"Our food was very plain, such as fat hog meat, fish and vegetables raised on the farm and corn bread made up with salt and water.
"Yes, I have hunted o'possums, and coons. The last time I went coon hunting, we treed something. It fell out of the tree, everybody took to their heels, white and colored, the white men outran the colored hunter, leading the gang. I never went hunting afterwards.
"My choice food was fish and crabs cooked in all styles by mother. You have asked about gardens, yes, some slaves had small garden patches which they worked by moonlight.
"As for clothes, we all wore home-made clothes, the material woven on the looms in the clothes house. In the winter we had woolen clothes and in summer our clothes were made from cast-off clothes and Kentucky jeans. Our shoes were brogans with brass tips. On Sunday we fed the stock, after which we did what we wanted.
"I have seen many slave weddings, the master holding a broom handle, the groom jumping over it as a part of the wedding ceremony. When a slave married someone from another plantation, the master of the wife owned all the children. For the wedding the groom wore ordinary clothes, sometimes you could not tell the original outfit for the patches, and sometimes Kentucky jeans. The bride's trousseau, she would wear the cast-off clothes of the mistress, or, at other times the clothes made by other slaves.
"It was said our plantation contained 10,000 acres. We had a large number of slaves, I do not know the number. Our work was hard, from sunup to sundown. The slaves were not whipped.
"There was only one slave ever sold from the plantation, she was my aunt. The mistress slapped her one day, she struck her back. She was sold and taken south. We never saw or heard of her afterwards.
"We went to the white Methodist church with slave gallery, only white preachers. We sang with the white people. The Methodists were christened and the Baptists were baptised. I have seen many colored funerals with no service. A graveyard on the place, only a wooden post to show where you were buried.
"None of the slaves ran away. I have seen and heard many patrollers, but they never whipped any of Mason's slaves. The method of conveying news, you tell me and I tell you, but be careful, no troubles between whites and blacks.
"After work was done, the slaves would smoke, sing, tell ghost stories and tales, dances, music, home-made fiddles. Saturday was work day like any other day. We had all legal holidays. Christmas morning we went to the big house and got presents and had a big time all day.