fee or
gunpowder, or some needles for the sewing, or some strap iron for the
blacksmith, or something like dat. We made and raised everything else
we needed right on the place.

I never did even see any quinine till after I was free. My mammy
knowed jest what root to go out and pull up to knock de chills right
out'n me. And de bellyache and de running off de same way, too.

Our plantation was a lot different from some I seen other places, like
way east of there, around Vicksburg. Some of them was fixed up fancier
but dey didn't have no more comforts than we had.

Old Master come out into that country when he was a young man, and
they didn't have even so much then as they had when I was a boy. I
think he come from Alabama or Tennessee, and way back his people had
come from Virginia, or maybe North Carolina, 'cause he knowed all
about tobacco on the place. Cotton and tobacco was de long crops on
his big place, and of course lots of horses and cattle and mules.

De big house was made out'n square hewed logs, and chinked wid little
rocks and daubed wid white clay, and kivered wid cypress clapboards. I
remember one time we put on a new roof, and de niggers hauled up de
cypress logs and sawed dem and frowed out de clapboards by hand.

De house had two setting rooms on one side and a big kitchen room on
de other, wid a wide passage in between, and den about was de sleeping
rooms. They wasn't no stairways 'cepting on de outside. Steps run up
to de sleeping rooms on one side from de passageway and on de other
side from clean outside de house. Jest one big chimbley was all he
had, and it was on de kitchen end, and we done all de cooking in a
fireplace dat was purty nigh as wide as de whole room.

In de sleeping rooms day wasn't no fires 'cepting in brazers made out
of clay, and we toted up charcoal to burn in 'em when it was cold
mornings in de winter. Dey kept warm wide de bed clothes and de
knitten clothes dey had.

Master never did make a big gallery on de house, but our white folks
would set out in de yard under de big trees in de shade. They was long
benches made out'n hewed logs and all padded wid gray moss and corn
shuck padding, and dey set pretty soft. All de furniture in de house
was home-made, too. De beds had square posts as big around as my shank
and de frame was mortised into 'em, and holes bored in de frame and
home-made rope laced in to make it springy. Den a great big mattress
full of goose feathers and t