<TITLE>10. Par 31-34</TITLE>L-31 And I went to school with mama's shoe on one side, and papa's on the other one. That's exactly right, a boot-n-gegger, if you know what I am talking about. Like a... And when great big boys, just because of Satan and sin...
And when we were eating, I remember, we couldn't eat with the rest of the kiddies. They'd all have sandwiches, the light bread. You remember when used to have the old loaf bread that you'd get it and save the--the tags off the back of it, for certain things, safety razors and so forth? And I remember when they used to have that, and the women, and most baked their bread. We couldn't do that. We couldn't afford it.
And they'd all take sandwiches, and make little sandwiches. But brother and I couldn't do that. We had to... We had a little half a gallon molasses bucket, about like that. And in there, we had a little jar, and it'd be full of greens, the next one full of beans, two pieces of corn bread, and two spoons. We'd slip off. We was ashamed to eat before the other children who had cakes, and cookies, and things.

L-32 And we would go down next to the river, and set down there, and set this out on the log, and--and--and set there and eat, both of us. We... I'd take a bite out of the--out of the little jar of beans, and brother'd take a bite. Then we'd take a bite out of the greens. Not to much, we had to make it, divvy it up between us. And two pieces of corn bread, hoe cake corn bread that mom'd baked for breakfast, and cut in little slices like that, just had to go a long with the rest of the kids.
Oh, I remember one time around Christmas time. I hate to get into these things. But around Christmas time, we had a Christmas tree. And the kids down at school would take and cut little white strips of paper, and blue ones, and green ones, and made little chains, you, know, how they used to do in school. And we took ours home. So mama thought... She went back out in the field, we did, and cut a little Christmas tree about like that.

L-33 And papa went down. And he'd got some popcorn they'd been raising. And they--they popped the corn and made strings, and mom strung it up with a--a needle and thread to put around the--the Christmas tree where we was going to have a Christmas tree. We were hanging up our stockings on Christmas night, and next morning maybe have an orange, and three pieces of candy laying out, and a little piece of paper laying to one side, maybe little bitty pieces of candy.
And if we had an orange, and a piece of candy, and a apple, oh, what a great fellow Santa Claus was to come bring that to us. How happy we was. My, we'd eat those oranges and dry the peeling and then eat the peeling. Many times I packed peeling in my pocket for week after week and eat those orange peelings. Yeah, we wasted nothing of it.

L-34 And I remember very well one time when mama had popped some corn. She had a--another little half a gallon syrup bucket and she'd put that full of popcorn. And my brother that's in glory today, when we took it down, set it in the old cloak room, country school. And I got to setting back there, and I thought, "Oh, what I would..." That was a some--what we call a rarity, you know. My, it's something very rare. And I thought, "Wonder if I could just before dinner time get a good handful of that (See?), before dinner time comes." So I figured it all up, so I raised up my hand, asked the teacher, "May I be excused?"
"Yes."


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