SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

my mother and father had nine children* I have only one sister living*
All the others done gone to heaven but me and her*
my mother and father lived in a log cabin* They had one-legged beds
nailed to the vail* They had benches and boxes and blocks and all sich as
that for chairs* My daddy made the table we used* He made them one-legged
beds too* They kept the food in boxes and gourds* They had these big
gourds» They could cut holes in the top of them and put things in them* My
mammy had a lot of f em and they were nice and clean too* Wisht I had one of
them now*
"Some folks didn f t have that good* We had trundle beds for the children
that would run under the big bed when they wasn f t sleeping in it* We made
a straw mattress* You know the white folks weren't goin f to let f em use
cotton, and they didn't have no chickens to git feathers from; so they had
to use straw* Oh, they had a hard time I f m tellin 1 you* My mother pulled
greens out of the garden and field, and cured it up for the mattress*
"For rations, we'd eat onions and vegetables* We at what was raised*
You know they didn f t have nothin 1 then f cept what they raised* All the
eookin* was done at one house, but there was two cooks, one for the colored
folks and one for the white folks* My grandma cooked for the white people«,
They cooked in those big old washpots for the colored people* We all
thought we had a pretty good master*
"We didn f t know nothin* about a master*
"I ain f t positive what time the hands ate breakfast* I know they et it
and I know they et at the same time and place* I think they et after sun-
rise* They didn't have to eat before sunrise*
"When they fed the children, they cook the food and put it in a great big
old tray concern and called up the children, f Piggee~e-e-e~ef piggee-e-e-e-e* f
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