" Our usual diet on the plantation was corn bread
and pork, but on Sunday morning my mother was permitted to bring
down a little molasses from the "big house" for her three
children, and when it was received how I did wish that every day
was Sunday! I would get my tin plate and hold it up for the sweet
morsel, but I would always shut my eyes while the molasses was
being poured out into the plate, with the hope that when I opened
them I would be surprised to see how much I had got. When I
opened my eyes I would tip the plate in one direction and
another, so as to make the molasses spread all over it, in the
full belief that there would be more of it and that it would last
longer if spread out in this way. So strong are my childish
impressions of those Sunday morning feasts that it would be
pretty hard for any one to convince me that there is not more
molasses on a plate when it is spread all over the plate than
when it occupies a little corner--if there is a corner in a
plate. At any rate, I have never believed in "cornering" syrup.
My share of the syrup was usually about two tablespoonfuls, and
those two spoonfuls of molasses were much more enjoyable to me
than is a fourteen-course dinner after which I am to speak.
Next to a company of business men, I prefer to speak to an
audience of Southern people, of either race, together or taken
separately.
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