need to buy all he used after the death of our faithful Granny Harriet. Different servants were given the care of the poultry, and all failed so signally that Aunt Kitty, who was renowned for success in her own poultry-yard, was placed in charge. She was given all the conveniences and facilities she asked for,—chicken-houses, coops, and separate enclosures for young chickens. The result of all this outlay was not a chicken the first year, and only one the second. The history of that one deserves to be recorded. It was hatched out in the hedge and raised by its mother hen without the aid of our accomplished hen hussy.
The thrifty negroes made so much on their chickens, peanuts, popcorn, molasses-cakes, baskets, mats, brooms, taking in sewing, and in other little ways, that they were able to buy luxuries. Some of the women bought silk dresses; many had their Sunday dresses made by white mantua-makers. Of course they had the clothes of the master and mistress in addition; and in later years, as the house grew full of young masters and young mistresses, theirs were added. As the family knew that the servants liked nothing so well as the well-made clothes that they laid aside, they wore their clothes but little. They justly considered that those who had labored for them had rights to them while still fresh. Under these circumstances it did not seem wasteful for a daughter of the house to distribute, at the end of a season, as many as a dozen or more dresses that had been made up but a few months before. It was quite funny to see among the gallants three or four swallow-tail coats of the master's come in at the gate for the grand promenade on Sunday evenings, escorting the colored belles in all their bravery of hoop-skirts, and ruffles, and ribbons, and flowers. Mammy Harriet gives me this account of the management at Burleigh:
"De men had twelve pounds o' meat ebery two weeks an' de women ten pounds. Viney, my brer Billy's daughter, had as much as a man. You see she was a hearty eater. An' dey had 'lasses too 'cordih' to dey famblys,—a water-bucketful. Den some on 'em let dey meat gin out an' come for mo'. Marster git 'em mo'
