Houses
"We lived in old log cabins. We had bedsteads nailed to the wall. Then we had them old fashioned cordboard springs. They had ropes made into springs. That was a high class bed. People who had those cord springs felt themselves. They made good sleeping. My father had one. Ropes were woven back and forth across the bed frame.
"We had those old spinning wheels. Three cuts was a day's work. A cut was so many threads. It was quite a day to make them. They had hanks too. The threads were all linked together.
"My mother was a spinner. My father was a farmer. Both of them worked for their master,—old Massa, they called him, or Massa, Mass Tom, Mass John or Massta.
War Recollections
"I remember during the war when I was in Texas with a family of Moody's how old Mistiss had me packing rocks out of the yard in a basket and cleaning the yard. I didn't know it then, but my daddy told me later that that was when I was in Texas,—during the war. I remember that I used to work in my shirt tail.
"The soldiers used to come in the house somewhere and take anything they could get or wanted to take.
Pateroles
"When I was a boy they had a song, 'Run, Nigger, run; The Pateroles will get you.' They would run you in and I have been told they would whip you. If you overstayed your time when your master had let you go out, he would notify the pateroles and they would hunt you up and turn you over to him.
Church Meetings