done was pick up chips and take my little tin bucket to the spring to
get a cool, fresh drink for Old Miss. Us children stayed 'round the
kitchen and drunk lots of buttermilk. Old Miss used to say, 'Give my
pickaninnies plenty of buttermilk.' I can see that old churn now; it
helt about seven or eight gallons.

"Our houses? Slaves lived in log cabins built the common way. There was
lots of forest pine in those days. Logs were cut the desired length and
notches put in each end so they would fit closely and have as few cracks
as possible, when they stacked them for a cabin. They sawed pine logs
into blocks and used a frow to split them into planks that were used to
cover the cracks between the logs. Don't you know what a frow is? That's
a wooden wedge that you drive into a pine block by hitting it with a
heavy wooden mallet, or maul, as they are more commonly called. They
closed the cracks in some of the cabins by daubing them with red mud.
The old stack chimneys were made of mud and sticks. To make a bed, they
first cut four posts, usually of pine, and bored holes through them with
augers; then they made two short pieces for the head and foot. Two long
pieces for the sides were stuck through the auger holes and the bedstead
was ready to lay on the slats or cross pieces to hold up the mattress.
The best beds had heavy cords, wove crossways and lengthways, instead of
slats. Very few slaves had corded beds. Mattresses were not much; they
were made of suggin sacks filled with straw. They called that straw
'Georgia feathers.' Pillows were made of the same things. Suggin cloth
was made of coarse flax wove in a loom. They separated the flax into two
grades; fine for the white folks, and coarse for the Negroes.

"The only one of my grandparents I can bring to memory now is Grandma
Rose on my Pa's side. She was some worker, a regular man-woman; she
could do any kind of work a man could do. She was a hot horse in her