"The floors was boards about one by twelve. There were two doors in each room—one leading outside and the other to the hall. If there were any windows, I can't remember them. We didn't need no windows for ventilation.

"This was the house that I remember first after freedom. I remember living in it. That was about seven or eight years after freedom. My father rented it from the big man named Alf George for whom he worked. Mr. George used to come out and eat breakfast with us. We'd get that hoecake out of the ashes and wash it off until it looked like it was as clean as bread cooked in a skillet. I have seen my grandmother cook a many a one in the fire. We didn't use no skillet for corn bread. The bread would have a good firm crust on it. But it didn't get too hard to eat and enjoy.

"She'd take a poker before she put the bread in and rake the ashes off the hearth down to the solid stone or earth bottom, and the ashes would be banked in two hills to one side and the other. Then she would put the batter down on it; the batter would be about an inch thick and about nine inches across. She'd put down three cakes at a time and let 'em stay there till the cakes were firm—about five minutes on the bare hot hearth. They would almost bake before she covered them up. Sometimes she would lay down as many as four at a time. The cakes had to be dry before they were covered up, because if the ashes ever stuck to them while they were wet, there would be ashes in them when you would take them out to eat. She'd take her poker then and rake the ashes back on the top of the cakes and let 'em stay there till the cakes were done. I don't know just how long—maybe about ten or twelve minutes. She knew how long to cook them. Then she'd rake down the hearth gently, backward and forward, with the poker till she got down to them and then she'd put the poker under them and lift them out. That poker was a kind of flat iron. It wasn't a round one. Then we'd wash 'em off like I told you and they be ready to eat.

"Mr. George would eat the ash cake and drink sweet milk. 'Auntie, I want some of that ash cake and some of that good sweet milk.' We had plenty of cows.

"Two-thirds of the water used in the ash cake was hot water, and that made the batter stick together like it was biscuit dough. She could put it together and take it in her hand and pat it out flat and lay it on the hearth. It would be just as round! That was the art of it!

"When I go back to Mississippi, I'm going back to that house again. I don't remember seeing the house I was born in. But I was told it was an ordinary log house just like those all the other slaves had,—just a one-room log house.

Freedom

"My father went to the War. He was on the Confederate side. They carried him there as a worker. They cut down all the timber 'round the place where they were to keep the Yankee gunboats from shelling them and knocking the logs down on them. But them Yankees were sharp. They stayed away till everything got dry as a chip. Then they come down and set all that wood afire with their shells, and the wind seemed to be in their favor. The Rebels had to get away from there.

"He got sick before the War closed and he had to come home. His young master and the other folks stayed there four or five months longer. His young master was named Tom. When Tom came home, he waited about five or six months before he would tell them they was free. Then he said, 'You all free as I am. You can stay here if you want or you can go. You are free.' They all got together and told him that if he would treat them right he wouldn't have to do no work. They would stay and do his work and theirs too. They would work the land and he would give them their part. I don't know just what the agreement was. I think it was about a third. Anyway, they worked on shares. When the landlord furnished a team usually it was halves. But when the worker furnished his own team, it was usually two-thirds or three-fourths that the worker got. But none of them owned teams at that time. They were just turned loose. We stayed there with them people a good while. I don't know just how long, but it was several years.

Catching a Hog