"The slaves lived in log huts on the plantations. Some men would
weatherboard them. They didn't put any ceiling in. You could lay back in
your bed and see the moon and stars shining through.
"Some got good food and some of the owners would make the Niggers steal
their food from other folks. Old Myers Green would make his Niggers
steal and he would say, 'If you get caught, I'll kill you.' One or two
of them let themselves get caught, and he would whip them. That was to
save him from paying for it. They couldn't do anything to you but whip
you nohow. But they could make him pay for it.
"They used homemade clothes made out of homemade cotton cloth. They
would spin the cotton to a thread. When they would get so many broaches
of it, they would make it into cloth. A broach was just a lot of thread
wound around a stick. They would take it to the wheel and make the
cloth, them women used to have tasks:--spinning, weaving, dressmaking,
and so on. Sometimes they would have five and six spinning wheels
running before they would get to the weaving.
"I don't know who made the clothes. But you know them Niggers made them.
They used to learn some slaves how to do some things,--the right way.
Jus' like they learned themselves. There was plenty of nice
seamstresses. The white folks used to make them make clothes for their
children. The white folks wouldn't do nothin'. They wouldn't even turn
down the bed to get in it."