Feeding the Children

“After the old folks among the slaves had had their breakfast, the cook would blow a horn.  That would be about nine o’clock or eight.  All the children that were big enough would come to the cook shack.  Some of them would bring small children that had been weaned but couldn’t look after themselves.  The cook would serve them whatever the old folks had for breakfast.  They ate out of the same kind of dishes as the old folks.

“Between ten and eleven o’clock, the cook would blow the horn again and the children would come in from play.  There would be a large bowl and a large spoon for each group of larger children.  There would be enough children in each group to get around the bowl comfortably.  One would take a spoon of what was in the bowl and then pass the spoon to his neighbor.  His neighbor would take a spoonful and then pass the spoon on, and so on until everyone would have a spoonful.  Then they would begin again, and so on until the bowl was empty.  If they did not have enough then, the cook would put some more in the bowl.  Most of the time, bread and milk was in the bowl; sometimes mush and milk.

“There was a small spoon and a small bowl for the smaller children in the group that the big children would use for them and pass around just like they passed around the big spoon.

“About two or three o’clock, the cook would blow the horn again.  Time the children all got in there and et, it would be four or five o’clock.  The old mammy would cut up greens real fine and cut up meat into little pieces and boil it with corn-meal dumplings.  They’d call it pepper pot.  Then she’d put some of the pepper pot into the bowls and we’d eat it.  And it was good.

“After the large children had et, they would go back to see after the babies.  If they were awake, the large children would put on their clothes and clean them up.  Then where there was a woman who had two or three small children and didn’t have one large enough to do this, they’d give her a large one from some other family to look after her children.  If she had any relatives, they would use their children for her.  If she didn’t then they would use anybody’s children.

“About eleven o’clock all the women who had little children that had not been weaned would come in to see after them and let them suck.  When a woman had nursing children, she would nurse them before she went to work, again at around eleven o’clock and again when she came from work in the evening.  She would come in long before sundown.  In between times, the old mammy and the other children would look after them.

War Memories

“I saw Jeff Davis once.  He was one-eyed.  He had a glass eye.  My old mistiss had three girls.  They got into the buggy and went to see Jeff Davis when he come through Auburn, Alabama.  We were living in Auburn then.  I drove them.  Jeff Davis came through first, and then the Confederate army, and then the Yankees.  They didn’t come on the same day but some days apart.