curate light upon
the history of my family beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a
half-brother and a half-sister. In the days of slavery not very much
attention was given to family history and family records--that is,
black family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a
purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the slave
family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new horse
or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even
know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white
man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever he was, I never
heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way
for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply
another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily
had engrafted upon it at that time.

The cabin was not only our living-place, but was also used as the
kitchen for the plantation. My mother was the plantation cook. The cabin
was without glass windows; it had only openings in the side which let in
the light, and also the cold, chilly air of winter. There was a door to
the cabin--that is, something that was called a door--but the uncertain
hinges by which it was hung, and the large cracks in it, to say nothing
of the fact that it was too small, made the room a very uncomfortable
one. In addition to these openings there was, in the lower right-hand
corner of the room, the "cat-hole,"--a contrivance which almost every
mansion or cabin in Virginia possessed during the ante-bellum period.
The "cat-hole" was a square opening, about seven by eight inches,
provided for the purpose of letting the cat pass in and out of the house
at will during the night. In the case of our particular cabin I could
never understand the necessity for this convenience, since there were
at least a half-dozen other places in the cabin that would have
accommodated the cats. There was no wooden floor in our cabin, the naked
earth being used as a floor. In the centre of the earthen floor there
was a large, deep opening covered with boards, which was used as a place
in which to store sweet potatoes during the winter. An impression of
this potato-hole is very distinctly engraved upon my memory, because I
recall that during the process of putting the potatoes in or taking them
out I would often come into possession of one or two, which I roasted
and thoro