"My mother and father lived in a two-room house hewed out of big
logs--great big logs. The logs were about four inches thick and twelve
inches wide. It didn't take many of them to build a wall--about ten or
twelve of them on a side. They were notched down so as to almost come
together. They chinked up the cracks with mud and covered it with a
board.
"I laid in bed many a night and looked up through the cracks in the
roof. Snow would come through there when it snowed and cover the bed
covers. We thought you couldn't build a roof so that it would keep out
rain and snow, but we were mistaken. Before you would make a fire in
them days, you had to sweep out the snow so that it wouldn't melt up in
the house and make a mess. But we kept healthy just the same. Didn't
have no pneumonia in those days.
"The house had two rooms about eight feet apart. The rooms were
connected by a hall which we called a gallery in those days. The hall
was covered by the same roof as the house and it had the same floor. The
house sot east and west and had a chimney in each end. The chimneys were
made out of sticks and mud. I can build a chimney now like that.
"It was large at the bottom and tapered at the top. It was about six or
seven feet square at the bottom. It grew smaller as it went toward the
top. You could get a piece of wood three and a half or four feet long in
the boddom of it. Sometimes the wood would be too large to carry and you
would just have to roll it in.
"The floors was boards about one by twelve. There were two doors in each
room--one leading outside and the other to the hall. If there were any
windows, I can't remember them. We didn't need no windows for
ventilation.
"This was the house that I remember first after freedom. I remember
living in it. That was about seven or eight years after freedom. My
father rented it from the big man named Alf George for whom he worked.
Mr. George used to come out and eat breakfast with us. We'd get that
hoecake out of the ashes and wash it off until it looked like it was as
clean as bread cooked in a skillet. I have seen my grandmother cook a
many a one in the fire. We didn't use no skillet for corn bread. The
bread would have a good firm crust on it. But it didn't get too hard to
eat and enjoy.
"She'd take a poker before she put the bread in and rake the ashes off
the hearth down to the solid stone or earth bottom, and the ashes would
be banked in two hills to one side and the other. Then she would put the
batter down on it; the batter would be about an inch thick and about
nine inches across. She'd put down three cakes at a time and let 'em
stay there till the cakes were firm--about five minutes on the bare hot
hearth. They would almost bake before she covered them up. Sometimes she
would lay down as many as four at a time. The cakes had to be dry before
they were covered up, because if the ashes ever stuck to them while they
were wet, there would be ashes in them when you would take them out to
eat. She'd take her poker then and rake the ashes back on the top of the
cakes and let 'em stay there till the cakes were done. I don't know just
how long--maybe about ten or twelve minutes. She knew how long to cook
them. Then she'd rake down the hearth gently, backward and forward, with
the poker till she got down to them and then she'd put the poker under
them and lift them out. That poker was a kind of flat iron. It wasn't a
round one. Then we'd wash 'em off like I told you and they be ready to
eat.
"Mr. George would eat the ash cake and drink sweet milk. 'Auntie, I want
some of that ash cake and some of that good sweet milk.' We had plenty
of cows.
"Two-thirds of the water used in the ash cake was hot water, and that
made the batter stick together like it was biscuit dough. She could put
it together and take it in her hand and pat it out flat and lay it on
the hearth. It would be just as round! That was the art of it!
"When I go back to Mississippi, I'm going back to that house again. I
don't remember seeing the house I was born in. But I was told it was an
ordinary log house just like those all the other slaves had,--just a
one-room log house.