"The first houses I saw in Georgia were frame or brick houses. There
weren't any log houses 'round where I was brought up. Georgia wasn't a
log house state--leastwise, not the part I lived in. In another part
there were plenty of sawmills. That made lumber common. You could get
longleaf pine eighty to ninety feet long if you wanted it. Some little
towns didn't have no planing mills and you would have to send to Augusta
or to Atlanta for the planing work or else they would make planed lumber
by hand. I have worked for four and five weeks at a time dressing
lumber--flooring, ceiling, siding, moldings, and so on.
"My father was still with Simpson when I remembered anything. At that
time the house we lived in was a weatherboarded house just like the ones
we live in now. It was a house that had been built since freedom. Old
man Simpson sent for my father and told him to build a house for himself
on the grounds. My father had been with Simpson for so long and had done
so much work for him during slave time that Simpson didn't want to do
without him. He supplied all the lumber and materials for my father.
During slave time, Simpson had hired my father out to the other planters
when he had nothing for him to do in the line of building on his own
plantation. He had had him to superintend his grist mill. All that was
in slavery time. My father was a highly skilled laborer. He could do a
lot of other things besides building. So when freedom came, he wanted
my father 'round him still. They both fished and hunted. He wanted my
father to go fishing with him and keep him company. My father was a
carpenter of the first class, you see, even in slave time. That was all
he done. He was brought up to be a carpenter and did nothing but that
all his time. My daddy was a mighty good mechanic.