Ex-~1ave Autobiographies ~ Tom Mills	Page r4~‘	~
‚.( Tua.)

	“My mother done the cookin‘ up at the house because she was workin‘ up there all the tixae, weavin‘ cloth, and of course we ate up there. ‘ihe rest of ‘em didn‘t like it much because we ate up there, but her work was there. j. guess you never did see a loom? It used to keep rae :oretty busy filin‘ Quills. ~he made this cloth this four—dollar—a-yard, four-leaf jean cloth, all wool, of course.

	“I was. too little to work dunn‘ the war; of course we packed. a little water an4 got a little wood. I was goin‘ to tell you about this scar on my finger. I was holdin‘ a stick for another little fellow to cut wood and he nearly cut my finger off. That sure woke xaeup.

	“They had field work on the place, but a family by the naine of IÇx~ow1es did the farm work. I worked stock nearly all ray life. It used to be all the work there was. I think my mother was allowed to make a little money on this cloth business. That is, cloth she niade on the outside. And she was the only one of the slaves that could read. I don‘t know that they eared anything about her readin‘, but they didn‘t want her to read it to the rest of ‘ein. I never e:arned. no money; Iwas too little.

	“We called Old. Man Patterson ‘master‘ and we called Mrs. Patterson ‘mistuss‘.

	“I don‘t know ‘what the other slaves had to eat -— they cooked~ tŚi‘ themselves, but ire had Jes‘ what the Patterson‘s had to eat. On Sunday raornin‘ we had flour bread. Always glad to see Sunday raornin‘ couie. «e ma&e the co‘n meal right on the place on these old~ hand mills that you turn with both hands like this • ~hen the ÔQ‘u jes‘ fust began to ~et ha‘d, they would crate that; but when