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CABIN LIFE.   19

then, no salt. I can say, from a ten years' residence with Master Epps, that no slave of his ever likely   to suffer from gout, superinduced by excessive     high living. Master Epps' hogs were fed on shelled corn -- it was thrown out to his "niggers" in the  ear. The former, he thought, would fatten faster by shelling, and soaking it in the water -- the latter, perhaps, if treated in the same manner, might grow  too fat to labor. Master Epps was a shrewd calculator, and knew how to manage his own animals, drunk or sober.

The corn mill stands in the yard beneath a shelter.  It is like a common coffee mill, the hopper holding about six quarters. There was one privilege which Master Epps granted freely to every slave he had.  They might grind their corn nightly, in such small quantities as their daily wants required, or they might grind the whole week's allowance at one time,  on Sundays, just as they preferred. A very generous man was Master Epps !

I kept my corn in a small wooden box, the meal in     a gourd; and, by the way, the gourd is one of the  most convenient and necessary utensils on a plantation. Besides supplying the place of all kinds of crockery in a slave cabin, it is used for carrying water to the fields. Another, also, contains the dinner. It dispenses with the necessity of pails, dippers, basins, and such tin wooden superfluities altogether.

When the corn is ground, and fire is made, the

H

Transcription Notes:
in row four, the word SHELLED must be in italic