Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/143

Rh orchard continues sound and good, until it is ripe. The climate of Carolina is, however, not favorable to the apple, and this fruit of so much value in the north, is in the cotton region only of a few weeks continuance — winter apples being unknown. Every climate is congenial to the growth of some kind of fruit tree; and in Carolina and Georgia, the peach arrives at its utmost perfection; the fig also ripens well, and is a delicious fruit.

None of our people went out to work for wages, today. Some few devoted a part of the morning to such work as they deemed necessary in or about their patches, and some went to the woods, or the swamps, to collect sticks for brooms, and splits, or to gather flags for mats; but far the greater number remained at the quarter, occupied in some small work, or quietly awaiting the hour of dinner, which we had been informed, by one of the house-servants, would be at one o'clock. Every family made ready some preparation of vegetables, from their own garden, to enlarge the quantity, if not to heighten the flavor of the dinner of this day.

One o'clock at length arrived, but not before it had been long desired; and we proceeded with our bowls a second time, to the great kitchen. I acted, as I had done yesterday, the part of commissary for our family; but when we were already at the place where we were to receive our soup and meat into our bowls, (for it