too for fever, and when the stomach got upsot we’d crush the leaves, pour water over them and wouldn’t let them drink any other kind of water ’till they wuz better.  Ah still believes in them ole ho’made medicines too and ah don’t believe in so many doctors.

“We didn’t have stoves plentiful then:  just ovens we set in the fireplace.  Ah’s toted a many a armful of bark—­good ole hickory bark to cook with.  We’d cook light bread—­both flour and corn.  The yeast fur this bread wuz made frum hops.  Coals of fire wuz put on top of the oven and under the bottom, too.  Everything wuz cooked on coals frum a wood fire—­coffee and all.  Wait, let me show you my coffee tribet.  Have you ever seen one?  Well, Ah’ll show you mine.”  Aunt Sally got up and hobbled to the kitchen to get the trivet.  After a few moments search she came back into the room.

“No, it’s not there.  Ah guess it’s been put in the basement.  Ah’ll show it to you when you come back.  It’s a rack made of iron that the pot is set on befo’ puttin’ it on the fire coals.  The victuals wuz good in them days; we got our vegetables out’n the garden in season and didn’t have all the hot-house vegetables.  Ah don’t eat many vegetables now unless they come out’n the garden and I know it.  Well, as I said, there wuz racks fitted in the fireplace to put pots on.  Once there wuz a big pot settin’ on the fire, jest bilin’ away with a big roast in it.  As the water biled, the meat turned over and over, comin’ up to the top and goin’ down again, Ole Sandy, the dog, come in the kitchen.  He sot there a while and watched that meat roll over and over in the pot, and all of a sudden-like he grabbed at that meat and pulls it out’n the pot.  ’Course he couldn’t eat it ‘cause it wuz hot and they got the meat befo’ he et it.  The kitchen wuz away frum the big house, so the victuals wuz cooked and carried up to the house.  Ah’d carry it up mahse’f.  We couldn’t eat all the different kinds of victuals the white folks et and one mornin’ when I was carryin’ the breakfast to the big house we had waffles that wuz a pretty golden brown and pipin’ hot.  They wuz a picture to look at and ah jest couldn’t keep frum takin’ one, and that wuz the hardest waffle fur me to eat befo’ I got to the big house I ever saw.  Ah jest couldn’t git rid of that waffle ’cause my conscience whipped me so.

“They taught me to do everything.  Ah’d use battlin’ blocks and battlin’ sticks to wash the clothes; we all did.  The clothes wuz taken out of the water an put on the block and beat with a battlin’ stick, which was made like a paddle.  On wash days you could hear them battlin’ sticks poundin’ every which-away.  We made our own soap, used ole meat and grease, and poured water over wood ashes which wuz kept in a rack-like thing and the water would drip through the ashes.  This made strong lye.  We used a lot ’o sich lye, too, to bile with.