"The riding boss would come round before the day broke and wake you up.
You had to be in the field before sun-up--that is the man would. The
woman who had a little child had a little more play than the man,
because she had to care for the child before she left. She had to carry
the child over to the old lady that took care of the babies. The cook
that cooked up to the big house, she cooked bread and milk and sent it
to the larger children for their dinner. They didn't feed the little
children because their mothers had to nurse them. The mother went to the
field as soon as she cared for her child. She would come back and nurse
the child around about twice. She would come once in the morning about
ten o'clock and once again at twelve o'clock before she ate her own
lunch. She and her husband ate their dinner in the field. She would come
back again about three p.m. Then you wouldn't see her any more till dark
that night. Long as you could see you had to stay in the field. They
didn't come home till sundown.
"Then the mother would go and get the children and bring them home. She
would cook for supper and feed them. She'd have to go somewheres and get
them. Maybe the children would be asleep before she would get all that
done. Then she would have to wake them up and feed them.
"I remember one time my sister and me were laying near the fire asleep
and my sister kicked the pot over and burned me from my knee to my foot.
My old master didn't have no wife, so he had me carried up to the house
and treated by the old woman who kept the house for him. She was a
slave. When I got so I could hobble around a little, he would sometimes
let the little niggers come up to the house and I would get these big
peanuts and break them up and throw them out to them so he could have
fun seeing them scramble for them.
"After the children had been fed, the mother would cook the next day's
breakfast and she would cook the next day's dinner and put it in the
pail so that everything would be ready when the riding boss would come
around. Cause when he came, it meant move.