Our childhood was not spent all in play. There was work to be done. My brothers, T.M., G.B., and Clarence, helped Papa with the work he had to do. They went to the fields to plant, to hoe the crops, and as they got old enough, to plow the fields. They went to the woods to cut, saw, and chop the wood for burning in the fireplace and cook stove. They mended fences around the pasture, built pens for the animals, and did repairs on the barn and outbuildings. They carried water from the spring which was down in the hollow near the branch to the field to water the young plants as they were planted. They went hunting to bring in fresh meat to eat. They helped feed and take care of the mule and mended the harness and the wagon.
Lois mostly helped Mama with the housework and cooking and the washing of the clothes. To wash clothes there was water to be drawn from the well, to fill the iron pot, around which a fire had to be built. After washing the clothes on the rub-board, we would put them into the pot and boil them. Then they had to be rinsed through two tubs of fresh water before they were wrung-out and hung to dry. All the fresh water had to be drawn from the well.
I did my bit about the house helping Mama and Lois. I fed the chickens, gathered the eggs and helped pick the fruit and vegetables to be canned. I also washed the jars to be used. Being smaller, my hand would go down inside the jars. Therefore I could reach every part of the jar to get them clean. I strung beans, shelled peas, and churned the milk.
I learned to sew on the sewing machine and soon I was hemming dish towels made from flour sacks. Mama would buy yards of domestic cloth and we sewed our own pillow cases and sheets. I made aprons and then my own dresses.
There were many times that I helped in the fields. After a field was plowed, the next step was to line the fields with rows. Papa would hand me seed corn in a big bag and I would walk down the rows dropping two and three grains of corn every ten to twelve inces apart. Then Papa would come back with the plow and cover the corn. I often wondered how many miles the mule, Papa, and I walked going up and down those rows.
I also helped with the sweet potato patch. After the field was plowed and the rows laid out, Papa would take a long round iron bar and punch holes about ten inches deep and twenty inces apart in the rows. I would go along and place a sweet potato plant beside each hole. We would then come back and fill each hole with water. After placing a plant in each hole, we would fill holes with soil. We were careful not to get the soil on the leaves of the plant.
As the crops matured all of the kids helped to gather them. First the potato patch would be plowed to expose the potatoes to the sun. They were then allowed to dry in the field for two to five days. Then we would gather the potatoes and store them in the loft of the barn. We did the peanuts the same way.
Mama would cook fresh corn as long as it remained tender in the fields. I loved corn-on-the-cob and fried corn. After it grew hard we would go into the fields and gather all of the corn. It was stored in the loft of the barn. During the cold winter nights, we would sit in front of the fire and shell the corn off the cob. Papa would sack up this shelled corn and haul it to Grant’s Mill, and have it ground into cornmeal. Mama used it to bake bread. He would also sell some of the fresh, water-ground cornmeal to people in Irondale and Woodlawn.
After all of the corn in the field was gathered and stored, it was not long before fodder pulling time. We would wait till the leaves of the cornstalk were partially dry, then we would rip them off the stalk and tie them into bundles. These bundles were stuck on top of the stalk for several days to finish drying out. Then they were hauled to the barn and stored in the loft of the barn. This was fed to the cows and mule during winter along with some hard corn. We also fed corn to the hogs and cracked corn to the chickens.
We heated the irons with which we ironed our clothes by placing them on the hearth next to the fire in the fireplace or by placing them on top of the cook stove.