ughly enjoyed. There was no cooking-stove on our plantation,
and all the cooking for the whites and slaves my mother had to do over
an open fireplace, mostly in pots and "skillets." While the poorly built
cabin caused us to suffer with cold in the winter, the heat from the
open fireplace in summer was equally trying.

The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin, were
not very different from those of thousands of other slaves. My mother,
of course, had little time in which to give attention to the training of
her children during the day. She snatched a few moments for our care in
the early morning before her work began, and at night after the day's
work was done. One of my earliest recollections is that of my mother
cooking a chicken late at night, and awakening her children for the
purpose of feeding them. How or where she got it I do not know. I
presume, however, it was procured from our owner's farm. Some people may
call this theft. If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn it
as theft myself. But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason
that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty
of thieving. She was simply a victim of the system of slavery. I cannot
remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared
free by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three children--John, my older
brother, Amanda, my sister, and myself--had a pallet on the dirt floor,
or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle of filthy rags laid
upon the dirt floor.

I was asked not long ago to tell something about the sports and pastimes
that I engaged in during my youth. Until that question was asked it
had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was
devoted to play. From the time that I can remember anything, almost
every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour; though
I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports.
During the period that I spent in slavery I was not large enough to be
of much service, still I was occupied most of the time in cleaning the
yards, carrying water to the men in the fields, or going to the mill to
which I used to take the corn, once a week, to be ground. The mill was
about three miles from the plantation. This work I always dreaded. The
heavy bag of corn would be thrown across the back of the horse, and the
corn divided about evenly on each side; but in some way, almost
wit