. . .
I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early
boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and
God's blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized
manner. On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were
gotten by the children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a
piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at
one time and some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our
family would eat out of the skillet or pot, while some one else would
eat from a tin plate held on the knees, and often using nothing but the
hands with which to hold the food. When I had grown to sufficient
size, I was required to go to the "big house" mealtimes to fan the
flies from the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by
a pulley. Naturally much of the conversation of the white people
turned upon the subject of freedom and the war, and I absorbed a good
deal of it. I remember that at one time I saw two of my young
mistresses and some lady visitors eating ginger-cakes, in the yard. At
that time those cakes seemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting
and desirable things that I had ever seen; and I then and there
resolved that, if I ever got free, the height of my ambition would be
reached if I could get to the point where I could secure and eat
ginger-cakes in the way that I saw those ladies doing.
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