spinning wheel. My grandfather was a slave of Talton Embry, whose farm
joined the Wheeler farm. He made shingles with a steel drawing knife,
that had a wooden handle. He made these shingles in Mr. Embry's yard. I
do not remember my grandmother, and I didn't have to work in slave days,
because my mother and father did all the work except the heavy farm
work. My Mistus used to give me my winter clothes. My shoes were called
brogans. My old master had shoes made. He would put my foot on the
floor and mark around it for the measure of my shoes.

Most of the cooking was in an oven in the yard, over the bed of coals.
Baked possum and ground hog in the oven, stewed rabbits, fried fish and
fired bacon called "streaked meat" all kinds of vegetables, boiled
cabbage, pone corn bread, and sorghum molasses. Old folks would drink
coffee, but chillun would drink milk, especially butter milk.

Old master would call us about 4 o'clock, and everybody had to get up
and go to "Starring"[TR:?]. Old Marse had about 30 or 40 sugar trees
which were tapped, in February. Elder spiles were stuck in the taps for
the water to drop out in the wooden troughs, under the spiles. These
troughs were hewed out of buckeye. This maple water was gathered up and
put in a big kettle, hung on racks, with a big fire under it. It was
then taken to the house and finished upon the stove. The skimmings after
it got to the syrup stage was builed down and made into maple sugar for
the children.

We wore tow linen clothes in summer and jeans in winter. Sister wore
linsey in winter of different colors, dyed from herbs, especially poke
berries; and wore unbleached cotton in summer, dyed with yellow mustard
seed.