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 [sic], 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 [sic].
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