permitted to
strike any of these animals so as to drive them away and so they
protected their faces from the tongues of the intruders by placing their
hands on the sides of their faces as they ate. During the meal the
master walked from one end of the trough to the other to see that all
was as it should be. Before Mr. Womble started to work in the master's
house he ate as the other children for a short time. Some of the times
he did not have enough food to eat and so when the time came to feed the
cows he took a part of their food (a mixture of cotton seed, collard
stalks, and small ears of corn) and ate it when night came. When he
started working in the house regularly he always had sufficient food
from then on.

All the food that was eaten was grown on the plantation in the master's
gardens. He did not permit the slaves to have a garden of their own
neither could they raise their own chickens and so the only time that
they got the chance to enjoy the eating of chicken was when they decided
to make a special trip to the master's poultry yard.

The housing facilities varied with the work a slave was engaged in on
the Womble plantation according to Mr. Womble. He slept in the house
under the dining-room table all of the time. The cook also slept in the
house of her owner. For those who worked on the fields log cabins (some
distance behind the master's house.) were provide [sic]. Asked to
describe one of these cabins Mr. Womble replied: "They were two roomed
buildings made out of logs and daubed with mud to keep the weather out.
At one end there was a chimney that was made out of dried mud, sticks
and stones. The fireplace was about five or six feet in length and on
the inside of it there were some hooks to hang the pots from when there
was cooking to be done.

"There was only one door and this was the front one. They would'nt put a
back door in a cabin because it would be easy for a slave to slip out of
the back way if the master or the overseer came to punish an occupant.
There were one or two small openings cut in the back so that they could
get air."

"The furniture was made by the blacksmith", continued Mr. Womble. "In
one corner of the room there was a large bed that had been made out of
heavy wood. Rope that ran from side to side served as the springs while
the mattress was a large bag that had been stuffed with wheat straw. The
only other furnishings were a few cooking utensils and one or two
benches." As man