"Clothes!!! They didn't know nothing 'bout underclothes. They didn't
wear them just after the War, and I know they didn't before the War--not
in my part of Alabama. That's the reason why they say the Negro is cold
natured. He didn't have anything on. I have seen many a boy picking and
chopping cotton on a cold autumn day with nothing on but his shirt. In
his bare feet too. He got one pair of shoes a year and he didn't get no
more. When he wore them out, he didn't have any till the next year.
"When I was a boy I have seen many a young lady walk to church with her
shoes flung over her shoulders and wait till she got nearly there before
she would put them on. She didn't want to wear them out too soon.
"I didn't have to undergo this myself.
"When I was ten years old, my job was to drive a [HW: ox] team
twenty-six miles, and it took me two days to go and two days to come and
one day to load and unload--five days. The team was loaded with cotton
going and anything coming back. We used to get salt from some place near
New Orleans. We would drive ox teams down there, put in on order, wait
till they dipped the water out of the lake, boiled the salt out of it,
and packed it up. There was no such thing as mining salt like they do
now. It would take from August first till about the middle of September
to get it. Ox team won't make more than about twelve miles a day. The
people would make up a wagon train and go and come together. People in
those days didn't believe a horse would pull anything but a buggy, so
they used steers mostly for heavy pulling. They ran all gins and
thrashers by horse power and the running gear was all made out of wood.
A lot of people say you couldn't make a wooden cotton press that would
pack a bale of cotton. You can make a wooden press that will break a
bale in two. Of course the gin was made out of metal. But they made the
press out of wood."