had a dozen blankets for each bed. Besides the blankets, to every woman
with a baby was given a quilted comfort.

To each man, woman and child were allotted two complete woolen suits for
the winter, a new pair of shoes and three pairs of stockings. In the
spring two suits of cotton would be given for summer. The thrifty ones
had their cedar chests piled with clothes. Many had not worn the suits
given out a year ago.

The heads of large families trudged away with six or seven blankets,
a comfort, and twenty suits of clothes. It sometimes took the father,
mother and two of the children to carry the load.

But the most amazing thing which Phil saw was the sudden transformation
of the shed into a market for the sale of slave produce to the mistress
of Arlington.

Mrs. Lee had watched the distribution of clothes, blankets, quilts,
shoes and stockings for the winter and then became the purchaser of all
sorts of little luxuries which the slave had made in his leisure hours
on Saturday afternoons and at night. The little boys and girls sold
her dried wild fruits. The women had made fine jellies. They all had
chickens and eggs to sell to the big house. Some had become experts in
making peanut brittle and fudge.

They not only sold their wares here, but they also sold them in the
market in Washington. The old men were expert basket and broom makers.
The slaves made so much extra money on their chickens, peanuts, popcorn,
fudge, brittle, molasses cakes, baskets, brooms, mats and taking in
sewing, that they were able to buy many personal luxuries. Phil observed