aight and tall
like a young man.

I was too little to do much work so my job was to carry the key basket
for old Mistress. I sho' was proud of that job. The basket held the
keys to the pantry, the kitchen, the linen closet, and extra keys to
the rooms and smokehouse. When old Mistress started out on her rounds
every morning she'd call to me to get de basket and away we'd go. I'd
run errands for all the house help too, so I was kept purty busy.

The "big house" was a fine one. It was a big two-story white house
made of pine lumber. There was a big porch or veranda across the front
and wings on the east and west. The house faced south. There was big
round white posts that went clean up to the roof and there was a big
porch upstairs too. I believe the house was what you'd call colonial
style. There was twelve or fifteen rooms and a big wide stairway. It
was a purty place, with a yard and big trees and the house that set in
a walnut and pecan grove. They was graveled walks and driveways and
all along by the driveway was cedars. There was a hedge close to the
house and a flower garden with purty roses, holly hocks and a lot of
others I don't know the name of.

Back to the right of the house was the smokehouse, kept full of meat,
and further back was the big barns. Old Master kept a spanking pair of
carriage horses and several fine riding horses. He kept several pairs
of mules, too, to pull the plow. He had some ox teams too.

To the left and back of the "big house" was the quarters. He owned
about two thousand acres of land and three hundred slaves. He kept a
white overseer and the colored overlooker was my uncle. He sho' saw
that the gang worked. He saw to it that the cotton was took to the
gin. They used oxen to pull the wagons full of cotton. There was two
gins on the plantation. Had to have two for it was slow work to gin a
bale of cotton as it was run by horse power.

Old Master raised hundreds of hogs; he raised practically all the food
we et. He gave the food out to each family and they done their own
cooking except during harvest. The farm hands was fed at the "big
house." They was called in from the farm by a big bell.

Sunday was our only day for recreation. We went to church at our own
church, and we could sing and shout jest as loud as we pleased and it
didn't disturb nobody.

During the week after supper we would all set round the doors outside
and sing or play music. The only musical instruments we had