was Pleasant "Ples" Holbert. My master had a fairly large plantation; he
had, I imagine, around one hundred slaves."

"I was working the fields during the wind-up of the Civil War. They
always had a man in the field to teach the small boys to work, and I was
one of the boys. I was learning to plant corn, etc. My father, brother
and uncle went to war on the Union side."

"We raised corn, barley, and cotton, and produced all of our living on
the plantation. There was no such thing as going to town to buy things.
All of our clothing was homespun, our socks were knitted, and
everything. We had our looms, and made our own suits, we also had reels,
and we carved, spun, and knitted. We always wore yarn socks for winter,
which we made. It didn't get cold, in the winter in Tennessee, just a
little frost was all. We fixed all of our cotton and wool ourselves."

"For our meat we used to kill fifteen, twenty, or fifty, and sometimes a
hundred hogs. We usually had hickory. It was considered the best for
smoking meat, when we butchered. Our meat we had then was the finest
possible. It had a lot more flavor than that which you get now. If a
person ran out of meat, he would go over to his neighbor's house, and
borrow or buy meat, we didn't think about going to town. When we wanted
fresh meat we or some of the neighbors would kill a hog or sheep, and
would divide this, and then when we butchered we would give them part of
ours. People were more friendly then then they are now. They have almost
lost respect for each other. Now if you would give your neighbor
something they would never think of paying it back. You could also
borrow wheat or whatever you wanted, and you could pay it back whenever
you thrashed."