The common diet of the people was fat pork and corn bread. At
times I have eaten in cabins where they had only corn bread and
"black-eye peas" cooked in plain water. The people seemed to have
no other idea than to live on this fat meat and corn bread,--the
meat, and the meal of which the bread was made, having been
bought at a high price at a store in town, notwithstanding the
face that the land all about the cabin homes could easily have
been made to produce nearly every kind of garden vegetable that
is raised anywhere in the country. Their one object seemed to be
to plant nothing but cotton; and in many cases cotton was planted
up to the very door of the cabin.
In these cabin homes I often found sewing-machines which had been
bought, or were being bought, on instalments, frequently at a
cost of as much as sixty dollars, or showy clocks for which the
occupants of the cabins had paid twelve or fourteen dollars. I
remember that on one occasion when I went into one of these
cabins for dinner, when I sat down to the table for a meal with
the four members of the family, I noticed that, while there were
five of us at the table, there was but one fork for the five of
us to use. Naturally there was an awkward pause on my part. In
the opposite corner of that same cabin was an organ for which the
people told me they were paying sixty dollars in monthly
instalments.
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