They called them trundles because they run them under
the bed. For chairs and tables accordin' to what I heard my mother say,
she was cook and they had everything in the big house and et pretty much
what the white folks et. But we just had boxes in the cabins.
"Them that was in the white folks' house had pretty good meals, but them
that was in the field they would feed just about like they would the
hogs. They had little wooden trays and they would put little fat meat
and pot-liquor and corn bread in the tray, and hominy and such as that.
Biscuits came just on Sunday.
"They had old ladies to cook for the slave children and old ladies to
cook for the hands. What was in the big house stayed in the big house.
All the slave men ate in one place and all the slave women ate in one
place. They weren't supposed to have any food in their homes unless they
would go out foraging. Sometimes they would get it that way. They'd go
out and steal ol' master's sweet potatoes and roast them in the fire.
They'd go out and steal a hog and kill it. All of it was theirn; they
raised it. They wasn't to say stealin' it; they just went out and got
it. If old master caught them, he'd give 'em a little brushin' if he
thought they wouldn't run off. Lots of times they would run off, and if
he thought they'd run off because they got a whippin', he was kinda slow
to catch 'em.
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