Dad:  Now we are going back to Alabama here for a minute and here what you got to say about the cain.  So go abead.  GM:  Well when I was a girl, we used to have a great big round kettle that we used to make syrup in.  Pa raised a lot of sugar cain.  It was awfully good for the juice you know.  And he had a sugar cain mill.  The only one in the neighborhood.  It was run by horses.  And it was just wonderful, the juice came out a little spout.  The neighbors would come to drink the juice you know.  And we used to drink the juice and it was awfully sweet and nice you know.  Dad:  Was this the kind of mill that had a horse on it that went round and round.GM:  Yes round and round.  I guess you have seen pictures of it.  Dad:  On the end of a long tounge.  I have seen them myself.  Sugar cain mill or what ever you call it.  GM:  Some people would bring their cain there to make syrup.  Pa would let them make the syrup there.  And he had an evaporator.  I remember though when I was younger, that he had a great big round kettle that they made syrup in. But then he got a little more modern and had an evaporator.  That was something that juice would come in at one end and it would keep going round and round and by the time it got to the other end, it was syrup.  Dad:  That was part of a big pan with partitions in it.  GM  It was kind of long and square with partitions.  That was real modern you know.  And you would skim that as it got to the other end, they would begin to skim it.  Had a barrel there to put the skim in.  Well, that was real nice but we was used to it and didn't think anything about it if it was above the ordinary.  It was pretty nice.  We just took it for granted.  Just like people do now about a lot of things.  But when you think about it now, that was getting pretty modern down there. 

 

And Pa used to raise a lot of hogs.  And they would have regular hog killing days.  He would have the neighbors come in and help clean the hogs.  They would string them all up, you know.  And they would have them all cleaned so nice you know.  And then he would sell meat and then he would sell syrup too.  Had barrels of syrup.  He had a syrup house and a smoke house.  You know it was better than a lot of the neighbors had.  Dad:  What did they do about the meat when they killed so many hogs at one time like that?  They didn't have any place to freeze them did they?  GM:  Well I tell you they salted it down and then they hung it up to smoke.  Some of it they would cook, you know.  They would make sausage...they made an awfully lot of sausage.  And they ate some of it, just salt meat.  I don't know how they kept everything so good but that is the way they did.  And he sold some meat.  Negros would come to buy some meat and you know different ones.  I guess they were pretty well to do people considering.  And he had quite a lot of cotton and he had negros pick the cotton.  Of course us girls went out and picked cotton too.  Me and my foster sisters.  and then we had some neighbor girls come and help pick.  We would have great long cotton sacks you know for the negro girls.  They would pull it right along with them.  Just drag it right along.  Dad:  Yes you know we had cotton in Logan Co and I remember all about the cotton sacks.  And the weighing and picking and all that sort of thing.