corn. They were high in
front and back and came down to a point, nearly touched the ground
between the wheels. The wheels had pens instead of axles in them.

The children ran like pigs every morning. The pigs ran to eat acorns and
the children--white and black--to pick up chestnuts, scaly barks and
hickory nuts. There were _lots_ of black walnuts. "We had barrels of
nuts to eat all winter and the mistress sold some every year at
Nashville, Tennessee. The woods were full of nut trees and we had a few
maple and sweet gum trees. We simmered down maple sap for brown sugar
and chewed the sweet gum. We picked up chips to simmer the sweet maple
sap down. We used elder tree wood to make faucets for syrup barrels.
There were chenquipins down in the swamps that the children gathered."

Henry Walker said that they were sent upon the hills to find ginsing and
often found long beds of it. They put it in sacks and a man came and
bought it from the mistress. The mistress' name was Mrs. Williams. She
kept the money for the ginsing and nuts too when she sold them.

Henry said he ate at Mrs. Williams', but the other children ate at the
cabin. On Saturday evening the horn would sound and every slave would
come to get his allowance of provisions. They used a big bell hung up in
a tree to call them to meals and to begin work. They could also hear
other farm bells and horns. Colored folks could have dances if they
would get permission. Some masters were overseers themselves and some
hired overseers. Patty Rell was a white man and the bush-wackers give us
trouble sometimes.

On January first every year everybody ate peas and "hog jole" and
received the new rules. The masters would say, "don't be running up here
telling me on the overseer." They had a bush harbor church and the white
preacher came to preach to black and white sometimes. They taught
obedience and the Golden Rules. No schools--Henry said since freedom the
white men had cheated him out of all he had ever made, with pen-and-ink.
He rather be whipped with a stick than a writing pen. He said Mr. and
Mrs. Williams were good people. Henry learned to knit his socks and
gloves at night watching the grown people. They made a certain number of
broches every night. He liked that.

Henry said Mr. Williams let him carry his gun hunting with him and
taught him how to shoot squirrels. They were plentiful. He had a lot of
dogs. The master went to the deer stand and Henry managed the twelve