s. The lead hound was named
Venus. There was five or six in the pack, and they was vicious too.

My father was a carriage driver and he allus took the family to
church. My mother went along to take care of the little chilluns.
She'd take me too. They was Methodist and after they would take the
sacrament we would allus go up and take it. The niggers could use the
whitefolks church in the afternoon.

De Big House was a grand place. It was a two-story house made out of
logs dat had been peeled and smoothed off. There was five big rooms
and a big open hall wid a wide front porch clean across de front. De
porch had big posts and pretty banisters. It was painted white and had
green shutters on de windows. De kitchen was back of de Big House.

De slaves quarters was about a quarter of a mile from de Big House.
Their houses was made of logs and the cracks was daubed with mud. They
would have two rooms. Our bedsteads was made of poplar wood and we
kept them scrubbed white with sand. We used roped woven together for
slats. Our mattresses were made of cotton, grass, or even shucks. My
mother had a feather bed. The chairs was made from cedar with split
white oak bottoms.

Each family kept their own home and cooked and served their own meals.
We used wooden trays and wooden spoons. Once a week all the cullud
chillun went to the Big House to eat dinner. The table was out in de
yard. My nickname was "Speck". I didn't like to eat bread and milk
when I went up there and I'd just sit there. Finally they'd let me go
in de house and my mother would feed me. She was the house woman and
my Auntie was cook. I don't know why they had us up there unless it
was so they could laugh at us.

None of old Master's young niggers never did much work. He say he want
'em to grow up strong. He gave us lots to eat. He had a store of
bacon, milk, bread, beans and molasses. In summer we had vegetables.
My mother could make awful good corn pone. She would take meal and put
salt in it and pour boiling water over it and make into pones. She'd
wrap these pones in wet cabbage or collard leaves and roll dem into
hot ashes and bake dem. They sho' was good. We'd have possum and coon
and fish too.

The boys never wore no britches in de summer time. Boys fifteen years
old would wear long shirts with no sleeves and they went barefooted.
De girls dressed in shimmys. They was a sort of dress with two seams
in it and no sleeves.

Old Master had his slaves to get