d your family work in the rice fields or in the cotton on the
farm, or what sort of work did they do?

They did all kinds of work in the fields.

15. If they worked in the house or about the place, what sort of work
did they do?

I was house maid and did everything they told me to do. Sometimes I'd
sweep and work around all the time.

16. Do you remember ever helping tan and cure hides and pig hides?

This was done on the plantation. I took no part in it.

17. As a young person what sort of work did you do? If you helped your
mother around the house or cut firewood or swept the yard, say so.

I helped do the housework and did what the mistress told me do.

18. When you were a child do you remember how people wove cloth, or spun
thread, or picked out cotton seed, or weighed cotton or what sort of bag
was used on the cotton bales?

No.

19. Do you remember what sort of soap they used? How did they get the
lye for making the soap?

Yes, I'd help to make the ash lye and soft soap. Never seed and cake
soap until I came here.

20. What did they use for dyeing thread and cloth and how did they dye
them?

They used indigo for blue, copperas for yellow, and red oak chips for
red.

21. Did your mother use big, wooden washtubs with cut-out holes on each
side for the fingers?

Yes, and dey had smaller wooden keels. Never seed any tin tubs up there.

22. Do you remember the way they made shoes by hand in the country?

Yes, they made all our shoes on the plantation.

23. Do you remember saving the chicken feathers and goose feathers
always for your featherbeds?

Yes.

23. Do you remember when women wore hoop [TR: illegible] in their skirts
and when they stopped wearing them and wore narrow skirts?

Yes. My missus, she made me a pair of hoops, or I guess she bought it,
but some of the slaves took thin limbs from trees and made their hoops.
Others made them out of stiff paper and others would starch their skirts
stiff with rice starch to make their skirts stand way out. We thought
those hoops were just the thing for style.

25. Do you remember when you first saw your first windmill?

Yes. They didn't have them there.

26. Do you remember when you first saw bed springs instead of bed ropes?

I slept in a gunny bunk. My missus had a rope bed and she covered the
ropes with a cow hide. We made hay and corn shuck mattresses for her.
We'd cut the hay and shucks up fine and stuff the ticks with them. The
cow h