and nodded. "Now, 'bout them rabbits! Slaves warn't 'lowed to
have no guns and no dogs of they own. All the dogs on our plantation
belonged to my employer--I means, to my marster, and he 'lowed us to use
his dogs to run down the rabbits. Nigger mens and boys 'ud go in crowds,
sometimes as many as twelve at one time, and a rabbit ain't got no
chance 'ginst a lot of niggers and dogs when they light out for to run
'im down!

"What wild critters we wanted to eat and couldn't run down, we was right
smart 'bout ketchin' in traps. We cotch lots of wild tukkeys and
partidges in traps and nets. Long Crick runned through our plantation
and the river warn't no fur piece off. We sho' did ketch the fishes,
mostly cats, and perch and heaps and heaps of suckers. We cotch our
fishes mos'n generally with hook and line, but the carpenters on our
plantation knowed how to make basket traps that sho' nuff did lay in
the fishes! God only knows how long it's been since this old nigger
pulled a big shad out of the river. Ain't no shads been cotch in the
river round here in so long I disremembers when!

"We didn' have no gardens of our own round our cabins. My employer--I
means, my marster--had one big gyarden for our whole plantation and all
his niggers had to work in it whensomever he wanted 'em to, then he give
'em all plenty good gyarden sass for theyselfs. They was collards and
cabbage and turnips and beets and english peas and beans and onions, and
they was allus some garlic for ailments. Garlic was mostly to cure wums
(worms). They roasted the garlic in the hot ashes and squez the juice
outen it and made the chilluns take it. Sometimes they made poultices
outen garlic for the pneumony.

"We saved a heap of bark from wild cherry and poplar and black haw and
slippery ellum trees and we dried out mullein leaves. They was all mixed
and brewed to make bitters. Whensomever a nigger got sick, them bitters
was good for--well ma'am, they was good for what ailed 'em! We tuk 'em
for rheumatiz, for fever, and for the misery in the stummick and for
most all sorts of sickness. Red oak bark tea was good for sore throat.

"I never seed no store bought clothes twel long atter freedom done come!
One slave 'oman done all the weavin' in a separate room called the 'loom
house.' The cloth was dyed with home-made coloring. They used indigo for
blue, red oak bark for brown, green husks offen warnicks (walnuts) for
black, and sumacs for red and they'd mix the